Friends, food and reading

I have to say that the last few days have been a bit hectic. I am trying to get a lot done before I start full time work again. It is not easy to try and have so much fun in only a week. So far this week I have managed to mix the necessary with the pleasant and have had coffees, lunch, a new haircut and my final physio session. Tomorrow I am off to have some fun in London and then Friday some more coffee and then a nice weekend relaxing.

Today has also seen the first time in a week or so that I have properly cooked. I kept not bothering and thinking that just a bit of toast or something simple would do Well, no more! I made the most lovely moussaka today and it has put me in the mood for more cooking. Just in time for when I get back to work.

#### SPOILER ALERT ####

The Good Guy - Dean Koontz

The good thing about this book is that the main character, Tim Carrier is a really nice guy. The bad thing is that the situation that Koontz puts him in and the way the people around him react is just so far fetched that it is almost too much... no... it is too much. The story is told at a good pace, it is fun trying to see if Tim and Linda keep one step ahead of the hit man that is after her. In true Koontz style both main characters have a past they are hiding and they have been through a lot to be where they are. They have both experienced violence and loss and have dealt with it in different ways. Tim has fled the army to become a bricklayer and Linda has fled her past only to go and live in the past. Both of them also find that you cannot really hide form the past and you have to deal with it and embrace it or it will get you.

As for the story...... hands up all women who would let a guy, a stranger, come into your house have him tell you someone is out to kill you and then go on the run with this stranger, trust him with your life and end up marrying him. No... any takers???.. no, I did not think so. Well, that is exactly what Koontz is selling.... and I am not buying it. It is just too unlikely a story and not no matter how hard Koontz tries to make it normal by having an unflappable female main lead it is just not working for me. Okay so your neighbour says the stranger is a decent bricklayer but what kind of recommendation is that?! I would have slammed the door in his face and told him to take his medication. Of course in Koontz world that world have meant I would have ended up dead so naturally that does not happen. After Tim and Linda meet we are off with them on the run, trying to stay on step ahead of the man with the gun. This guy is a standard psycho who just kills whoever he gets told to kill. To my amazement there is actually some really funny stuff going on with this guy. He seems to think he is some kind of God selected by the higher authorities to kill and that nothing he can do is ever going to go wrong. He is a man special and beyond reproof, quoting obscure poetry at his handlers. One of the funniest scenes in the book is when he goes to find a place to hide out and here comes face to face the joys of having nosey neighbours. It's just like you cannot even get a good bit of killing in every now and again without getting bothered by mums and dads dropping round. Honestly...!!

So, they run, he tries to get them, they get some help from "the loyal fiend", the good guys win the bad guy gets killed and all ends well. Not without some interference of some shady government agency of course. You cannot have a Koontz novel without some of that.

It is a fun enough book, Koontz is good at dialogue and at making characters come to life but the whole thing is just to fat fetched it leaves you with a bit of a bitter after taste.

Title: The Good Guy

Author: Dean Koontz

438 pages

Harper

ISBN #978-0-00-722660-3

Books to be read: 144

Sticking to the schedule

Today was the second day of my last week off work and I spent it doing some errands and then having some nice lunch at Turtle Bay. Nice fries and very nice drinks! I also got my contract in the post so that was a bonus too.

As I finished another book yesterday I though it best to stick to the review schedule as best a possible. I do not want to have to start in adding a line of "To be reviewed" at the end of every review. It is taking all the mathematical skills that I have to keep on top of the to be read numbers.


