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Monday, January 13, 2014

Some books ...

from the library sitting on my table and waiting to be read ...

- Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. From Wikipedia ...

Child 44 is a thriller novel by British writer Tom Rob Smith, and features disgraced MGB Agent Leo Demidov, who investigates a series of gruesome child murders in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. The novel is based on the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo, also known as the Rostov Ripper, who was convicted of and executed for 52 murders in the Soviet Union. In addition to highlighting the problem of Soviet-era criminality in a state where "there is no crime", the novel also explores the paranoia of the age, the education system, the secret police apparatus, orphanages, homosexuality in the USSR, and mental hospitals. The book is the first part of a trilogy ....

- The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz. Here's a bit from a review in The Guardian ...

The game, once more, is afoot. The world's greatest private consulting detective returns to solve another case .... Holmes is dead. Watson, elderly and alone – "Two marriages, three children, seven grandchildren, a successful career in medicine and the Order of Merit" – sets out to recount one of their early adventures together, on a case so monstrous and shocking he has had to consign his written account to his solicitors' vaults for 100 years. To us, the readers of the future, he bequeaths "one last portrait of Sherlock Holmes". Is the portrait accurate? Is this the Holmes we know and love?

It's 1890. We ascend the 17 steps up to the first floor of 221B Baker Street. All is as we might expect. The usual cast assemble. Mrs Hudson is there with a plate of scones. Wiggins and the Baker Street irregulars make a welcome appearance, as do rat-faced Inspector Lestrade and Mycroft ("He is still alive, by the way. When I last heard, he had been knighted and was the chancellor of a well-known university"). Moriarty ("'I am a mathematician, Dr Watson … I am also what you would doubtless term a criminal'"). Poor Mary, Watson's ailing wife. Outside, fog and hansom cabs. Inside, Holmes, with his Strad and his 7% solution ....


- Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Jesuit Greg Boyle. He discusses his book in this video (part 1) ...


2 Comments:

Anonymous Richard said...

I think I'd head straight for Sherlock. Child 44 sounds a bit grim.

11:25 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

I do like Sherlock Holmes. I've read almost all the original stories. Hmmm - that reminds me, must check and see if I can watch the latest season of Sherlock online :)

11:36 PM  

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