Sunday, 19 January 2014

More tea and book talk...

I was going to “call in sick” today, as I have been sick for the past 5 days, but I’m a bit better today so I will try to write a short post.  Since I have not been feeling well, I have also not been reading much, which is unfortunate, as I hate wasting good reading time, and January weather seems to present plenty of days that I like to call “a perfect day for reading”.  Oh well, I’ve got the whole year to make up for this lost reading time.

I finished listening to an audiobook last week that was very good, Witch Hunt by Ian Rankin (writing as Jack Harvey).  I have not read or listened to many Ian Rankin mysteries, although I should enjoy them, as the novels in his most popular series, “Inspector Rebus”, are contemporary detective novels set in Edinburgh (maybe I will have to add them to my list of books to read, in order, when I have some free time – hahaha!  Free time… that’s an interesting concept!)  Anyway, I may have read one of the Inspector Rebus novels, and have watched the BBC adaptations of some of the books, and I have read one of his more recent books, I think it is called The Impossible Dead, a new series featuring Malcolm Fox, who heads up the Complaints Department, the least-loved department in the police force because they investigate other police.  I didn’t really know what to expect from this audiobook, but it grabbed me right away and held my attention to the very last sentence.  It tells the story of a woman nicknamed Witch who is a hired assassin, a woman who can change her appearance convincingly in a public toilet in under five minutes and seems to be able to gain access to just about anywhere she needs to be to carry out her assignments.  She is surprisingly agile and sharp, and can anticipate any problem she is likely to encounter, all useful skills for an assassin.  When a wealthy banker who has been an informer for the SIS is found dead in his Scottish home, and Witch’s signature is all over the murder, the SIS, MI-5, and the DST (the French equivalent to Britain’s MI-5) become involved, including three people who are determined to catch Witch before she completes her final mission, one she was not hired to perform, but a job she has personally vowed to complete.  The story takes readers from England to Scotland, from France to Germany, in this fast-paced European thriller that kept me on the edge of my bus-seat from beginning to end.  I was just reading on Rankin’s website that the Jack Harvey novels did not do very well, which I find surprising – I thought this novel was every bit as good as some of the other bestselling thrillers, even better than many.  Maybe the narration helped with my enjoyment level, as the narrator was very good at capturing the personalities of the various characters.  There was murder, chase scenes, a love story or two, young agents, retired agents, England, Scotland, France and Germany… what more could a reader ask for?  For this reader, the answer is “nothing”.  I will definitely check to see if the second Jack Harvey novel, Bleeding Hearts, is available to download.
   
And I am still plugging away at The Dinosaur Feather by S. J. Gazan.  It is really good, very detailed, and quite engaging.  I’m not quite half-way through, so I hope to be done by next week and can write a full review of it at that time.
  
OK, I have to end now and have another cup of soup, which will hopefully advance me further along the road to recovery.


Bye for now…
Julie 

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