The Charming Quirks of Others (An Isabel Dalhousie Novel, Book 7) by Alexander McCall Smith

Continuing with the Isabel Dalhousie Novel series read.  I have enjoyed The Charming Quirks Of Others (2010), more so than the last four books I have read about Isabel Dalhousie - there is more drama and indulgence here, shall I say.

The next book - Book 8 - is the latest one entitled The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (2011) which will wrap up my reading of this delightful meddlesome series.  After that, who knows?  I hope McCall Smith will write Book 9 and there will be a Book 9.  In the meantime, I can make a start on either his "Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld" series or the "44 Scotland Street" series.  Happy reading, everyone!


Paperback blurb:  As well as its advantages, there are drawbacks to the enlightened village that is twenty-first-century Edinburgh, where every Saturday night ears burn at dinner parties across the city, and anyone requiring the investigative abilities of a philosophical soul knows where to find her.

Jillian McKinlay - wife of a trustee of an illustrious school - is the latest petitioner;  she asks Isabel to look into a poison-pen letter that makes insinuations about applicants for the position of principal.

And what's more, when a pretty cellist with a tragic story takes a fancy to her husband-to-be, Isabel finds herself contemplating an act of heroic and alarming self-sacrifice.

Last line in the book:   "...and loving anything with all your heart always brings understanding, in time."

Rating:  4/5

The Blood Split (Rebecka Martinsson Thriller, Book 2) by Åsa Larsson

Paperback blurb:  Under the midnight sun murder will be done . . .

Midsummer in Sweden, the sun never sets and the only darkness lies in the recesses of the human mind.

For a priest - Mildred Nilsson - has been brutally killed and lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, who thought she'd done with Kiruna, the little town of her birth, is dragged back there to stop a killing spree.

Yet the shadows that surrounded Matilda - hurt and healing, sin and sexuality, lethal sacrifice - will come to engulf those like Rebecka who seek the truth.

My take:  Two landmarks caught my attention in this book and there are Sweden's most beautiful churches - Kiruna Church and Jukkasjarvi Church.  As a person who loves to travel, these places are a must-see in the near future.  There is a sense of wonderment in looking at the facades of both churches.  One can feel the history of the places just by looking at the photos.  Undoubtedly, a horde of stories to tell there.

Anyway, back to the book.  After a harrowing experience back in her Swedish hometown some eighteen months ago, lawyer Rebecka Martinsson finds herself back in Kiruna where a feminist priestess was brutally killed.  The murder is almost an echo of a priest's murder in The Savage Altar (the first book in the series) and leads to Inspector Anna-Maria Mella and the police department to think that there might be a copy-cat killer in the vicinity.

In another part of the story which seems totally disconnected to the main plot is a beautiful story about a she-wolf with long yellow legs dubbed "Yellow Legs".  As much as she is a distraction from the story, when you read more about her and her escapades, you will find that the she-wolf and the protagonist, Rebecka Martinsson, have much more in common than you would like to think.

This is a well-written police procedural mystery which is reminiscent of Swedish crime fiction and is sensitively portrayed by both the author and the excellent translator (Marlaine Delargy) in terms of the brutally cold weather, the beautiful landscape, the quirks and passions of the peoples, set in an isolated village in the northern reaches of Sweden.  Larsson's writing is more developed in her second book.  Not to be missed.

The Blood Split was first published in 2007.  The third and fourth books in the series are The Black Path (2008) and Until Thy Wrath Be Past (2011).  Another time, another day.

An opposing review.

Rating:  4/5

The Lost Art of Gratitude (An Isabel Dalhousie Novel, Book 6) by Alexander McCall Smith

A line in the book:  Entertaining subversive thoughts, for example, in a society in the grip of a political hegemony is not something that people will readily admit to, such is the power of intellectual intimidation;  and yet people do have such thoughts. - Chapter 6.


Paperback blurb:  Even on a perfect summer evenings in Edinburgh, there are many shocks to her ethical equilibrium that keep Isabel Dalhousie awake at night.

The underhand Christopher Dove is still determined to oust Isabel from the Review of Applied Ethics, while her old foe, the deeply dislikeable and possible downright wicked Minty Auchterlonie, makes an appeal for help that cannot be ignored.

And there is the seismic change in her life wrought by her overwhelming love for her young son, Charlie, and her fiance, Jamie.

