This weekend I actually planned to get some reading done, however, the weather was soooo nice that I had to change my plans. Yesterday was supposed to be my active day. I did do a bit of shopping and wandering round the city centre. Once back home, this activity was followed by a nice little seep on the sofa and after that another little sit on the sofa, followed by a bit of telly watching. No real time for telly as the Eurovision song contest was on... and what a corker of a show that was.
So today... another lovely day and too good to spend it inside the entire day. So... my friend B and myself went up to Bletchley Park to the Forties Festival Weekend. Really good fun! Lovely day out, nice wander round, sit and relax, bit of a chat and ice cream to finish off.
I am reaching the end of a book though. It is the one about how you can get your wishes to come true. I know it sounds a bit Paul McKenna-y but is quite an interesting theory the author of the book puts forward. Hope to finish it over the next few days.
Sunday 27 May 2012
Sunday 20 May 2012
Confusion and red herrings
After some time away from the books I have returned to my old friends again. Not that they complained about being left unattended for so long, they never do. But getting back into my reading has been long overdue. I started on a book or two a while ago but never really found enough time to make a dent in either book. Well, I made a dent in one of them but it then got left alone again. I think I abandoned it because it was going to make me think about things and there was no room in my head to do that. Now my brain has calmed down again I might pick that one up again. However, knowing how fickle I am in deciding what to read, it may as well be the ghost story one that I pick up next.
My books waiting to be read are now out on my book case in the living room. This way I know exactly where I am at. I had 81 books to read, add to that one brought back from Mum's which makes 82.
Blimey.... good thing I finished one then.
SPOILER ALERT
The Breaker - Minette Walters
Detective fiction is one of my favourite genres to read and this one did not disappoint.
A body turns up on the first page, there are plenty of twists and turns, several red herrings (I fell for only one!!) and the ending is unexpected and wrapped up nicely. It is all done very cleverly.
The cleverness really starts with the title. The book is called The Breaker and because of the picture on the front of my book (a rolling wave) I kind of assumed that they would mean a breaker in the sea. Then you read the first page where we meet the victim and learn that her fingers were broken, deliberately,... different kind of breaker then. I had not read the back of the book that closely .. I try to avoid it nowadays as it will sometimes make you aware of names and characters I would rather explore as I meet them in the book.
The story starts with a young woman's body being found washed up on a beach. Two young boys find her and there is a handsome stranger (Steven Harding, local boy done good, aspiring actor, likes to blow his own trumpet) who helps them alert the police. A young woman runs into them and as the police is called the hunt for the killer is on. The woman, Maggie is written in such a way that she could not possibly be a suspect or a major player in the story but you know that she will be about in the book for some reason or other. The boys are just perving over a dead body and the stranger looks so obvious a suspect that you discount him straight away because of just that. Even though there is something slightly disturbing about him. The local cop seems an okay, kind hearted, sensible kind of guy but, naturally he could not possibly handle this investigation on his own so the big guns are called in. Also, the book would be twice as long if he had had to do all the interrogating on his own so I guess it works out well for everyone involved.
Throughout the book we find out bits and pieces about the murdered woman, Kate, she is not always portrayed as a very nice person. She comes cross as a money hungry, manipulative woman with an over-protective attitude towards her young daughter. This image is softened as the book goes along and you find that she had her reasons for doing what she did and even her overbearing attitude towards her daughter is not all that is seems. Who would not put additional locks on the doors if your young child sleepwalks? However, Kate is never really part of the book.. she is just the body they found. Her husband is fleshed out much more. He seems cold, distant, uninvolved. Someone who had a trophy wife just because he needed someone to take care of him and show him a good time whenever he wanted. He is completely unprepared on how to deal with life without his wife, he does not have a clue how to deal with the child and seems to prefers passive whimpering over taking control of his life. From the start I did not really think he killed Kate as the cops try just a little bit too hard to make him look bad. To be honest he seems like a guy who could not even scramble an egg let alone organise a brutal murder.
One character which is set up well to take the fall, and my personal favourite for the striped pyjama award is Tony. Personal friend of Steven, a chemistry teacher with a bimbo girlfriend and a cannabis habit.. oh and and inferiority complex the size of Alaska. He envies his friend Steven and he blindly believes any tall tale that Steven spins. He has gotten himself involved in all sorts of dodgy deals to make some extra money on the side and he has a bit of a problem with authority. The funniest bit is when one of the detectives decides to go round his house to have another chat with him to clear some things up. Tony answers the door stark naked and half stoned. Tony tries to mess the copper about but it does not quite work our. The cop cuffs himself to Tony and tells him that he is going to take him as he is to the station for questioning. He drags him to the door and out into the street where Tony then relents and pipes down a bit. Not before being "admired" by the neighbours. However guilty he looks at one point - he knew Kate, had opportunity to kill Kate, he nearly broke his girlfriend's fingers once, he is a little shit with a bad temper and a fuzzy cannabis addled brain - Tony turns out to be merely player of games and not the grand master.
