Out Of Thin Air: A True Story Of Impossible Murder In Iceland (True Crime) by Anthony Adeane

Hardback:  Every Icelander knows about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearances.

In 1974, in two seemingly unconnected incidents, two men vanished into thin air.

Then, out of it, came six murder confessions and six convictions.

Yet, in the decades that followed, these too would evaporate.

Anthony Adeane tells the stranger-than-fiction true crime story that has dogged Iceland for forty-five years.  In doing so, he provides a comprehensive account of the case, paints a fascinating picture of the country - covering its history, landscape, law, media, domestic politics and geopolitical importance - while placing the increasingly bizarre developments in the contexts that shaped each decade:  from the effects of World War Two, to the Cod Wars and Cold War, the 2008 economic crash and beyond.

Using unprecedented access, and fuelled by a personal obsession with the case, he uncovers the mistakes that were made, the lives that were ruined, the questions that remain unanswered, and the headlines that continue to be printed.

Out Of Thin Air (2018) is at once the shocking story of a miscarriage of justice, a brilliant portrait of a society through the lens of a tragedy, and a compelling true crime narrative.

About the author:  Anthony Adeane is a journalist based in London.  He pitched the idea for a documentary about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearances to an independent production company in autumn 2014 and then worked with them over the next three years, travelling back and forth to Iceland to conduct interviews with those involved, and to learn more about this fascinating country.

He has since built up a vast network of contacts, including the main suspects, the police who first investigated the disappearances, and the journalists who made their names with this story.

When he is not writing about bizarre Icelandic disappearances, he can be found working at the BBC as a current affairs producer.

Jean Rhys (1890-1979) Novelist

Thank God

Walking by Henry David Thoreau

Paperback:  Walking, or sometimes referred to as "The Wild", is a lecture by Henry David Thoreau first delivered at the Concord Lyceum on 23 April 23 1851.  It was written between 1851 and 1860, but parts were extracted from his earlier journals.  Thoreau read the piece a total of ten times, more than any other of his lectures.

Walking was first published as an essay in the Atlantic Monthly after his death in 1862.  He considered it one of his seminal works, so much so, that he once wrote of the lecture, "I regard this as a sort of introduction to all that I may write hereafter."

Walking is a Transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society.  For Thoreau, walking is a self-reflective spiritual act that occurs only when you are away from society, that allows you to learn about who you are, and find other aspects of yourself that have been chipped away by society.

Walking (1862, 2017) is an important canon in the transcendental movement that would lay the foundation for his best known work, Walden.  Along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, and George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature, it has become one of the most important essays in the Transcendentalist movement. (Wikipedia)

About the author:  Henry David Thoreau was born (1817), died, and lived most of his life in Concord Massachusetts, where the American Revolution against British colonial rule began.  Educated at Harvard, Thoreau was an avid reader - in five languages - of everything from classical literature and Hindu and Chinese philosophy through narratives of travel and early American settlement, to works on the flora and fauna of his native region.  Taking an active part in current political and ethical debates, Thoreau became a courageous, outspoken opponent of federal government policies, such as the expansionist war against Mexico and the refusal of Congress to legislate against southern slavery. Though he loved books about discovery and travel, Thoreau wandered neither frequently nor over a great distance.   Thoreau kept a journal of his thoughts and observations exceeding two million words by the end of his life. He died, in Concord, in 1862.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke

Paperback:  Hackberry Holland, cousin of beloved James Lee Burke hero Billy Bob Holland, made his debut in this novel, Lay Down My Sword and Shield, which was originally published in 1971.  Fans can learn about Hack’s colourful history, forged against the backdrop of the civil rights era.

In hot and sultry Texas, Hack, an attorney and Korean War POW, is being pushed by his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends in the oil business to run for political office.  But Hack would prefer to drink, look after his beloved horses, and represent the occasional long-shot pro bono case at his law firm. 

When Hack attempts to overturn a conviction for an old army buddy, he finds himself embroiled in the seamy underbelly of the Texas patronage system - and in the earliest beginnings of the United Farm Workers movement, led by a beautiful woman who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has. As Hack begins to bring justice to the underserved, he finds both a new love and a new purpose.

