50 Books Challenge - 2nd Thread.

The Fine Art of Invisible Detection by Robert Goddard.
A Japanese woman finds herself trying to solve a series of crimes. Set in Japan, England and Iceland.

# 39.
V2- Robert Harris. A thrilling story of the scientists making and launching a supersonic bomb; the Nazis, the launches, the British trying to calculate the launch sites - the bombs were never launched from the same place.

104-Trial & Retribution VI-Lynda la Plante
An unputdownable murder mystery. A woman is kidnapped from a walk in the woods with her daughter. A local man confesses to her murder, but did he do it?
Meanwhile the Detective running the case gets involved in a murder involving the man she loves.

#57 The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman.

This is his latest book in the Thursday Murder Club series and an easy read but I think the novelty has worn off for me, and although I enjoyed it, it's just more of the same. 7/10

55. Go As A River, Shelley Read

Yet again, I’ve my reading group to thank for a book I wouldn’t normally have considered, but have thoroughly enjoyed. In late 1940s small town Colorado, 17 year old Victoria is running the household on her family's peach farm. She’s the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. She encounters Wilson Moon, a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land, and her life is turned upside down. When tragedy strikes, she flees the only life she has ever known, and struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. The writing is just beautiful and the characters so well drawn. Anyone who enjoyed the Crawdads and The North Woods will love this.

56. The Blood Promise, Liz Mistry

I had this writer highly recommended to me by a couple of friends, but this one wasn’t for me. I found the crimes overly gratuitous and gory and characters who are obviously supposed to be amusing just daft and vulgar. I gave up on it less than halfway through.

105-The Blood of an Englishman-M C Beaton
A lighthearted interlude with this Agatha Raisin murder mystery.

106-The Christmas Crumble-M C Beaton
A short story about Agatha's disastrous Christmas dinner party.

Book 51
Capote’s Women - Lawrence Leamer

Thoroughly relieved to get to the end of this ridiculous book.

Truman Capote, celebrated, though far from prolific American novelist, ingratiated himself into the lives is some of the most spoiled, entitled and awful women you could imagine, women for whom their only aim in life was to attract a rich husband, and I mean super rich.

Capote is a nasty, spiteful little man, and I have no idea why these women allowed him to become so important to them, I had a job to tell them apart and had to keep referring back.

In the end he betrayed them, but honestly, I have no sympathy.

I don’t have a problem with being rich, but I found their lives to be completely pointless, they brought nothing to the world, except possibly beauty, and squandered unbelievable fortunes.

Thank you for that anti-review of a book to avoid sara1954.

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#80. The Otley Murders by JR Ellis.

65 The Favour Nicci French

Back to Nicci French for one of their stand alones. Jude is a newly qualified doctor based in London who 11 years ago, as a teenager, had an intense relationship with her first love Liam back in their hometown in Shropshire, before going their separate ways after an unfortunate incident to prove a catalyst many years later in Jude accepting Liam's request to do him a favour. Although she has no idea what the actual favour involves, and possibly because, in spite of no contact for 11 years, she has nevertheless held a torch for Liam who gives her his word what he is asking is straightforward and nothing illegal, she acquiesces in taking his word at face value. Only to find her whole world turn upside down, in up ending a relationship with a fiance who she is about to marry whilst immersed in a murder inquiry that temporary halts her career due to the ramifications of what she has unwittingly embroiled herself in. Initially it was a page turner, but one of those books where the getting there is better than the ending, which was pretty weak and let it down somewhat.

#81. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith.

I commented on the other HM thread about getting this book, I am devouring it at every opportunity as it cannot be renewed at the library, it’s in high demand, and it’s nearly 900 pages long.

No spoilers, but am finding the Strike/Robin relationship more riveting than the crime!

I love reading this thread, I don’t have much time for reading as once I get my nose in a book I like to read several chapters.
Getting recommendations this way is just like a real book club so I make notes and add books to my wish list so thanks to everyone.I don’t read certain genres only, I read anything and in fact like reading wildly different things.
At present am reading a non fiction book by Clive James called
Somewhere Becoming Rain which is collected writings on Philip Larkin.It’s not the kind of page turner that you devour but rather dip into and read one chapter at a time.

Book 52
A Room full of Bones - Elly Griffiths
Enjoyed this, atmospheric, great characters, and a little bit of magic.

Calandargirl, I have pre ordered it from Waterstones, but it hasn’t arrived yet, I’ll be looking forward to it now

Calendargirl

#81. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith.

I commented on the other HM thread about getting this book, I am devouring it at every opportunity as it cannot be renewed at the library, it’s in high demand, and it’s nearly 900 pages long.

No spoilers, but am finding the Strike/Robin relationship more riveting than the crime!

Picking it up today, we've actually bought it, rather than a long library queue. I shall magnanimously pass it on to my husband to read first, he'll tear through 900 pages, faster reader than me, no doubt he'll keep me informed as to how it's unfolding without spoilers of course. I have to crack on with a book club read after a couple of shorter novels so it'll probably be November before I get started on it. Something to look forward to on those dark afternoons.

