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Madeleine

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    Madeleine's Book Log 2024

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Madeleine

    A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone - this is the first in the series about the Skelf family, who run an undertaker business in Edinburgh, coupled with acting as private investigators.  The book starts with the sudden death of Jim, the patriarch, and is subsequent unorthodox ie illegal cremation in the back garden!  Rather too much detail here, but afterwards the women in his life - his widow Dorothy, their daughter Jenny and her daughter Hannah - try to pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on both businesses without him. But when Dorothy starts to go through his papers, she finds payments of several hundred pounds being made every month, for several years, to an unknown woman.  Meanwhile Jenny, unemployed and divorced and back home with her mother, takes on a seemingly straightforward PI case, following a man whom his wife suspects of having an affair.  Hannah too has an investigation of her own - when her flatmate and fellow student Mel suddenly disappears, she finds herself opening up a can of worms (literally in some of their cases) as she discovers more about her seemingly hard-working, studious friend.  Then there's also the case of the missing employee, who disappeared suddenly several years ago.  So several storylines, but the book is well written and divided into fairly short chapters focussing mainly on each of the 3 women, so the different strands are easy to follow, though by the end I was starting to think that maybe there were too many coincidences.  As it has a distinctly morbid tone, and is rather gruesome in places, I can't say I enjoyed it  overall, but the characters are all engaging, and Edinburgh is well-described, making it almost a character in it's own right.  I will definitely read more of the Skelfs, but it is rather depressing at times so maybe not to everyone's taste. 7.5/10

    Rest in Peace

    in General Chat

    Posted

    Did you ever try to do that rolling across the front of the car?  Maybe not as you were older and more sensible..... you can't really do that now as most newer cars slope downwards too much at the front😀

    Madeleine's Book Log 2024

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Madeleine

    The Harbour Lights Mystery by Emylia Hall - this is the 2nd book in the Shell House Detectives series, I haven't read the first one but found this fairly easy to read as a stand alone, as the author does do a few updates.  The story is set in and around the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole, and our detectives are Ally, a widow in her mid 60s, and ex cop Jayden, who has moved down to Cornwall from Leeds, having left the force following the death of his partner.  It sounds like the Detectives are still finding their feet, but they can't help investigating when a local chef, though originally from London, J P Sharpe, is found murdered in Mousehole, not long before Christmas.  Then the pub where he works is burnt down, though no one is injured, and a mysterious letter found in his pocket points towards a local connection, but it turns out that JP has a rather chequered history, and not many people are that sorry to see the back of him. Could someone dear to both the detectives be in danger, or are they in danger themselves?  After a slow start, this picked up pace and the last part was quite gripping, and I thought the book was quite well-written, though it could have been a bit better paced, especially in the first half.  I'm intrigued to read the first book now - I read this one as a Christmas read - and there's also a 3rd book due out in March. 7/10

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