Title: A Hat Full of Sky
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Publisher: HarperTeen
Copyright: 2004
Pages: 407
Keywords: humor, fantasy
Reading period: 25–26 January, 2010
Sequel to The Wee Free Men.
Tiffany Aching, now 11, becomes a trainee witch.
But an ancient evil, the hiver, has noticed her and possesses her.
Her Nac Mac Feegle friends, the diminutive and indomitable blue pictsies,
come to her aid.
She may only be eleven, but she's as tough as nails.
Recommended.
Title: Nature Girl
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: Grand Central
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 304
Keywords: humor
Reading period: 30 December, 2009–1 January 2010
Hiaasen drags a motley cast of characters to a remote key in the Everglades
and lets their various lunacies duke it out.
An entertaining romp.
Title: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Author: Susanna Clarke
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Copyright: 2004
Pages: 846
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 1–9 January, 2010
In the year Eighteen-Six, it has been two hundred years
since last a practical magician walked in England,
when Mr. Norrell shews himself after many years of study.
In time, he is joined by a student Jonathan Strange
who later distinguishes himself in the Peninsular War against the tyrant Bonaparte.
But their most dangerous adversary is the
capricious gentleman with the thistle-down hair from Faerie.
Susanna Clarke's debut novel is a startling take on fantasy,
evoking the work of Austen and Dickens,
pitting madness against reason,
exploring magic and …continue.
Title: Silent in the Grave
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: Mira
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 511
Keywords: mystery, historical
Reading period: 27–28 December, 2009
A year after Sir Edward Grey's sudden collapse and death,
his widow Lady Julia realizes the truth in what
Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent, had told her:
Sir Edward had received threatening letters.
She engages Brisbane to investigate the possible murder
and starts asking questions herself.
The most respectable member of her large, eccentric family,
Julia starts to shed her Victorian conventionality
as she is drawn to the enigmatic Brisbane.
Title: White Riot
Author: Martyn Waites
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: Pocket Books
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 452
Keywords: mystery
Reading period: 29–30 December, 2009
The Northern English city of Newcastle is on edge as racial tensions have been whipped up.
Joe Donovan's team are asked to investigate a seemingly unrelated case
where a one-time radical is getting threatening calls.
The main characters—Donovan's team and some teenaged no-hopers
way out of their depth in a white supremacist organization—are credible and well-drawn.
The plot however relies overly on coincidence after coincidence.
Title: River of Darkness
Author: Rennie Airth
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Publisher: Penguin
Copyright: 1999
Pages: 435
Keywords: mystery, historical
Reading period: 26–27 December, 2009
Inspector John Madden, like so many of his generation,
came back from the Great War a changed man.
When a particularly savage and senseless murder takes place,
he must persuade his superiors at Scotland Yard to adopt
some new and unwelcome practices, such as psychological profiling.
This well-done thriller is as much
about the aftermath of World War I
as it is a police procedural.
Title: This Girl for Hire
Author: G.G. Fickling
Rating: ★ ★
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Copyright: 1956
Pages: 220
Keywords: mystery
Reading period: 28–29 December, 2009
Honey West is a “private eyeful”, a kick-ass statuesque private investigator
tough enough to take on the guys at their own game
and sexy enough to dazzle them.
Somehow she manages to lose her top all the time, but it never goes further than that.
The plot is ludicrously complicated, switching gears on every page,
with snappy Mike Hammeresque dialog.
The books inspired a mid-sixties TV show that Emma remembers with great fondness.
The sex was excised from the show, of course.
Title: The Wine-Dark Sea
Author: Patrick O'Brian
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Copyright: 1994
Pages: 352
Keywords: historical fiction
Aubrey-Maturin #16
Reading period: 23–26 December, 2009
After the events of The Truelove,
Aubrey and Maturin set sail for Peru to
undertake the intelligence mission originally begun
four books ago in The Letter of Marque.
O'Brian packs more than usual into this book:
multiple sea battles, the Reverend Martin's descent into madness,
Stephen inciting a revolution of independence against the Spanish,
naturalism high in the Andes, Jack almost being lost at sea in a small boat,
and a nerve-wracking encounter with an American frigate amongst the ice floes of Cape Horn.
Highly recommended.
Title: In the Woods
Author: Tana French
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: Penguin
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 429
Keywords: mystery
Reading period: 16–22 December, 2009
Twenty years ago, three twelve-year-olds went into
their local woods in Knocknaree near Dublin.
Hours later, only one was found, catatonic.
Now, under a different name, Rob Ryan is a detective in the Irish Murder Squad
and another twelve-year-old has been murdered in Knocknaree.
Tana French's debut is subtle and gripping.
The story unfolds in unexpected ways.
Ryan's relationship with his partner in detection, Cassie Maddox,
is tested to the breaking point
while he tries to conceal his past and stay on the case.
Highly recommended.
Title: The Truelove
Author: Patrick O'Brian
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Copyright: 1993
Pages: 256
Keywords: historical fiction
Aubrey-Maturin #15
Reading period: 12–13 December, 2009
Leaving Sydney after the events of The Nutmeg of Consolation,
Aubrey and Maturin sail for Moahu, a fictional British island near Hawaii.
Jack Aubrey is out of sorts for various reasons;
most notably a young female convict, Clarissa Harvill, has been smuggled
aboard by Midshipman Oakes.
Like many sailors, he is superstitious about women on board his ship.
Not without reason:
even after her shipboard marriage to Oakes,
men vie for her attention and factions form aboard the ship.
Few battles in this one.
Most of the conflict arises …continue.
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