pickle

30. The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackberg This for a change was a Scandinavian crime story which doesn't focus solely on the police although there is police involvement. It focussed on the story of Erika Falck returning to her childhood home after the death of her parents becoime embroiled in the tangle web of lies and history which come out after the apparent suicide of a childhood friend. This was a good read not as good as my other fave Scandinavian thrillers but still absorbing and well written it reminded me in parts of early Tess Gerritssen Rizzoli and Isles books certainly not the early less well written Tess Gerritssen's which were more about romance than anything else. Its the first in a series of books which feature Erika Falck although having just read the synopsis of the second book appears to focus more on Patrick Hedstrom as the main protagonist (calloing it Patrick Hedstrom 2) and I will certainly be looking for more of these to read in the future.

I popped home at lunchtime and caught Due South on I loved this programme when it was on such a shame it wasn't continued.

David Eddings was probably the one I remember most from childhood waiting desperately for the next one to be published and deciding if I had enough money to get it in hardback although I was pretty early with Stephen Donaldson as well certainly by the second Chronicles the others being published a little early for me in the late 70's when I was far too young to be reading them. I remember reading the Kelley Armstrong and Charlaine Harris from before they were even considered for Tv production as well as the Laurrell K Hamilton after the first one waiting for the next few to be published, hence a lot of my books have the early covers rather than the later now we are popular ones which I hate when it happens.

John Connolly's sequel to The Gates , Hells Bells and many of the others mentioned on here.

With the Tess Gerritssen even if you didn't enjoy it The Surgeon is the first one in the series but they do get much better as the series goes on, try and stick with them if you can As Karsa has said the Jo Nesbo's are brilliant starting with The Redbreast, again take his recommendations with Lee Child they are all very similar but those are defintely the best and can be read as stand alone. For John Connolly I would go back to the beggining of the series with Charlie Parker again, although not strictly speaking Police detective series Charlie Parker is a PI the mysteries tend to be a lot darker with supernatural aspects but don't let that put you off they are still in essence murder mysteries, the first one in this series is Every Dead Thing. I will try and think of some more and scour my bookshelves I have read so many thrillers, do you like straighforward crime ones or with a bit of romance or not bothered? happy reading

Just had a bacon sandwich I bought from the flying club guilty pleasures

I use my local library every week when I am in town its the main one for the area so a bit bigger than the others in the villages, its a bit worrying that with the local councils plans to redevelop part of one of the shopping arcades they are talking about closing it and relocating I can imagine they will close and 'forget ' to reopen which will be a real shame and I will be part of the protests if this happens here. Its not like the town centre needs redeveloping Salisbury has too many shops which are closed but its once again the local councils desire to ignore whats going on around them. I can't remember what my forst book was I lived abroad from 5-9 and we didn't use the local library there as none of the books would have been in English, rather we belonged to the Puffin club which was part of the Penguin publishers and they would send out book we had ordered. When we came back to the UK the library was my favourite place to spend time, so much so that I did my work experience there and finally before Uni was Saturday girl for 2 years. Happy days and happy memories

Hi Gemmah, welcome to the BCF, I love Tess Gerritssen but have to say her best are the Rizzoli and Isles series, but if you are after thrilers try Lee Child, John Connolly or Jo Nesbo these are all ones I love.

Ha ha ha they do all merge into one. I finished Bad Luck and Trouble yesterday in one sitting it was ok one where he got together with old comrades from his unit. I think I am going to give him a rest for a bit though. 30. Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child Similar vein to the others enjoyable, the omnipotent Jack Reacher strikes agin this time with 3 other equally godlike people from his old unit.

No not tried the hobbit although I did reread the book last year and loved it. I am enjoying this Camilla Lackberg it seems to be typical of the Scandinavian crime books which don't feature the police, rather dark and moody people with deep secrets.