With his skilful blend of engaging plot lines, compelling characters, and graceful prose, James Lee Burke demonstrates the shimmering clarity of vision that has made him beloved by suspense fans all over the globe.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield is the first instalment in the Hackberry Holland series set in Texas.

About the author:  James Lee Burke is an American author best known for his mysteries, particularly the Dave Robicheaux series.  He has twice received the Edgar Award for Best Novel, for Black Cherry Blues in 1990 and Cimarron Rose in 1998.

Burke was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast.  He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Missouri, receiving a BA and MA from the latter.  He has worked at a wide variety of jobs over the years, including working in the oil industry, as a reporter, and as a social worker.  He was Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, succeeding his good friend and posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner John Kennedy Toole, and preceding Ernest Gaines in the position.  Shortly before his move to Montana, he taught for several years in the Creative Writing program at Wichita State University in the 1980s.

Burke and his wife, Pearl, split their time between Lolo, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana.  Their daughter, Alafair Burke, is also a mystery novelist.

The book that has influenced his life the most is the 1929 family tragedy "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner.

Rating:  5/5

Walking With Plato: A Philosophical Hike Through The Biritsh Isles (Travelogue) by Gary Hayden

Hardback:  "If one keeps on walking, everything will be alright.”

So said Danish writer Søren Kierkegaard, and so thought philosophy buff Gary Hayden as he set off on Britain's most challenging trek:  to walk from John O'Groats to Land's End.  But it was not all quaint country lanes, picture-postcard villages and cosy bed and breakfasts.

In this humorous, inspiring and delightfully British tale, Gary finds solitude and weary limbs bring him closer to the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers.

Recalling Rousseau's reverie, Bertrand Russell's misery, Plato's love of beauty and Epicurus' joy in simplicity, Walking with Plato (2016) offers a breath of fresh, country air and clarity for anyone craving an escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

About the author:  Gary Hayden is an English journalist and popular philosopher.  He has written for several publications including The Times Educational Supplement, The Scotsman and Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times.  He is the author of You Kant Make It Up!: Strange Ideas from History's Great Philosophers.  He lives near Tokyo, Japan.

The Mountain by Luca D'Andrea

Hardback:  In Luca D'Andrea's atmospheric and brilliant thriller, set in a small mountain community in the majestic Italian Dolomites, an outsider must uncover the truth about a triple murder that has gone unsolved for thirty years.

New York City native Jeremiah Salinger is one half of a hot-shot documentary-making team.  He and his partner, Mike, made a reality show about roadies that skyrocketed them to fame.  But now Salinger's left that all behind, to move with his wife, Annelise, and young daughter, Clara, to the remote part of Italy where Annelise grew up - the Alto Adige.

Nestled in the Dolomites, this breathtaking, rural region that was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire remains more Austro than Italian.  Locals speak a strange, ancient dialect - Ladino - and root for Germany (against Italy) in the world cup.  Annelise's small town - Siebenhoch - is close-knit to say the least and does not take kindly to out-of-towners.

When Salinger decides to make a documentary about the mountain rescue group, the mission goes horribly awry, leaving him the only survivor.  He blames himself, and so - it seems - does everyone else in Siebenhoch.  Spiraling into a deep depression, he begins having terrible, recurrent nightmares. Only his little girl Clara can put a smile on his face.

But when he takes Clara to the Bletterbach Gorge - a canyon rich in fossil remains - he accidentally overhears a conversation that gives his life renewed focus. 

In 1985, three students were murdered there, their bodies savaged, limbs severed and strewn by a killer who was never found.  Although Salinger knows this is a tightlipped community, one where he is definitely persona non grata, he becomes obsessed with solving this mystery and is convinced it is all that can keep him sane.  And as Salinger unearths the long kept secrets of this small town, one by one, the terrifying truth is eventually revealed about the horrifying crime that marked an entire village.

Completely engrossing and deeply atmospheric, The Mountain (2017) is a thriller par excellence.

About the author:  Luca D'Andrea was born in 1979 in Bolzano, Italy, where he worked as a teacher for ten years.  The Mountain, his first novel, is being translated into thirty languages. 

About the translator:  Howard Curtis is an award-winning translator of Italian and French literature.