#### SPOILER ALERT ####


The Scarlatti Inheritance - Robert Ludlum
Once again my opinion on a book is divided. The main part of the story is really good and interesting. Then Ludlum goes and spoils it by adding bits that you do not really need and it makes it less good.
The story starts with a nervous Brigadier General who has come across a bit of information he is not sure how to deal with except that he knows it is big and potentially dangerous. We then get what I would call a quick who's who of the main players and then we get the story of how we got here in flashback. It is almost as if Ludlum wants to set the scene for some great revelation. However, he has already given us the revelation and now we are just going back to the beginning and getting the "how did we get here". It is like Ludlum has constructed a few scenes as a reason for him to tell this incredible story of this family and how they had their part to play in the Second World War but it seems a bit contrived. He could have just given us  the final chapter of the book and then go back from there without throwing about 10 names in two pages at me and expecting me to remember them all for when they eventually turn up. Be that as it may... the story Ludlum then tells is fascinating and engaging. It tells the tale of a young immigrant and how he worked his way to the top of society. There is more double cross, violence and intrigue in this book than in many others I have read and it keeps going and going until the last page. In between all that action Ludlum has also managed to give us some really interesting main characters in the shape of Elizabeth Scarlatti, Matthew Canfield and Ulster Stewart Scarlett (who has been a very very bad boy!) . All the other character are kind of on the side and not that relevant or interesting. 
One example of this is Ulster Scarlett's son. He is mentioned as being born, is "on screen" in the first and last couple of pages and that is it. It seems that for a very long time whilst mum is off her and there with her new lover and the mother in law  trying not to get killed her son is....???? Who knows where. I hope she got someone to pop round every now and then to feed the little guy. It seems to me that she has a remarkably absent sense of motherhood and zero parenting skills. Yet, someone loves her and wants to protect her so she must have something going for her. It just struck me as really strange. The son is just not mentioned in the whole main of the story. He seems to be only useful at the beginning and end and when he briefly turns up even that is a disappointment. Ulster Scarlett makes a thing about needing to meet his son but in the end the meeting scene is a bit of a let down it is nothing to do with restoring the father son bond or even destroying it. It does not even seem to have anything to do with the story. Surely if Mr Ludlum can write such a good core story he can invent a better set up around the son than what we have ended up with?
So we have our main players. Elizabeth is a formidable woman who rules her family with an iron fist. She and her husband have built an empire together through cunning, determination, good timing and luck. They have 3 children. Roland is the shy one.. probably the most promising one so naturally he gets killed in WW1. Then we have Chancellor who is described as studious (=boring). Last but not lest there is Ulster. He is the bad seed and that is made clear from the start. The bulk of the story deals with Ulster but once we do get more of Elizabeth she shows us that despite her age she is a woman you do not cross. She is still a cunning business woman and figures out what Ulster is planning to do way before anyone else. What is more, she is the only one who has the skills and cunning to out-fox the fox and she does it in style. Scenes with Elizabeth and the Thirteen are very good. You can just picture her lording it over all these "businessmen" most of them probably in nappies whist she was building her empire. the great thing about Elizabeth is that she is driven to do the right thing. She sees the evil that her son is trying to do and is willing to stop it as whatever cost to herself personally or her business and that deserves respect. She may have made mistakes in raising her children, indulged them and be partly responsible for the human beings they have become but she is willing to do whatever if they go too far.
The second main character is Matthew Canfield. He is an intelligence officer who has a talent for getting out of sticky situations and is not afraid to turn a blind eye for the right kind of reward. In other words, he has his morals and he sticks to them but occasionally he will bend the truth and play the game. In the beginning of the story all we know is that Canfield has been selected to be the liaison at the special request of a man who calls himself Kroeger. There is a file that Mr Kroeger wants and it also seems that Kroeger is not really who he says he is. Canfield is to bring someone to the meeting called April Red (who turns out to be Ulster Scarlett's son). The meeting goes ahead at the end of the book and you kind of wonder why. What kind of makes it okay is that Canfield himself wonders this as well as the information that Kroeger is selling is old and irrelevant.. so he kills him. Not the first time he tried to kill him either! Canfield is really not that interesting at the end or beginning bits. He comes to life a bit more in the core of the story. Canfield is called in when Ulster Scarlett mysteriously disappears and seems to be involved in some illegal stock deals (and possibly more). Canfield does his bit to get close the Ulster's wife as she might have some information but it seems that mum is actually more likely to be able to oblige. To cut a long story short Canfield and Elizabeth end up getting better acquainted due to an incident with a burglar and they decided to pool their resources. Together they figure out what Ulster is up to and how he plans to basically fund the Third Reich through some ingenious business construction. It is a good thing they know what they are doing because all the business stuff just made no sense to me at all. Once they decided to stick together you can see that a sort of respect develops between the two of them. I actually think that Elizabeth likes Canfield. She likes his cunning and his persistence. The fact that he manages to save her from a few bullets and keeps her alive to deliver the death blow to Ulster probably helps her appreciation of him more. Canfield comes across as a guy who kind of does what needs to be done. He mainly wants to get Ulster for the way he treated his wife and family and I do not thin that getting him a slap on the writs for stock trading fraud is too high on his list but hey... whatever motivates you. In the end Canfield seems more hell bent on revenge for himself and Janet than anything else. He wants to destroy Ulster and although he has to have a few goes at it he does succeed in the end. Why Canfield gets involved with Janet (Ulster's ex wife) is not really clear to me but I guess it is a reason to develop a vengeance motive to get him to go after Ulster and it serves the story up to a point.
So we come to the last main character. Mr Ulster Stewart Scarlett. He is a real piece of work. He is a nasty self centred kid, a bully and acts like people owe him just because he is a Scarlett. When he gets to the front in WW2 he decides that all this fighting business is just stupid and gets out but not before he kills a few of his own platoon and makes a pact with a German officer. Ulster wants Power. Real power... not the make believe power his mother has in business but real Power to make and break people and empires. He believes that the Germans can get that for him. So, with his German friend (r is optional) he devises this plan to get Power. He almost succeeds as well. There is not too much more to say about Ulster. He is a bad boy and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He symbolises true evil. I do not feel sorry for anything bad that happens to him and I think that is exactly the way Ludlum wants it.
So, any good. Well... yes. Although some bits seem a bit irrelevant (beginning and end scenes and Ulster's wife and son in general) the main story of the family and how they get Ulster has got some pace and moves along well. Yes Ulster is a stereotypical bad guy, Elizabeth is the stereotypical Matriarch and Canfield is the stereotypical flawed hero but I like them and they keep me entertained.

