metalman

Another month, another selection of mainly crime and science fiction... David Mitchell - Black Swan Green. A year in the life of Jason Taylor, 13, growing up in a Worcestershire village at the time of the Falklands War. This was Mitchell's semi-autobiographical novel, as he did grow up in such a village (in a neat touch, the names of some real Worcestershire villages are used as the surnames of some of the characters). Excellent. Peter Robinson - Wednesday's child. The sixth in the Inspector Banks series. A child is abducted by fake social workers, and a man is knifed to death at a mine; the seemingly separate cases turn out to be linked. Another really good one. Ross Macdonald - The ivory grin. Hired to find a missing nurse, Lew Archer soon finds himself caught up in murder and the search for a kidnapped socialite. As good as the rest of the series. Leo Bruce - Case with ropes and rings. Sergeant Beef, who got the better of some thinly-disguised more famous detectives in 'Case for Three detectives', and his snobbish chronicler Lionel Townsend, investigate when a boy is found hanged in the gym at a public school. Beef's methods involve drinking lots of beer and playing darts, but he gets there in the end. Leo Bruce - Cold Blood. Sergeant Beef is on the case again when a millionaire is bashed over the head with a croquet mallet. I really like this series; it's high time someone reprinted them. Poul Anderson - Tau zero. A starship develops a fault which means it has to keep accelerating. I remember reading this in the early 70s and being suitably mind-boggled by it, and I thought it was still pretty good now. Edith-Jane Bahr - Help please. Stopped at a traffic light in a snowstorm, a woman sees a girl in the neighbouring car mouthing these words. When the girl is found murdered, she realises she could be in danger too. Good. John Buxton Hilton - Dead-Nettle. Inspector Brunt investigates a woman's murder in a Derbyshire lead-mining village in 1905. Lots of local and period detail, but a decent mystery too. 'BB' - A child alone. Denys Watkins-Pitchford's autobiographical account of his early years growing up in a rectory in Northamptonshire. A naturalist of the old school (hunting, shooting, fishing, birds-egg collecting), he wrote all his books under that pseudonym, but illustrated them under his own name (leading one reviewer to say it was as though the artist could see into the author's head). Cordwainer Smith - Quest of the three worlds. For about ten years spanning the 1950s and 60s, Smith was one of the most original SF writers around. This short novel is actually a fix-up of four shorter works, and while not his best, it's still got the same magic. Sadly he died at the early age of 53 in 1966, thus depriving the field of a major talent. Stephen Booth - Dead and buried. Finally got back to the Cooper and Fry series after a few months gap. Wildfire arson and murder at an isolated pub in the Peak District. Excellent.

Think Al Bundy might have called it right here.

Out of Town with Jack Hargreaves. This series from 1980 is on Talking Pictures TV on Monday at 6:30 and repeated on Sunday afternoon. Everything a programme about the country should be, and everything Countryfile isn't.

February's crop of crime, mainly. Robert Thorogood - Death comes to Marlow. Pensioner Judith Potts and her colleagues in the Marlow Murder Club are back, investigating when the Mayor is crushed under a heavy shelf in his study during a garden party. Richard Osman fans will love it, and I thought it was better structured than the first. An enjoyable cosy read. Harry Stephen Keeler - The murdered mathematician. In order to inherit his father's estate, 7ft 6in giant Quiribus Brown has to solve a mathematically-related murder before the end of the month. And what do you know, such a murder has just happened... As bonkers as ever, but this is another later Keeler so it's not so good as the earlier ones. OK though. Would have been better if he'd got the maths right for a start. Elly Griffiths - The night hawks. A group of nocturnal metal detectorists find a body on a Norfolk beach. Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson tie it in with another murder on a farm. Elly Griffiths - The locked room. During the first Covid lockdown, DCI Nelson investigates a series of apparent suicides. Elly Griffiths - The last remains. Body discovered walled up in a Kings Lynn cafe. This is the 15th and for now last book in the series so I thought I'd finish off the last three together. They all display the same strengths of incidental detail, humour, and relationships, but also in differing extents the same weaknesses (plotting, daft motives, Ruth usually ending up trapped by the murderer at the end). Overall though a series well worth reading, even though occasionally it seems to veer alarmingly towards chick lit rather than crime. Freeman Wills Crofts - The end of Andrew Harrison. Now this is more of a proper classical detective story, with clues and actual detection. Harrison, a financier who gives everyone around him plenty of reason to hate him, is murdered on his houseboat at Henley. Inspector French investigates in his usual methodical and meticulous way. Absolutely brilliant. Rebecca Rego Barry - Rare books uncovered. This month's odd one out. Examples of how bibliophiles who know what they're looking for (or at) have managed to find copies of rare books at yard sales, charity shops, in skips and so on. Inspiring and depressing in equal measure. Bruno Fischer - Croaked the raven. Grocer Sam Tree has problems: his secretive wife, her two ex-husbands (one a crook, the other a gambler), and a man with a gun who wants twenty thousand dollars. A good pulpy hardboiled thriller. C.H.B. Kitchin - Crime at Christmas. Malcolm Warren is spending Christmas with friends but on Christmas morning he finds the body of a fellow guest impaled on his balcony railings. Nicely written witty detective story.

