Crime and mystery fiction

Probaby you know this already Bernadette and Kerrie, but if not, looks OK price-wise. New & backlist titles. (pan macmilan) - Maxine from Bookmarklet

I. want. This. book. :-) - Margot Kinberg

Given the state of my bookshelves and "wine backlog" (one high the other nonexistent) I would have found the wine much harder to give up than the book buying. An inspiration indeed! Looking forward to reading about the Ireland trip.(You might consider adding in Bloodland by Alan Glynn if you haven't already got it pre-ban.) - Maxine

Still waiting for this one in the UK. - Maxine

I preferred it to BIGTS, agree about the translation. - Karen Meek

I've just read a US edition of an English book - all the very English stuff is left in but about 3 words have had their spelling changed (eg centre to center). I wonder why publishers bother at this level? Suspect X, like all the other Japansese crime fiction I've read, is transferred into an "Americanised Japan". One gets a very different experience from reading trns Euro and S Amer fiction, where efforts have been made to preserve local nuances. - Maxine

If that's true I am 105 today - Bernadette

Funny, I felt about 16 when I was fencing, and about 90 two days later when the body ache set in! - Vanda Symon

I'm sure it was worth the aches and pains though Vanda...I competed in swimming for the masters games a few years ago and loved it....one of these years I will get back into the pool and do it again. - Bernadette

Aplogies if this is reads like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs! - Karen Meek

Our library has just started offering books via overdrive but I gave up - most titles I am mildly interested in (very mainstream thrillers) are checked out (seemingly forever) and the only available ones are self help crap and several biographises of C-grade sporting "stars", the eBook offerings were of similar quality. I don't know what it's cost them to offer the service but I suspect they'd have been better off putting that money into the traditional book buying budget. - Bernadette

Brief review but fascinating to read it. - Maxine from Bookmarklet

I have just read the first hundred pages of Alone in Berlin, and it is very good. - mediations

Oh, I've thoroughly enjoyed my trips to Hamilton! I hope the event goes really well! - Margot Kinberg

I'm @sarahrward1 - am about to follow @2BeRead - Sarah Ward

I think I should be now following both of Philip's accounts from @crimescraps. - Norman

I just love that Inde standfirst (or dek as it seems to be called in the US, thanks Barbara!) - "When you can't sink any lower, there's always the basement". Great put-down. I also respect Susan Balee's insight into Jo Nesbo - it is nice to see the "noes" so well articulated & thought-through. Her point about colonialism for example (as well as the detailed VaW - violence against women- point). - Maxine

Actually it was more Bernadette than me who pointed out the plot flaws (and that Amazon review I linked to in my review, which skewered the book well, but provided necessary spoilers in so doing). I've made a comment at Martin's blog which probably won't appear until later on - essentially I think it is a readable book while you are reading it, as you want to find out what happens, but after you have finished (and/or when you get to the "twist") you realise there are lots of things wrong with it, big and small. These errors are all ignorable, if you want to ignore them, hence the success of the book I suppose. - Maxine

At least one expects films to be relatively mindless ;-) Books,now, one hopes for a bit more than the non-"twist" that was the "twist" ending of this book. That's the main reason why I don't get people liking it so much, as it wasn't even a twist. - Maxine

have had a very busy few days - no reading and hardly any blog-visiting done so am just catching up - your posts are always excellent Margot but this one doubly so - very thoughful and a nice tribute too - Bernadette

That's so very kind of you, Bernadette *blush*. Thanks. And thanks for your thoughtful comment at the blog. - Margot Kinberg

Nice to see you back, Bernadette! - Maxine

(cont) by Ken Mahieu, who comments sometimes at my blog. I looked on Amazon and it is 77p on Kindle. It may also be cheap on US amazon too, can't see the price from the UK. He writes: "What attracted me to this novel was its emphasis on a region I particularly enjoy visiting for sightseeing, hiking, etc. as well as because of a comment in the NYT review of this book: "If Betty Webb.....had written Desert Wives as a piece of investigative journalism she'd probably be up for a Pulitzer." As a crime novel, the story is only fair to good at best, nothing outstanding. But, DW is a lot more than that. Overall, I rated it 4 stars. " About the Mormon religion etc. - Maxine

Thanks, Maxine! US$0.99 on Amazon U.S. :-). Sorry, TBR....... ;-) - Margot Kinberg

That was one of the books that was offered v cheap in ebook format by Poisoned Pen Press recently - it was the only one that looked interesting to me from the blurb so I bought it - have not (as yet) read it - Bernadette