Books Read 2026

2026

JANUARY 

• Mike Hollow - The Bloomsbury Murder. Crime Fiction. ( Published 2025) 9th in The Blitz Detective series. DI John Jago is called to a terraced house in Bloomsbury, where a woman has been attacked and left to die. She seems to have been a wonderful kind lady who had opened her home to strangers displaced due to the bombing and to refugees. Which of them would have wanted to murder such a lovely lady.
• Anne Perry- A Christmas Return. Crime Fiction Novella. (Published 2017)One of her Christmas stories featuring people from her other series. I've now read them all.
• William Shaw - The Red Shore. Crime Fiction (Published 2025)  The first of a new series set in Teignmouth area of Devon - and features Detective Sergeant  Eden Driscoll, a Met detective who suddenly finds his estranged sister, Apple, is missing and he has a young nephew he knew nothing about. Upon arrival at his sisters home in Teignmouth he begins to suspect that his sister wasn't just washed overboard  from her yacht - she would never have gone to sea at night or locked the boy - Finn- in a cabin. When he starts to investigate it brings back memories of his and Apple's own strange childhood and puts him and Finn in real danger. 
• E.C.R.Lorac  -Still Waters. Crime Fiction (BLCC reprint 2025 . Originally Published 1949). Featuring the Hoggetts and  their friend Chief Inspector MacDonald in the Lunesdale on the edge of the Lake District. Another well written story by this author about smuggling and murder.
• Val McDermid - Winter the Story of a Season.  Non Fiction (Published 2025). Val McDermid writes short pieces about her different memories of winter, from childhood through to recent times.
• Candace Robb- A Lion's Ransom. Crime Fiction. (Published 2025) The 16th book in the Owen Archer series set in York during the C14. A costly gold lion created by the goldsmiths as a gift for the  new King Richard, is stolen. At the same time Owen - the King's man in the North - is hunting spies who are attacking ships and then a body is found in the river and Owen has to work out the connection between all these things.
• Sally Smith - A Case of Life and Limb. Crime Fiction. (Published 2025) Second book in a new series about Sir Gabriel Ward KC, set in 1901 in London's Inner Temple law courts. Topsy Tillotson, a young music hall star is suing a daily paper for damage to her reputation taking Gabriel right out of his comfort zone. At the same time body parts turn up at the doors of various Temple Employees including one that has fatal consequences.
• Val McDermid- Past Lying. Crime Fiction. (Published 2023) Set during the Covid lockdown of 2020 this book is the 7th in the Karen Pirie Historic Cases Unit. In this story a manuscript of a book, left to the Library, after an authors death seems to tell the story of a murder. There is a girl who has been missing for a year - is this the answer?
• S.J.Bennett- The Queen Who Came in From the Cold. Crime Fiction (Published 2025).In 1961 on the Royal train heading north an unreliable witness says she has seen a murder from her window. The Queen is in the middle of planning a state visit to Italy on the royal yacht Britannia. The Queen and her assistant private secretary get to work on the investigation which travels to Italy in a story of Russian spies during the Cold War.

