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see you round here again, I'll flatten you. Now @#%& off!' Parson Cross spluttered and stuttered in indignation at being so sorely misunderstood. Everything seemed to have gone wrong since he began associating with the cat cafe. Here he was nobly standing up for the esteemed Major Flowers and all he got for his pains was trouble with the constabulary and abuse from the working classes. He did his best to drag troubled youth out of the gutter and provide them with constructive endeavours but they showed him no respect either. He might just as well ...

Burning Down the House ~ Talking Heads

I think that you will enjoy the book. I downloaded Suttree by Cormac McCarthy from the library tonight. this will be a re-read of this book and I am looking forward to reading it.

Glad you enjoyed it too!

Haha the cover is often a big influence on me reading a book or not!

myself, 'daddy', plus Rosie, ended up falling into an undignified heap on the floor, while the parson decided to make a run for it, his clanking chains being an object of scorn for several customers at a local Tesco store. ' Please assist me', said the parson, 'but I had a bit of a mishap involving handcuffs in a local fancy dress charity ball..and the result is, well, somewhat less than spiffing, definitely not ideal, and ..' ' So...you're not our real local vicar.. just a muppet who goes to bondage parties mid afternoon while mugs work for a living', declared Bill Puddled, 53, a bricklayer from Brixham, ' if I ever...

This old House - Rosemary Clooney/Shakin' Stevens

The story is set about 1715 and Sir Walter Scott wrote it about a century later. One of the characters was talking about how the Act of Union would allow Glasgow to develop, because it could participate in the trade of cotton and tobacco, so basically slave produce.

Ooh still haven't read that one!

'm arresting you as well for interfering in a police investigation.' That made three of us in handcuffs. Just then a group of the parson's wayward youths, who'd been half-heartedly emptying litter trays and washing food dishes, burst in shouting, 'It's the rozzers! Get 'em!' and they let loose with sling shots and pea shooters. The two policemen retreated hastily and ...

My Old Man's a Dustman ~ Lonnie Donegan

Old Time Rock and Roll - Bob Seger

7. Amongst our Weapons (Rivers of London Series) - Ben Aaronovitch - 4/5 - I really enjoyed this book, maybe a wee bit more than some others in the series. A few books back I was worried about Peter and Beverly having to break up but that is no longer the case. I also enjoyed The Angel of Death in this book and had sympathy for her.

Yeah, I cried too when I read this amazing book

I just wanted to point out that all of the Shauna Lawless Gael Series books fit into this category as does The Hounds of York by Arden Powell - there is a small amount of homosexuality in this should anybody need to know. Having read them before the category opened up I'll be choosing different books.

A Witch in Time, Constance Sayers. Well worth reading, this one. Witches, Daemons and magic. Fabulous!

Just bought this as it's right up my street and it'll make a change from the Edinburgh that Rebus knows - new one out later this year - and it fits in with the current group read (and it was only 99p for the Kindle version!)

' honey puff'. 'Major Flowers I am arresting you for the kicking of a female's honey puff, contrary to section 53.865432.87654.09887 of the Criminal Injustice against the person act, 1987. Sub part 5.8.' 'Hold on Officer. As a member of the clergy , may I intervene on behalf of the esteemed, the Holy and entirely (dis]honourable Major, he's a veteran of the ban landmines in Eritrea caucus, the Give a Bit Back assault on Mmgrant poverty in Myanmar and South Euthanasia , the Pretend there's no Hunger in England 2002 award, presented by Charlotte the Charlatan Fitzhubert of the Micro...' 'Enough.....I ...

Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan “Whilst I complain about Edinburgh, I like it here really. They say that makes me dour, it’s Scottish for miserable 'person of dubious parentage'. They gave a single word in a Gaelic that means ‘my eternal doom is upon me’, I can’t remember it right now. They are an old nation. They have a great wit at times. They need it to survive the damn weather.” This is something of an odd one, it is set in Edinburgh over about ninety years from the early 1900s to the 1990s. It is actually set in one particular tenement the nine storey number 10 Luckenbooth Close. The novel structure is quite complex. It is split into three parts. The first third runs around the years 1910 to the late 1930s. The second part runs from 1944 to 1963. The third part is from 1977 to 1999. Each part relates to three different residents/visitors of number 10. Each part is also split into nine parts, three for each person, the run A B C, A B C, A B C. This makes the whole feel rather disjointed and this has been one of the criticisms of the novel. There is some justification for this as it is difficult to follow at times. It does feel like group of short stories at times. There is though a colourful set of characters, some of them cropping up in more than one time period. There are elements of the supernatural, ghosts if you will, as well as the devil’s daughter. There are also prostitutes, gangsters, a property speculator, triads, a medium, a parrot, William Burroughs (yes, that William Burroughs), assorted gender and sexuality variants (including transgender), abused women, a black male from Louisiana who works with bones at the Royal School of Veterinary Studies, drug addicts, drug dealers, an ex-miner allergic to light. The cast list is pretty extensive. Fagan does manage to tie the whole together pretty well. It’s pretty bleak at times but Fagan does introduce a vein of humour as well: “My ma said: only love a man who reads books and understands them properly. If they don't read books don't go their bed. Ever!” The novel looks at the marginalised and oppressed, those at the edges of society because of mental health, sexuality, gender or class. It’s about power and its use. “There is the Edinburgh that is presented to tourists. Then the other one, which is considered to be the real Edinburgh, to the people who live here. There are the fancy hotels and shops and motorcars and trams and places of work, then are the slums, starvation, disease, addiction, prostitution, crime, little or no infrastructure, no plumbing, no clean water, no rights . . . if the council want to go and take their homes down, they do. This is all on streets just ten minutes’ walk from the fancy city centre. When will these things change? Everywhere? When? All fur coat and nae knickers. That’s a phrase the postman told me. It embodies this city.” There is humanity within it all and warmth, but, of course, the city is a major character as well. This definitely has a gothic edge to it. There is great variety in all of this; inevitably some parts work better than others and the inclusion of William Burroughs I didn’t find convincing. However, on the whole, I did enjoy this and liked the slant that Fagan put on things. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Heresy by S J Parris

me what this disgusting old man did. Well I'll tell you, even though it causes me great embarrassment. He pinched my ... my... bottom. There's no other way of putting it.' She blushed bright pink. 'Well, in actual fact,' explained the Parson, 'you could have said your posterior, or your derriere, your hind cheeks or even your ...' 'Shut up! you blithering idiot!' I shouted. 'Can't you see you've arrested the wrong man?' 'Would you like to lay a complaint, Madam?' asked PC Mywords, totally ignoring me. 'I most certainly do! He kicked my Honey Puff too!' 'He kicked your WHERE???'

I loved it! It made me cry, but I loved it. That was actually the first Stephen King book I read - the one that made me want to try more!

And what do you think about The Green Mile?

It won’t be my first Stephen King book . I don’t read a lot of horror, so he’s not an author I come across a lot, but I have read The Green Mile, Cell and the short story collection Everything’s Eventual.

was marching me out , when in waltzed Parson Cross, who said ' I say, good man Disgusting, it's jolly bad luck, old bean, one does do one's ultimately futile best..at once possible yet so far away ..' The Major entered, clutching Rosie's arm. ' There he is ..that's the demon', wailed Mrs Abercrombie, pointing at the Major, ' do pray,desist in your wicked endeavour to imprisonment of a fine man, and arrest that old fart..he's never apologised yet for what occurred in 1988, August, in Scarborough..ask...

The Strangers in the House (1940) Georges Simenon This is Simenon's bread and butter, a murder mystery, an investigation, a trial. But on closer inspection it's actually about a man waking up after 18 years of hiding from the world. Hector Loursat was a gifted lawyer, married with a young baby when his wife suddenly ran off with another man. He has since spent the next 18 years in his enormous dusty mansion avoiding the world. He has no relationship with his daughter Nicole nor any of the servants that come and go including the dwarf Josephine who is essentially tasked with running the house. He is a broken man, an alcoholic, waiting for nothing. Then he hears a shot somewhere in the house and discovers a body. What follows is a murder investigation that reveals a world unknown to him, the world of his daughter and her friends. They have apparently been having parties in his house, drinking, dancing, falling in love, without him ever knowing (or wanting to know) about it. Suddenly, he is forced to wake up, to find out what happened, to discover who these people are that have been sharing his house. But most of all he is finally finding out who his daughter, a total stranger, also is. Very quickly, her lover, Manu, is accused and Loursat agrees to defend him. He drinks less, he leaves the house more, he opens his eyes. It's well written and very interesting but ultimately it wasn't anything special. Under normal circumstances you might dismiss it as a basic procedural, a murder mystery (not something I'm interested in), but for the fact that it's more about Loursat than anything else. Which is its saving grace. A nice little tale about middle-aged man regaining his life. 7/10