Book #53 My Life: It's a Long Story

My Life: It's a Long Story by Willie Nelson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Roll me up and smoke me when I die" Yes, I've got the t-shirt!

I have loved Willie Nelson's music for longer than I can remember and in his 8th decade his voice has mellowed but still resonates with me (might be something to do with all the cannabis he has smoked though!). Willie Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor and activist. He was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, when he was sixty years of age.

My Life: It's a Long Story is the definitive autobiography of Willie Nelson. "Songs come easy to me. I've written hundreds of them. I see them as little stories that fall out of our lives and imaginations. If I have to struggle to write a song, I stop before I start. I figure if it don't flow easy, it's not meant to be"

Nelson is no saint. Married four times with numerous children this is a story of restlessness and the purity of the moment and living right. From his childhood in Abbott, Texas to the Pacific Northwest, from Nashville to Hawaii and all the way back again. This is a story of true love, wild times, best friends and bar-rooms, with a musical soundtrack ripping right through it. His music can make me laugh and make me cry. His book leaves no stone unturned, a story told as clear as a Texas sky.

I loved it and I want to visit Abbott, Texas before someone rolls me up....



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Book #52 The Katharina Code

The Katharina Code: The Cold Case Quartet, Book 1 by Jørn Lier Horst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like the adagio of a symphony, The Katharina Code is beautifully written. A slow movement that spans twenty-five years as chief inspector William Wisting revisits the file on missing Katharina Haugen, every year on the anniversary of her disappearance. Wisting and Katharina's husband Martin have become well acquainted over the years, but searches of Martin's house have led them no closer to an answer. Steinar Vassvik lived immediately opposite; he was the closest the police had come to a suspect in the case - the last person to have seen Katharina.

The case becomes more involved when Adrian Stiller arrives from the National Criminal Investigation Service based in Oslo. He is working on another case: the Nadia Krogh kidnapping that occurred in the late eighties. One of the most notorious cases in Norwegian crime history. Both events occurred in close proximity.

And there we have two plots that intertwine as police and suspects circle each other. As Wisting comes to realise that the answer had been hidden in plain sight for so many years...

Comparisons with Wallander are inevitable (although he was Swedish). Jørn Lier Horst is certainly the equal of Henning Mankell, writing in perfect prose, the perfect slow-burning thriller.

My thanks to Michael Joseph and NetGalley for my ARC of The Katharina Code.

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Book #51 You Let Me In

You Let Me In by Lucy Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So I thought - 400 odd pages, read 100 pages a day and finish in four days. Yeah, right! Be prepared for You Let Me In to grip you from the get go. I could not put this down - well, had to to get some sleep - finished in two sittings - breathless! Wow! An author, Lucy Clarke, writing about an author, Elle Fielding. An internationally recognised and highly successful author based on the publication of her first book. Fame, wealth and enough income to buy a cliff-top property in Cornwall and rebuild a stunning home with beautiful sea views. Sounds good, huh? And Elle is busy writing her second book - oh dear - insomnia, writer's block and a publication deadline to meet. And if she doesn't her world will come collapsing down...

"Have a sense of how your story will end - but allow yourself to step into your character's shoes and be surprised." Author Elle Fielding.

Sounds good. But Elle needs to bolster her income to cover her mortgage and is persuaded to rent her house through Airbnb for a fortnight whilst she attends a book function in France. That sent an early shiver down my spine. Heard too many tales of woe about such rentals. Now, when Elle returns, watch out for the suspense to start. It will creep under your skin. Menace abounds in spades. Who the hell has been in Elle's house? Small events build to something sinister. Does her sister Fiona know anything about these events? After all it was her who welcomed the Airbnb renters. Didn't she?

I cannot say much more about the plot without spoiling too much. But I must say this. You Let Me In has one of the most unexpected twists I have ever read. But wait, a final and further outrageous twist that left me completely blindsided!

Lucy Clarke has written an absolute cracker, one of my best reads this year and highly recommended.

My thanks to HarperCollins publishers, NetGalley and Lucy Clarke for my ARC.

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Book #50 Sentenced to Life

Sentenced to Life by Clive James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Near to death, but thankful for life". This is how Clive James described himself in March 2015 in a BBC radio interview. An atheist suffering with terminal leukemia. Sentenced To Life is a collection of poems he wrote during the period 2011-2014, published in 2015 by Picador. Complex, lyrical poems - stark and unsentimental. Anticipating death he writes with a laconic style.

In Cabin Baggage he talks about his niece coming from Australia to stay with him:
"...But she'll be gone before the peaches come.
On days of burning sun, the air is tinged
With salt and eucalyptus. 'Why am I
Leaving all this behind? I feel a fool'.
But I can tell from how she writes things down
The distance will assist her memories
To take full form. She travels to stay still.
I wish I'd been that smart before I left.
Instead, I have to dig deep for a trace
Of how the beach was red hot underfoot,
The green gold of the Christmas beetle's wing."

James writes with insight and emotional power 'the work of a lifetime, at least so far'.


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Book #49 Dead If You Don't

Dead If You Don't by Peter James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Number fourteen in the Roy Grace series. I know. Fourteen. Peter James is a prolific writer and manages to publish a RG every year. I have followed his career with enthusiasm (Grace). He is a copper in my city - Brighton and Hove. Each book takes me on a tour of my beloved location and further afield into the Sussex hinterland. Many of the police who feature are real people, which adds so much authenticity to the plots. Roy Grace isn't, but is inspired by former Detective Chief Superintendent David Gaylor. Some accolade, huh?

Dead If You Don't takes us in a rather different direction - into the world of the Albanian community in Brighton. Most are honest, hardworking people but the criminal element is clear and present, as Kipp Brown is about to find out. Successful business man and prolific gambler. He attends Brighton & Hove Albion's first premiership football match at The Amex Stadium (that's just up the road from me) with his son, Mungo. Briefly distracted, his boy disappears. Then he gets the terrifying message that someone has his child and, to get him back alive, Kipp will have to pay. He defies instructions not to contact the police and reluctantly does just that. Who else would run the investigation but Detective Superintendent Roy Grace... And what appears to be a straightforward case of kidnap soon leads Grace into the dark, criminal underbelly of the city. Rules are different.

The plot is taught, spanning just four days. James racks up the pressure in inimitable style, with short chapters - short, pulse racing chapters. The final quarter is a thrill ride against time, leaves one quite breathless.

Peter James has done it again but just where will he go next with the Roy Grace saga?

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Book #48 The Hunting Party

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for my ARC of The Hunting Party, my first read by Lucy Foley, which put me so much in mind of Ruth Ware's In A Dark, Dark Wood. An isolated location in the Scottish Highlands; a New Year celebration; nine friends reunited as they do most years. All of them together for the first time in ages. Emma and Mark, Miranda and Julien, Nick and Bo, Samira and Giles, their six-month old baby Priya - and Katie. Four days in a winter wilderness - Loch Corrin - very exclusive. Run by Doug, the gamekeeper and Heather, the estate manager. What could go wrong?

Just about everything. Harsh weather, no internet, hardly any mobile signal and friendships that soon become strained. Skeletons in cupboards, spite, old wounds. High flyers, Oxbridge types, all with secrets they would prefer to remain so, as a booze and drug fuelled weekend starts to implode from within with disastrous consequences. A body is found - not an accident. One of the group has been murdered and the culprit is amongst them....

Full of menace and dark secrets that are revealed as the group become trapped when a thick blizzard descends, The Hunting Party is a compelling read with plenty of twists.

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