The "I am currently reading" thread

The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir.

Disturbing Icelandic noir. Don't know how this one passed me by as I'm usually all over her new releases so I was made up to find it in Oxfam.

Recently read 'The Verdict of You All' by Henry Wade, his first detective story from 1929; and 'The Colour of Murder' by Julian Symons, which has just been reprinted by the British Library as part of their classic crime series (though my copy is a tatty old Fontana paperback from the 60s). Both very good.

I've got three on the go: Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen, about how America lost its mind and reason; Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson (fabulously snarky); and Summer Knight by Jim Butcher, which I mostly like, but the series is starting to strain by capacity to suspend my disbelief (and if I have to read 'hells bells!" any more I might just shred it for use as cat litter).

And speaking of books that should not be tossed aside lightly, I had a crack at Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. So much promise, so much cringing irritation and sad disappointment.

Just finished 'The word is murder' by Anthony Horowitz; I thought this was even better than Magpie Murders so again, definitely recommended to crime fans.

Now on to 'November Joe' by H. Hesketh Prichard; the title character uses his skills as a backwoodsman in Canada to solve crimes there (so in a way a bit of a forerunner to Arthur Upfield's Australian detective Bony).

Prichard had first hand experience in the environment he was writing about and led a very adventurous life (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesketh_Hesketh-Prichard), though he's probably best remembered today for writing an exceptionally good book of ghost stories with his mother under the name E. & H. Heron, about the adventures of psychic detective Flaxman Low.

A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin by Helen Forrester. Vivid portrayal of life in Liverpool for the underpaid in 1939/40.

Reginald Hill - A Cure For All Diseases

Just finished 'The Kidnapping of Madame Storey' by Hulbert Footner, the last of a series of novels and short story collections that Footner wrote in the 1920s and 30s about the beautiful Madame Rosika Storey, who, together with her plainer sidekick Bella Brickley, thwarts criminals with a combination of detection and action. I wouldn't really call them detective stories, they lean a bit too much towards the thriller for that, but I quite enjoyed it.

Now just started 'The Mystery at Stowe' by Vernon Loder, first published in 1928 and recently reprinted by Collins in their Detective Story Club imprint. Loder was an author who churned out 22 titles over the next decade, all well thought of at the time and all pretty much unobtainable since, so it's good to see him back in print.

I suddenly found myself without reading material so reread the whole Arnaldur Indridasson series of Reyjavik murder novels from Jar City to Strange Shores.

Got a whole new perspective on the overarching theme by reading them straight after one another rather than having to wait years in between publishing.

I picked one of Indridasson's from the charity table at your suggestion Taxman... Its next on the pile!

Now on The Soul of Discretion by Susan Hill. A Simon Serrailler case where he has to go undercover to crack a paedophile ring. It started off really well and I was quite gripped but it's beginning to stretch the bounds of credibility at the moment.

I went to bed with "Let The Right One In" last night and had nightmares abouts cats coming in through my bedroom window and attacking me.

Bill Bryson's African Diary

Some weeks later, I was summoned to CARE's London offices for a meeting with Dan, his boss Will Day and a rugged and amiable fellow named Nick Southern, CARE's regional manager for Kenya, who happened to be in London at the time. We sat around a big table spread with maps of Kenya, while they outlined what they had in mind for me.

 

"Of course, you'll have to fly to the refugee camp at Dadaab," Will observed thoughtfully at one point. He glanced at me. "To avoid the bandits," he explained.

 

Dan and Nick nodded gravely.

 

"I beg your pardon?" I said, taking a sudden interest.

 

"It's bandit country all round there," Will said.

 

"Where?" I asked, peering at the map for the first time.

 

"Oh, just there," Will said, waving a hand vaguely across most of east Africa. "But you'll be fine in a plane."

 

"They only rarely shoot at planes," Nick explained.

 

This wasn't at all what I had had in mind, frankly. By way of homework, I had dutifully watched Out of Africa, from which I derived the impression that this trip would mostly take place on a verandah somewhere while turbaned servants brought me lots of coffee. I knew that we would probably visit a clinic from time to time and that someone in the party might occasionally have to shoot a charging animal, but I hadn't imagined anything shooting at me in return.

 

"So how dangerous is Kenya then?" I asked in a small controlled squeak.

 

"Oh, not at all," they responded in unison.

 

"Well, hardly," Will added.

 

"It depends on what you mean by dangerous, of course," said Dan.

 

"Like bleeding and not getting up again," I suggested. "Being shot and stabbed and so forth," I added.

 

They assured me that that only very rarely happened, and that it was nearly always one or the other. You had to be very unlucky to be shot and stabbed, they said.

 

"It's mostly diseases you have to worry about," Nick went on. "Malaria, schistosomiasis, trypanosomiasis."

 

"Rift Valley fever, blackwater fever, yellow fever," said Dan.

 

"Dengue fever, bilharzia--the usual tropical stuff," added Will.

 

But they pointed out that you can be inoculated against many of those and for the rest most people manage a more or less complete recovery, given time and a considered programme of physiotherapy. Many even walk again. I asked if there was anything else I should know.

 

"Well, the roads are a little dangerous--there are some crazy drivers out there," Will said, chuckling.

 

"But apart from that and the diseases and the bandits and the railway from Nairobi to Mombasa, there's absolutely nothing to worry about," Nick added.

 

"What's wrong with the railway?"

 

"Oh, nothing really. It's just the rolling stock is a little antiquated and sometimes the brakes give out coming down out of the mountains--but, hey, if you worried about all the things that might happen you wouldn't go anywhere, would you?"

 

"I don't go anywhere," I pointed out.

 

They nodded thoughtfully.

 

"Well, it'll be an adventure," Will said brightly. "You'll be fine, absolutely fine. Just check your insurance before you go.