wearysmith Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 I'll put my hands up. I'm a big fan of King's short stories. This is more of the same - a mixed bag - but very much reflects the time they were written. COVID is mentioned in every tale. Some are straightforward, some are ambiguous, some I really don't understand the ending 😀. There's dead babies, 10 foot alligators, plane crashes, nods to Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, dead women in wells, extra-terrestrial interventions, child kidnappings.... Just your usual walk in the park with Stephen really. Recommended, obviously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 2 minutes ago, wearysmith said: I'll put my hands up. I'm a big fan of King's short stories. This is more of the same - a mixed bag - but very much reflects the time they were written. COVID is mentioned in every tale. Some are straightforward, some are ambiguous, some I really don't understand the ending 😀. There's dead babies, 10 foot alligators, plane crashes, nods to Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, dead women in wells, extra-terrestrial interventions, child kidnappings.... Just your usual walk in the park with Stephen really. Recommended, obviously. I must admit I prefer Dean Koontz to King but, Tommy Knockers, Pet Seminary and IT, were superb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalman Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 A round dozen this month, mostly crime as usual but also a couple of books about books. Susan Hill - Howard's End is on the landing. Novelist Hill revisits and discusses some of the books in her home. Booklovers will recognise themselves here. Edward Brooke-Hitching - The madman's library. A round-up of the strangest books encountered by Brooke-Hitching, himself the son of an antiquarian bookseller, including books bound in human skin, toxic books (from arsenic-containing dyes), big books, small books, books in code and so on. Fascinating for anybody who loves books (which includes me in case you hadn't worked that out). Michael Wood - Outside looking in. Second in the Sheffield-based DCI Matilda Darker series. A man and woman, both married but not to each other, are slaughtered in a car in a country lane. I'm already enjoying this series. Stephen Booth - The murder road. Back in the Peak District with Cooper and Fry. After a lorry gets jammed under a railway bridge in an isolated village, the driver turns up stabbed to death. Another well constructed mystery, though it was perhaps stretching credulity that so many people involved in a particular incident should end up in the same tiny village. Hillary Waugh - The Billy Cantrell case. In the 1980s, Waugh, famous for his police procedural novels, wrote half a dozen books featuring hardboiled private eye Simon Kaye. In this one he investigates when Cantrell, a boxer, unexpectedly keels over with a heart attack in round 5. Hillary Waugh - The Doria Rafe case. Kaye busts a protection racket for the daughter of a shopkeeper. Hillary Waugh - The Veronica Dean case. Randomly beaten up on the way home, Kaye is drawn into a case involving two halves of a treasure map. I found all three of these to be excellent reads - highly recommended if you happen to come across a copy. Peter Robinson - Dry bones that dream. Inspector Banks tackles the case of a man taken from his house and shot in his garage. Another excellent one in this series. Kate Ellis - The skeleton room. A woman pulled from the sea and a skeleton walled up in a former girls school exercise the brains of DI Wesley Peterson and his boss. Still enjoying this series too, with its clever interplay between historical events and the present day. J. Jefferson Farjeon - Seven dead. Man breaks into a house only to discover seven corpses in a shuttered room. One of the British Library crime classics originally published in 1939. Not bad. G.D.H. and M. Cole - Counterpoint murder. A man murdered in a London club, an old lady poisoned with nitroglycerine, a hit and run accident... Supt. Wilson joins the dots. Entertaining, but the solution was disappointingly Highsmithian (although it predates Highsmith). Francis Gerard - Fatal Friday. Another obscure detective story from 1937. Lord Colchester confesses to shooting a man in his library, but it turns out he couldn't have done it. Scotland Yard tec John Meredith sorts it out in a well written, humorous story. Good stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeG Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 The Night Book by Richard Madeley. I'm half way through and its excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zinger549 Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Just finished A Death In The Parish. The second Cannon Clement by Rev Richard Coles. Enjoyable book. Also read Just Ignore him By Alan Davies. Interesting life story but some tough moments. Loosing his mother at a young age and being abused by his dad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister M Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 On BBC Radio 4 last Tuesday, the actor Simon Pegg did an interesting retrospective of the Iain Banks' brilliant first novel The Wasp Factory. It's still available to listen to on their website. I'll post a link here: BBC Radio 4 - Inside The Wasp Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackey lad Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 On 09/07/2024 at 17:06, wearysmith said: I'll put my hands up. I'm a big fan of King's short stories. This is more of the same - a mixed bag - but very much reflects the time they were written. COVID is mentioned in every tale. Some are straightforward, some are ambiguous, some I really don't understand the ending 😀. There's dead babies, 10 foot alligators, plane crashes, nods to Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, dead women in wells, extra-terrestrial interventions, child kidnappings.... Just your usual walk in the park with Stephen really. Recommended, obviously. Years ago a workmate gave me The Bachman Novels . Stephen King under a pseudonym. Brilliant . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wearysmith Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 8 hours ago, hackey lad said: Years ago a workmate gave me The Bachman Novels . Stephen King under a pseudonym. Brilliant . Yeah, I rate his Bachman books, especially 'Thinner'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 Just reading Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. Evokes the Conan Doyle atmosphere really well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikki-red Posted August 15 Share Posted August 15 Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Alfred Lansing What an absolutely amazing, crazy true story. I loved this book so much. Totally recommend it 👍🏻 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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