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Taken from Amazon Maigret becomes increasingly frustrated as his attempts to prove that a brutal, repulsive murder has been committed at a local bookbinder prove fruitless. The mystery revolves around a series of seemingly unconnected incidents and characters. I was really enjoying this book until the last chapter. I just felt that the author was desperate to finish the book and that spoilt it.

Anybody else interested in this? Will be starting its journey at the end of next week. At the moment it is looking as though there will be roughly ten books unless I can squeeze another in and is shoebox sized.

I can't say I've experienced that problem. The people whose bookboxes I have joined in the past are avid readers and there has been a wide selection of books to choose from. I took six books out of the bookbox that I posted out today. When I was partaking in them regularly I don't think I ever had a box arrive that did not have quite a few books in that I wanted. I think it was more a problem of having to restrict myself. I suppose there is always a possibility that there may be nothing in that you want. There is always a list of the books published at the start of the box and everybody is supposed to list what they take out and what they replace with. This happens in the main. If it was a real issue then I would hope that the person would not wish to join the bookbox in the first place. There is supposed to be a fun element to it and to encourage yourself to read something that you would not necessarily go and buy. I advertised the bookbox on saturday on here and also on bookcrossing and so far it has ten participants excluding me.

I've sent you a message.

The box I have got ready is of shoebox size. I am aiming for around ten books. I have sent a couple of paperbacks recently 2nd class which have cost me in the region of

No. Basically it is a book swap. I am putting together a box of about 10 books. I already have several people interested, so when ready the box will go out to the first of these. They will remove the books they want and replace with the same number of their own books and then post it to the next person. The box will carry on in the same way until eventually it arrives back with me. Hopefully with a set of completely different books.

I hope it is alright to cross post this here. http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/6325423/4 Anyone interested? Let me know.

Taken from Amazon: The local ladies all deem Mr John a wizard, so when Agatha finds a few grey hairs on her head - and the rinse she tries at home turns her hair purple - she makes a beeline for the handsome Evesham hairdresser. And as well as sorting out her hair it soon becomes clear the charming man also has designs on her heart - but their future together is cut short when Mr John is fatally poisoned in his salon. Once again Agatha finds herself embroiled in a murder case. Was it one of Mr John's many customers, all of whom divulged to him their darkest secrets? It's time for Agatha to get to the bottom of this hair-raising mystery! I have not read any of her books for some time and chose this one because I have been reading the series in order. Another easy but superb read.

Taken from Amazon Nine year old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no-one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process. As much as it is possible to enjoy such a book I suppose I could say that I enjoyed it. Not the usual sort of book on the holocaust but one that I would certainly recommend.

Taken from Amazon: 1967, Lake City, Ohio. Tony Lord and Sam Robb, both in their teens, are best friends and athletic rivals. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful San francisco attorney; sam is an assistant principal at Lake City High School. Sam has never left home, and Tony has never returned since the trauma that changed his life: the brutal murder of his first love, Alison, of which he was wrongly accused and which turned everyone, even Sam, against him. Now Sam is a suspect. One of his female students has been murdered. Tony, reluctantly but inevitably, comes back to defend him. At once, Tony is plunged into the unfinished business of his past. In the merciless arena of a murder trial, he must confront not only his fear that Sam is a murderer but also the buried truths that obscure the real meaning of Alison's death. Powerful in its portrayal of the complexities of male friendship, of the darkest recesses of love, and of the many ways in which the past stakes its claim upon the present, Silent Witness is that rare suspense novel which is far more - the kind of story we have come to expect from Richard North Patterson. This is the first book I have read by this author. I have often picked his books up and then put them back down. I am really glad that I read this. It is a truly amazing book. A book that I did not want to put down. It ended really well with a surprising twist at the end that I was not anticipating. I wish that it could just have lasted longer.

