Karen Maitland - The Gallows Curse

Another of our star authors for our Bournemouth Libraries Crime Writing Festival tomorrow. This is a book of love and treachery set in England at the time of King John. A young and innocent girl is tricked into being a sin eater. This are necessary because all churches and thus religious, weddings, funerals and of course absolution has been suspended. People are thus fearing for their immortal souls, well, the good people at least!
This book is full of mystery, atmosphere and wonderful writing. I really felt I was there, immersed in the period. Not a nice time but very interesting. I enjoyed the twists and turns, skillful plotting and suspense.
This would make an excellent reading group book with so much to discuss.
A brilliant idea is that the story is narrated by the mandrake!

Simon Hall - The Death Pictures

I am full of excitement about our first, forthcoming, Crime Writing Festival this Saturday, 4th June at the Bournemouth Library. There to host the day is the wonderful Simon Hall BBC's Crime Correspondent for the South West and author of 5 crime novels featuring the TV Detective.
This is the first book and a gripping novel ,no doubt blurring fact and fiction as we may well find out on Saturday.
This book skilfully blends a number of threads. We have a serial rapist targeting young single mothers in Plymouth. We also have a famous painter setting a riddle of the 'Death Pictures' before he dies of cancer. However he is then murdered. Are the cases linked? Why kill someone shortly before they will die of natural causes. What are the clues to the riddle of the Death Pictures and can we solve them. All the answers are in the book, and kept me gripped to the end. I have now ordered the next 4 books and can't wait to read them. This would make an excellent reading group book as there would be much to discuss, especially about the media, the press, and death.........

Jon Courtenay Grimwood - The Fallen Blade

This is a great book. It is a vampire and wherewolf novel but it is a superior and grown up one. It is great to read a novel that has inserted the horror back into the genre. This novel has the added advantage for me that it is set in Venice in 1407. It is therfore very atmospheric, very gothic , very bloody. It also is a very clever reworking of Shakespeare's Othello. The Moor of Venice is the head of the Assissini for the Duke and Prince of Venice. Not asn easy task as the court is a nest of intrigue and murder. Into this scenario comes a young man who has interesting hungers, does he have the potential to be the successor of The Moor?
This is one of those fabulous books that occassionally comes a long that just hits the spot for you as a reader, I loved it. I am very excited that it is "Act one" and so I am eagerly awaiting the next "Acts" to follow!

Amazon have a fantastic video to advertise the book I have included a link below!

Bournemouth Crime Writing Festival - a day for readers

This is a wonderful opportunity to come and listen to and meet some well established crime writer as well as some debut novelists that could become stars of the future and you will have met them!!

Sarah Challis - The Garden Party

This is another winner from Sarah Challis. Alice is approaching 60, she has been married for nearly 40 years. Her husband is newly retired and she wants a party. She has never made a fuss in all her life but this time she is determined. She wants a marquee with a pale pink lining,( it flatters an older skin apparently) - she wants caterers and above all she wants to lose weight and have all her family around her.


There is much to empathise with here, no matter what your age, as we follow Alice, her husband, their four children their various partners and children through the ups and downs that lead to the great event. ( the high powered business woman daughter, the born again teacher and his dissatisfied and guilt ridden wife, the hopelessly romantic hippy daughter, and of course the all round good egg of a son with step daughters, oh and a tempted husband!) I just couldn't put it down and ended up reading it in a day. I also love books set in Dorset!



It would make an excellent holiday read.

Kathy Reichs - Mortal Remains

I have been a big fan of Kathy Reichs over the years. I like her faced paced style , the level of science she includes and the story arc of her family and relationships. ( See Christopher Fowler you taught me a new term!)

However although I enjoyed this new book and speedily read it over a weekend, I get the feeling it is rather thin. It a bit like Donna Leon, their books are getting smaller. I used to rush to buy them in hardback but now I am not convinced they are value for money, thank goodness for the library!

But all said and done, I would still recommend this as a read, I just love the clever twists.

I also love the TV series Bones but they bear absolutely no relation to the books. Tempe is a completely different person!

Daisy Goodwin - My Last Duchess

Here is another novel partially based in Dorset. This book was selected for The TV Book Club 2011. I have to say having watched the programme they were rather sniffy over this book, but my advice is ignore this media snobbery and indulge in this book. I loved it! This book is a rights of passage novel for women. It is 1894 and young wealthy American Cora Cash comes to England to marry a title, shoved by her ambitious mother. There she enters a world of duplicity and rules that she does not understand. Yes, it is fundamentally a romance but there is so much more in this. It would make an interesting book group title, the contrast between the two worlds, the aristocrats of the US have money in the UK they have breeding. Cora's maid is black. In the Us she has restrictions imposed on her, in England there is no prejudice and she can openly have a relationship with a white manservant. She has a freedom within the constraints of her class that she could only dream about in the US. This would also make an excellent holiday read, ( four days off at Easter!) easy to read and carries you along at a great pace.