The first in a series about Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate who founded the Bow Street Runners, London's first pro­fes­sion­al police force in 1749. Jeremy Proctor, a newly orphaned 13-year-old, is taken under Sir John's wing and assists him in dis­cov­er­ing how the rakish Lord Goodhope was murdered in a locked room.

Although I figured out the murderer halfway through, I still enjoyed both the plot and the characters. Alexander vividly brings Georgian London to life.

A Dedicated Man is the second novel in the Inspector Banks series. A local historian has been murdered in the Yorkshire Dales. He was well-liked and there seems to be no obvious motives or suspects. Banks must dig into the dead man's past if there are no leads in the present.

Like other books in the series, this is a competent well-written police procedural, partly seen through Banks' eyes and partly through the eyes of some of the locals. Robinson is an expatriate York­shire­man with a fondness for his homeland …continue.

Occupied France, January 1943. Detectives Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler are sent to the German submarine base at Lorient in Brittany to in­ves­ti­gate a murder. The Gross-Admiral wants a quick resolution to the case since the prime suspect is a U-Boat captain known as the Dollmaker, whose crew are de­mor­al­ized after many months of punishing cruises and who won't go back to sea without him.

St-Cyr and Kohler are unlikely partners, a Chief Inspector from the Sûreté in Paris and a longtime criminal policeman now in the Gestapo. Both are …continue.

The Rosetti siblings, Christina, Dante (Gabriel), Maria, and William, are haunted by the vampire who was once their uncle, John Polidori. The vampires pos­ses­sive­ly love certain humans and grant those humans great powers of creativity. Christina both loves her uncle and yearns to be free of him. The other humans who receive the attentions of the vampires likewise feel both a forbidden attraction and a horrified repulsion at their own potential damnation.

Tim Powers is known for his “secret histories”, wherein he takes historical …continue.

The ac­com­pa­ny­ing photo shows most of the books that I've read between late September 2015 and January 2nd:

• Five Rebus novels by Ian Rankin (unreviewed)
• Nine Wallander novels by Henning Mankell (un­re­viewed; The Fifth Woman was an e-book)
• The Seacoast of Bohemia by Nicolas Freeling
• The Vault by Peter Lovesey
• A German Requiem by Philip Kerr
• Star Fall
• The Ax
• The first seven books of The Saxon Tales by Bernard Cornwell
• Des­ti­na­tion: Morgue
• The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land
• The Red Road
• Some other ebooks, including some technical books

Glasgow DI Alex Morrow is trying to put a dangerous criminal back in prison, but she can't explain how his prints were found at the scene of a recent murder when he was already in custody. Fifteen years ago, when Rose Wilson was a sexually abused 14 year old, she was re­spon­si­ble for two deaths in one night, but only did time for one culpable homicide. Now the lawyer who saved her is dead and coverups are unraveling.

In other hands, this …continue.

[Sequel to The Magician King]

At the beginning of The Magician's Land, Quentin Coldwater is in exile from Fillory. After a brief sojourn of teaching at Brakebills, where he researches an enormously complex spell he found in the Nei­ther­lands, he is fired and Plum, a student, is expelled. A mysterious summons draws them into a magical heist, which goes awry. Meanwhile, Fillory is dying and Eliot, Janet, Josh, and Poppy are trying to save it.

Quentin has matured over the trilogy, emo­tion­al­ly and as a magician, rising to the daunting challenges "He …continue.

Via Hacker News, "All Springer Textbooks More Than 10 Years Old Available for Free Legal Download".

This includes books from Apress as well as a ton of those im­pen­e­tra­ble gray-and-red Lecture Notes in Computer Science books.

Update 2015-12-30: No longer available. Springer aren't commenting. Presumably a mistake.

[Sequel to The Magicians.]

There are two storylines in The Magician King, the backstory of Julia's training as a hedgewitch and Quentin's quest for the seven golden keys.

Quentin, along with his high school crush, Julia, and his fellow Brake­bill­s' alumni, Eliot and Janet, have ruled Fillory for a few years. Bored with being King, he sets off on a quest, taking Julia with him. Un­ex­pect­ed­ly thrust back to Earth, they des­per­ate­ly strive to return to Fillory, eventually succeeding. Magic is leaching out of the universe as the old gods …continue.

Take a heavy dose of Narnia, add a hefty dollop of Harry Potter, stir in some Bret Easton Ellis and a dash of The Catcher in the Rye, then cook for adults. That glib de­scrip­tion short­changes The Magicians, even though Fillory clearly owes a major debt to Narnia and the preppy Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy somewhat resembles Hogwarts.

Quentin Coldwater is an over­achiev­ing, solitary math nerd from Brooklyn, who thinks he's attending an entrance interview for Princeton but instead gains admittance to Brakebills. Magic turns out to be real, but difficult, …continue.