Anyway, I want to read 500 books in the next 5 years. Why? Well, why not? To be honest, it is because I am currently in that unpleasant (to me) situation where, as we await the birth of a baby, I am being told left, right and centre by everyone from close friends to complete strangers that I am never going to get time to read again when the baby is born, and me being stubborn (as well as getting pretty annoyed at the smug insistence that these people know me and my life better than I know myself!) I thought – well, let’s just wait and see shall we? So, I thought I would record my reading publicly again just so I can point all of those unwanted advice givers somewhere as they prepare themselves to announce “I told you so”…

So, baby is due in 9 weeks, and I set my start date from yesterday, 14th September 2011 for my long term reading project. So, here’s the first book…

James Patterson…well, it is an easy place to start I guess. His books aren’t exactly difficult to get through. One of the reason I am reading them is that my book collection (now in excess of 1300 books) doesn’t fit very well in our house so I am making some decisions about which books I can donate. Patterson’s entire oeuvre falls into that category. However, before I donate anything, I will read them so I can churn through them pretty quickly and pass them on – leaving room for something better!

I have been working through the Alex Cross series over the years – this is number 4. Frankly, it brought no surprises. Cross faces his old nemesis, Gary Soneji, while at the same time an even more sinister, macabre killer – Mr Smith – is also on the loose. The first part of the book is devoted to the chase for Soneji as he embarks on his murderous swansong. Then we swing around to the case of Mr Smith, meeting another FBI agent, Thomas Pierce, along the way.

As usual there is an Alex Cross love interest. Unfortunately, Patterson feels the need to add steamy bedroom scenes into the books which simply don’t work for me. If I wanted to read about bedroom gymnastics, I would pick up a romance, not a gruesome crime fiction. I also get a little bit tired of the saccharine sweetness of Cross’s children who seem to never, ever behave badly, have bad days or annoy their parent or caregiver. Goodness, if children were all like the angelic Jannie and the perfect Damon, then perhaps having them wouldn’t be such a challenge! Finally, the identity of Mr Smith, set out as a clever twist, really didn’t hold together for me. It was a good idea, but it was poorly executed and came off as contrived. I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief quite enough to feel satisfied with it.

So, no, I didn’t enjoy this as much as I have been enjoying, say, Henning Menkel (I launched into a Wallander the minute I had finished the last page of Cat and Mouse), but then I didn’t expect to. Patterson’s books are the CSI Miami of the book world – pretty, plot driven, but ultimately empty and when its over in half an hour (or a few hours in the case of the book) you are left with a feeling that you haven’t really been fed much substance.

Rating: 3/10
Date Finished: 14 September 2011
Copyright: 1997
Pages: 342
Verdict: Read once then move on…

The main character of this book – or series of books, as I am led to believe – is a man with a pretty abrasive personality. I don’t think I have ever read a book where the main character managed to anger so many people. But he did it in a way that created arguments and unpleasantness. The result was several slightly artificial but nevertheless unpleasant. Can one man really have such an effect? Particularly when he first met his new ‘employer’, Junior Willis. Within several hours he had managed to hack Willis off so much that when Janeway threatened to leave without taking the job, Willis never stopped him and never really came back. The author explained it away by saying that Willis had a bad temper. Perhaps politeness in society is different in Idaho, but that just didn’t ring true.

Characters were picked up, developed to a point, and then just as quickly dropped again. Janeway’s fickleness when it came to suspects was highlighted by how thinly the author tried to point the fingerat one person after another (not very convincingly, unfortunately). Granted, I didn’t pick who was to blame until later in the book, but the guilty party had been introduced quite awkwardly earlier in the book so that when it turned out that it was that person who did it, I felt pretty unsatisfied.

The biggest problem with this book was that it just didn’t flow. It was like a series of hiccups with a bit of harmony in between. I can see what the author was trying to do and I liked the fact that he tried to do something a bit different with the subject matter, but it just didn’t work for me. I want to find out a bit more about the difference between a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac (it wasn’t a distinction I had ever heard of, so one good thing is my curiosity has been piqued) but I just couldn’t buy it. I couldn’t buy the fact that everyone had been in love with the ‘bookwoman’ of the title, and I couldn’t buy the fact that Janeway managed to make his way into the racing circuit without so much as a hitch. I couldn’t buy the amount of time his girlfriend, Erin, spent on the case when she was supposed to be a lawyer, and I struggled with his career change and indecision. Basically I found Janeway arrogant and blundering in a not particularly nice way. I gave it a go, but I won’t read another one of these. They weren’t for me.