Rating:  5/5

City of Light by Dave Warner

Paperback:  Jesus Christ. I found one.'

These words are blurted over the phone to Constable Snowy Lane, who is preoccupied with no more than a ham sandwich and getting a game with the East Fremantle league side on Saturday.  They signal the beginning of a series of events that are to shake Perth to its foundations.

It is 1979, and Perth is jumping with pub bands and overnight millionaires.  'Mr Gruesome' has just taken another victim.  Snowy's life and career are to be forever changed by the grim deeds of a serial killer, and the dark bloom spreading across the City of Light.

City of Light (1995) is the Joint Winner of the 1996 WA Premier’s Book Award for Fiction and Winner of the Western Australian Premier's Book Award.

Author's Note:  What more perfect a backdrop, then, than crime?  For the tone of the book, I decided to use a similar aspect to that which I had used in my most successful and idiosyncratic songs like Half Time At The Football and Mugs Game, a dark slant of suburban Australia seen through the eyes of an “average” suburban bloke – my hero in the novel, Snowy Lane.

I wrote the manuscript as I toured Australia playing music and setting up karaoke shows in Sydney. The first draft was completed in late 1992.  I sent it to Fremantle Arts Centre Press and heard not a word from them for 6 months.

On the very week I had decided to call and ask for the manuscript back, they sent me a note saying they liked the manuscript but wanted a second draft.  The novel finally saw the light of day in the November of 1995.  Chillingly, the fiction of the novel has since been played out in Perth, albeit 20 years later.  A serial killer struck in the same area and under similar circumstances to what I wrote in City Of Light.

In an even more amazing twist, at one time the head of the police task force into the real killings (unsolved as of May 1998) was Richard Lane, the same name as my detective hero, Richard “Snowy” Lane.

About the author:  Dave Warner is an author, musician and screenwriter.  His first novel City of Light won the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Fiction and Before It Breaks (2015) the Ned Kelly Award for best Australian crime fiction.  Once nominated by Bob Dylan as his favourite Australian music artist, Dave Warner originally came to national prominence with his gold album Mug's Game.  

In 2017, he released his tenth album When.  He has been named a Western Australian State Living Treasure and has been inducted into the WAMi Rock'n'Roll of Renown.

Rating:  5/5

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Scottish-American Industrialist, Business Magnate and Philanthropist

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English Writer, Novelist, Philosopher

Skylight by José Saramago

Paperback:  Lisbon, late 1940s. 

The inhabitants of a faded apartment building are struggling to make ends meet:  Silvio the cobbler and his wife take in a disaffected young lodger;  Dona Lídia, a retired prostitute, is kept by a businessman with a roving eye.  Humble salesman Emilio's Spanish wife is in a permanent rage; beautiful Claudinha's boss lusts for her;  Justina and her womanizer husband live at war with each other.

Poisonous relationships, happy marriages, jealousy, gossip and love - Skylight (2014) brings together all the joy and grief of ordinary people. 

Pilar del Rio, president of José Saramago Foundation writes in the novel's introduction that in 1953, 31-year old José Saramago sent a bundle of typewritten papers to a publishing house for their consideration.  The manuscript was ignored, not returned and lost to time for 36 years. 

When the lost novel was discovered in 1989, the publishing house respectfully asked if they could publish it and Saramago said no, not in his lifetime.  This is because the initial rejection had been so painful that Saramago, while writing poems, journals and essays, would not write another novel for 30 years. 

Meanwhile Saramago would go on to world recognition and would become a 1998 Nobel Prize recipient in literature.  Upon his death in 2010, the wheels were set in motion to publish Skylight, "the book lost and found in time".

José Saramago would become a master of character portrayal and Skylight gives the reader an introduction into the development of stories and characters to come.

Skylight is translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.

About the author:  José de Sousa Saramago was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright and journalist.  He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party.  His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor rather than the officially sanctioned story.  Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.  He founded the National Front for the Defense of Culture (Lisbon, 1992) with among others Freitas-Magalhaes.  He lived on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain, where he died in June 2010.

A foundation with his name was established in 2007;  its main aims are cultural promotion, particularly of Portuguese literature and authors.  The José Saramago Foundation is currently based in Casa dos Bicos, a Portuguese landmark building in Lisbon.  Saramago's house in Lanzarote is also open to the public.