Title: The Scarlatti Inheritance
Author: Robert Ludlum
354 pages
Bantam Books
ISBN #0-553-11427-1


Books to be read: 145

It's all about timing...

I think that if I do one book a day this week I might just get caught up with the reviews by the time I get back to work! Yes.... I have just had a very good interview and it looks like I will be starting on 1st July. It's going to be an interesting one as it is a complete change of industry for me but I like a challenge and a change every now and again so looking  forward to seeing what the future is going to bring.
I am hoping to keep having time and energy to read and I think I will but starting a new job can be a bit draining at the start so I will have to see how I get on. In the meantime, it is time for another slurp of coffee and then the next review.


#### SPOILER ALERT ####

Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King
This one starts in a strange way. We meet Dolores and immediately understand that she is in a spot of bother. She seems to be cautioned for something or other and in an interrogation room with a few police officers and a stenographer. Once we all know where we are it is just one long dialogue of Dolores telling us how we all ended up where we are. The interesting thing about the book is that is has no chapters, no separate paragraphs or real breaks in the story (apart from when she addresses the people in the room). In the beginning I thought this was going to be really off putting, how was I going to stop reading this one? In other books there is a clear end to a chapter and you can promise yourself that you will read just one more chapter and then go to bed. I could not do that with this one so I kind of just read until I felt I had had enough of Dolores talking to me. Once Dolores gets going there seems to be no stopping her. 
Dolores has been hauled in by the local coppers to discuss her possible involvement in the death of her employer Vera Donovan. Funny thing is, she actually ends up confessing to the murder of her husband and that becomes as much the focus of the story as the business with Vera. Dolores is best described as one tough cookie. She has not had an easy life and has had to work hard all her life. She is also a woman with a sense of justice and a good brain on her shoulders. She is very protective of her children and wants them to be the best they can be. Her wanting to care for her children is what leads her to kill her husband (and good riddance to him too!). He is a bit of a brute who is good at pretending to be an alcoholic, getting people to take putty on him and he likes to think he can outsmart Dolores and take advantage of their daughter. After only a few pages of reading about their life together you know that this is never going to fly with Dolores. Especially not when she realises that accidents do happen, to all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways. Vera very obligingly points this out to her one day and Dolores then knows it is time to take action. A solar eclipse very obligingly lends a hand in covering up the worst of it. It is fascinating to read how she mentally prepares herself and how at times such a simple woman manges to keep herself together through all of it and comes out the other side. I do not mean that in a derogatory way - she just is simple, her choices in life are simple. She is a simple housewife who decides on what needs to be done and does it! The only sad thing is that in all of it she seems to have lost the unwavering trust of the one person she did the murder for. One of the most entertaining parts of the book is when she gets hauled in for her husband's murder by the local copper and is questioned by some jumped up Medical Examiner McAuliffe. The guy is almost sure he can get this little housewife to confess for the murder. He comes across all high and mighty and pompous but Dolores is ready for him. She has her story straight and keeps her cool and comes out the winner in that fight! The dialogue between the two of them is fascinating and very well written.
The other part of he book is the story of Dolores and Vera. Vera is the local rich lady in the big house and Dolores is the only servant to have lasted longer than a few months in her service... ever! Vera is demanding, feisty, bitchy and a woman who has lost everything. Husband and children (as you find out at the end). One was an accident, one was not. Dolores and Vera seem at times to be just two cantankerous old women condemned to lives their lives out getting on each other's nerves and fighting over stupid little things. Mind you Vera has her ways of being mean and if I were Dolores I would have probably killed her within two pages of meeting her. But.. there seems to be an understanding between the women as well. They are both strong and have fought to protect their families and in that fight things have not always gone to plan. Vera has let what happen to her turn her into a bitter and lonely women. Dolores seems to have been able to let go of what has happened to her and that is the biggest difference between the two of them. Vera is the one who ends up worse off as she has a few strokes and becomes dependant on Dolores for her care. From the stories in the book you understand that Dolores had quite a bit to contend with taking care of Vera. The shit story is hilarious and very eewwy, the dust bunnies are just a bit freaky and in a way touching.  Dolores she seems to be able to bear it all. When you get to the end Dolores' story of what happened when Vera died is almost tender and very believable. Vera is at the end of her tether and wants to end it all. Dolores knows she wants to help her friend to let go. There seems to be a real understanding and underlying kindness in the relationship at times. Vera really only trusts Dolores to take care of her properly as she has never let her down in all the years she has worked for her. Dolores with no husband and with the kids having their own lives really only has Vera to look after and protect.
However, there is that little niggle in the back of your mind when you listen to Dolores in the interrogation room telling her story. This is the version of events being told by a woman who has planned and executed the murder of her own husband. In the end Dolores is not charged with any murder and is free to live out her life. She even manages to get some good to come out of it all by spending her inheritance wisely.
The whole book is really just one big speech by Dolores. It is mainly dialogue and description from Dolores on what happened with her husband and Vera. The initial concern of having no chapters is quickly put to the back of your mind by the pace and rhythm of the conversation and events. It flows and rolls along and takes you along with it. The dialogue is good and Dolores is one funny, tough old lady. Hard to believe she is almost 66. The fact that she is brought to life as a character so well so quickly means that you forgive her for doing what she did. You cannot really blame a woman for killing her husband after what he did to their daughter. It is almost as if the fact that she has murdered her husband becomes irrelevant. It just happened to be part of her life and she just happens to need to tell the story. To be honest I just wanted her to keep talking to me. She is a joy to listen to and this is a credit to King.