Whether biting her lip on a hasty assumption or taming her unruly emotions, Alexander McCall Smith's sharp-eyed heroine is reminded of the value of kindness, and of the lost art of gratitude.

www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk

Rating:  3/5

Gallows Lane (An Inspector Benedict Devlin Mystery, Book 2) by Brian McGilloway

Continuing with my Inspector Devlin mystery read.  This is surprisingly a very gratifying read.  McGilloway is a born storyteller as well as a gifted writer.  Not only did he weave a clever web of intrigue and suspense, he brings maturity and authenticity to his second novel.  I will be reading his third novel in the series named Bleed A River Deep (2009).

The fourth and latest book in the Inspector Devlin Mystery is The Rising (2010).  I sincerely hope there is a fifth one in the works.

Last line in the book:  On such small victories must the future be built.


Paperback blurb:  It's summertime in the Irish borderlands, and as temperatures rise, a series of gruesome murders takes place.

Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin's enquiries point to a local body-builder, but when born-again ex-con James Kelly appears on the scene Devlin realizes that the case is more complex, and more sinister, than he had imagined.

Torn between his young family and his job, Devlin is determined to apprehend the killer - or killers - before they strike again, even as the carnage starts to jeopardize those he cares about most.

Gallows Lane (first published in 2008) is a virtuoso piece of writing form crime fiction's most exciting new talent, Brian McGilloway.

Jen's Book Thoughts review (USA).

Brian McGilloway talks about his interesting central character, Inspector Benedict Devlin:



Rating:  4/5

Espresso Book Machine 2.0, Not Coffee

The first EBM was installed in the United Kingdom in September 2008.

In April 2009, Blackwell's bookshop in the Charing Cross branch in London installed one amidst great fanfare.

What do you think?  Is this the future of publishing?  How effective is it in the long term?





A News Times article.

Sacred Sierra: A Year On A Spanish Mountain by Jason Webster

Two birds with a stone.

Amazing read for those who love to travel or read about places that they might otherwise not get to see in their lifetime.

Also a heavenly read for those with green fingers.

It is also about a man and his wife who dare to dream an impossible dream.

Written in an easy-to-read, conversational and straightforward style over the span of a year, I find this book inspirational, exceptionally entertaining and highly recommend it to all.

This non-fiction book was first published in 2009.  I do not rate books of this nature.

Blurb:  Seductive, funny, powerfully evocative, Sacred Sierra is a romantic, alluring leap into Spanish sunshine, remote mountains and rural life.

Jason Webster had lived in Spain for several years before he and his partner, the flamenco dancer Salud, decided to buy a deserted farmhouse clinging to the side of a steep valley in the eastern province of Castellon, near the sacred peak of Penyagolosa.

With help from local farmers - and from a twelfth-century Moorish book on gardening - Jason set about creating his dream.

He had never farmed before, and knew nothing of plants, but slowly he and Salud cleared the land, planted and harvested their olives, raised the healing herbs they learned about from local people, set up beehives and nurtured precious, expensive truffles, the black gold of the region.

And beyond all this they started to fulfil another vision, bringing the native trees back to the cliffs ravaged by fire.

At the same time they became drawn into the life of the valley:  this is a book rich with characters as well as plants.

It follows the poeple of the village from the winter rains to baking summer heat, from the flowering of the almond trees in spring to the hilarious, fiery festivals and ancient pilgrimages, and tells the history of the region through folk songs and stories of the Cathar and Templar past.

Jason and Salud lived through storms, forest fire, and feuds over water between the coastal development and the mountain communities.

But as the year passed and his farm flourished Jason found himself increasingly in tune with the ancient, mystical life of the sierra, a place that will haunt your imagination and raise your spirits, as it did his.

Jason Webster's official website.

The book video:



P/S  One of the many fascinating things I discovered from Sacred Sierra is the pilgrimage of Les Useres or the rite of "Els Pelegrins de Les Useres" held every year on the last weekend in April.

Thirteen hand-picked men walked twenty-two-miles over the mountains to the sanctuary of St John ("Sant Joan") at the foot of Penyagolosa where they spent the night praying and being divulged a secret before walking the same route back the next day.

More information can be found in the author's book.

I found these mesmerising three-part videos of the Les Useres on youtube:

The Fourth-Generation Kindle

Lighter.

Smaller.

Faster.

And cheaper!

What a shame that I bought the third-generation Kindle only last year.

Mine is working perfectly fine and I have no reason to upgrade to the fourth Kindle just yet.

