Reading update
Early this month I read the sixth and last book in Chris Mould's Something Wickedly Weird series, The Treasure Keepers. Stanley, Daisy and their new friends the Darkling children have to prevent the island's treasure from being stolen. There is also another werewolf roaming the moors.
I realised I hadn't read any books by Diana Wynne Jones, or perhaps I just can't remember any of them, even though they sound like just the sort of thing I would have enjoyed when I was young - bit of fantasy and magic. Solveig borrowed a new edition Vile Visitors, combining 2 of her books in them - Who Got Rid of Angus Flint? and Chairperson. They both describe a house guest who is extremely difficult to remove until other-worldly forces come into play.
A couple of weeks ago I finished Someone to Watch Over Me, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, set in Reykjavik. It's the fifth book in a series featuring a solicitor, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. She's asked to re-examine a case in which Jakob, a young man who has Down syndrome, was convicted of setting fire to his group home, resulting in the deaths of all the other residents and one of the overnight carers. I really enjoyed her interactions with Jakob - they rang true to me, as did her conversations with other people with disabilities. She also doesn't have a tortured personal life, rather a busy normal realistic one, which provides a nice balance to her investigative work which links the fire investigation to a hit-and-run which occurred around a year earlier.
I've realised I prefer Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford books to her stand-alone ones, probably because the main characters in the latter are always weird and unpleasant. The Monster in the Box is the 22nd book in the Wexford series. Reg spots a man, Eric Targo, from the early days of his career, which triggers a lot of reminiscing one of his early cases and about meeting Dora. Wexford was convinced, based on no evidence, that Targo was the killer in a number of unsolved murders over the years. With a current case, he has the chance to have Targo brought to justice.
I realised I hadn't read any books by Diana Wynne Jones, or perhaps I just can't remember any of them, even though they sound like just the sort of thing I would have enjoyed when I was young - bit of fantasy and magic. Solveig borrowed a new edition Vile Visitors, combining 2 of her books in them - Who Got Rid of Angus Flint? and Chairperson. They both describe a house guest who is extremely difficult to remove until other-worldly forces come into play.
A couple of weeks ago I finished Someone to Watch Over Me, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, set in Reykjavik. It's the fifth book in a series featuring a solicitor, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. She's asked to re-examine a case in which Jakob, a young man who has Down syndrome, was convicted of setting fire to his group home, resulting in the deaths of all the other residents and one of the overnight carers. I really enjoyed her interactions with Jakob - they rang true to me, as did her conversations with other people with disabilities. She also doesn't have a tortured personal life, rather a busy normal realistic one, which provides a nice balance to her investigative work which links the fire investigation to a hit-and-run which occurred around a year earlier.
I've realised I prefer Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford books to her stand-alone ones, probably because the main characters in the latter are always weird and unpleasant. The Monster in the Box is the 22nd book in the Wexford series. Reg spots a man, Eric Targo, from the early days of his career, which triggers a lot of reminiscing one of his early cases and about meeting Dora. Wexford was convinced, based on no evidence, that Targo was the killer in a number of unsolved murders over the years. With a current case, he has the chance to have Targo brought to justice.