Book Reviews
Murders of London, by David Long
By: Mike Stafford on May 3, 2012
David Long is a prolific author of pleasingly diverting non-fiction books, most with a London theme. These include Hidden City: The Secret Alleys, Courts and Yards of London’s Square Mile, and When Did Big Ben First Bong? As its title would suggest, in Murders of London, Long turns an eye towards the capital’s dark history. [...]
JAG in Space: Rule of Evidence , by Jack Campbell
By: John Redfearn on May 2, 2012
It’s hard to believe that even in the US military legal system a case could ever come to court where there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for a crime having been committed. There’s probably even evidence against those who are arguably illegally incarcerated without trial in the nefarious Guantanamo Bay, albeit inadmissible or insufficient to [...]
The Boy in the Suitcase, by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis
By: Marleen Kennedy on May 2, 2012
Nina Borg is a Red Cross nurse working in a refuge centre in Copenhagen where she tries to keep the vulnerable safe from those who would use and abuse them. A job that is often futile and frustrating, especially since Nina is in the habit of taking every case personally and getting involved with them [...]
Dead to Me, by Cath Staincliffe
By: Sara Garland on May 1, 2012
I read this book having never seen the television crime drama Scott and Bailey. This novel being the prequel to the successful ITV1 drama, which I note is now in its second series. This I was glad of , as I rather read a book ahead of seeing the televised production, so that I can [...]
People Who Eat Darkness: Love Grief and a Journey into Japan’s Shadows, by Richard Lloyd Parry
By: Emma Dalby on May 1, 2012
People Who Eat Darkness offers a compelling, compulsive and fascinating insight into a mystifying and horrific crime which caught the attention of the world. Richard Lloyd Parry investigates the disappearance of Lucie Blackman, a former BA stewardess who moved to Tokyo with her best friend Louise Phillips. While working as a bar hostess in the [...]
A Land More Kind Than Home, by Wiley Cash
By: Georgina Donlea on April 30, 2012
Inspired by a real incident that took place in the city of Chicago, Wiley Cash set this, his first novel, in a small town in North Carolina during the 1980s. Julie Hall is a dedicated follower of the almighty Pastor Chambliss, who believes that Julie’s thirteen-year-old autistic mute son, Stump, needs to be saved. With [...]
The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, by Hesh Kestin
By: Brendan Wright on April 30, 2012
The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats has been touted by Stephen King as ”the best book you never read”, and chosen as his recommended read for World Book Night. Set in 1960s New York, author Hesh Kestin recreates the seedy underworld of the city in which he grew up, using his experiences to concoct an [...]
Hawk Quest, by Robert Lyndon
By: John Redfearn on April 29, 2012
Despite the headlines on the cover Hawk Quest is not an Epic Novel of the Norman Conquests. Instead it’s a wide-ranging epic novel set in the post-Conquest Europe of the early 1070’s. And, despite the effusive praise festooning both front and back covers, its a truly first-rate adventure novel. Walter son of Olbec had been [...]
The Land of Decoration, by Grace McCleen
By: Kirsty Hewitt on April 29, 2012
The Land of Decoration is Grace McCleen’s debut novel. It has been selected as part of the Waterstone’s 11, which aims to showcase this year’s most promising writers. The Land of Decoration is told from the first person perspective of ten-year-old Judith McPherson. Her narration is childish at times, infused with buckets of naïvety and [...]
Election, by Tom Perrotta
By: Thomas Stewart on April 28, 2012
There’s a small percentage of writers today that challenge their readers with human personality and emotion and an even smaller percentage that pull it off. Tom Perrotta has taken on this task in many of his novels – Little Children being his most notorious one, published in 2004 – but with Election comes a novel [...]
Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo
By: Stephen Joyce on April 28, 2012
What’s the problem with Africa? At a time when all other continents are forging ahead into a new millennium, Africa remains dominated by poverty, war, disease, and famine. It’s as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are using it as a training ground for the main event. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argues in her [...]
Stay Close, by Harlan Coben
By: Maxine Clarke on April 27, 2012
Did you know that you can hire paparazzi to follow you around, yelling personal questions and photographing you while you have your Bar Mitzvah or take someone out for a date? I didn’t, but this nadir is where Ray Levine finds himself at the start of Stay Close, Harlan Coben’s latest novel. Ray, previously an [...]
Silver: Return to Treasure Island, by Andrew Motion
By: John Redfearn on April 27, 2012
Mr Stevenson, lookout and a non-swimmer, oversaw the voyage of the Silver Nightingale from a vantage-point high above her deck right up to the moment near the end of the tale when he leapt from her with a bar of silver. The Nightingale had been hired by a dying Long-John Silver to return to Treasure [...]
Quiet Houses, by Simon Kurt Unsworth
By: Elise Hattersley on April 26, 2012
Nakata is working towards an unusual goal; hired on to prove the existence of paranormal phenomena, his day consists mostly of listening to vague voicemail messages and deciding which to follow-up on. Most are worthless, but some… Some lead to places no one wants to go. A chambermaid’s simple request leads to a life of [...]
Dark Angel, by Mari Jungstedt
By: Marleen Kennedy on April 26, 2012
A new conference centre is officially opened in Visby, Gotland and everybody who is anybody is present, including Inspector Anders Knutas and his wife. It appears that the evening has been a huge success until the next day, when the body of Viktor Algard, the glamorous party-planner, is found in the centre by cleaners. It [...]
Force of Nature, by CJ Box
By: Mike Stafford on April 25, 2012
After a hectic publication schedule in 2011, the release of CJ Box’s twelfth Joe Pickett novel, Force of Nature, brings us up to date with our American cousins. This is a book eleven years in the making, finally filling in the back story of enigmatic hard-man Nate Romanowski. Indeed, this is more a Romanowski than [...]
The Popes: A History, by John Julius Norwich
By: Simon Appleby on April 25, 2012
My interest in the Borgias recently piqued by Samuel Black’s The Ground is Burning, and by Jeremy Irons’ enjoyable turn as Pope Alexander, born Rodrigo Borgia, in Showtime’s racy tale of Renaissance Rome, the arrival on my doorstep of John Julius Norwich’s single volume history of the Papacy from its earliest origins to the present [...]
Signs of Life, by Anna Raverat
By: Clare Brierley on April 24, 2012
It is difficult to find much information about Anna Raverat on the internet and so from this I assume she must be quite a private author. She is descended from Gwendolen Raverat nee Darwin, granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Gwendolen was an artist and writer and married Jacques Raverat, a French painter. The couple settled in England and became [...]
Pariah, by David Jackson
By: Sara Garland on April 24, 2012
If you’re looking for a new criminal writer that has a central character destined to feature in a series of novels, the debut author David Jackson may be about to meet your requirements. Nominated for a CWA Debut Dagger, Jackson has created a central character called Callum Doyle, a New York Police Department Detective, who, [...]
A Dark Redemption, by Stav Sherez
By: Mike Stafford on April 23, 2012
A Dark Redemption is the third novel from music journo Stav Sherez, and marks the beginning of a promising new series. The heroes of the piece are a male/female pairing, DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller, and we meet them for the first time as they investigate a particularly hideous crime; the murder of [...]
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Blaine Harden
Blaine Harden is an author and journalist who reports for PBS Frontline and contributes to The Economist. He worked for The Washington Post as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine.
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Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy: win books and signed posters [closed]
It’s a busy time for Irvine Welsh: not only has he got a new book out, Skagboys, a prequel to his famous and acclaimed Trainspotting, but his 1997 novel Ecstasy has been made in to a major new film, on general release from today. It’s a twisted tale that explores the euphoric highs and the [...]
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