Title: Dolores Claibourne
Author: Stephen King
307 pages
Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN #0-450-58886-6

Books to be read: 146

A bad case of catch up needed

As I said before... all this free time is creating a real problem for me on the review front! I have tried to get my brain interested in other things like cryptic crosswords and telly but it seems the brain wants to read. So in order not to get behind even further.


#### SPOILER ALERT ####


The Ice House - Minette Walters
This one was good but there were some distractions to contend with.
Most people you meet very soon do something that makes you wonder if they are really the stereotype they initially are presented to be. They will do or say something that make your spider sense tingle. In the end everyone turns out to be different from how they are first portrayed or believed to be. It is almost as if Walters wants you to suspect everyone of being a potential killer. I am afraid to say it did not quite work for me. It was almost as if knowing the trick Walters was pulling I kind of just sat back and let Walters tell her tale and wait for the story to unfold and deliver the killer to me. 
It has all the necessary elements for a good detective story from the start. A fairly decomposed body is found in a location  not many people would know to look (an old ice house). It is found on the land of a women (Mrs Phoebe Maybury) whose own husband mysteriously disappeared years ago. No-one in the village seems to like her very much. Especially not as she minds her own business and does not feel the need to explain why she now lives in the house now with two other women (Diana Goode and Anne Cattrell) and some caretakers that may or may not be on the level. Chief Inspector Walsh is jumping at the chance to investigate this most recent corpse. He is the same guy that investigated the husband's disappearance all those years ago. He seems almost pre-determined to make her life miserable (again) and has a sidekick with a chip on his shoulder the size of  Alaska to help him do this. Walsh is presented as the grizzled, older and wiser cop. He has done his time in the force and has almost got one eye on the exit door at all times. Having said that he seems an okay kind of cop and thorough in his investigations. He certainly seems to have done a good job of trying to find out who tried to kill Mr Maybury at the time of that incident. He also seems very determined to get Phoebe locked up for this body that has appeared on her doorstep even though he initially seems to have no real reason to. His "able" assistant is Detective Sergeant McLoughlin. He is presented as the kind of plodder cop who has not really made too much of himself and may not be the brightest tool in the toolbox . Oh, and his missus has recently run out on him (of course she has). He is presented as a bit of a burly guy, intimidating and almost brutishly dismissive of women especially if they are cleverer than him (I'd have left him too!).
The women seem to be very much on their guard around Walsh and they do not think much of McLoughlin either. Mind you McLoughlin behaves like an oaf around them. I am not quite sure what is worse. His demeaning attitude towards them whilst he thinks they may be lesbians or the apparent change of attitude hen he realises they are not? Walsh certainly seems to get a kick out of antagonising the ladies and he seems only to happy to have another crack at trying to convict Phoebe of the murder of he own husband. For  long time it is almost as if the book is about that only. It is not so much pin the tail on the donkey as pin the murder on the lady of the house. Sure Walsh and McLoughlin do the usual checking of alibis, some gathering of information and some looking into reports from missing persons but it is almost as if Walsh goes through the motions while he figures out how to get Phoebe for both this murder and the earlier murder of her husband. They are just going through the investigative routine.Walsh seems to know exactly where he is going and you kind of know that he cannot possibly be right with his suspicions. Walters decided to muddy the Waters a little by making one of the disappearances into a side story of its own with a quite funny story of a business man, a vagrant, some pink trousers and a performance by an Oscar winning wife. It is one of those ones which seems to go somewhere only then to be resolved with whimper. You know it is only a distraction from the main story and there probably is not pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but you read on anyway in case there is.
Just when you think that through dogged police work the truth will out Walters turns the whole thing on its head and changes things around a bit. Science prevails and Walsh is forced to consider the option that the body in the ice house is not Mr Maybury and might not even be a murder. Does he accept that? Of course not! However, there is hope as (who would have though it...) it turns out that McLoughlin is not the brute, stupid cop he initially seems to be. He finds out that his boss has been dropping the ball left right and centre and sort of takes over the investigation and puts things right so justice can prevail. Walsh is shown up for the vindictive little village cop that he is, McLoughlin is the hero of the hour and we even find out who the body in the ice house actually is. Pity we had to sit through lots of useless side stories of speculating villagers, some sexual tension between McLoughlin and one of the women, the matter of the children, the history of events of the initial murder of Mr Maybury and some very vindictive and not to mention randy neighbours in between all of it.
It is good that you do find out who the corpse in the ice house is and what really happened to Mr Maybury, although it is not Phoebe who tells this story but Anne. It is kind of a sad story and you do understand why the women closed ranks, withdrew and seem to be tied to the house. McLoughlin finds out what really happened in the house. Suffice it to say it involves Mr Maybury, an innocent little girl and a bit further down the line some out of control villagers as well. Naturally now that McLoughlin knows what happened he (being the good dedicated and loved up copper that he is) is eager to help Anne find a final solution to her problem. So he seems to have enough morals to take his boss to task but not enough to do something about a murder that is confessed to him.. fine, it was self defense but come on!
The bit that is a bit too much for me is the fact that at the end of the book Phoebe decides that it is now time to get back out there and be part of village life. Hey, the local pub landlord seems to think it is worth a try so why not eh? It just seems a bit too Happy Endings Inc for me. .
Still.... all in all the story is okay and the writing is good, it's got a good pace. There are just a few too many distractions for me and the fact that every main character is not who they seem initially is a bit much. It is like Walters keep wanting to catch me out by giving me a character and then turning into its opposite. It is almost like the body in the ice house. At first that seems to be the most important thing in the book but throughout the story it becomes secondary and irrelevant as all the other stories and lies play out around it.


