Reading A Lot

 11 books read already this month and there are still a few days left. Once I got to the caravan which didn't have a smart TV so I couldn't watch anymore of the Inspector Montalbano I seem to have whipped through books at a great rate.

All have been good because if they weren't I wouldn't finish them, most have been crime.

Here we go - copied from my Books Read 2021 page.

1. Nap Lombard - Murder's a Swine. Crime Fiction (British Library Crime Classic 2021. Originally Published 1943). This is a witty, lighthearted murder set in London in the early years of WWII before bombing started. It reminded me of Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence mysteries. Nap Lombard was a pseudonym of Pamela Hansford Johnson and her then husband Gorden Neil Stewart who both served as Air Raid Wardens and this book starts with the discovery of a body behind sandbags in an air raid shelter.
2. Chris Nickson -  To The Dark. Crime Fiction. (Published 2020)All of this authors books are set in Leeds but in different periods. This is the 3rd featuring thief-taker Simon Westlow during the  1820's. The city is in the grip of winter, but the chill deepens for Simon and his young assistant, Jane, when the body of Laurence Poole, a petty local thief, emerges from the melting snow by the river at Flay Cross Mill.
   
3. Julie Wassmer - Murder on the Downs. Crime Fiction. (Published 2020). The 7th in the Whitstable Pearl series. A controversial new property development is planned in Whitstable which will encroach upon the green open space of the downs. A campaign starts to stop the development but soon one person is dead. A Very Quick Read! 
4. Mike Hollow - The Custom House Murder. Crime Fiction (Published 2017 and re-named and re-published in 2020) September 1940 and a month into the London Blitz this is the 3rd in a series featuring  DI John Jago.
5. Robin Blake - Secret Mischief. Crime Fiction (Published 2021). This is the 7th in a series of historical crime fiction set in the early 18C in Lancashire around the Preston area. It features the coroner for the area Titus Cragg and his friend Dr. Luke Fidelis  . This story centres around a Tontine which is a way of leaving money to the "last man standing" from a group of friends.
6. Anne Hart - Miss Marple; The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple. Fictional Biography. (Published 1986). Using all the Agatha Christie short and longer stories featuring Miss Marple, Anne Hart collects together all the pieces of information to provide a 'biography' of the crime solving sleuth. A small book - quickly read.
7. Barbara Whitton -  Green Hands. Fiction. (And IWM reprint 2020. Originally published 1943) This fictional account of two Land Girls working hard on farms in 1943. The author worked as a Land Girl in 1939.
8. Mike Hollow - The Stratford Murder. Crime Fiction (Published as Firing Line in 2018. Renamed and re-printed in 2020). The 4th in a series set in The London Blitz and featuring DI John Jago. 
9. Elizabeth Fair - Seaview House. Fiction. ( A Furrowed Middlebrow reprint 2017. Originally Published 1955). Her books are always described as comedies of domestic life. This one is set in a seaside boarding house. A gentle easy read.
10. John Coates -  Patience. Fiction. ( Persephone reprint 2012. Originally published 1953). This book was banned in Ireland when it was first published. It's the story of a Catholic girl married to a man 15 years her senior who believes all there is to life is babies and being a good wife who feeds her husband and submits to his attention. Then she meets Phillip and suddenly she falls in love which is very complicated - involving Sin. This is a lovely happy but sad story. Maureen Lipman wrote a preface in 2012 and said she hoped  Persephone would reprint more of Coates writing but so far they haven't.
11. Jane Johnson - The Sea Gate. Fiction. (Published 2020) Mentioned on a blog, this is one of those books that has past and present. In the present Rebecca is recovering from cancer when her mother dies  and on clearing the house she finds some letters to her mother from Olivia, an elderly cousin in Cornwall who needs help with house repairs to enable her to be allowed home from hospital. In the past Olivia is 16 and abandoned in Cornwall by her mother in the middle of WWII. A well written book with an interesting story of family secrets kept for far too long.

Thank goodness for birthday present books, library books and books found in charity shops! What would I have done for the last 7 weeks without them.

Now I'm back with a smart TV to watch I shall finish the rest of Inspector Montalbano and have a look at the early series of Silent Witness which I didn't watch first time round.

Sue