Rating: 4/10
ISBN: 0-7318-1307-3
Publisher: Scribner
Year: 2006
Date finished: 6th January 2010
Pages: 337

Two severed hands were discovered beneath a waterside restaurant in Bristol by the police diving time. What starts out as a routine investigation soon delves into the world of African muti, witchcraft, superstition and belief which touches upon all levels of society – from middle class restaurant owners and academics through to the underworld of heroin addicts and council tenants. Jack Caffrey, Mo Hayder’s regular character, solves the case along with Flea Marley – a police diver with a tragic secret. The characters come together to solve the crime and in the process, start to deal with some of their own issues.

I do like books which you can fly through, like this one. I can forgive the shallowness and lack of character dimension because I understand these have to be sacrificed to produce a quick on-the-train read. As such, I try not to be too dismissive of these ‘factory’ produced novels which are churned out on schedule and sold in Tescos for £3.99. I don’t see this as saying the author isn’t talented or doesn’t have skill – she produces what the publishers ask her to produce and provides us with CSI or Law and Order in book form which we can use for a bit of escapism when the rest of the world seems a bit too tough to take.

Rating: 6/10
ISBN: 0553820435
Publisher: Bantam Books
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 19 December 2009
Pages: 560 (but it was pretty much large print!)

The truly wonderful thing about reading fiction is that it can transport you to places that you might otherwise never go to, and give you an insight into a culture, a country or a conflict which you simply cannot gain if you just read the news. The Bethlehem Murders is a murder mystery set in modern day Palestine, with a backdrop of violence, injustice and religious and political unrest. You might wonder how, in a region which sees death and destruction on a daily basis, one particular murder could become an issue. But war should not remove humanity, and when people are killed without explanation or reason, it is absolutely correct that it should be investigated and the perpertrators should be caught.

The main character and unwilling detective in this novel is Omar Yussef. Yussef is angered and dissillusioned by what has happened to his homeland. An academic and peaceful man, before Israel began it’s strong arm tactics and before militarism was glorified above all else, he had had friends from all religions and all backgrounds. Although he works as a teacher, his liberalism is catching up with him at the time that the events of this novel occur.

Yussef is drawn into political events when one of his former students, George – a Christian and a good man – is arrested. Yussef knows that although George will have a trial, he is doomed to die. Finally, Yussef’s outrage with his country and his countrymen force him to do something, and he becomes embroiled in a dangerous game of politics. When another of his students – an innocent girl, is brutally murdered, Yussef nearly loses hope, but his perseverance drives him on to solve the crimes, and ultimately save himself and his family as chaos seems to hit.

I liked the character of Yussef, although he irritated me slightly. I admired his bloody-minded determination to find out what was happening, in spite of his age and lack of fitness, but at the same time it annoyed me. Maybe I have been spoilt by the brilliance of Adam Dalgleish, the sharpness of Tempe Brennan and the grumpy intelligence of Morse, so Omar Yussef just wasn’t a hero for me. Nevertheless, the story was gripping, and the window on a world that I barely know about. Granted, it only gave ‘one side’ of the conflict, although I can’t help but sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians. But if these were the kind of people Matt Rees encountered when he was there, then they certainly have an indomitable spirit.

Rating: 7/10
ISBN: 978-1843545927
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 24 February 2009
Pages: 272

As the author states at the end of Mistress of the Art of Death:

It is almost impossible to write a comprehensible story set in the twelfth century without being anachronistic, in part at least.

Nevertheless, Ariana Franklin has managed to do just that, and irrespective of anachronisms, has produced a fabulous tale with pace, great characters and a fascinating storyline. The story is set in Cambridge in the late 1100′s. When one of the town’s children is found brutally murdered, the blame immediately falls upon the town’s Jewish community. Several are killed in the backlash and the entire community is shut in the town’s castle for their own safety while the townsfolk bay for their blood.  Several more children are discovered, and the fact that the Jews are in forced captivity does nothing to assuage the accusations. King Henry II, who earns a lot of money from the countries Jewish population is very unhappy. While the Jews are locked away, his source of income is stopped and he wants something done about it.