I have a complete unabridged version of that its about 60 hours long must listen to it agaon one day. I hope you feel better soon. If you want some fun audio plays rather than books I can heartily recommend Paul Temple brilliant crime fiction set in 1940's I started Camilla Lackberg's The Ice Princess this morning enjoy it so far.

I have just discovered I seem to be watching A History of Ancient Britain I am gonna change quickly this is like being back at Uni, albeit a bit more interesting.

29. Chemical Prison - Barbara Nadel This is not my first Barbara Nadel but the second in the series, its an interesting and well written crime novel set in Istanbul and its partly that which makes it so interesting, the main character Cetin Ikmen is a police inspector with great character and humour he is a non practising muslim who hates that religion is used by so many people in his city to justify its actions, the suppporting cast particularly his seargent and brilliant he is from the old ruling Ottoman class of princes his best friend and pathologist is an Armenian whose people have a turbulernt and violent relationship with Turkey. Its set in modern times but its a city which has such history and diversity it still affects the modern day. I love these stories and even though Barbara Nadel is and englishwoman she writes about the country and the people with sympathy and as if she really knows what she is talking about. This book deals with the body of a dead young man found in an internal flat deliberately built into an apartment, he had been strangled but there was evidence of drug use. The story deals with the tense and troubling relationship between the turks and the Armenians and how one people does not see the other as individuals (a bit like saying all people of one race look alike). Cetin is forced to confront both his relaionship with his Armenian best friend and he in turn with being an Armenian doctor and his relationship with his people. The Seargent has to deal with his growing relationship with one of the members of the police squad and his unhappy forced marriage with his cousin of noble descent. Mix into this a squalid and historical city and its a fascinating read much more than just another crime book.

I finished A Chemical Prison - Barbara Nadel last night now its either continue with Iron Council or start one of my other books or even look on the new shelves and find all the books that have been hiding for the last few years at the bottom of a precarious stack.

Hi Cláudia welcome to the BCF

Yeah its the one where he ends up in Norfolk of all places. Yeah China you got to love his way of fascinating and revolting you at the same time.

Welcome to the forum

The EEls - Novocaine for the Soul

28 Lee Child - The Hard Way This was in no way the best of the Jack Reacher books not the worst either but the twists ansd turns were a little unbelievable he is omnipotent in so many silly ways and seems to have this paranormal way of predicting the twists and turns of the enemy. This is the first time that Reacher leaves the US apart from the one novel set in his past, and he comes to England, in this you can see that Lee Child is actually English as he doesn't do what so many foreign authors do when portraying the Brits and the country he doesn't rely on a hollywood ideal of the UK he actually knows what the countryside looks like around Norfolk he dares to take it out of London which I imagine a lot of authors would have been wary of. Its hard to explain what I mean but you see so many people only knowing england (I am more familiar with England) through films and Tv shows which show such a small part of life here. On another note I have given up on Even - David Trevellyan as it was just so badly written which is a shame as I had high hopes for it. So I am now trying to wean myself away from Jack Reacher and concentrate on Chine Mieville - Iron Council and Barbara Nadel - Chemical Prison. One of the things I find so fascinating about China Mieville is the way he writes, its a sort of horrific fascination particularly in the New Curbuzon books Perdido Str Station / Iron Council and The Scar I remember reading Perdido Str Station and being revoilting fascinated with the idea of the remades, he manges to describe things in a sort of oily horribleness which draws you in and sort of revolts you at the same time, there are no real heroes and heroines but a lot of flawed characters. It takes a lot of time for me to plough my way through his books but they usually end up being worth the read even if I do find them hard going.

Hi Vanessa welcome to the BCF I haven't read any Nora Roberts in some time but have read a lot of them in the past she has written loads and loads of books, you know she also writes under the pseudonym of J D Robb.

Hey Charm, No worries I will probably read a few more of them, I just had a problem with having read such a similar book ages ago, I did enjoy it though I might have been having an off week. Btw I also have the new BDB on pre-order can't wait for it to come