Taken from Amazon: Charlotte O'Keefe's beautiful, much-longed-for, adored daughter Willow is born with osteogenesis imperfecta - a very severe form of brittle bone disease. If she slips on a crisp packet she could break both her legs, and spend six months in a half body cast. After years of caring for Willow, her family faces financial disaster. Then Charlotte is offered a lifeline. She could sue her obstetrician for wrongful birth - for not having diagnosed Willow's condition early enough in the pregnancy to be able to abort the child. The payout could secure Willow's future. But to get it would mean Charlotte suing her best friend. And standing up in court to declare that she would have prefered that Willow had never been born... Superb book. The author seems to be back on form. I actually found this book difficult to put down.

Taken from Amazon: Charlotte O'Keefe's beautiful, much-longed-for, adored daughter Willow is born with osteogenesis imperfecta - a very severe form of brittle bone disease. If she slips on a crisp packet she could break both her legs, and spend six months in a half body cast. After years of caring for Willow, her family faces financial disaster. Then Charlotte is offered a lifeline. She could sue her obstetrician for wrongful birth - for not having diagnosed Willow's condition early enough in the pregnancy to be able to abort the child. The payout could secure Willow's future. But to get it would mean Charlotte suing her best friend. And standing up in court to declare that she would have prefered that Willow had never been born... Superb book. The author seems to be back on form. I actually found this book difficult to put down.

When a woman is snatched from a wood, Detective Inspector Pat North seizes control of her first major enquiry, one that appears to be over when a local sex offender quickly confesses. With no body and inconsistent statements, North and her team struggle to ensure they have the right man. North's fianc

Thanks.

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This is the first of Hardy's novels that I have read. I quite enjoyed it but I think it will take me longer to get used to his style of writing. I have Tess of the Dubervilles and Hardy by Claire Tomlin on my TBR. Hopefully I will make a start on those soon.

I'm hoping to try some of her others once I have finished these.

A derelict house is being demolished when workmen discover the remains of a young girl. Detective Superintendent Michael Walker is far from happy at being assigned the 17-year-old murder case, especially as Detective Inspector Pat North's career is really taking off. However, things soon hot up when the murder team unearth more skeletons, and Walker suddenly finds himself in charge of one of the biggest investigations in recent years. Really enjoyed this one. It must be my favourite so far.

Detective Inspector Pat North is assigned to the re-investigation of an eight-year-old murder case in which James McCready was convicted of killing his partner, Gary Meadows. McCready has always claimed that the stabbing was a tragic accident, and when fresh evidence comes to light he wins the support of gay barrister and MP Robert Rylands, who campaigns for an appeal. And when North discovers that her partner, Detective Superintendent Michael Walker, led the original police enquiry, their fledgling relationship is put to the test. More superb story telling. Comes highly recommended from me. I have now started number five.

Got the book just this week and have already started it. Enjoying it so far.

Taken from Amazon: Helen Booth, a petite 15-year old goes missing on her paper round in south London. An anonymous phone call leads the police to a boathouse in Putney where they discover her blood-stained jacket and trainers. A murder inquiry is launched, headed by Detective Superintendent Michael Walker. Whilst I wouldn't say this was the best of the three books I have read so far it was still superb and kept me absorbed right until the very end. I am interested to see how Mike Walker's and Pat North's relationship progresses as at the moment it somehow seems doomed. Looking forward to reading number IV.

