Three More Books

So, yet another three books to give a brief review of -

I've already written my general views on Reginald Hill and his witty, intellectual crime novels about Dalziel & Pascoe. Some very good, others not equally good. I won't say a lot about this latest book of his more than it was the very first one of this series, a book it took ages to find for some odd reason and no matter how free-standing these types of series are said to be, I really don't like to read them non-cronologically. And this, the first one, published in 1970 (!) called "A Clubbable Woman" perhaps had its moments but was far from one of his bests, and the ending was just disappointing and anti-climactic.

I noticed that the latest Hill book published in Sweden is "The Stranger House" and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the companions Dalziel and Pascoe. That sounds intriguing, can't wait until it comes in pocket edition!

My initial views on the Maisie Dobbs-series by Jacueline Winspear still stands when I've read the second book "Birds of a Feather", it is kind of patronizingly and silly written in an upstairs-downstairs style. It's probably, maybe, intended to be and thus showing the way (the British) society worked around WWI. But to me it's just annoying. Still, a different context and some interesting historical facts makes for a rather entertaining and very easy read. I will probably continue reading the series... At least until I get the very distinct feeling it is truly time to say goodbye.

The last book I'm going to write a few words about is actually one I never bothered to finish. Earlier I've written about the small publishing company of Minotaur, that specializes in high quality British crime novels. The covers are always gorgeous and enticing, and with some exceptions the inside is (almost) equally good. This debut novel by John Matthews, "Past Imperfect" was alas such an exception.

I bought the book in 2005, it was in my substantial (as always) to-read-heap until about 1,5 year ago when I began reading it and it felt rather promising at first. But then it just felt long-winded, too many words, periphrasis and no matter how much I tried I could only get through a few pages at one time. I made it to page 179 (of 640) until I realized and decided I will never have any real pleasure reading it, hence stopped. Like once before.

Now I have such a lovely heap of books in my Currently reading ---> list, books that make me laugh, cry and hum again and again in delighted recognition. So I suspect there won't be long before the next book-post appears here on blog.