The Wi-fi 6" is priced at £89.

The Keyboard 3G costs £149.

For more information, go to Amazon (UK).

Review.

The Silent Girl (Rizzoli and Isles, Book 9) by Tess Gerritsen

"What you must do," said Monkey, "is lure the monster from its hiding place, but be certain it is a fight you can survive." - Wu Cheng'en, The Monkey King:  Journey to the West, c 1500-1582

Hardback blurb:  Evil is stirring in Boston's Chinatown . . .

When a hand is found in a Chinatown alley in downtown Boston, detective Jane Rizzoli climbs to a nearby rooftop and finds the hand's owner - a woman whose throat has been slashed so deeply that her head is nearly severed.

Two strands of silver hair cling to her body.

They are Rizzoli's only clues, but they're enough for her and pathologist Maura Isles to make a startling discovery.

This violent death had a chilling prequel.

Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead.

But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive:  a mysterious and beautiful martial arts master who knows a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown.

It soon becomes clear that this is an evil that has killed before and will kill again - unless Jane and Maura can track it down, and defeat it . . .

Gerritsen shares with us:





Interesting insight into the writer's writing and research:



The Silent Girl trailer:




The author:  Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen is also a physician, and she brings to her novels her first-hand knowledge of emergency and autopsy rooms.

But her interests span far wider than medical topics.

As an anthropology student at Stanford University she catalogued centuries-old human remains, and she continues to travel the world, driven by her fascination with ancient cultures and bizarre natural phenomena.

She lives with her husband in Maine.


My take:  A cleverly woven tale of justice/revenge.


The Silent Girl heads the first book of many books I plan to read this month.

The setting of the plot in Boston's Chinatown is a delight and reading about the Chinese immigrant community, Chinese fables and legends, and Chinese culture is equally delightful.  Therefore, I am especially chuffed to hear that the tenth book of the Rizzoli and Isles series will be a continuation of The Silent Girl.  There is definitely a need for character and plot development there.

At this stage, mostly because I am already a fan of Gerritsen's books, reviews are unnecessary but here is The Mystery Reader's review which shares my exact sentiments on the book.

If you are wondering who Barry Frost is or who the new stone-faced character (Detective Johnny Tam) is in the book, do start searching for the books and read them now.  This is one of the most gripping crime book series ever written featuring Dr Maura Isles, a forensic pathologist, and Detective Jane Rizzoli by Tess Gerritsen, who has become a favourite author of mine.  I have read ALL of her books and always look forward to each one.

And of course I have to award it a . . .

(The Silent Girl was published on 21 July 2011).

Rating:  5/5

Serving Crazy with Curry by Amulya Malladi

"Eating is the great preoccupation of both primitive and civilized man.  But the savage eats from need, the civilized man from desire." - Alexander Dumas, Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine


Paperback blurb:  On the morning Devi decides to take her life, fate conspires against her.

Fate in the form of her mother Saroj, who uses her spare key to let herself into her younger daughter's apartment when she thinks she's at work.

But, having lost yet another job, and knowing she will never live up to the example her elder sister has set her as a traditional Indian wife, Devi had decided to take the easy way out.

But now it seems she can add suicide to her list of failings.

But whilst Saroj insists on telling the world that it was she who saved her daughter's life, Devi isn't sure what she's been saved for.

Forced to move back in with her parents until she is strong enough to resume her life, she adopts a vow of silence.

Instead, she begins to cook.

Wild, crazy concoctions that are so delicious the family is drawn again and again to the table.

As Devi's silence grows, so does her family's bewilderment at her behaviour.

Tension builds and others begin to talk.

And secrets are revealed that rock the family to its core . . .

Serving Crazy with Curry was first published in 2004.

My brief take:  This is my last reading book of the month!  Serving Crazy with Curry is a book about family relationships, growing up, cooking and food.  When the ultimate betrayal occurs, the kind that ends relationships and ruin families, it is not anger and hate that rule but love and forgiveness.  It is a funny and bittersweet story.  It is a feel-good book.  Recipes included.  Take time out to read.

www.amulyamalladi.com

Rating:  3/5

The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi

What a gorgeous cover!

After a very satisfying read of The Sound of Language (2007) by Amulya Malladi, I went back to the library to check out the author's back catalogue and found a couple of her books there and promptly brought them home to read.

Her writing is simple yet meaningful, with vivid descriptions and compelling characters.  Her story contains a human element and a lesson to learn, usually a positively encouraging one.