Morrisons at Hillsborough is one example, I think.

Yes,, I've noticed I nearly always get stopped at them as well. To be honest I'm not completely convinced this junction needs lights at all - is Middlewood Road that busy? Traffic has to get in and out of Langsett Avenue without the benefit of lights and seems to do it quite efficiently.

Hmm. Wednesday lost 4-0, United losing 4-0 after half an hour prompts me to ask: what's the worst combined performance by both Sheffield teams on a single day? Anything worse than 8-0?

A slow start for the new year, only 8 read this month though the first one is quite long. Hugh Howey - Wool. There are lots of stories where humanity survives in underground bunkers in a post-apocalyptic world, and this is another one. And it's a pretty good example of the genre, though to be honest I was a bit unsure whether it was meant to be a YA novel. George Bellairs - Death in High Provence. Inspector Littlejohn travels to a French village after an Englishman and his wife are killed in a car accident and uncovers plenty of skeletons in the armoire. Very good as usual. Peter Robinson - Past reason hated. Inspector Banks investigates the chequered past of a murdered lesbian. The fifth in this series, and still getting better. Elly Griffiths - The lantern men. A convicted killer reveals the location of more bodies, and forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway unearths the evidence. All the usual strengths and all the usual faults, but a decent read. John Dickson Carr - Castle Skull. This early Carr, one of five to feature detective Henri Bencolin, has been reprinted by the British Library. Set in a castle on the Rhine, there's no locked room in this one, but it was still an entertaining read if rather luridly overwritten. If you've never tried anything by Carr (or his alias Carter Dickson), there are probably better places to start. Greg Egan - Axiomatic. When these stories were written in the early 90s, Egan was a rising star of hard ideas-based SF. I'm not sure he's really fulfilled his potential since, but this is a really good collection. Charles Kingston - The Rigdale puzzle. Another totally obscure 1930s detective story. Smooth-talking chap gets engaged to local squiress and is then promptly shot dead. OK, but the ending was a bit disappointing. Ross Macdonald - The way some people die. Private eye Lew Archer is hired by a woman to find her daughter, but soon finds himself up to his neck in mobsters, narcotics, and murder. Excellent.

A slightly more diverse selection for me last month. Mary Craig - Were he a stranger. When Sydney's husband is killed in a hit and run, she uncovers his double life. Once you got over the idea that a woman can be called Sydney, it wasn't bad. Fougasse & McCullough - You have been warned. Humorous book about motoring in the 1930s by cartoonist Fougasse and writer McCullough (later the first chairman of the Brains Trust radio programme). Dated but amusing. Freeman Wills Crofts - Death on the way. Inspector French teases out a web of fraud and corruption when a railwayman is killed by a train. Excellent. Max Murray - Royal bed for a corpse. Light-hearted detective/spy story by Australian author in which a man is killed in a bed in a stately home. Not bad. Brian W. Aldiss - Non-stop. The classic novel of conceptual breakthrough on a generation starship. This one's now in Gollancz's SF Masterworks series and it's certainly a justified label in this case. Excellent. Peter Robinson - A necessary end. Third in the Inspector Banks series, in which he has to deal with the murder of a policeman at a demo and the London cop sent to solve it. Excellent. Peter Robinson - The hanging valley. Fourth in the series and still improving. Expat home from Canada killed in picturesque Dales spot is linked with the murder of a private eye a few years earlier. Richard Littler - Discover Scarfolk. The first surreally funny Scarfolk book. Bizarrely I bought it from a shop who had put it in the Places of Interest section. Sheila Stewart - Country Courtship. More rural reminiscences from Warwickshire villages in the early 1900s. Excellent. Jenny Randles - Supernatural Pennines. Paranormal goings-on in the hills. Stocksbridge is singled out as a hotspot for such things. The organisation of the book meant a bit too much repetition, but it was still interesting. Elly Griffiths - The stone circle. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is on the job when a girl's body is found in a stone circle (no shock there really). Includes a completely pointless excursion by the main characters to Stanton Drew stone circle in the West Country, but was otherwise not bad, though the need to shoehorn in the ever-increasing cast of recurring characters stretches credulity somewhat. Looking at my posts every month, I've managed to read 124 books altogether over the year, so pretty much exactly one every three days, which isn't bad going.

