The Petrona judges have chosen a very interesting shortlist for the award for the best Nordic crime fiction novel of the year. The winner will be announced at the Crime Fest Annual Dinner in Bristol on 20 May. I have read Leif G.W. Person’s The Dying Detective and am in the middle of Kati Hiekkapelto’s The Exiled, and in my opinion either would be a worthy winner. But with past winner Yrsa Sigurdardottir, and the prolific Gunnar Staalesen on the shortlist the competition will be fierce. The translators of the shortlisted  books have an impressive record, previous translations ..read more

I have finally finished A Climate of Fear after many weeks. This is nothing to do with the quality of a fine book but more to do with my state of health and mind. I will be returning to hospital for investigation of a mysterious lump, something I would have ignored before I became acquainted with the C word.  A Climate of Fear cleverly blended a little bit of frightening Icelandic folklore with French revolutionary terror brought to life in the modern day. Crime Fiction and the history of the French Revolution is a combination of two of my interests, so I enjoyed the b ..read more

I am about half way through A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas, and it is nice to be back reading one of my favourite crime writers. Of course Vargas has won the CWA International Dagger four times, and it would not surprise me if this latest novel wins again. A complex plot which features a ten year old trip to Iceland in which a crazed killer murdered two tourists, and then terrified the rest of the tour party into silence, is followed by killings in modern day France and an extraordinary society dedicated to the study of the writings of Maximillien Robespierre.  If this quirky ..read more

1] Which Presidents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery? William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy 2] Which Governor of two different states was also a President? A bit of a trick question. Sam Houston was Governor of Tennessee 1827-1829, twice President of the Texas Republic 1836-1838,1841-1844 and Governor of Texas 1859-1861. 3] Which President was called “a majestic figure who stood like a rock of consistency” and it was said “May God ever give to our country leaders as faithful, as wise, as noble in spirit, as the one we now mourn.” Warren G. Harding, which proves you should wait ..read more

I bought this 2005 book in a second hand book shop for 99p so I wasn’t too concerned that it turned out to be not Grisham’s best novel by a long distance. I admit to be interested by the first sentence:  In the waning hours of a presidency that was destined to arouse less interest from historians than any other than any since that of William Henry Harrison [thirty one days from inauguration to death], Arthur Morgan huddled in the Oval Office with his last remaining friend and pondered his final decisions. Not quite accurate as the 1840 election of William Henry Harrison sti ..read more

You can read about my favourite discovery of 2016 at Eurocrime the Vera DVD boxed set.  I see that Ann Cleeves has been awarded the Diamond Dagger. I did not have any inside information, but that award made my selection seem rather timely ..read more

Well the day has almost arrived the Republican Party, the party of Presidents Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, the party of such distinguished African Americans as Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condi Rice is now lead by Donald Trump. We certainly live in interesting times.  But we Britons can’t scoff because the Labour party that was once lead by politicians such as Clem Attlee, Hugh Gaitskell, Jim Callaghan, Michael Foot, John Smith and Tony Blair [whatever happened to him] is now lead by Jeremy Corbyn. American History has always fascinated me, one of my pl ..read more

It was by complete chance that the first book I read this year was The Zimmerman Telegram by Pulitzer Prize winning author Barbara Tuchman. My son had bought me a copy and although I had read it about forty years ago I thought it was appropriate to re-read it again.  Today is the hundredth anniversary of the day the coded telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the Imperial Ambassador to the USA Count von Bernstoff arrived at Room 40 in Whitehall.  This superb non fiction book reads like a modern spy novel, and many of the themes seem curiously similar to modern dev ..read more

It has been many months since I last blogged [May 2016] because of serious health problems, and although I never fell off the Reichenbach Falls it has at times felt like it. But now after my brilliant surgeon and his team performed a robot assisted operation, I am enjoying every day as a bonus, even when the weather is as dismal as it is today. I feel obliged to try to live a few more years in view of the enormous amount of time and money the National Health Service, and the wonderful people who work at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital have devoted to my care. Never has a hospit ..read more

When analysing crime fiction I usually consider ten very simple factors.  1] Is the plot exciting, believable and gripping? 2] Do I like and care about any of the characters? 3] Is it written in an easy to read style which is decipherable to an ordinary reader? 4] Does it have the correct atmosphere  for a crime novel? 5] Is it set in an interesting location? 6] Does it overdo or concentrate on violence against women and children? 7] Does it contain a social commentary or message in the narrative? 8] Is it original? 9] Do the detectives exhibit some humour or give a gl ..read more