Books Read 2025

JANUARY 2025

Edited by Martin Edwards - Lessons in Crime. Crime Fiction Short Stories. (British Library Crime Classics republished 2024) These 15  stories are all set in schools or university and range from Arthur Conan Doyle to a surprise modern story from Jacqueline Wilson.

Sylvia Townsend Warner - Winter in the Air. Fiction. Short Stories (Originally Published 1955) Some of these stories are so short and very weird.

Elizabeth Anthony - Dramatic Murder. Crime Fiction ( Originally Published 1948. BLCC Reprint 2024) Playwright Dimpsie McCabe has invited all his friends from the theatre world to join him at his castle in Scotland for Christmas. However, the festivities haven't even started when two latecomers find Dimpsie dead amongst the branches of his Christmas tree that he had been decorating. The death seems to be accidental caused by faulty electrics but when another member of the party dies a few weeks later the police and some of Dimpsie's friends become suspicious.

Edited by Vaseem Khan - Murder in Harrogate; Stories inspired by the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. Crime Fiction. Short Stories. (Published 2024) All these stories are by modern crime writers and are set in Harrogate in Yorkshire. Some are set in the early part of the twentieth century and others are up to date.

Evie Woods - The Story Collector. Fiction (Published 2024) In 1911 Ireland, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate the old stories of the fairy world for his university studies. In 2011Sarah Harper boards a plane for the west coast of Ireland, she was supposed to be heading to her parents home in Boston - running away from sadness and a failed marriage.

Candace Robb -A Snake in the Barley. Crime Fiction. (Published 2024). The 15th in a series featuring Owen Archer and his Apothecary wife Lucy, and set in 14th Century York. Tom Merchet, taverner and good friend has been missing for five days, his wife Bess is frantic. As Owen hunts for clues, Bess visits the lodgings of a mystery woman that Tom was seen visiting. The hunt sends Owen to Beverly in Yorkshire.

Catherine Aird - Inheritance Tracks. Crime Fiction. (Published 2019) A Sloan and Crosby police mystery. Five strangers attend the solicitor, they don't know each other but it turns out they are all due to inherit from from a distant relative, but not until another relative is found. Then one of the group is murdered.

Ann Granger - Death on the Prowl. Crime Fiction (Published 2024) This is a Campbell and Carter mystery - the 8th in this police series. When the cleaners of a remote Cotswold cottage find a body the police aren't sure who is laying dead, but a neighbour identifies him as Jerry Harrison, the man who inherited the cottage from an aunt but never mixes with other people and lets out the cottage every summer. There are no witnesses and no information so it takes a while to get to the answer.

Lettice Cooper - Tea on Sunday. Crime Fiction (Originally Published 1973, reprinted BLCC 2024) . On a cold winter day in London Alberta Mansbridge sets the tea table with 9 cups ready to welcome eight guests she knows well for Sunday afternoon tea. But when the guests arrive they get no response and the police find her dead, strangled. She wouldn't have let anyone in that she didn't know so all the eight guests are the suspects. Although this was written in 1970 it's written in vintage murder mode. A good story.

Kristin Hannah - The Nightingale. Fiction (Published 2015) Info from Amazon-   This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II, when women’s stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.          Really good well written story which might be made into a film sometime.

Arthur Ransome - Winter Holiday. Children's Fiction. (Published 1933) Another story of the Swallows and Amazons. This time two other children are staying in the Lake District with their old nanny while their parents are away abroad. The children set up a way of signalling to each other and as the lake freezes over they plan all sorts of adventures. Then Nancy goes down with mumps and the winter holiday is extended.

Claire Keegan - Walk the Blue Fields. Fiction Short Stories (Published 2007) Short stories all set in Ireland some are based on old folk tales.

12 Books Read in January

2 Older Crime Fiction ( 1 Short Stories)

4 Fiction ( 2 Short Stories)

5 Recently Written Crime Fiction (1 Short Stories)

1 Children's Book

FEBRUARY

• Clare Chase - Mystery at Apple Tree Cottage. Crime Fiction (Published 2020) A Slightly cosy crime, the second in a series. Easy reading but one of those books where the main character, Eve Mallow - an obituary writer - gets too involved with a murder in the village.
• Daniel Smith -The Spade as Mighty as the Sword;The story of the Dig for Victory campaign during WWII. Non Fiction. (Published 2011) .This looks at publications, people and news report of how the Dig for Victory campaign persuaded so many people and organisations to grow much needed vegetables  and grains etc to replace the food which had previously been imported.
• Alex Pine - The Winter Killer. Crime Fiction.(Published 2022) As the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, DI James Walker receives a phone call that puts paid to his Christmas break. During the wedding of the year at a lakeside hotel, the bride's sister has vanished. Before the wedding night is out, the lake is being searched for a body.
• Kristin Hannah - True Colours. Fiction. (Published 2009).Covering thirty years in the lives of three sisters growing up on a horse and cattle ranch with their widowed and unhappy Father. Winona is the eldest, and becomes an intelligent lawyer, but feels a failure. Aurora is married with two children - she tries to be the peacemaker but the story is really about the youngest- beautiful and popular Vivi-Ann. When a stranger - Dallas Rainbird - Native American is hired as a ranch hand everything changes.

2 Recently Written Crime Fiction

1 Fiction

1 Non Fiction