Title: The Ice House
Author: Minette Walters
413 pages
Pan Books
ISBN #0-330-32791-7

Books to be read: 147

Too much time on my hands

It seems that all this being off work is having a really beneficial effect on my book count. Not sure if it is having a similar effect on my bank account but that's another story.

I have now a small stack of 5 books to review so I guess I better get cracking.

#### SPOILER ALERT ####

Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce - Selected and introduced by E.F Bleiler

After duly skipping the introduction of this one, I plunged into the stories. As usually is the case with an anthology some are "ooh, you clever boy" and some make you go "eh?".

24 Stories in all and some are only a few pages long.

The thing that struck me most about the stories in general is that they are very tough, masculine and at times full of the frontier mentality. It seems that a lot of them are about men who are from somewhere else trying to establish themselves. No female main character in sight in any of the stories. They seem to be written for men, with gruff men in them. They are dark and fierce and driven. They also have a little social commentary in them every now and again. In some stories you get just one little remark, every so often that either clarifies Bierce's personal position on issues or criticises and makes fun of current social and political opinion... I am not quite sure which?

The Death of Halpin Frayser

I started this one twice and went back through it whilst reading it and I am still not sure what it is trying to tell me. Halpin is a drifter, a man who has a family but no links to them any longer. He ends up falling a sleep somewhere and has a vision and a memory of a name. Then two guys come along looking for some guy who had committed murder. Turns out the name and the victim are the same.... Halpin's mother. However, Halpin being dead now kinds of defeats the object of potential revenge. Oh, and he leaves a badly written poem.. apparently in the style of one of his ancestors.

Explanations on a postcard please.

Moxon's Master

Having a discussion about whether or not a machine can think is all well and good until someone gets hurt!

Moxon believes that machines can think his opponent does not. Each ends up trying to make the other see sense but in the end Moxon seems to draw the short straw and gets beaten by his chess playing machine.... literally. Nice but a bit gruesome and philosophical.

Beyond the Wall

A man goes to visit an old acquaintance, Dampier and is told a story of young, foolish love. Dampier used to live next door to a lovely girl whom he was too shy to woo openly. They used to signal to eachother by knocking on their respective adjoining bedroom walls (aah, true love, must be). He thinks of approaching her but is too much of a coward to do so. She falls ill and dies but not before (of course) she gives one more knock on the wall which he duly ignores. She, however, has not given up hope of getting in touch. Conveniently for her, one his story is told and out narrotor leaves, Dampier passes "into the Unknown". Okay but bit melodramatic, pining, young love and all that.

