Reviews 

Because I have slipped into arrears with this text and read these books in quick succession, I am struggling to remember plot lines. My...

Aeroplane reading en route to Copenhagen. I had thought this was my favourite Greene, but was disappointed this time round. I understood...

I loved this, it is dedicated to ‘Lucia, with love and squalor’. Beautifully written/translated (reads as if written in English), the...

Another birthday present and a huge book at 700 pages. Quite a strange concept – blending real characters, as he often does, with...

I think I have read one of the Resnick novels before, without really enjoying it. Jon Harvey is coming to speak at our local library in a...

Another very short book, a Wallander novella, previously unpublished in the UK. Poor old Kurt looks at a house to buy but finds a couple...

Haven’t read this, or any other James Ellroy for years, but heard him on the radio. 'The Black Dahlia' is, I think, the first of a...

Need a quick detective novel after the marathon of no.217... Have read this before but forgotten the middle section where the wrong guy...

Inauspicious start, but then read en route to Spain in overnight hotel, then delayed in Gatwick, half asleep on plane and finished in...

This is the only thing I lost in the crash – a writer I had never heard of before, but branded in some marketing quarters as ‘the...

The second of the trilogy, which I have read in order three, one, two. This is pretty good — the central character has Alzheimer's which...

This is the first of the Lewis trilogy, no.199 above being the third. Again very good, the same central character (Finn) is not yet an...

How nice to find a good writer I had never heard of on what I thought was a rather wasted trip (all 200 yards from the door) to the...

An old detective novel I must have ‘borrowed' from my Dad, as his annotations are evident. Quite well written, but pretty clichéd — a...

Bought four books in Waterstones with a token Dan gave me for Xmas. I had never heard of this or the author who turns out to be the wife...

L was reminded of this when I read 'Strange Affair' (no.148) recently. It was the first in the poorly televised series, but it is not...

I think this is perhaps the first time I have read this book ‘properly’ if that is an appropriate adverb. General Sternwood has a...

I wanted something cheap and easy to read; never read any Ross MacDonald. It wasn’t bad — he is billed by some people as better than...

The new Inspector Banks, just published. The wonderful opening chapter (for me); Banks' anxiety about retirement plated out against...

Have read this before but wanted to re-read it. It introduces Erlendur and explicates more of his family history than some of the other...