This is the second of Harris’s books set in present-day London and featuring DC Nick Belsey, described on the cover by Val McDermid as “a beguiling bastard of a hero”. As in the first book “The Hollow Man“ it doesn’t … Continue reading →
“The Hollow Man” is Oliver Harris’s first novel. His central character is a disillusioned, disreputable detective constable whose patch is Hampstead, but who knows the seedier parts of London too. The story concerns a suicide in a house in the … Continue reading →
This is the first book in a planned trilogy. The second volume, “Europe at Midnight“, is due out in November 2015. “Europe in Autumn” is set in a dysfunctional Europe not too far in the future. The open borders ideal … Continue reading →
The Woodcutter of the title is the central figure in this story of a boy, the son of an estate forester in the Lake District, who grows up in the hills and is a natural and self-taught rock climber. After … Continue reading →
Another excellent work by Robert Harris. He has written a fully-researched but fictionalised account of the “Dreyfus affair” which split French society around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In his introduction Harris writes: “None of the characters … Continue reading →
What can I say about this seminal book that hasn’t already been said? It’s one of the founding texts of socialism, describing the plight of the working classes in the early 20th century when having a job meant you could … Continue reading →
A series of detective novels of varying merit by a French/American academic living in the city. Titles in order, with date read. Death at La Fenice (07.99) Death in a Strange Country (09.99) The Anonymous Venetian (10.99) A Venetian Reckoning … Continue reading →
I think this is the first book by Ian Rankin I’ve read, and my first Rebus novel. So what better than to start with the last one, set after Rebus has retired from the police force? Anyway, he’s back and … Continue reading →
Whatever else, this book is an amazing achievement. It is really three stories, separate but intertwined; each could be a book in its own right. Set between 1867 and 1909, the Stone of the title is a powerful and wealthy … Continue reading →
As you’d expect from Julian Barnes, an intriguing story which explores memories and how we interpret them. How can we tell true memories from false ones, and how does our interpretation change as time passes and other information comes to … Continue reading →