The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is a new kind of crime novel for me, from a Japanese genre called ‘honkaku’. The story is split between a series of murders that took place in 1936 and the attempts of two young men in 1979 to solve the mystery when a new piece of evidence comes into their possession.

Six Degrees of Separation: From True History of the Kelly Gang to The Talented Mr Ripley

The first Saturday in May is upon us, and here comes Six Degrees of Separation, the book meme hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

This month, to start us off, Kate has chosen a book that I haven’t read yet by a favourite author of mine.

Fatale

Read 14/02/2022-15/02/2022

Rating 5 stars

I’ve had Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale on my Kindle since 2016. It was about time I read it, and I’ve chosen it for the French leg of my European book tour. It follows the fortunes of a young widow who conceals her identity to take on the role of killer-for-hire.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Read 20/11/2021-28/11/2021

Rating 11 stars

I eyed up Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead for a long time after its publication, resisting its simple but elegant dark blue cover each time I saw it on display in a bookshop. I finally succumbed earlier this year and now my European book tour brings me to Poland and it’s reached the top of my To Read pile.

Random Thoughts: Meeting People is Easy

Image from EMS-FORSTER-PRODUCTIONS/DigitalVision/Getty

I don’t know why I’ve chosen the title of a film I’ve never watched about a band I’m not that bothered about as the heading for this post. Perhaps because I don’t think meeting people is easy. And yet here I am about to pretend to meet people by answering some questions about myself. Thank goodness we’re not in a room together.

I don’t often do things that involve tagging, but Chris over at Calmgrove’s recent post in response to a new tag #goodtomeetcha invented by Mayri at Bookforager sent me off to the origin post.

I enjoyed both Chris’s and Mayri’s answers so much that I’ve decided to have a go myself. The questions are all as they appear in Mayri’s post.

Knucklebone

Read 04/08/2021-10/08/2021

Rating 3 stars

Knucklebone is a police procedural with a twist set in Johannesburg. Detective Ian Jack has left the South African police force to fulfill his late mother’s dream for him to get an education and not turn into his father. His former colleague Reshma Patel has risen up the ranks in the meantime and is now a Captain. They reconnect one night when Ian is shadowing a security guard as research for his Criminology MA, and the police are also called to the scene of a crime.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Bass Rock to The Lowland

Hello June, here so soon. I’m a day late for this month’s Six Degrees of Separation because summer arrived in Manchester this week and yesterday was too glorious to pass up the chance to read in the garden. Kate, who hosts the meme at Books Are My Favourite and Best, has chosen the Stella Prize winning book The Bass Rock for the first book in the chain.

Blood Wedding

Read 16/05/2021-25/05/2021

Rating 3 stars

Blood Wedding is a psychological crime novel by French writer Pierre Lemaitre. It concerns Sophie, a woman with severe memory loss who, at the start of the book, is looking after a young boy on the days and nights that his busy parents can’t be there. When we meet Sophie, disaster has struck.

Vernon Subutex 3

Read 14/02/2021-21/02/2021

Rating 4 stars

The final installment in Virginie Despentes’s Vernon Subutex trilogy draws together threads from the previous books and has characters zigzagging into one another’s lives, turned there by coincidence and kismet.

Six Degrees of Separation: from The Turn of the Screw to The Third Policeman

It’s the first Saturday in October. That means it’s time for Six Degrees of Separation, in which Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best chooses a book and we all add six more in a chain. The concept is explained here.