Arriving in a manner which harks back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, an odd trio sent by the King of Sicily to investigate the murders. Entering the city with a large and disparate group of pilgrims, one of whom (the author suggests) is the murderer, the team are still unusual.

Heading up the team is Simon of Naples, a shrewd interrogator and a Jew himself. With him are a doctor from Salerno who specialises in examining dead bodies in order to determine the cause of death, and the doctor’s assistant. What is unusual though is that the doctor is a woman, and her assistant is an Arabic eunuch. She is the mistress in the art of death of the title and she is a fabulous character.

I love strong heroines, and Adelia fitted my idea of the perfect heroine beautifully. She was intelligent, not overly prone to emotion, strong and sure of herself. Her career had meant that she had forsaken the usual feminine desires of marriage and children, but sure enough – her arrival in England and examination of the crimes soon finds her falling in love. However, doing so doesn’t mean that she relinquishes her freedom to become the submissive wife, which is why I loved the ending. Adelia remains strong and she refuses to give up the job she loves.

Unless you really know medieval English history, the anachronisms which the author mentions make no difference whatsoever. I don’t see them as errors in history – I see them as poetic license. This is fiction and there are no rules that says historical fiction must adhere to the facts of that period. What the author has achieved is a balance between the true history of Cambridge in the 12th century, and the required imaginative affectations to produce a great story. I enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed the humour and although I had worked out who was the perpetrator half way through (sadly, I have a habit of being able to do that, but it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story), I really enjoyed the conclusion. Adelia was a marvellous character, although I think the author’s best portrait was of the king, Henry II, whom she gives a shrewd and clever personality and an ability not just to awe, but to fool completely. When you read a lot of dry history, discovering a personality for a major player, albeit fictional, is a plesure.

I’d be curious to know if Franklin was planning on continuing with Adelia as a character, but it would be nice if she did.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-0-553-81800-0
Publisher: Bantam Books
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 15 December 2008
Pages: 505

I started writing this review more than three weeks ago and then stopped. I am not sure why, although I do put it, and my reading hiatus, down to a change in routine for me. The problem with coming back to finish a review is the book isn’t nearly as fresh in my mind. Therein lies a lesson, and one which I have constantly considered and never undertaken – take notes when you read so that the thoughts and impressions you get can be referred back to long after you close the cover.

But let me try and get this finished…

Alex Cross is back in his third adventure, and, although I know that there are a stack of books to come, I am not sure where James Patterson is going to go after this one. I mean, where can he go after presidential assassinations and two different murderers running riot in Washington?! I did enjoy Jack and Jill more than the previous book however. Cross seemed a little more grounded, and although there was a love interest (who, sorry for the spoiler, conveniently becomes “available” at the end of the book) it seemed that this one might be more long lasting.

You don’t read Patterson for depth. You read him for pace, short chapters, breathtaking final sentences, twists and several ours of action packed escapism. In this book, you got all of that including the gore of the murders and the twisted minds of the murderers. Running the two murders in tandem made for an interesting storyline. You questioned continuously whether they were related or not or whether Cross was just really unlucky (the Die Hard-like bad day came to mind on several occasions) or really popular with the bad guys. Despite this layering of crime, it remained reasonably believable which I think is a skill in itself. He might not be out to produce literary classics, but I can’t fault Patterson for being able to tell a story.

You can read another great review here:

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0446604801.asp

Rating: 6/10
ISBN: Book club book – no ISBN printed
Publisher: BCA
Year: 1996
Date Finished: 20 June 2008
Pages: 432
Challenges:

It is said that In Cold Blood is the first and finest of the genre of true crime novels, and if it was first, I don’t know, but it was certainly fine. It told the story of the horrific murder of the Clutter family in 1959 by two ex-cons, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. One night, the two entered the Clutter house and shot Herb, his wife Bonnie and his two children, Nancy and Kenyon, with a view to robbing them. The perpetrators left the bloody scene with just under $50.00, a radio and a pair of binoculars.

Unlike most fictional crime novels, there wasn’t an enormous amount of suspense leading up to the event, and at no time did you not know who it was who had committed the crime. Even the motive was established by half-way through the book. Because of this, it should have been a difficult read, and Capote did take great pains to include long descriptions, testimony and psychological assessments, which made for some dense writing at times. And yet, the book was incredibly compelling. The author had spent years meticulously researching and interviewing in order to achieve the thoroughness of In Cold Blood and that most definitely shows. His writing style drives you forward, if for nothing else but to try and understand.

