Over on my partner's own blog (which you can now see via News and Views as well), he's been posting some reviews of books read whilst travelling recently.
The first review is
and the second is for
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
(Both are books which he is recommending incidentally).
Recently, on his way back from Orlando, storms there held Adam up, which meant an unexpected overnight in LA, and a quick trip to Small World Books in Venice Beach - lucky me scored some great Bitter Lemon and SOHO Crime titles. The first of these I read was Goat Song by Chantal Pelletier. Opening paragraph:
This is actually the first Ed Loy book - I read the second, The Colour of Blood a while ago and really liked it - so I've been meaning to get to this first book for a while.
"The night of my mother's funeral, Linda Dawson cried on my shoulder, put her tongue in my mouth and asked me to find her husband. Now she was lying dead on her living-room floor, and the howl of a police siren echoed through the surrounding hills."
In an article today on The Sydney Morning Herald's site it's been announced that Sandra Harvey has died after a short battle with cancer. She was 49 years old.
Just a short snippet from the article:
"Harvey, a former Sydney Morning Herald and AAP journalist, wrote a number of acclaimed non-fiction books about notorious Australian crimes.
Paranormal crime fiction, which should be interesting for me at least. First paragraph:
"She didn't feel quite right about the red dress; it wasn't a red dress kind of day. The blue one was nice. She'd tried on the blue one twice already, but the more she thought about it, te more she knew it had to be green. Yes, green would be best for today."
Not having quite finished with my current run of "darks" - Dark Flight, by Lin Anderson. This is my second book from this Edinburgh based author.
Little more than a first paragraph this time, to give you a general feel for how the book opens
"'You can go outside, but stay in the garden. Do you hear me, Stephen?' His mum's voice was shrill, like a witch's.
The Great Victorian Summer Read is a great blog which I've been following. The last couple of entries on the blog are from Adrian Hyland (he of Diamond Dove - a great Australian crime fiction novel if ever there was one). As well as Adrian there have been contributions from a lot of other authors who will ring bells. Wander over and have a look, in particular Adrian is talking about the sheer gall of a man writing a story from a woman's perspective and a marvellous tal
The Carnival is on a roll and I'm scrambling to catch up. For Number 8, we stop over at Detectives Beyond Borders for Peter's take on all things criminally attractive in his parts. I can highly recommend a wander over that way - you'll be astounded at what the rest of us haven't yet read!
Bit of a palate cleanser before returning to my current "Dark" theme, first paragraph:
"Last night I'd felt a chill in the air, but today would be another hot one. I'd opened all the windows, and a little fan was humming away on the desk. The stink of sweat mingled with the smell of food from the bowling alley in the basement. The odour of hamburgers and chips came wafting up to my office on the fourth floor. I thought I'd read in the paper that the place had gone bust last winter, but now the smell of fast food was spreading through the building."
Labelled as "a deeply unnerving literary thriller from acclaimed New Zealand writer Neil Corss - one of the scriptwriters on Spooks - that tantalises and then shocks the reader, as it delves into a troubled mind and untangles the complex relationships that surround an unusual family".
First paragraph:
"It was only a dead ape. Patrick had seen dozens, one way or another. He'd seen them die naturally, of old age and disease - and heard the war-shrieks as they murdered each other. He'd watched them cannibalize their young".