Steven Harding is the one to look out for. You get a bad feeling about him at times but there does not seem to be enough of a relationship between him and Kate for it to lead to murder. You cannot immediately see why he would go after her. This is all because he is a master at manipulation, a very good actor and total psycho. There is this web of lies, of vague unclear relationships, mixed messages about sexuality and self importance around him that confuses you. It is really very well done. I definitely never saw the whole under age girlfriend thing coming but did have a suspicion that he was not all that he seemed. The book steers you into so many directions where he is concerned that you get very wary of another plot element being linked to him and I was never really convinced of his guilt or his innocence. There is so much that speaks against Steven that you almost want him to be innocent. You expect him to be innocent as it is at times so obvious that he is the one guy who could possibly have reason to murder Kate and how often is it the most obvious guy that turns out to be the killer... right? Well, I guess Walters did a good job on that one!
The book reads well. I liked the fact that the first person to "speak" in the book is Kate, the second one is her killer. Then the whole thing becomes a game of pick up the clue and see where it fits. With, of course the necessary red herrings already mentioned. The characters are well written though sometimes a bit stereotypical. the local cop who has potential, the loyal but deluded friend, the big shot coppers... however, they are sympathetically written and they come across as real people that you cold meet on any street corner. You want them to do well and nail the bastard that killed Kate. I never felt much sympathy or empathy for Kate but I guess it is quite difficult to make you like a person who is really only in the book as a corpse.
The one critical point that I have to raise is the fact that the author found it necessary to have a little romance-like sub plot for passer by Maggie and the local copper Nick. The book really does not need this. If the story line between them had not been there I would not have missed it. It might even have made the book a bit more compact and focused and that would have been fine. Was this side plot added to give some more insight into why these two people behaved towards each other in the way they did? Was it added in to give the book a positive note to end on... the yin to the main plot's yang? I am not sure.
Title: The Breaker
Author: Minette Walters
447 pages
Pan Books
ISBN nr -330-37326-9
Books to be read: 81
NB: just realised that if I consistently read a book a week it will take me 1.5 years to read all my books... never gonna happen! Conan is almost 1000 pages, then there's Gormenghast... oh boy!
My books waiting to be read are now out on my book case in the living room. This way I know exactly where I am at. I had 81 books to read, add to that one brought back from Mum's which makes 82.
Blimey.... good thing I finished one then.
SPOILER ALERT
The Breaker - Minette Walters
Detective fiction is one of my favourite genres to read and this one did not disappoint.
A body turns up on the first page, there are plenty of twists and turns, several red herrings (I fell for only one!!) and the ending is unexpected and wrapped up nicely. It is all done very cleverly.
The cleverness really starts with the title. The book is called The Breaker and because of the picture on the front of my book (a rolling wave) I kind of assumed that they would mean a breaker in the sea. Then you read the first page where we meet the victim and learn that her fingers were broken, deliberately,... different kind of breaker then. I had not read the back of the book that closely .. I try to avoid it nowadays as it will sometimes make you aware of names and characters I would rather explore as I meet them in the book.
The story starts with a young woman's body being found washed up on a beach. Two young boys find her and there is a handsome stranger (Steven Harding, local boy done good, aspiring actor, likes to blow his own trumpet) who helps them alert the police. A young woman runs into them and as the police is called the hunt for the killer is on. The woman, Maggie is written in such a way that she could not possibly be a suspect or a major player in the story but you know that she will be about in the book for some reason or other. The boys are just perving over a dead body and the stranger looks so obvious a suspect that you discount him straight away because of just that. Even though there is something slightly disturbing about him. The local cop seems an okay, kind hearted, sensible kind of guy but, naturally he could not possibly handle this investigation on his own so the big guns are called in. Also, the book would be twice as long if he had had to do all the interrogating on his own so I guess it works out well for everyone involved.