The Damned Thing

Some guys, a corpse and an invisible assailant.

I love the cynicism of the coroner in this story. He clearly does not believe a word of what he has been told by the witness (who is a journalist!) but has not choice but to enter a verdict of death by mountain lion. The account that the dead man has left himself is so fantastical that it could not possibly be true. Colours on a spectrum we cannot see with the human eye??? Do us a favour!! No well respected frontier man would ever believe that one.

Short, sweet and not too creepy. great dialogue between the journalist and the coroner.

A Watcher by the Dead

A bet turned bad. Some guys decide that they are going to have a little fun at the expense of one of their fellow human beings. A man is challenged to sit by a corpse that turns out to be not really a corpse. After the watch is completed there is a corpse but not the one we expected. Vengeance is achieved in the end however so all is well.

Nice little story.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

A man's last moments on this earth. Told very well and movingly. Peyton Farquhar is waiting to be hanged and observes all around him. Then the unexpected seems to happen. But it seems that none can escape the hangman's noose.

Liked this one a lot. It starts out all very plausible and you want our man to be right about what is going on but how lucky can one guy get? True, honest, desperate emotion in a tale of both hope and death.

The Way of Ghosts

Several short short stories about people being haunted by ghosts. Best one of the four: A Cold Greeting where etiquette and vague acquaintances are the basis of a ghost story.

Some Haunted Houses

Several ones about haunted houses... does what it says on the tin.

The best one in this bunch is The Spook House where rooms seem to be best left alone.

"Mysterious Disappearances"

Almost presented as fact stories of people going missing... vanishing in to this air.

Even a bit of science at the end in case you were confused on what is actually going on here.

The Man and the Snake

How the power of suggestion can lead to all sorts of trouble.

A man conned by his own imagination. Well structured, tense, dreamy and the twist at the end is priceless!

The Suitable Surroundings

Seems that some authors are really particular in what kind of surroundings you should read their stories and not to particular to what might happen to you when you do. the nice ting about this one is that the story is told a bit back to front. You go to the end of it only to go back to the beginning. Nicely done!

The Eyes of the Panther

A man is trying to convince a woman to marry her but she tells him she is insane so she cannot. Turns she is not so much insane as a woman with a really interesting and tragic family history. You want her to be happy but in the end she still ends up dead. Moody and sombre story about love and loss and panther eyes.

The Famous Gilson Bequest

A man convicted of horse theft is duly strung up. His bequest basically challenges his accuser to try and prove him a liar and and somehow makes one man very rich. However the truth of it all will out. Moral: greed baaaaad.

An Adventure at Brownville

A man overhears on conversation he shouldn't and tries to save the damsel in distress. She is under some other guy's spell and it all ends with a corpse. Not too eerie, not too weird, just a bit of a strange story. Seems there is more to it but it ends where it does.

An Inhabitant of Carcosa

Weird with a beard!

Strange story of someone who is lost and really should have used google maps to get to where he wanted to go. Now he  lost and stuck and a long way from home.

Mr Bierce needs to lay of the caffeinated coffees for a bit methinks.

The Secret of Macarger's Gulch

A drifter decides to hide out in the ruins of some deserted, ruined house. His rest is brief and the place gives him the creeps. It is no surprise to learn someone was murdered there.

Short and sweet, nothing too special even slightly predictable.

The Moonlit Road

Murder from three perspectives. Read this one before. Kind of liked it then... still like it now.

A wife is murdered but is her husband really to blame? Is she trying to comfort or haunt?

The Haunted Valley

Bigotry and ghosts. A weird combination. Never knew there was a particular way to fell a tree and that it mattered so much to get it right! Some cheeky humor as well as someone's bad conscience gets the better of him trough someone trying to satisfy his curiosity.

A Jug of Sirup

A ghost store that has its visitors stumbling in the dark but appears to be fully trading to those watching from the outside. Nice.

The Night-Doings at Deadman's

A story of don't mess with the Chinese. A man gets a very silent late night visitor, a murder is avenged and a man reunited with is hair.

The Middle Toe of the Right Foot

A man is lured to a house he knows very well seemingly by a group of strangers. There is supposed to be a fight but things do not go quite to plan. Needless to say the bad guy gets his comeuppance and a few ore ghost rest easy after that night.

John Bartine's Watch

A prime example how sometimes it is better not to try a be a smarty pants. You may think you are only trying to help but the power of suggestion is a dangerous tool to mess with. People may get hurt or worse!

The one ghost story where a man is beating by a watch and the words "trust me I'm a doctor" do not signify anything.

The Stranger

A man visits a group of friends out in the middle of nowhere and tells the tale of how he and is friends were left to the mercies of some murdering indians. Some to the easy way out, others didn't. 

Moody, eerie and good.

