City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery

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.The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery)
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: P.D. James

August 28, 2008
I have been finding PD James's books more and more disappointing. They have never been simply detective novels, always more novels with a detective theme. James takes up pages and pages with description - a lot of it marvellous and atmospheric, but much of it going nowhere. A whole paragraph devoted to someone coming into a room and sitting down. I am beginning to tire of Dalgliesh and his team and their way of doing things that seems to be stuck in the 1930's with talk over glasses of wine. James re-hashes the same personalities in every book - the vulnerable damaged working class woman, the bullying intellectual woman, the over-riding professional man who uses his employee to have an affair that means nothing to him but much to her. I ... Read More:
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.Doors Open
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Ian Rankin

September 16, 2008
"Bit quiet since you-know-who retired" says one copper half way through, so let's get 'him' out of the way! This book started strangely - by page 50 or so, I was convinced that Rankin, a supremely accomplished writer, was having me on. It's a spoof! Lavender Hill Mob meets Ocean's 11. Surely these guys can't be serious?!! In fact I came close to abandoning it BUT then something happened. Not just one event or a certain page but something a bit more gradual. Rankin was being serious after all. Yes, he's still commenting on social divides in Edinburgh, but on other things as well. His take on the aftermath of greed reminds me of the 'Pardoner's Tale' and his treatment of guilt Poe's story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' which interestingly is mentioned. After half ... Read More:
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.Revelation (Shardlake)
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: C.J. Sansom

October 02, 2008
"Bit quiet since you-know-who retired" says one copper half way through, so let's get 'him' out of the way! This book started strangely - by page 50 or so, I was convinced that Rankin, a supremely accomplished writer, was having me on. It's a spoof! Lavender Hill Mob meets Ocean's 11. Surely these guys can't be serious?!! In fact I came close to abandoning it BUT then something happened. Not just one event or a certain page but something a bit more gradual. Rankin was being serious after all. Yes, he's still commenting on social divides in Edinburgh, but on other things as well. His take on the aftermath of greed reminds me of the 'Pardoner's Tale' and his treatment of guilt Poe's story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' which interestingly is mentioned. After half ... Read More:
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.No Time For Goodbye
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Linwood Barclay

June 12, 2008
The book starts well, we get engaged with the characters and the central mystery seems genuainely puzzling. That mystery appears to get darker and even more mysterious as the book proceeds.

But then the plot starts to part company with reality. I read to the end with an increasing sense of disbelief!

In summary: great page turner! You will keep reading to the end - but you might look back and think the ending was just a bit silly and far fetched
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.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Stieg Larsson

July 24, 2008
This book has sold 5 million copies. What makes a book sell 5 million copies? Judging by this, the formula is: a fairly mainstream plot, some mild sex, a so-so conspiracy, and a style of writing that neither jars nor excites.

Let me first say that there is nothing actually wrong with this book. Aside from being much too long - common and acceptable in a first novel - there is nothing that will make you throw this book across a room. Nor, in my view, will you be riveted. It is like a three-part thriller on television, where you'll watch the final part if you happen to be in the room, but you wouldn't break a hot date to see it.

Larsson does a fair job of dissecting and explaining the `corporate fraud' part of the storyline, but the main problem ... Read More:
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.Devil Bones
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Kathy Reichs

August 28, 2008
I've read and enjoyed all of Kathy Reichs' other novels, and I have to say that I was shocked by how poor an effort "Devil Bones" was. The characterization was spare at best, the plot was unimaginative and could have been lifted straight from any of her other books (it probably was, come to think of it). Tedious little forensic science lectures do little to lift this unimaginative book. I shan't be buying one of these again in a hurry ....
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.A Snowball in Hell
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Christopher Brookmyre

August 14, 2008
This is the second book I have read of CB's and was not dissapointed. I do however have to concede I enjoyed his last book Unsinkable Rubber Ducks more. It's difficult to say why, because both are really well crafted books that keep the reader engaged. I just felt that this didnt quite hit the bullseye regarding any real humour and its slightly convoluted plotline.Having said all that I would really recommend anyone to read a Brookmyre novel.
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.Dissolution (Shardlake)
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: C.J. Sansom

May 18, 2007
An unlikely superhero, admittedly, but Matthew Shardlake is a brilliant construction, and this book is not to be missed. Neither is the second. In fact I can't bring myself to read the (probably) final one, because I'm saving it for a week when I can concentrate solely on it! Yes, it's a bit predictable, and the sidekick can be a tad irritating, but it's just a story...not an historical treatise. Enjoy it, that's all. Please let someone make the movie...it'll be a brave man who takes the lead role, but a sure-fire Oscar!
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.The Brass Verdict
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Michael Connelly

October 16, 2008
An unlikely superhero, admittedly, but Matthew Shardlake is a brilliant construction, and this book is not to be missed. Neither is the second. In fact I can't bring myself to read the (probably) final one, because I'm saving it for a week when I can concentrate solely on it! Yes, it's a bit predictable, and the sidekick can be a tad irritating, but it's just a story...not an historical treatise. Enjoy it, that's all. Please let someone make the movie...it'll be a brave man who takes the lead role, but a sure-fire Oscar!
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.To Dream of the Dead (Merrily Watkins Mysteries)
City Travel Guides > Books > Mystery
by: Phil Rickman

October 02, 2008
Phil Rickman may have worried about his latest novel, but he he needn't have been. If the last one was his most purely novelistic, this one is a blockbusting potboiler of a book.
Phil Rickman has always been so good at engaging you and then cranking up the narrative tension until you really can't put his books down, and this is no different. In fact, like other readers, I'm sure this is the most perfectly realised book he's written yet. He's become a really good writer. And in his latest novel, he's has given us everything we most enjoy in his writing: a hauntingly beautiful landscape, the sense of being at the edge of things, wonderful characterisation, evermore subtle plot lines, and -dare I say it- a sustained side-swipe against the narcissism and moral vacuum of the Thatcher/Blair ... Read More:
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