José Saramago, together with his wife Pilar, were the subject of the award-winning documentary José e Pilar, providing us with a glimpse into their love story and life, as he was writing his A Viagem do Elefante (The Elephant's Journey (2010)), heralded as "a triumph of language, imagination, and humour". 

Rating:  5/5

Coming Home To Island House by Erica James

Hardback:  From Erica James, bestselling author of Summer at the Lake (2013), comes an enchanting tale of one family coming together and finding their way.

It is the summer of 1939, and after touring an unsettled Europe to promote her latest book, Romily Temple returns home to Island House and the love of her life, the charismatic Jack Devereux.

But when Jack falls ill, his estranged family are called home and given seven days to find a way to bury their resentments and come together.

With war now declared, each member of the family is reluctantly forced to accept their new stepmother and confront their own shortcomings.

But can the habits of a lifetime be changed in one week?

And can Romily, a woman who thrives on adventure, cope with the life that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon her?

All these and more can be found in Erica James' latest book, Coming Home To Island House (2018).

About the author:  With an insatiable appetite for other people's business, Erica James will readily strike up conversation with strangers in the hope of unearthing a useful gem for her writing.  She finds it the best way to write authentic characters for her novels, although her two grown-up sons claim they will never recover from a childhood spent in a perpetual state of embarrassment at their mother's compulsion.

The author of nineteen bestselling novels, and the winner of the 2006 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, Erica divides her time between Suffolk and Lake Como in Italy.

Rating:  3/5

Blood of the Lamb (John Jordan Mystery Series) by Michael Lister

Hardback:  Florida prison chaplain John Jordan's search for the peace that has so long eluded him is interrupted by an unimaginable murder.  Attempting to be a good man in a very bad place while also
maintaining his shaky sobriety, John investigates the murder of the seven-year-old adopted daughter of ex-con turned televangelist, Bobby Earl Caldwell, a murder committed in John's own locked office when Bobby Earl conducts a service in the Potter Correctional Institution.

This unspeakable act, and the investigations that follows, will force John to confront his own fears and beliefs, causing this man of mercy to thirst for justice.  Torn between the duality of the roles he is asked to assume - cop and cleric - John must try to figure out his identity as well as that of the killer's, but his past continues to haunt him in the form of troubling thoughts of failure and the resurfacing of his ex-wife, Susan.

Putting aside his distrust of the slick televangelist and his seductive wife, John must ignore intimidation and resist manipulation to find a killer among some very unusual suspects including two murderers, a child molester, a teacher with something to hide, and Bobby Earl Caldwell himself
whose very act of exposing his daughter to such risk causes John to suspect him from the very beginning.

Amid private crises and the torturous experiences of a thoughtful, sensitive man working in such a pitiless place, nothing short of death will end John's search for the person who killed little Nicole Caldwell.  Uncovering the guilt, restoring the balance, John seeks pardon from the self-inflicted life sentence he is serving and exoneration from the burden of regret he bears.

Blood of the Lamb (2004) is the second instalment in the long-running ex-cop, now prison chaplain John Jordan mystery series set in the Florida Panhandle.

About the author:  Michael Lister is an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and filmmaker of Florida-based mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and noirs.  Before becoming a full-time writer, he was the youngest chaplain with the Florida Department of Corrections from 1993 to 2000 - a unique experience that led to his first novel, 1997’s critically acclaimed debut, Power In The Blood, a New York Times and USA Today bestsellers.

Michael grew up in North Florida near the Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola River in a small town world famous for tupelo honey.  Captivated by story since childhood, Michael has a love for language and narrative inspired by the Southern storytelling tradition that captured his imagination and became such a source of meaning and inspiration.  He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology with an emphasis on myth and narrative. 

Michael lives with his wife Dawn in Wewahitchka, Florida.  They have four children, one horse, one dog, one cat, four ducks, and thousands of books.

During his tenure at Gulf Correctional, Lister earned these words of praise from his warden, "Chaplain Lister's unprejudiced concern for the welfare of staff as well as inmates has brought a spiritual soothing to both populations at this institution.  He is an exceptionally gifted teacher, truly an angel, a shepherd to all."

Rating:  4/5

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