I found that Capote was extremely impartial in his writing. His presence was never once felt. He didn’t pass judgement, nor did he deliberately arouse sympathy or hatred, which made it very unusual to read. Despite the horror of the crime, Capote’s research had exposed both killers to be flawed and yet altogether human individuals. You couldn’t hate them. Indeed, as several of the characters who came across the pair when they were incarcerated said, the worst you could feel was pity. Of course, being a true crime novel, it was very satisfying hunting around on the internet for photographs of the key players. Yet the photos did not change the impression that the author had given.

This is a masterful work, exploring the combined incomprehensibility and familiarity of the human mind.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-0-14-1418257-5
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2000
Date Finished: 27 May 2008
Pages: 336
Challenges: 1/8 of category 2: American Authors for the 888 Challenge

Child 44 is Tom Rob Smith’s first novel, and it is an incredible way to launch one’s career as a suspense writer. Set in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and connected with real events, the book is intensely disturbing and totally gripping at the same time. What struck me most was how terrible the life was for every citizen of the Soviet Union under Stalin. It was like a different world and it was a wonder that people survived through it.

The story follows the fall of Leo Demidov, who holds a high ranking position in the MGB but becomes the object of hatred of one of his subordinates. His fall from grace finds him investigating a murder in a country where officially murder did not exist. Crime was an aberration which was generally ignored or brushed aside without even the semblance of justice, for fear that its presence would question the perfection of the Communist ideal, where because everyone was equal, crime was unnecessary and therefore was naturally eliminated. But idealistic Communism is an impossible proposition when faced with the worst aspects of human nature, and the crimes Leo finds himself faced with are callous, horrific and terrifyingly regular.

This book oozes paranoia and suspicion, which is why it is so disturbing. It seems that within Soviet Russia, there was no such thing as trust, friendship or love because a simple word to the authorities spelt doom for anyone, irrespective of innocence or guilt. The state apparatus apportioned guilt to anyone who did anything even slightly suspicious. If you looked the wrong way at the wrong person, it could mean death. If you treated a pet belonging to a foreigner, you were a spy. If you even thought negative thoughts about the regime, or were indiscreet enough to mutter them, your future generally comprised of hard labour in a gulag, or execution.

Irrespective of the bravery of Leo and his wife beneath such a hostile regime, the message that stood out so strongly for me in this book is that without trust, without care of another and for another, without confidence, then human life is simply a shadow. It is almost not worth existing, when your entire life is spent wondering whether a misplaced word would result in your arrest. This story is the tale of the absolute worst of human nature. It is brutishness, selfishness, paranoia, hatred, fear and vindictiveness laid bare. I am only pleased that as the story progressed, some of the better sides of human nature began to show out otherwise it would have made for grim reading indeed.

I had to suspend my disbelief a little for the ending. After the man hunt mounted to catch Leo and Raisa, I felt it ended a little suddenly and a little more tamely than I would have thought. I can see that the author has left a couple of hanging threads for the next novel in the series which is fine, but after the pace and excitement of the whole novel, without giving a spoiler, the final pages fell a little bit flat for me. Also, I found myself a little irritated by the style of the dialogue. Rather than

“putting conversation in inverted commas, as is normal”

the conversation was written

- In italics and not marked in inverted commas

Just like uppercase letters are generally read as shouting, in my mind the dialogue throughout felt like it was being whispered or spoken a long distance away. Although perhaps that was the intention.

This is not to detract from an incredibly exciting book and a fantastic first novel. I’ll be on the lookout for this author in the future.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-1-84737-127-0
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 23 April 2008 (at 3.00am!)
Pages: 469
Challenges: 4/8 Category 1 of the 888 Challenge: Crime Fiction; S from the A-Z Challenge; 2/8 from The Pub Challenge

Related articles by Zemanta

• Review: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• Tom Alderman: Book Review: “Child 44″

This is a courtroom drama with a difference. It is a courtroom drama with a definite purpose. The author actually seeks to teach the reader something and open their eyes as well as entertain them. It was an interesting combination which I really enjoyed, but which could take the average reader who is just looking for a bit of escapism by surprise.