66 Entitled Andrew Lownie Audible

OMG! what a pair it seemed to go on forever, I kept having to rewind bits for OH, which made it seem even longer. Kicked off with their childhoods, he, an insufferable prat/brat from early childhood, she lacking a mother, hers having left to take off with her second husband Argentinian polo player. Their growing up years, their careers, his in the navy, brief hero status after the Falklands, her some sort of chalet maid. Then their marriage which was really short lived really, inspite of the longevity of their relationship after, more or less over after Eugenie's birth. His displays of arrogance personified by a gigantic and bombastic sense of himself and the deference he expected, how he spoke to staff, his air miles for frivolities such as wanting to get to golf quickly, his rudeness at corporate events if he became bored, his sometimes dodgy business associations and dubious Middle East connections. Her, at times juvenile and unrequited crushes on all manner of men, her profligacy, her waste in having staff prepare umpteen different meals so she'd have a varied choice, cheaper to go to a restaurant surely? 17 staff to do umpteen menials such as picking up dog's doings. How she got all manner of well known people to invest in her business ventures or as a patron/spokesperson given she was prone to embrace loads of woo woo and meaningless mumbo jumbo, and heaven knows, she was certainly never at home it seemed in spite of proclaiming that the most important facet of her life was being a mother, her enormous debts. The book culminates in his sleazy behaviour towards women and the final nail in the coffin, his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

King Charles can't you banish them somewhere? St Helena's where Napoleon was incarcerated would be my suggestion. Then tell them, "you've burnt your boats" and make that literal, so they just stay there for ever and ever! Good riddance.

67 The Water Babies Charles Kingsley BBC Sounds

There was a thread about this, so I had an interlude from the insufferable Yorks to to listen to my favourite childhood book, what a joy it was too.

107-A Pennyworth of Sunshine-Anna Jacobs
The first of a trilogy. A romance between a maid and her landowner boss. I thought this had a slow start but realise it was giving the background facts of all the characters involved. Set in 1859, this story shows what life was like in rural Lancashire, and tells of the bravery of those who chose to seek a new life in the New World of Australia. The 2nd book shows signs of being just as fascinating as this one.

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
I like this author but am disappointed that she has written a plot that is in danger of becoming a hackneyed old chestnut. A bunch of retired spies is tempted out of their book club existence to meddle in a girl's disappearance. The blurb even calls it the Thursday Murder Club on steroids. However, I have started it so I will finish and, to be fair, she is a very good writer.

108-Twopenny Rainbows-Anna Jacobs
The second in the 'Michaels Family' trilogy. The 3 sisters are now all living in Oz but they have been split up and are desperate to find one another.

68 The Safekeep Yael Van Der Wouden

Winner of the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction and short listed for the Booker prize this is a debut novel, not particularly long at around 260 pages, The setting is post war Netherlands, early '60s, Isabel the main character is a reclusive mid 30s woman, pretty restrained and solitary, living out an uneventful life in a family house bequeathed to her brother by their uncle. Brother Louis, doesn't live at the house but is prone to turn up there with numerous girlfriends, the latest Eva, who Isabel takes an intense dislike to in spite of Eva doing all she can to ingratiate herself to Isabel, Isabel's only attachment is to the family house rather than personal relationships those she tends to shun. When Louis goes away on business leaving Eva at the house for the summer, what unfolds is an intense affair between the two women. The sub plot is far more complex and involves the fate of the Dutch Jews with flashbacks to the 1940s and their transportation to concentration camps, survivors on returning to find the confiscation of their property which is very pivotal in this story, in particular the house which for Isabel is a place of all her childhood memories and where her mother died. For Eva there also lies a long held familial attachment. Two inter-entwined family histories, the writer has no doubt drawn on her own Dutch/Jewish family backstory. The book has been widely lauded, obviously the writing is very good, but overall I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, in spite of reviews, which so often raise high expectations, often to fall flat, but then you never know whether or not that's going to be the case with any book.

57. Prophet Song, Paul Lynch

I thought I’d up my game with this, the 2023 Booker prize winner. I was actually reluctant to start it, written as it is with a lot of missing punctuation and stream of consciousness sentences. But boy, it’s good. Set in what seems to be present day Ireland, but for reasons not given it’s a totalitarian state, where people disappear without warning, 16 year olds are conscripted to the nationalist cause, neighbours and colleagues spy and inform on each other, and the world looks on and mentions it in passing in news headlines. It’s totally gripping, powerful and very, very scary. This is definitely one that will live with me.

#62 Killers of a Certain age by Deanna Raybourn
OH read this a couple of years ago, loved it, but passed it on before I got a chance to read it. A copy finally appeared in my local charity bookshop.
A group of 4 ladies of a certain age, retiring from their long careers as international assassins (only bad guys though), are sent on a luxury cruise as a retirement gift. They quickly realise there is a contract out on them and they need to flee and find a way to clear their names. This was great fun, very readable and enjoyable. 8/10

#63 The Favourite by S.V. Berlin
Siblings Edward and Isobel live on opposite sides of the Atlantic and haven’t spoken for years. When their mother dies suddenly, they are thrown together to sort out and clear the family home. Edward’s quiet, mousy, girlfriend Julie works alongside them and all three struggle in their own ways with their relationships, the disagreements of the past and the potential for the future. Julie is perhaps not the little mouse that she originally appears to be.
There are host of characters, some a bit sad, some thoroughly unpleasant, but all pretty well developed and very real. It’s 460 pages long and probably about 100 pages too long. However, I enjoyed it and couldn’t see where it was going to go, it was a bit of a surprise in the end. 7/10

#64 The Last Bloody Straw by J D Kirk. I am really enjoying this series of DCI Logan books set in the Scottish Highlands .
NittWitt it’s good to see you enjoyed one of them too.
This one involves the murder of a woman on a very small Scottish island with a population of about 45. DCI Jack Logan and DC Tyler Neish are taken to the island by helicopter to investigate during a storm that lasts for days and has prevented anyone from leaving or arriving on the island for several days.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. 8/10

Book 53
Echo Burning - Lee Child
Once started, impossible to put down.
Jack Reacher is given a lift by a beautiful young Mexican woman, but she manages to involve him in her desperate situation.

There follows frantic journeys across the unbearable Texas heat, chasing bad guys, and being chased.

So well plotted, very cleverly written, Jack isn’t all muscle, he’s smart and intuitive, an all around super hero.