SPARKS

Alex Robertson · Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2025 2:53 pm Post subject:

The Ghosts Of Galway by Ken Bruen…fast becoming my favourite crime writer, absolutely love his style and surreal storytelling!

Alex Robertson · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2025 5:31 pm Post subject:

Murder At The Ritz by Jim Eldridge, set in war-torn London during the blitz. A rather splendid period piece, bodies and gruesome deaths everywhere. No clues to the killer/killers but lots of delightful red herrings scattered throughout.
Another author I’ll be revisiting!

J. Prufrock · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 1:13 pm Post subject:

Heather Fawcett recently released Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales, third in a series about a Cambridge professor of dryadology who mostly wants to research the Faerie Folk and their realms and publish papers - in this version of England, the Folk are known to be real. Dr. Wilde starts the first book somewhat annoyed about a new professor whose popularity with the students seems entirely out of proportion to his actual expertise in their field... naturally, they end up having to work together in field research (quite dangerous when the field is Faerie realms from which more than one researcher has never returned.) Faerie tales for grown-ups, these books, and while romance eventually develops between Dr. Wilde and her rival, she remains first and foremost a scholar.

Alex Robertson · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2025 5:24 pm Post subject:

Murder At The Savoy by Jim Eldridge, the follow up to Murder At The Ritz, equally gripping and if anything better.

Alex Robertson · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2025 5:28 pm Post subject:

Alex Robertson · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2025 3:45 pm Post subject:

The Three Deaths Of Justice Godfrey by LC Tyler another factional murder mystery in the John Grey series.
There have been many books, tales and theories about the factual death of Justice Godfrey and this book combines a lot of these, woven into another pleasing to read tale!

Alex Robertson · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2025 3:50 pm Post subject:

In The Galway Silence by Ken Bruen…Jack Taylor ranks along side John Rebus and Jackson Brodie as one of the best anti-heroes in literature!

Don’t know when my next library visit will be, got a few things on my plate just now!

J. Prufrock · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2025 9:53 am Post subject:

Four Ruined Realms, Mai Corland's sequel to Five Broken Blades, has more action, more intrigue and everything I liked about the first book in the trilogy. Best of all, I was expecting to have to wait until the end of this year for the end of the story, but Three Shattered Souls is listed with a July 2025 release date.

waterloosunset · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2025 11:31 am Post subject:

The Magic Mountain (aka Der Zauberberg). In German. I am a bit of a masochist. I'm glad that my walking German dictionary, my husband, can tell me what words mean when I get stuck. That is, he can tell me unless he doesn't know what it means, either.
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better drop the requirement that everything be great

Alex Robertson · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2025 9:40 am Post subject:

Murder At The Ashmolean by Jim Eldridge, very much follows the pattern of his blitz books only set in late Victorian times!
The protagonists are an ex-Scotland Yard policeman and his plucky yet independent girlfriend archaeologist.
I will get others in this series (there is also a series of murders at famous railway stations). My only complaint and it’s not a biggie , I don’t feel it’s Victorian enough there is more of a feeling of modernity. However as the books are a pleasing read, I’m able to enjoy without that being a bugbear!

What is a bugbear for me and always has been for as long as I have frequented libraries…people who correct perceived spelling mistakes and/or grammar (often it is them who makes the mistake). In this copy someone has pencilled in “in 1895?” and “to where?” when the threat of penal transportation is mentioned…I’m sure convicts were still being transported to the colonies, mainly Australia, during the Victorian era…I could be wrong but even so I wouldn’t dream of writing it in a page margin of a book!!

Alex Robertson · Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2025 12:45 pm Post subject:

A Galway Epiphany Ken Bruen’s 4th instalment of his Jack Taylor stories…as satisfying as the other three…trouble is I read them in one go…hoping beyond hope there is a fifth book to go!

Alex Robertson · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2025 12:45 pm Post subject:

Murder By Milk Bottle by Lynne Truss…a really funny book (3rd in the series, so AGAIN I’m late to the party).
So many laugh out loud moments, beautifully surreal.
Most people will know Lynne Truss for her Eats, Shoots And Leaves! book, but this series, set in 1950s Brighton is screaming out to be televised!

Alex Robertson · Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 3:40 pm Post subject:

Psycho By The Sea by Lynne Truss, the follow up to Murder By Milk Bottle, equally bonkers and hilarious, the gruesome deaths are so “cartoonish” that they’re like Wile E Coyote has drawn up the plans…another book you’ll finish in one reading ( if I can I’ll track down the first two in the series)!

J. Prufrock · Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2025 7:44 pm Post subject:

"Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy" isn't a book description I'd seen before Passing Strange (Ellen Klages, 2017.) It's heavier on the pulp and the noir, thanks to most of the story taking place in 1940 San Francisco and one of the protagonists working as a pulp cover illustrator, though the focus is on a group of women who probably wouldn't have been treated sympathetically in most media from that time period - as noted by references to some of the women posing for the artist occasionally as villains but more often as frightened damsels in distress. Anyway, it's an unusual mostly-historical tale framed by a close-to-present-day mystery about the identity and disappearance of the artist and the provenance of a piece never sold as a cover and therefore previously only a rumor among collectors. I found it original and interesting, and at only 215 pages a nice quick read.