5th October 2024

The online blurbs when I ordered this were not explicit enough that this is the script of the audio play, and not a novelisation. So I was slightly surprised with what I found inside, and I’ve seen other readers with the same comment.

Surprise aside though, I don’t have a problem with reading it in this format, although it does reduce the density down quite significantly and mean that there’s not a huge amount of story for your money.

Set between the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard, we see Raffi and Seven having some downtime when they are called upon to help defend a collection of cultural artefacts.

It’s a good little adventure that shows the two characters learning how they can complement each other, while also exploring the wider Trek universe in this time, and dealing with some classic sci-fi issues at the same time. There’s a lot of humour as well, which keeps some of the scenes flowing.

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5th October 2024

Richard Osman proves that he can write a fun and compelling novel without his usual cast of characters, as we meet Amy, Steve, and Rosie, a somewhat unlikely team, and yet one that’s been great fun to read about.

The tone retains the same relaxed approach of his previous novels despite much more exotic settings. There’s a lot of humour throughout although balanced with a decent amount of introspective grief that combine to make very real feeling characters.

I did find some parts felt a bit confusing, as if I’d missed something and so wasn’t following the plot correctly, but I think this is how I’m meant to have felt, and was part of the classic obscuring of details that goes into making a mystery story.

I had a really nice team reading this and look forward to seeing how these characters evolve in the coming years.

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28th September 2024

Rebus is solidly retired, and his ex-colleagues Siobhan and Malcolm assigned to separate stations and cases, as we are thrown into new investigations when someone tries to shoot old foe Big Ger.

While there are unpleasant crimes referenced, Rankin keeps to his usual style of keeping our focus on the investigators for almost the entire story, and this provides the perfect presentation for me to sympathise with the protagonists without being off-put by the evil.

It’s a complex case, and I enjoyed following the many threads and seeing how the relationships between the characters are continuing to evolve. After so many books I’m really impressed with how Rankin keeps them flowing.

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28th September 2024

The 3 Dahlias reconvene in Wales after one receives a death threat, and various other mysteries surround the production of their new film.

Unlike the first novel, the perspective shifts frequently between the three main characters, and I found that made the flow slightly less smooth. I’m not sure how the original style could have been preserved now though.

I didn’t find myself as captivated as by the first novel either, despite it being a solid mystery with a good range of characters and lots going on. I think it almost loses something without all the insecurities in the just-beginning relationship between the characters.

That said, it’s still been an enjoyable read and I’m planning to continue with this series as future entries become available in paperback.

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28th September 2024

The final part of the trilogy sees us return to the Empire and our four leads as their journeys separate around the continents.

It’s a satisfactory conclusion, drawing all the strands together and tying them up neatly. But it also feels a bit too neat in places and a bit too straightforward. I was left wanting something more.

For me, only one of the plot lines felt like it had the magic of the first book, and that was the one I was least expecting.

I’m not really sure how to look back over this trilogy now, and whether I’ve enjoyed it as much end to end or wish it had grown in a slightly different direction to throw more intrigue in.

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28th September 2024

Janice Hallett returns for yet another of her genius mystery stories presented in the form of found written material.

This time, the notes come from an MA course in art, and include coursework, the teacher’s and students' notes, and informal communication between them, as what starts out a standard marking process becomes much more suspicious.

The concept is amazing to conceive and must take so much effort and thought to put together so meticulously. I particularly love how secrets are kept in plain sight for so long and just astound when they are revealed.

However I did think this time the ending felt somewhat unsatisfactory, and I’m not sure I entirely followed all of the final twists and reveals.

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16th September 2024

A fascinating prequel to the Rivers of London series in which we visit prohibition-era New York, see the Nightingale in full action, and learn quite a lot of history too.

It’s not quite what I was expecting from seeing previous descriptions of this novella from the author, but I thoroughly enjoyed in nonetheless.

We meet up with a Bertie Wooster type character, a minor practitioner, who has popped over to New York for a while and found himself naturally living in privilege, for the most part. Until the Nightingale appears and sets him off on a complex and daring mission.

My favourite thing though was the amount I learnt about the era, and particularly how the authorities treated various subcultures, and how those communities acted in defiance. There’s a number of interesting realities slipped in between the fantastic that made it educational and entertaining.

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