Visions of the Night

Some stories, or perhaps more memories of dreams. Weird, vague and not that good.

All in all this is a nice collection of stories by Bierce. 

Some of them are a bit weird and wonderful and only a few a bit unreadable. Not bad going. Keen to read more of his to see if all his work has this rough edge of frontier mentality.

Title: Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce

Author: Ambrose Bierce, selected and introduced by E.F. Bleiler

199 pages

Dover Publications Inc

ISBN #0-486-20767-6

Books to be read: 148

A sharp decline

The fact that I am keeping this notebook with lists of authors who I have several books from seems to be really working eh.... Well, anyway... Digital Fortress is on its way to pastures new and that leaves me with only a teeny weeny amount of books to be read: 150.

Since my last post I seem to have got on quite well on the reading front. Not only have I finished 4... yes indeed... FOUR. I think that it is the whole being made redundant scenario that has given me not only more time to read but also more of an excuse. Job hunting is something I do every day but do not something I do all day. There are only so many different vacancies on so many different sites and in deciding whether I want to apply for a position as Project Manager or Client services Manager there seems to be plenty of space to get in a book or two.... or four. Mind you, this find a job thing is proving to be a lot of hard work! But... it seems to be finally moving in the right direction. A few things on the go now and hoping to be getting back to some kind of gainful employment soon.
But now, without further ado... number 1.


##### SPOILER ALERT ####

4.50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie
This is another one from one of my favourite authors and it does not disappoint. Clever, good pace, nice characters and unexpected twists galore.
At the start of it you think that no way is this crime is ever going to get resolved. All the odds are against it. A crime is witnessed by a lovely, dapper, interfering (aren't all stereotypical old ladies in most novels?) and tight fisted old lady (ask the porter), she has just woken up from a nap and then looks over at a passing train only to see a woman being strangled in one of the compartments. She only sees the man who is doing the strangling from behind. Naturally the lady does her civic duty and reports it. It is investigated by the "proper authorities" but nothing comes of it. She also happens to tell her friend Miss Marple about it. Miss M ponders it has a few half baked attempts (or so they seem) at finding out some information and doing a bit of sleuthing but again nothing comes of it initially. By the use of logic Miss Marple determines where the body should be and engages a young lady to do her legwork work her. This is part of the beauty of the story. Miss Marple must have taken some serious lateral thinking pills when she was younger as her ingenious kind of logic gets the results. To be honest, you would have to beat me round the head with the facts to arrive at the same conclusions having been presented with the same information that she has.
The first twist comes when you realise that Miss Marple is not even intending to visit the crime scene (okay kind of hard as it is a moving train and we do not really find out what specific physical train it was) or even the place where eventually the body of the woman is found. She solves this one almost completely with out ever near the scene and relies on other people describing the scene, clues and people involved to her. An amazing feat on a good day but especially as she is presented as being a bit of an ageing sleuth. Fortunately for us she is still sharp as a tack!
So, we have a body and a locations and plenty of people around who have opinions on who she is and why she ended up where she did. Initially we are faced with the task of  finding out who the lady is. A few options are presented but all discounted. Thankfully it seems that everyone who lives in the estate has an opinion on who she was or why should would have ended up dead there. It makes or some cracking reading and all the time I know I am getting fooled by red herrings, suitable suspects and side plots. Plenty of characters have a motive for wanting to kill someone but who would want to kill a woman and why. Do I mind? Absolutely not! I love it. 
The story flows well. The characters you meet are pleasant and although not very fleshed out they are as usual very recognisable. We have the dowdy old lady, the irascible and bitter old man who is head of estate he will never own himself, the good son, the wayward son, the dead son and the saintly sister. Also we have a family doctor and a potential illicit affair with potential offspring. Then we have the clever help in the household (placed there by Miss M) - young, cunning, clever and very capable. The policemen are pleasant enough and have dealt with Miss Marple before so know when to step aside and let her do her thing. 
As usual I was completely wrong about who-dunnit and again I forgive Christie wholeheartedly. She has amused me for all of the 190 pages of the book and I will be revisiting her stories again and again. Great read.... want more!

Title: 4.50 From Paddington
Author: Agatha Christie
190 pages
Fontana
ISBN #0-00-615762-9

Books to be read: 149

Ups and downs

It has been an eventful few days... After finishing at work I went and took myself away for a few days and went up to York. Lovely city to while away a few days! I spent most of my time just wandering around and having coffees (and some food to every now and again). It was nice to be able to catch  my breath and just relax for a few days. True to form the weather was best on the day I left but that seems to be the way these things go sometimes. I discovered that York has an excellent selection of second hand book shops as well! don't worry I did not go overboard... I only got 3. I only had a small suitcase with me so did not really have room for that many more so trust me... 3 is a very reasonable amount. Two more Agatha Christie ones and another Graham Greene one.
This brings the total of books to be read up to 153.
However, I have some good news. I can get rid of one right away! I was adding my recent purchases to the list I keep of ones I already have of the same author (I keep the list to prevent me from buying the same book twice!.... I find this works really well... when you have it with you when you are thinking of buying books) and I found that I already owned one of the recent orphans I adopted. That means I can get rid of one of the to be read list which then comes to a lovely even 152 to be read.... and I finished one!!


