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Madeleine

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    Madeleine's Book Log 2024

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted

    "Serpent's Point" by Kate Ellis - this is the 26th novel in the Devon based Wesley Peterson series, and this time Wesley and his team are investigating the murder of a woman on a coastal path near the area in the book's title, which is a house, where a Regency-set film is being made.  The house is also home to a small artist's colony, so there are lots of potential suspects and witnesses.  But it looks like the murder could be linked to a couple of cold cases and disappearances in other parts on the country,as the victim seemed to be conducting her own investigation, following the murder of one of her best friends a few years ago.  We also get some of the history of Serpent's Point, when two schoolgirls with metal detectors uncover a hoard of Roman coins and other artefacts, which brings in Wesley's best friend Neil, an archaeologist whose investigations always cross over with the more modern police storyline, especially when a relatively recent skeleton is discovered at the site, although it's soon dated to be about 100 years old, but this gives us the parallel story of another archaeological dig which took place a century ago.  As the police continue unearthing clues to their current murder, another woman disappears and they realise they are in a race against time. I did actually suspect who the killer was fairly early on, but there's a later twist which gives this case a suitably serpentine feeling.  Another easy read, possibly two many coincidences but it's fiction after all!  7.5/10

    BCF Book Club 2024 - Part 2

    in Group Reads

    Posted · Edited by Madeleine

    Still trying to decide on mine, possible the current Barbara Erskine book "The Dream Weavers".

     

    I've now decided on my choice, it's "The Mermaid's Call" by Katherine Stansfield.

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    France's reading 2024

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted

    I used to read quite a lot of Nicci French but they got a bit samey after a while ie woman in peril, and the police were always useless so she has to do everything for herself, including, naturally, going alone to an empty house/factory etc,so I lost interest in them.

    Madeleine's Book Log 2024

    in Book Blogs - Discuss your reading!

    Posted · Edited by Madeleine

    "Mania" by L J Ross - this is the 4th book in her Alex Gregory series, I'd read the first one but not  the two in between, but, unable to find them in my ever growing tbr stacks, I went for the latest book instead. It can be read as a stand-alone, but be warned, as the ending is unresolved and will presumably continue to play out in the next book, whenever that comes out (don't think it's been written yet).  I didn't think this was the best of her books - she also writes the long running DCI Ryan series, which are generally much better, although they too have a few flaws, notably the perfection of the main character, and I have to say that Gregory is Ryan with slightly different features, ie he is of course handsome and women fall at his feet wherever he goes..... of which he is blissfully unaware,although there is a lot of UST between him and the detective assigned to the case he's helping with, Ava Hope.  It all starts during a night at the theatre, where Gregory naturally happens to be in the audience and is first on the scene, when the actor playing King Lear collapses on stage; at first it's thought to be a heart attack, but tox screening finds hemlock in his system - he was poisoned!  Was it suicide though?  Then a close contact of the man is also found dead with hemlock in his system, is it too much of a coincidence? Of course it is, and Gregory finds himself drawn in more, as he tries to profile a possible perpetrator.  The two victims knew each other from university days, so as usual it looks as if the clues lie in their past.  Then the Superintendent in charge of the crime team turns out to also be involved, which echoes the storyline of the early Ryan novels, involving a serial killer, and this gave me a sense of familiarity and repetition of a storyline being re-used, and as I got closer to finishing the book I started to suspect that the case would not be fully resolved, and it wasn't, it's left open to lead into book five.  I must admit I was bored by this at times, and almost gave up at one point, but it did pick up, with a clever sleight of hand towards the end, but I was slightly disappointed at being left hanging by the ending.  Oh well.  6/10

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