The usual mix of old and new crime, mostly. Robert B. Parker - Bad business. When Spenser tails a man in a divorce case, he uncovers a web of corporate wife-swapping and murder. As good as always. Barbara Paul - Kill Fee. Editor Leon wants to eliminate his magazine's co-owner. When someone does it for him, he's initially pleased, but then he gets a bill. Another really ingenious crime novel from this versatile author. Richard Hull - A Matter of Nerves. Village butcher is butchered... but which of the inhabitants of a row of new bungalows did it? Somewhat grittier than Hull's earlier books but still entertainingly told. Joyce Porter - Dover Two. Girl in industrial Northern town is shot, remains in a coma for months and is then murdered in the hospital. Doesn't sound amusing but it is because it's the Yard's fattest, laziest detective Wilfred Dover who bungles his way to the answer. Excellent. Keigo Higashino - Salvation of a saint. Man poisoned with arsenic while alone in his flat. Did his wife do it and if so, how, as she was hundreds of miles away at the time? Detective Kusanagi and his physics professor friend Yukawa work it out. Another insanely clever howdunnit. Ross Macdonald - The drowning pool. Family matriarch drowned in swimming pool, but as usual with Lew Archer on the case the body count doesn't stop there. Up to his usual standard. Sheila Stewart - Country Kate. Reminiscences from the Warwickshire village of Long Compton in the early part of the last century. Excellent. Elly Griffiths - The dark angel. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and her on-off lover DCI Nelson decamp to Italy on the flimsiest of pretexts and find a murder there. Actually this was one of the better ones in terms of the motive making vague sense. John Buxton Hilton - Rescue from the Rose. Inspector Brunt investigates the murder of a barmaid in a pub in Buxton in 1911. Cleverly done period setting. P. G. Wodehouse - Piccadilly Jim. Party animal Jimmy Crocker turns over a new leaf and somehow ends up impersonating himself in New York. Excellent as usual. Now reading: Agatha Christie - The thirteen problems. 13 short mysteries solved by Miss Marple. What more can you say?

Well it was as dire as I expected: all the usual faults (no plot, lots of running around) with lots of added wokery.

Why am I not surprised.

We did think about it being a mink, but she reckons it wasn't dark enough brown for one. I'd have thought that mink was more likely than polecat.

A couple of nights ago my wife was driving on Soughley Lane (from Wortley end towards Deepcar end, so heavily wooded) when an animal ran across the road in front of her. She says it was shaped like a stoat or weasel, but much bigger. The only thing that seems to fit the bill is a polecat. Does anybody know if they live in that area, or has anybody else seen one?

Must have been a busy month, I've only read eight this time. Keigo Higashino - Newcomer. Detective Kaga investigates the strangling of a woman in a way that solves several other mysteries along the way. This guy has become one of my favourite authors - if you want a modern crime story but with actual clues and clever detection, he's the one to go for. Excellent. Ross Macdonald - The moving target. Private eye Lew Archer searches for a kidnapped businessman, but finds only several murders. Good hard-boiled mystery. Elly Griffiths - The chalk pit. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is back on the job with some bones found in a tunnel underneath Norwich. For most of its length not bad, but the motive and solution was a bit daft, to put it mildly. Christopher Fowler - The water room. Second in the Bryant and May series. A woman drowned with river water in her own basement leads the duo into the history of London's lost rivers (as many books seem to these days). Good stuff though. Barbara Paul - First gravedigger. Antique dealer Earl Sommers wants to kill his boss. His mate Charlie wants to kill himself. What better idea that to combine the two? Almost any other idea as it turns out. Another clever crime novel by an author I've enthused about before. Pat Flower - Crisscross. Would-be writer and incipient nutcase Edward latches on to successful author Lindsay, but it only leads to murder. OK, but I've read better ones by this Australian author. Jack Vance - The Anome. On the continent of Shant on the planet Durdane, people are kept in order by wearing explosive collars which can be detonated by the Anome, or Faceless Man, if they transgress. Typical Vance hero Gastel Etzwane sets out to change the system. Jack Vance - The Brave Free Men. Etzwane, now effectively in control of Shant, has to repel an invasion by the beast-like Roguskhoi. Second in the Durdane trilogy and as always a major plus point is Vance's exotic world-building. Excellent as usual. Just started: Jack Vance - The Asutra. The last of the Durdane trilogy.