Throughout the book we find out bits and pieces about the murdered woman, Kate, she is not always portrayed as a very nice person. She comes cross as a money hungry, manipulative woman with an over-protective attitude towards her young daughter. This image is softened as the book goes along and you find that she had her reasons for doing what she did and even her overbearing attitude towards her daughter is not all that is seems. Who would not put additional locks on the doors if your young child sleepwalks? However, Kate is never really part of the book.. she is just the body they found. Her husband is fleshed out much more. He seems cold, distant, uninvolved. Someone who had a trophy wife just because he needed someone to take care of him and show him a good time whenever he wanted. He is completely unprepared on how to deal with life without his wife, he does not have a clue how to deal with the child and seems to prefers passive whimpering over taking control of his life. From the start I did not really think he killed Kate as the cops try just a little bit too hard to make him look bad. To be honest he seems like a guy who could not even scramble an egg let alone organise a brutal murder.
One character which is set up well to take the fall, and my personal favourite for the striped pyjama award is Tony. Personal friend of Steven, a chemistry teacher with a bimbo girlfriend and a cannabis habit.. oh and and inferiority complex the size of Alaska. He envies his friend Steven and he blindly believes any tall tale that Steven spins. He has gotten himself involved in all sorts of dodgy deals to make some extra money on the side and he has a bit of a problem with authority. The funniest bit is when one of the detectives decides to go round his house to have another chat with him to clear some things up. Tony answers the door stark naked and half stoned. Tony tries to mess the copper about but it does not quite work our. The cop cuffs himself to Tony and tells him that he is going to take him as he is to the station for questioning. He drags him to the door and out into the street where Tony then relents and pipes down a bit. Not before being "admired" by the neighbours. However guilty he looks at one point - he knew Kate, had opportunity to kill Kate, he nearly broke his girlfriend's fingers once, he is a little shit with a bad temper and a fuzzy cannabis addled brain - Tony turns out to be merely player of games and not the grand master.
Steven Harding is the one to look out for. You get a bad feeling about him at times but there does not seem to be enough of a relationship between him and Kate for it to lead to murder. You cannot immediately see why he would go after her. This is all because he is a master at manipulation, a very good actor and total psycho. There is this web of lies, of vague unclear relationships, mixed messages about sexuality and self importance around him that confuses you. It is really very well done. I definitely never saw the whole under age girlfriend thing coming but did have a suspicion that he was not all that he seemed. The book steers you into so many directions where he is concerned that you get very wary of another plot element being linked to him and I was never really convinced of his guilt or his innocence. There is so much that speaks against Steven that you almost want him to be innocent. You expect him to be innocent as it is at times so obvious that he is the one guy who could possibly have reason to murder Kate and how often is it the most obvious guy that turns out to be the killer... right? Well, I guess Walters did a good job on that one!
The book reads well. I liked the fact that the first person to "speak" in the book is Kate, the second one is her killer. Then the whole thing becomes a game of pick up the clue and see where it fits. With, of course the necessary red herrings already mentioned. The characters are well written though sometimes a bit stereotypical. the local cop who has potential, the loyal but deluded friend, the big shot coppers... however, they are sympathetically written and they come across as real people that you cold meet on any street corner. You want them to do well and nail the bastard that killed Kate. I never felt much sympathy or empathy for Kate but I guess it is quite difficult to make you like a person who is really only in the book as a corpse.
The one critical point that I have to raise is the fact that the author found it necessary to have a little romance-like sub plot for passer by Maggie and the local copper Nick. The book really does not need this. If the story line between them had not been there I would not have missed it. It might even have made the book a bit more compact and focused and that would have been fine. Was this side plot added to give some more insight into why these two people behaved towards each other in the way they did? Was it added in to give the book a positive note to end on... the yin to the main plot's yang? I am not sure.
Title: The Breaker
Author: Minette Walters
447 pages
Pan Books
ISBN nr -330-37326-9
Books to be read: 81
NB: just realised that if I consistently read a book a week it will take me 1.5 years to read all my books... never gonna happen! Conan is almost 1000 pages, then there's Gormenghast... oh boy!
Tuesday 15 May 2012
Remember me??
You might be forgiven for thinking I am no longer reading books or interested in this blog. Wrong on both counts! I am still reading and I am still doing this.
Work went mental and getting up at three in the morning and updating a blog regularly did not really go hand in hand. I have also been busy getting my OU exam out of the way, getting through an office move and a home move.. oh, and going on holiday.
Now my exam has been and gone and I am fully refreshed after a nice two week holiday in the home country.. which no longer really feels like home.
I picked up a book to read from my stock at Mum's and am getting on well with it. Stay tuned to find out what it is!
Work went mental and getting up at three in the morning and updating a blog regularly did not really go hand in hand. I have also been busy getting my OU exam out of the way, getting through an office move and a home move.. oh, and going on holiday.
Now my exam has been and gone and I am fully refreshed after a nice two week holiday in the home country.. which no longer really feels like home.
I picked up a book to read from my stock at Mum's and am getting on well with it. Stay tuned to find out what it is!
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