7 Recently Written Crime Fiction (1 Novella)

1 Older Crime Fiction

1 Non Fiction

9 Books Read in January.

FEBRUARY

• Alan Parks - Gunner. Crime Fiction. (Published 2025) In 1941 Glasgow Police Detective Joseph Gunner is back after being badly injured in Dunkirk. The first person he sees is his old boss who asks for help with examining a body found in the wreckage as the Luftwaffe begin regular bombing of the city. As he begins to hunt for the truth it becomes obvious that no one he meets is actually who or what they say they are. Quite a violent story - this is the first of a new series by this author. 
• Val McDermid - Christmas is Murder. Crime Fiction Short Stories.(Published 2020) A collection of chilling short stories
• Simon Barnes - Spring is the Only Season. Non Fiction (Published 2025) Subtitled 'How it Works, What it Does and Why it Matters' This book covers every aspect of spring - From birds and butterflies to agriculture and literature , mythology , religion and art.
• Marita Conlon-McKenna-Wildflower Girl. Children's Fiction. (Published 1991) The second in a trilogy about a family of children left alone during the Great Irish Famine of the 1880's. In this 13 year old Peggy sets of to America alone, while her older sister marries and stays in Ireland and her brother gets a job with horses. The journey to America and her arrival and the jobs she gets are all described.
• N.E. Solomons - The Bone Road. Crime Fiction (Published 2022) High on a mountain road in the Balkans former Olympic Cyclist Heather Bishop is cycling with her journalist boyfriend Ryan. But when he suddenly disappears suspicion falls on her. Local police inspector Simo Subotic is already investigating two mutilated bodies and his colleagues find drugs hidden in the support cars of the cycling tour happening at the same time. Are all these crimes connected and what is the connection to Ryan.
• Chris Nickson - A Rage of Souls. Crime Fiction (Published 2025). This is the 8th in the series featuring thief taker Simon Westow and set in Leeds at the start of industrialisation in the 1820s.Simon was seriously injured in the last story so having to step back a bit , leaving more work for his two young assistants and his wife. They are watching Frederick Fox a crook returned to Leeds.
• William Shaw - Deadland. Crime Fiction (Published 2019).2nd in the DS Cupidi series set on the Kent coast near Dungerness.Two teenage boys speed off on a moped with a stolen phone ready to sell it and celebrate.Until their victim turns up looking for what's his and is will ing to kill and they are forced into hiding. Meanwhile a severed arm is found in an exhibit at the Turner Contemporary art gallery.  
• Michael Morpurgo - Spring: The Story of a Season. Non Fiction (Published 2025) The story of Spring from a farm deep in the Devon countryside.
• Kate Ellis - Killing in the Shadows. Crime Fiction. (Published 2026) The 6th in the DI Joe Plantagenet series set in York. A famous TV  personality is found dead in the pool in her home but she seems to have many secrets.Ghostly happenings in an old pub might have a connection.

6 Recently Written Crime Fiction (1 Short Stories)

2 Non Fiction

1 Children's Fiction

9 Books Read in February

MARCH

• Nicola Chester - Ghosts of the Farm; Two Women's Journeys Through Land and Community. Non Fiction (Published 2025).Pioneering Miss Julia White, a woman who managed to run a farm against all odds in Nicola Chester's village eighty years earlier. Luckily she left accounts of everything that she did on her farm through the war. Nicola also wanted to farm but working with horses was the only path open to her and now she lives as a tenant on the neighbouring farm to where Miss White lived. This is a story of two women eighty years apart and how the natural world has changed in between.
• Jim Kelly - Death's Door. Crime Fiction (Published 2012) This is in the Shaw and Valentine series set on the North Norfolk coast around Kings Lynn. On a hot day in 1994 seventy six holiday makers took a boot out to an island but only seventy five came back alive. The young life guard had been stabbed and left to die in the sea. Twenty years later the crime is looked at again using new DNA methods and there is a trace of another persons DNA on a towel. All the holiday makers are set to be tested but that seems to trigger several more murders.
• J.Meade Falkner- Moonfleet. Children's Fiction, (Originally Published 1898) Fifteen year old orphan John Trenchard lives in the fishing village of Moonfleet with his Aunt. When he accidently gets involved in the smuggling trade, he becomes friends with the landlord of the local pub. Forced to flee England he searches for the cursed treasure hidden by the notorious Colonel Blackbeard Mohune. Will it all end in tragedy or will he eventually get back to Moonfleet?
• Nicholas Blake - The Abominable Snowman. Crime Fiction (Originally Published 1941) Very dated country house murder.  

1 Non Fiction

1 Recently Written Crime Fiction

1 Older Crime Fiction.

1 Children's Fiction