Book #18 Dying Fall

A Dying Fall: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 5 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A change of location in Ruth Galloway number 5 when her long-time friend Dan Golding is killed in a house fire - in Lancashire. Is it a coincidence that Ruth receives a letter from Dan, written the day before he died? He had made a ground-breaking discovery and said he was scared. Ruth is compelled to head north to investigate further. So does DCI Harry Nelson who takes his wife on holiday to Blackpool. Ruth takes her daughter Kate with her and faces untold risks in another well paced mystery. I enjoy the continuity of this series, which includes her friend and Kate's godfather Cathbad (Michael Malone) - a druid and self-professed shaman. The eerie North Norfolk coast is replaced with the brooding landscape of the Pendle Forest and the windswept Lancashire coast....

So, five down, five to go....

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Book #17 A Room Full of Bones

A Room Full of Bones: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 4 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read a Ruth Galloway for a while. I have read the first three and have four through ten on the bookshelf. (I like the matching livery!). Well, it's more of the supernatural and superstition from Elly Griffiths, some of it rather far-fetched, but hey, I like the mix of ancient and contemporary so why not?

I like the eerie landscape of the Norfolk Coast, the saltmarsh where Ruth lives with her daughter Kate, fathered by DCI Harry Nelson during a brief affair. It has created tension between Ruth and Harry and, as night falls on Halloween Eve Ruth is to supervise the opening of a coffin excavated from the site of a medieval church. She finds the museum's curator dead beside the coffin. And so it begins. Another case when Ruth and Nelson cross paths and past tensions are reignited.

Perhaps not one of Griffith's best but I still enjoyed it.

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Book #16 The Music Shop

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Any book with 'music' in the title is like a magnet to me. I love my music. I have an eclectic collection. So does Frank, who owns The Music Shop. It's 1988 and Frank stocks music from every speed, size and genre - as long as it's vinyl. My kind of shop. Frank has an uncanny knack of finding his customers the music they need - helps them to learn how to listen and how to feel. It rather took my breath away when, from all the millions of albums there are, one of Frank's first recommendations happens to be one of my top ten: Waltz for Debby by Bill Evans. Uncanny.

Franks life revolves around close friends: Maud the tattooist, Father Anthony and Saturday Kit. That is, until the day Ilse Brauchmann walks into his life... A strangely still, mysterious woman who asks Frank to teach her about music.

The Music Shop is a beautifully crafted love story. It will make you laugh, it can make you cry. It captures the redemptive power of music. It reveres vinyl. It pulses with hope. So much wonderful music spreads through the pages and the Music Shop playlist can be listened to at www.bit.ly/TheMusicShopPlaylist.

I loved this book.

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Book #15 Force of Nature

Force of Nature by Jane Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the author of The Dry another exhilerating read featuring Federal Agent Aaron Falk. Falk and his associate Carmen are investigating serious money laundering by the Bailey family in Melbourne. He has coerced a whistleblower, Alice Russell, to obtain evidence. Alice works for the family.

Alice and four other women who work for Bailey are sent on a team building exercise in the outback, a hike in the bush intended to teach resilience. Five women set out on the muddy track. Only four come out the other side. Alice is missing.

Harper builds tension as the plot moves between the last days of the hike and Falk's endeavours with other searchers to find the missing woman. Four women tell Falk about their relationship with Alice, a tale of suspicion and disintegrating trust. Who is telling the truth?

A brilliantly paced plot wrong-footing the reader at every turn. It's another stunner from Jane Harper.

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Book #14 The Dry

The Dry by Jane Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Breathtaking! Another candidate for my Read Of The Year. And this is Jane Harper’s crime debut, which is seriously hard to believe. But, there it is. Set in Australia during the worst drought for years - The Dry. Notices everywhere warning of the high risk of serious bush fires. This is Kiewarra, a small town in the outback.

Federal agent Aaron Falk is compelled to return from Melbourne, after twenty years absence. He spent his formative years in Kiewarra, along with his best friend Luke Hadler. For whatever reason it appears that Hadler has mudered his wife and son before committing suicide. Falk is there to attend the funeral and is unwillingly drawn into an investigation. Did Hadler kill his family? Falk is despised by the local community over events that occurred twenty years ago. Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret…

I won’t say more about the intricate plotting in this relentless page turner. Read in just two sittings. Utterly compelling, gripping and atmospheric.

Grab yourselves a copy and be ready for a helter-skelter read!

Highest possible recommendation.

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Book #13 The Darkness

The Darkness by Ragnar Jónasson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Iceland, its rugged beauty and volcanic terrain. I have visited several times. My thanks then to NetGalley and Penguin UK-Michael Joseph for the opportunity to read this ARC of The Darkness, an Icelandic thriller set mainly in Reykjavik.

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is facing retirement at the age of 64. She is being pushed aside by her boss to make way for a fast-track younger officer to take over her case load. The fact that she is a woman does not go unnoticed and Hulda resents the attitude of her fellow officers. Told she can review cold cases during her remaining tenure she choses the mysterious death of a young Russian woman that occurred more than 12 months ago, that essentially has been closed as a probable suicide. Hulda’s investigation soon leads her to think otherwise. She unwittingly puts herself in harm’s way….

This is a well written piece of Nordic noir as details from Hulda’s past are slowly revealed. She is a woman alone and has sought companionship with a widower of similar age. You want this to work.

As Hulda unravels the background to this crime one fears for her safety. The pace quickens but the conclusion left me blind-sided, as new readers will find out for themselves. It sets this book apart from others in the same genre.

Ragnar Jónasson has written a classic crime story, one to be recommended.

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Book #12 Exhibit Alexandra

Exhibit Alexandra by Natasha Bell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Unfathomable. Using performance art as the main theme much of this went completely over my head. Marc and Alexandra, on the face of it, are happily married with two lovely daughters. Then Alexandra disappears and the humdrum treadmill of time passed since her disappearance takes over, as the police try to establish what has happened. What has happened is almost undefineable. One line said it all for me: (Marc) shaking his head at such incomprehensible gobbledygook...

My thanks to Penguin UK-Michael Joseph and NetGalley for this ARC. It just wasn't for me.

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