#### SPOILER ALERT ####

In a Dry Season - Peter Robinson
I am not sure I really devoured this one but I did get on with it quite well and it was a nice read. Robinson is not an extremely fast paced writer. The story flows well and it is structured well but does not always have the  drive that some other authors have. Robinson gets on with the story and he will get there when he is ready.
This one was number eleven in the Inspector Banks Series and I can tell I have missed a fair part of his life so far. It is being referred to regularly so even this being the first one I read I did not fell I did not get any back ground on mr Banks. Banks is recently divorced, moved to a small cottage and seems to be trying to get his life back together again. He comes across as an outsider whose boss is out to toast his maracas over an open fire. He has some friends he has neglected and is in the process of getting his life back on track. He gets assigned a case that his boss thinks will keep him out of the way and potentially remain unsolved thus indicating how incompetent Banks really is. Fortunately for mr Banks one of the things that has not left him is his wish to find out the truth for the victims and his tenacity.
In the book you actually get a two for one. You get a story being told by someone you have not met yet which is in the past and then there is the story of the present where a body is found and Banks is called in to find out what has happened. I kind of figured out relatively quickly that the story being told in the past would lead to the identity of the dead body in the present and that it was giving me a glimpse of all the potential suspects. I also kind of understood that the one character that is seemingly unrelated to either if the main stories is probably the one that ends up being part of both of them. For once it seems that I am getting things right in a detective story and that never happens!
The problem with the story is that as the crime happened so long ago that it is hard to make you care about it at all. It is almost as of the body they find is merely a vehicle for someone to tell their life story and tell you about what life was like for people in the Second World War. It is interesting in that respect as it tells you about day to day life and how people deal with the impact of the war on daily life. How they managed without their husbands and sons, how they coped with them being missing or dead.. or sometimes not so dad as they supposed. It show what people had to do to survive. You meet the villagers and get to see how they interact with the soldiers that are stationed locally. You get the unexpected joy of the parties and the desolation of worrying about their loved ones. It is interesting but I felt that it was not really getting me anywhere.. nice as background and setting the scene but really relevant??? I guess it introduced all the suspects and set the scene for the crime to take place. 
Banks and the local copper Annie Cabbot are finding and putting together all the info in the present and they seem to be doing fine without all the flashbacks. They start out with a hunch and along the way trace what has gone on in the lost village. The biggest problem they face is that as the crime took place in the war the records are sketchy is some places and non-existent in others. Yet with some dogged investigating, a few bottles of wine, some smooching on the sofa and some lucky breaks they figure out what has gone on. The victim gets under both Banks and Cabbot's skins and they don't stop until they have their man. IT is a bit of a shame that in the end their man is not really caught because of anything Banks or Cabbot have done. Their boy made one mistake too many and got caught. The body in the village may have been the first victim but she surely was not the last. This little moral dilemma is brought up briefly... if those involved had raised the alarm at the time would the murdered have been stopped sooner but the hot potato is dropped rather quickly.
The characters in the book are not really that fleshed out. Banks is a dedicated copper with a divorce and a slight drinking problem, he is in trouble with his boss regularly and is trying to find himself again. Well.. good for him. Cabbot is a local copper who has been hurt by the system and has settled for the quiet life. She is a bit all over the place at times and tries to do some of her policing by her instincts rather than by the book. Something that Banks (naturally) understands and likes about her. Naturally as well... these two end up sort of together. Not that you really need this distraction in the book but as they dragged the relation ship with the son in as well we may as well have a new and blossoming relationship as well. All the local coppers seem solid people but nothing remarkable.. just your standard copper. One a bit more dyed in the wool than the other and there is also the "digger" - the one that gets the vital clues at the right moment. There is the male and female old and slightly neglected friend, the absent wife he may still love and the rebellious son who reminds him of himself. So far, so standard. Everyone seems to be established already in how they work together and you get some introduction to them but not really that much... so perhaps you do need to read the series from the beginning to be more invested in them? 
I think it is fair to say that there are no real surprises in the book. Not even at the end when someone's life gets threatened... you kind of see it coming and go with it. All in all I have to say that this one was okay. I am not rushing to my bookshelves to read another one but I would not mind reading another on in time.

Title: In a Dry Season
Author: Peter Robinson
500 pages
Pan Books
ISBN #0-330-39201-8

Books to be read: 151