Plea of Insanity starts out as a story of a rookie prosecutor, Julia Valenciano, who is given her big break by being asked to act as second seat in the murder trial of the decade. David Marquette has apparently slaughtered his entire family in one night, including his 6 week old daughter, and then turned the knife quite harmlessly upon himself. It appears to be a solid case, despite his engagement of one of the best (and most expensive) defence lawyers in town. But when a plea of insanity is filed, suddenly Julia is forced to realise that for the past 15 years she has been living a lie and this case is going to tear her entire life apart.

What it becomes is an exploration of schizophrenia, the nature of the disease and its often tragic and misunderstood consequences. As the author notes in the Epilogue, it is a disease which is rarely acknowledged because it remains such a mystery to medical professionals and the public alike. Like anything which isn’t understood, schizophrenia invites fear and scorn, and it doesn’t take long for Julia to realise that fear and scorn are the most damaging reactions possible. I knew very little about the disease, and I was glad of the care which Hoffman put in to explanations of the symptoms and effects. I could feel precisely when my own judgement of the situation changed – and it was at the time that Julia too began to understand how close schizophrenia was to her. The interesting thing is that Hoffman does still leave you questioning at the conclusion of the trial. You have to come to your own conclusion about who is suffering from the illness and who isn’t. The whole storyline was very well done.

It was a long book but it did keep you guessing. There were passages which were perhaps a little drawn out. I am not really convinced when one character says a line of dialogue and it is followed by two pages of the other’s characters thoughts before they actually give their one line reply. Yes, the mind works very quickly and yes it certainly kept the tension, but it generally found me skipping paragraphs to find out what was said, and then having to go back and re-read them in case I had missed something important.

Otherwise, it was a great book and one which has piqued my interest in schizophrenia – I would like to read more about it. And judging by the tragic true story upon which this was very loosely based, I think that is exactly the reaction that the author was seeking.

Rating: 7/10
ISBN: Book club copy – no ISBN
Publisher: BCA
Year: 2007
Date finished: 26 March 2008
Pages: 598
Challenges: 3/8 of category 1: Crime Fiction for the 888 Challenge

Mickey Haller’s office is the back of his car. He conducts his business as a defence attorney from the back seat of his Lincoln, defending criminals of all shades – drug dealers, prostitutes, rapists and thieves. And then Louis Roulet, arrested for assault, specifically asks for Haller to defend him. Suddenly, the Lincoln Lawyer is forced to question whether he can even spot innocence, and how deeply his career choice has taken him over to the side of his clients.

Having studied Law at university (and not having a particularly enjoyable time of it) I came to this book with mixed feelings. Would I have picked it up had it not been one of my reading group books this month? I am not sure. But having read several of  Michael Connelly‘s Harry Bosch series, I was happy to give it a try. I wasn’t disappointed. In contrast to Patterson’s book, I found the storyline more intricate. I both liked and disliked Haller which made him very real.  And although I had to force my way through the courtroom drama a little, I did enjoy it enough to get it finished within three days of starting!

What I enjoyed so much about this book was that each vital plot point was held together with some fascinating fabric. Although the descriptions of some of the other cases Haller was dealing with were inconsequential, they were still interesting, to the point of me not even noticing that they weren’t fundamental to the story. I also liked the fact that after the whole ordeal, rather than finding some artificial ‘new path’ and turning to a more ‘moral’ business, Haller stuck with what he knew. He was brought up a defence lawyer, and he remained a defence lawyer – his skin staying thick and his priorities firmly embedded in the reality of business rather than the confusing maze of morals. As he said, he is a fundamental part of the legal system. Without him, it wouldn’t run. That was his job, and that is what he did. No matter how flaky and manipulative his role may appear on the surface, he chose to work for a higher good. That, I respected.

Although written in the first person, I loved the way Connelly never gave anything away, even though it was in the mind of the narrator. It was difficult to see how he was going to get out of the situation, and yet at no time did you feel that the narrator was holding out on you. He’d clearly formulated a plan whilst he wasn’t narrating, which he carried out in secret. My only criticism could be that with him relying so much on what he anticipated would happen, was it perhaps a bit unlikely that it did happen exactly as he wanted it? Although having sat through numerous criminal trials myself, I know that it is not impossible for either counsel to steer the trial the way they wanted it, subtly but effectively, to produce the desired outcome.

All in all a good read from a consistently good crime author.

Rating: 7/10
ISBN: 0-75287-955-3
Publisher:  Orion
Year: 2005
Date Finished: 13th February 2008
Challenges: 2/8 of Category 1: Crime Fiction for the 888 Challenge