Hobbies and Crafts

I finished The Hawk is Dead and I enjoyed it as it was a little bit different to other Roy Grace books. I've just got another Peter James book from the online library called Absolute Proof which, apparently, is very different to his other books so I'm looking forward to starting that and I've reserved a Tim Weaver book called The Blackbird which should be available soon.

I've just now bought for my kindle Out of Time, which is another Jodie Taylor book in the Time Police series and also Hiding from the Light by Barbara Erskine which is a novel but based on the Witchfinder General's witch hunts around Manningtree and Mistley. I think that will be interesting as I know a bit about the awful torture and trials of the so-called witches and I know the locality a bit.

These books should keep me going for a little while.

Going back to your post of 12th May, Ann, about Left You Dead I had to google what it was about to find out if I had read it. That's the problem with Peter James books - they all have similar titles. I had read it and I know I enjoyed it though I might need to skim through it again as I can't remember the ending very clearly.

I'm reading another Peter James book featuring Roy Grace at the moment called The Hawk is Dead. It's about an apparent assassination attempt on Queen Camilla. I'm enjoying the story but the parts where Grace is having conversations with King Charles or the Queen somehow don't seem to quite gel.

I've also recently read About Time by Jodie Taylor. It's part of the series of Time Police books which I enjoy but I know this sort of fantasy isn't to everyone's taste.

I've never read any of the Jack Reacher series of books but I know they are popular so maybe I should give them a go.

Just finished another book I enjoyed. Tripwire by Lee Child. He is such an excellent writer of stories. This is a Jach Reacher book with a lot of the story centred on Viernam. A really good thriller, one I couldn't wait to finish but didn't want it to end.

Vera, the book I have 'wasted' the day away finishing is Peter James Left you Dead. I really enjoyed it and will certainly look out for more of his. I know that there have been several on the book stall so will have to look out for more. I thought this one was very well written especially as it involved the death of a child and the feelings around that.

I haveseen quite a lot of the Grace stories and enjoyed them but I had not seen this one that I have just read which is strange, there is a new series on so maybe it will crop up in one of those.

I agree with you Ann. Our mental picture of a character that we've read about often bears no resemblance to what we see on the screen. I read more than I watch TV or films so I've often got an image fixed in my mind of what I think various characters are like. It can be a bit disconcerting when things don't seem to quite match up. I've read a lot of the Roy Grace books and some of the Vera books but I've never seen any of the TV series. I have however seen advertisements for them and Vera isn't as I pictured her but Grace seems close to my idea of him.

Strangely enough I have just finished a Roy Grace book - Picture You Dead. It's the usual scenario of murder and mayhem but this book revolves around the art world, fakes and forgeries. It is up to Peter James' usual high standard of story telling and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I was in Northumbria 2024 we walked by 'death rocks' and could easily picture the story.

On a different subject. How do you feel about reading books when you have seen the stories on TV?

It is very strange I have seen a few series when I have already read the books and have pictured the main charcter to be completely different, (Rebus is one).

But recently I have read two books both by different authors, both the first I have read in the series. One was a 'Vera' story by Ann Cleeves and one was a Roy Grace story by Peter James. I enjoyed both books but Roy Grace on TV is exactly as he is described and written about in the book. Vera, however, I felt was not the same. AC dexcribed her as being ugly with bad skin and fat and her character seemed a lot different to how she is portrayed on TV. Down to whoever supervises the casting I suppose. Very strange though how accurate Roy Grace is.

I finished L J Ross' Death Rocks and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a fairly easy read - not one of these books you have to plough through - and maybe all the better for that. I would happily read her other books in this series.

I've got a few unread books on my kindle so I'm just starting on one of those. It's Christmas Carol by M J Lee and is one of the series of Jayne Sinclair genealogical mysteries. I have read a couple of the others but I've only just started this one so it's a bit early to say much about it.

I have read all the LJRoss Holy Island books. The rocks in that book are on the walk from. Craster towards tho castle in the distance. I loved all the. Looks.

I enjoyed the Susie Dent book because it was different but I agree with you Vera it did, at times seem contrived. I enjoyed it more towards the end.

I finished Susie Dent's Guilty by Definition and am in two minds about it. I thought it was a brilliant idea i.e. solving a mystery by working out the word and sequence clues given in a series of anonymous letters or cards. It was certainly different from most mystery books but I nearly gave up after 50 pages because I was getting so irritated by the writing style. I didn't find any of the characters very believable, nor do I think people speak in quotes all the time, even if they are lexicographers, That was just when I recognised the quotes; there must have been loads that passed me by. I just found the whole thing a bit - not sure of the right word - pretentious maybe.

Don't let all that put you off reading it. I did stick with it and am glad I did as it improved as the story got going and I found I wanted to read to the end just to find out who the culprit was.

