One of the great things about review books is that you often find yourself reading something that, as the buying public, you may not necessarily have picked up. I always maintain that covers / blurbs from other authors etc make no difference to my reading choices at all - I rely on book buying suggestions from other readers who I respect. Having said that, there are a few "big name" authors whose blurbs tend to push me away from books - don't know why - just bloody-mindedness on my part probably. Old City Hall isn't a book I'd have been drawn towards needless to say, and if the first 100 pages or so that I read last night are any indication I would have missed out if nobody else had recommended the book (and I've not heard it mentioned much anywhere).
From the Blurb:
It's a morning like any other, when seventy-four-year-old Mr Gurdial Singh, former chief engineer of the India National railroad (the largest transportation company in the world), goes on his newspaper round. He is looking forward to his daily exchange with Kevin Brace, popular radio talk-show host on the twelth floor of the luxury Holmes Tower in central Toronto.
Opening Lines:
Much to the shock of his family, Mr Singh rather enjoyed delivering newspapers. Who would have thought that Gurdial Singh, former chief engineer for Indian Railways, the largest transportation company in the world, would be dropping newspapers at people's doors commencing at 5:05 each morning. He didn't need to work. But since coming to Toronto four years earlier, he had absolutely insisted on it. No matter that he was turning seventy-four years old on Thursday next. Yes, it was a silly little job, Mr Singh was forced to concede to his wife, Bimal, and their three daughters, but he liked it.
A celebrated talk-show host confesses to the brutal murder of his young wife. The words "I killed her" are the last he will speak. But what lies behind his vow of silence? Can this really be the straightforward crime of passion it first appears?