This one is set in India and if you have been home away from home and then come back home again, you will love this story for at the heart of it, it is a story of love and forgiveness and more often than not, it is also about the complicated institution known as family and all that it entails.

The Mango Season was first published in 2003.  Includes recipes.

Happy reading, everyone.

Paperback blurb:  The Mango Season is a lush and beautifully written novel from a highly acclaimed writer.

Priya Rao left India when she was twenty to study in America.

Now, seven years later, she has returned for a visit to discover her parents are intent on arranging her marriage to a suitable Indian boy.

She has arrived home in time for the harvesting of mangoes - the hottest time of the year and a time full of ritual and ceremony.

As a child she had loved this season best but, after years away, Priya finds the heat of an Indian summer overwhelming and everything about India seems different - dirtier and more chaotic than she remembers.

Her extended family are also consumed by talk of marriage - particularly the marriage of her uncle Anand, and his decision to marry not only for love but to marry a woman of a much lower caste.

Priya can only guess at what reaction her own engagement would provoke if she were to reveal that she has left behind a fiance in America, a fiance of an entirely different race and religion ...

www.amulyamalladi.com

Rating:  4/5

Borderlands (The First Inspector Benedict Devlin Mystery) by Brian McGilloway

First line in the book:  It was not beyond reason that Angela Cashell's final resting place should straddle the border.

Hardback blurb:  Winter, 2002.

The corpse of local teenager Angela Cashell is found on the Tyrone-Donegal border, between the North and South of Ireland, in an area known as the Borderlands.

Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin heads the investigation.

The only clues are a gold ring placed on the girl's finger and an old photograph, left where she died.

While Devlin searches for the girl's killer, her father has his own ideas about who is responsible - and his own ideas about how to make them pay.

Meanwhile, Devlin becomes reacquainted with an old flame eager to rekindle their affair.

Then another teenager is murdered, and Devlin unearths a link between the recent killings and the disappearance of a prostitute, twenty-five years earlier - a case in which he fears one of his own colleagues is implicated.

As a thickening snow-storm blurs the border between North and South, Devlin finds the distinction between right and wrong, vengeance and justice, and even police-officer and criminal becoming equally unclear.

A dazzling and highly lyrical debut crime novel, Borderlands marks the beginning of a compelling new series featuring Inspector Benedict Devlin.

Borderlands was first published in 2007 and was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007.

About the author:  Brian McGilloway was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974, and is currently Head of English at St Columb's College, Derry.  Perviously he has written plays and short stories.  He lives near the Borderlands, with his wife and their two sons.  His other books in the series are Gallows Lane (2008), Bleed A River Deep (2009) and The Rising (2010).

My take:  This is a well-written and well-thought-out police procedural novel set very close to home - Ireland - from 2002-2003.  I cannot remember the last time I read a book set in Ireland, let alone a crime thriller.  An excellent review by Reading Matters brought me to pick up this book from my local library and expand my geographical read to literally next door!  I have not been disappointed.  I cannot add anymore to what Reading Matters wrote except to say why have I put it off for so long!  The setting on the Tyrone-Donegal border interests me and where a reviewer wrote of it, "...no-man's land where nothing flourishes or grows because it claims no one and no one can claim it as home or as refuge.  It is the stuff of tragedy when a soul becomes a borderland of its own."  How apt.

Rating:  4/5

The Savage Altar (The Rebeca Martinsson Thriller, Book 1) by Åsa Larsson

Hardback blurb:  On the floor of a church in northern Sweden, the body of a man lies ritually mutilated and defiled - and in the night sky, the aurora borealis dances as the snow begins to fall.

Rebecka Martinsson is heading home to Kiruna, the remote town she'd left in disgrace years before.

A Stockholm tax lawyer, Rebecka has a good reason to return:  her friend Sanna, whose brother has been horrifically murdered in the church of the cult he helped create.

Beautiful and fragile, Sanna needs Rebecka to remove the shadow of guilt that is engulfing her, to forestall an ambitious prosecutor and to confront the rumours circulating in a closed and frightened community.

But to help her friend, and to find the real killer of a man she once adored and is now not sure she ever knew, Rebecka must relive the darkness she left behind in Kiruna, delve into a sordid conspiracy of deceit, and confront a killer whose motives are dark and impossible to guess.