I'm now reading Death Rocks by L J Ross which was mentioned on this thread a little while ago so I added it to my "To Be Read" list. This is a fairly conventional detective solving a murder story but it seems well written and I'm enjoying it particularly because of the setting. It takes place in Northumberland where we have holidayed 3 times and love the area. One of the first places L J Ross mentions is Craster and once we stayed in an old fisherman's cottage right by the harbour there so I can visualise exactly where he means when he talks about different spots along that stretch of coast. It makes the events in the book seem more real.

I enjoyed The Hallmarked Man when I eventually managed to get it read. I did think the plot was a bit convoluted in places and there were a lot of different characters. Sometimes I would have to try and remind myself who the different people were and how they were connected, particularly if they hadn't been mentioned for several chapters. However, I thought it was a good read.

I am puzzled about the problem with the font that some people are apparently having. It just looked like a fairly standard font to me and my OH didn't have any problems with it either. We have all the Strike books and they are all printed in the same font i.e. Bembo.

I've just borrowed on the Libby app a book that Ann mentioned, Susie Dent's Guilty by Definition. I'm looking forward to reading that.

Sounds interesting. Will look forward to hearing what you think of it.

I enjoyed the Hallmarked Man but hated the font used. I had to have a spot light on the pages. When I mentioned it to the librarian she said several people had commented on that.

I’m just about to get my go at reading The Bone Garden by Samuel Beckett as OH has finished it. It is the latest in the David Hunter series. He is a forensic anthropologist who gets called in by the police.

Thanks Ann.

sorry a bit of brain fog there Vera. Author Susie Dent, title of book Guilty By Definition

I'm a little bit confused by your last post Ann. What's the title of the book and is the author Susie Dent? I'd like to read it as it sounds as though it would interest me.

I finished The Indigo Ghosts. It was quite a strange story apparently involving magic powers and some form of voodoo. It's hard to say much about it without giving the plot away. A particular group of people move a very old object around with them because they believe it is powerful and gives them protection. Rational people in the book see things that a rational mind would know cannot be happening but they apparently are happening. I expected there would be some explanation in the last chapter or two but there wasn't and the reader is left wondering was it a form of magic, had there been some sort of brainwashing or ideas implanted in people's imaginations so that they saw what they expected to see or some sort of local mass hysteria. I'm not describing this very well but, though I really enjoyed the book, I found it a bit unsatisfying. I would have liked to know what the author, Alys Clare, was trying to say to her readers.

Back down to earth now as I am reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith which, I think, is the latest book in the Cormoran Strike series. It's a long book of over 900 pages and I'm only up to about page120. It's a stand alone story but a lot of the characters follow on from earlier books. A man is found dead in the vault of a silver dealer who deals a lot in masonic artefacts. Is the man who he was purported to be and why was he killed in the way he was? Is there a link to the Freemasons? I'm enjoying it as I've read all the earlier books and have got into the style of Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling).

I have just fisihed what I thought was a really good book. It was a mystery story, the sister of somebody who worked in the Clarendon English library at the bodliean in Oxford. Their job was on origins of words from way back, disappeared some years ago. ( I actually had to google and he Clarendon Building exists, it is where the Bodlean library is )
This is a fictional story though And it is based on letters and postcards sent to various members of the team, each containing, verses or sentences that contain clues, much like a crossword I suppose. Through these clues they solve the disappearance. It is a very clever book Susie Dent is co presenter and resident word expert on Countdown. I really enjoyed the book trying to figure out the clues (I guess if you don't like words you wouldn't like the book, but then you probably would not be reading this). I was quite sorry to have reached the end.

I finished Angel in the Glass and enjoyed it enough to download the next book in the series from the library. This one is called The Indigo Ghosts. I've only just started it but it's keeping me interested so far and seems to involve strange goings-on aboard the ship on which Gabriel Taverner (the main character in the series of books) once served.

I've just started reading The Angel in the Glass, the second book in the Gabriel Taverner series by Alys Clare that Tabitha mentioned. They seem to be stand-alone stories so it doesn't matter that I haven't read the first book. So far, so good. It's easy reading without being too simple and, although I haven't got very far into it yet, I'm enjoying the story.

It was the TV series of Grace and Bsnks that kept me going in the months after T died.

I didn't see any of the Roy Grace programmes on TV though I did see some of the Inspector Banks series. I usually prefer the original books to later films and TV programmes. I finished the book One of Us is Dead and returned it to the online library and thought I'd have a look to see if they had available any of the Gabriel Taverner books by Alys Clare that Tabitha mentioned. There appear to be quite a few books in that series but they only had books 2 and 3 and both were already out on loan. I've placed a hold on book 2 (can't remember what it was called). I'll get an email when it's available and can then download it to my iPad.

I've got a couple of unread books on my kindle plus a couple of hardback books on the shelf that I haven't started yet but they are so thick and heavy that they make my wrists ache if I try to sit up in bed with them. I'll get around to them sooner or later.