Taken from Amazon: Le Carre's new novel starts backstage at the British embassy in Cairo. Sandy, an apparently decent Englishman is in a bit of a state. Tessa, an Englishwoman married to Justin, a not very impressive Embassy official, has been brutally murdered up country; her companion, a charismatic African doctor called Bluhm, has disappeared. Sandy, it emerges, was in love with Tessa and rather despised her husband. He seems to suspect Tessa's vanished friend of complicity in her death. But nastier things are going on. Tessa was working on a project which threatened to expose a major international pharmaceutical company's cynical use of the African market to dump waste product - and conduct the kind of experiments on African humans that would not usually be allowed on mice. A great many people, some of them British, wanted her and Bluhm dead. The story of this beautifully written and elegantly paced book is how national self interest and moral principle come into meaningful conflict. These concepts are represented by the initially sympathetic Sandy on the one hand, and failed career diplomat Justin Quayle,constant gardener of the title, on the other. And the conflict is meaningful. One of the things this book (perhaps his best since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold) proves is that Le Carre has not lost his subject matter just because the Berlin Wall has been demolished. His description of the corporate world's lying, bullying and killing in the interests of profit rings horribly true and the faded trappings of decency with which his British stooges, like Sandy, clothe themselves, are all the more powerful because they represent a world in which the author once believed. This is a novel that attacks the English establishment with more force, passion and intelligence than many books which display their radical credentials more publicly and proudly. A powerful, cinematic and morally complicated novel, which should not disappoint either those looking for a good read or those who want the novel to deal seriously with the world around us rather than the existential dilemma of its creators. This is a book that as not really endeared itself to me at all. I found the first 200 pages difficult to the point that I almost gave up on the book several times. I then began to enjoy it and was glad that I had persevered to find that the ending was a complete let down. I have read many other Le Carre books and really enjoyed them so this one will not put me off.

Taken from Amazon: Le Carre's new novel starts backstage at the British embassy in Cairo. Sandy, an apparently decent Englishman is in a bit of a state. Tessa, an Englishwoman married to Justin, a not very impressive Embassy official, has been brutally murdered up country; her companion, a charismatic African doctor called Bluhm, has disappeared. Sandy, it emerges, was in love with Tessa and rather despised her husband. He seems to suspect Tessa's vanished friend of complicity in her death. But nastier things are going on. Tessa was working on a project which threatened to expose a major international pharmaceutical company's cynical use of the African market to dump waste product - and conduct the kind of experiments on African humans that would not usually be allowed on mice. A great many people, some of them British, wanted her and Bluhm dead. The story of this beautifully written and elegantly paced book is how national self interest and moral principle come into meaningful conflict. These concepts are represented by the initially sympathetic Sandy on the one hand, and failed career diplomat Justin Quayle,constant gardener of the title, on the other. And the conflict is meaningful. One of the things this book (perhaps his best since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold) proves is that Le Carre has not lost his subject matter just because the Berlin Wall has been demolished. His description of the corporate world's lying, bullying and killing in the interests of profit rings horribly true and the faded trappings of decency with which his British stooges, like Sandy, clothe themselves, are all the more powerful because they represent a world in which the author once believed. This is a novel that attacks the English establishment with more force, passion and intelligence than many books which display their radical credentials more publicly and proudly. A powerful, cinematic and morally complicated novel, which should not disappoint either those looking for a good read or those who want the novel to deal seriously with the world around us rather than the existential dilemma of its creators. This is a book that as not really endeared itself to me at all. I found the first 200 pages difficult to the point that I almost gave up on the book several times. I then began to enjoy it and was glad that I had persevered to find that the ending was a complete let down. I have read many other Le Carre books and really enjoyed them so this one will not put me off.

Taken from Amazon Winning the Man Booker prize is something that most authors dream of, although -- ironically -- the reputation of the prize itself was under siege a few years ago. Books that won the award were acquiring a reputation of being difficult and inaccessible, but those days appear to be over -- and unarguable proof may be found in the 2008 winner, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Apart from its considerable literary merit, the novel is the most compelling of pageturners (in the old-fashioned sense of that phrase) and offers a picture of modern India that is as evocative as it is unflattering. The protagonist, too, is drawn in the most masterly of fashion. Balram Halwai, the eponymous

I love this book also and whilst the first 50 pages of historical information are a pain and make almost everybody give up on the book I don't think it would be so good without it. I think it needs that to set the scene. Totally agree it was a terrible adaption. I did wonder whether the script writer bothered to read the book at all.

Yes it is one and the same book. Must say I was really surprised by the ending though. Let me know what you think. I think I will make a start on the next one.