About the author:  Åsa Larsson was born in Kiruna, Sweden, in 1966 and now lives in Mariefred.  A former tax lawyer, her debut The Savage Altar won Sweden's Best First Crime Novel Award in 2003 and on its publication in the UK in 2007 was shortlisted for the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger, awarded by The Crime Writers' Association for crime novels in translation.  The 2007 Swedish film Solstorm was based on this book.

Åsa Larsson's second novel, The Blood Split won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2004.  Her other works are The Black Path (2008) and Until Thy Wrath Be Past (2011).


The Savage Altar is known as The Sun Storm (pictured above) in the USA.

The Savage Altar is translated from the Swedish into the English by Marlaine Delargy.

My take:  Expanding on my Swedish crime thriller reads with an author whom I have just discovered.  This one is as expected in terms of characters, plot and writing or in other words, not too different from other Nordic crime thrillers.  Packed with plenty of scares and chills - I am not talking about the Scandinavian weather - it shows a lot of promise for a debut.  Rebecka Martinsson and the pregnant policewoman Anna-Maria Mella are great characters, likeable and relatable.  Writing is clear-cut and to the point.  Amidst the gloom and doom, there is much wit and wry humour in the well-constructed dialogue.  Great description of a rural setting and all that it entails in the isolated northernmost part of Sweden.  Great description of the awful weather.  Other than that, all is pure fiction from a very promising author.

If you like dark and challenging crimes, then I guarantee you this is the start of a truly engrossing series.

More information can be found on Åsa Larsson's official website in German.

Rating:  4/5

The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie, Book 5) by Alexander McCall Smith

A line from the book:  Conscience...walks with us;  an unobtrusive companion, unseen, perhaps, but still audible. - Chapter 13


Paperback blurb:  Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher and a reluctant sleuth.

When a chance conversation draws her into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice.

Because for Isabel ethics are not theoretical at all: they are a matter of life and death.

As she attempts to unravel the truth, Isabel is also required to deal with challenges in her own life: spending more time with her son; looking after her niece Cat's delicatessen; and, most alarmingly, accommodating boyfriend Jamie's friendship with the thoroughly unlikeable Nick Smart, from which she's excluded.

While treading a difficult path between trust and gullibility, altruism and interference, Isabel keeps in her sights the small but certain comforts of family, philosophy and a fine Saturday morning.

The Comfort of Saturdays was first published in 2008 and in the USA, this book is entitled The Comforts of A Muddy Saturday.


My take:  Isabel Dalhousie more than often finds herself in a difficult position, being a philosopher as she is.  She agonises over things more frequently than the next person.  I think her biggest problem is she can hardly refuse to ignore a cry for help, be it from a stranger or a friend, and she knows it too.  She cannot help herself.  In fact, whatever situation that catches her moral attention, there she will be doing her best to help.  She is far from being a intermeddler, that she certainly is not.  When you get to know her well, you will find Isabel Dalhousie a very delightful and conscientious lady.  The setting of Edinburgh is the perfect backdrop for Isabel's sleuthing.  I am glad there are a few more books for me to go yet in this series.

AlexanderMcCallSmith.co.uk

Happy reading.

Rating:  3/5

The Abduction (Theodore Boone, Book 2) by John Grisham

First line in the book:  The abduction of April Finnemore took place in the dead of night, sometime between 9:15pm, when she last spoke with Theo Boone, and 3:30am, when her mother entered her bedroom and realized she was gone.


Hardback blurb:  Theodore Boone is back in a new adventure, and the stakes are higher than ever.

When his best friend, April, disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night, no one, not even Theo Boone - who knows April better than anyone - has answers.

As fear ripples through his small hometown and the police hit dead ends, it's up to Theo to use his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chase down the truth and save April.

Filled with the page-turning suspense that makes John Grisham a number one international bestseller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller, Theodore Boone's trials and triumphs will keep readers guessing until the very end.

The Abduction (2011) is a sequel to Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (2010).

What a cool trailer:



My brief take:  As usual, The Abduction is suitable reading for anyone, most notably young readers.  This time round, I did not think it appealed to me much mainly because the writing is too young for me, too easy, too high school.  If I were decades younger, I guess it would be a different story.  Not as good as the first Theodore Boone book which I liked very much.  I think I will be hanging my hat up on this series.  However, I will still recommend it to young readers because it is a pretty good inspiring story for them.  The next Theodore Boone book (Book 3), The Accused, will be released in May of 2012 so do look out for it.

Take time to read.

Rating:  3/5