Category: reviews

detective, reviews

Book of the Week: Silent Nights

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This week’s BotW sees normal service well and true resumed with Silent Nights – a book of Golden Age detective short stories set at or around Christmas.  This is one of the British Crime Library’s reissues – I’ve read quite a few now and have discovered some really good authors that I was previously unaware of and who help me with my cravings for “proper” classic crime.

As well as familiar names like Dorothy L Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle and lesser known but still in print authors like Margery Allingham, there are others I hadn’t heard of before and who I’ll now try and investigate.  Some of them have had long out of print titles recently republished in the same series, some of them are even more obscure than that.

There’s also a really good variety of types of mystery.  The Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes, complete with leaps of deduction unfathomable to the normal person, The Sayers is a Wimsey locked room-esque short story about a missing necklace.  There’s also really quite creepy suspense in the form of Ethel Lina White’s Waxworks, a story based around a chess problem, another which leaves you to work out who was arrested (with an explanation at the back of the book) and a poisoning with a really nasty old man.

I enjoyed all of the stories in Silent Nights.  The weak point for me was the chess-based story, but that was because chess isn’t really my game.  I also really appreciated the biographical notes about each of the authors at the start of the stories – complete with information about other notable titles.

If you’re looking for some Christmas reading, this might be a nice, bite-sized place to start, and equally it would make a nice present for any fan of classic crime – particularly those who haven’t ventured much beyond the obvious suspects.  It’s also not violent or graphic so might work for the cozy-crime lover in your life too.  Talking of Christmas present ideas, I have many more to share with you – and they’ll be posted very soon as I know this is prime Christmas shopping time!

My copy of Silent Nights came from NetGalley*, but you can the very pretty paperback from Amazon or I’ve seen it on the speciality Christmas displays in several Waterstones stores as well as Foyles in Charing Cross Road – so it may have made it into your local bookshop too.  And the Kindle version is a bargain £2.99 at time of writing, so you could treat yourself to a bit of festive sleuthing without having too big an impact on your Christmas Present Buying Fund!  Several of the other British Library Crime Classics are a similar price, I can recommend Mavis Doriel Hay – Her festive story Santa Klaus Murder as well as Murder Underground and Death on the Cherwell are all under £3 at the moment – as well as books by J Jefferson Farjeon and Christopher Sprigg.**

 

* And as usual, I only feature books here that I genuinely like – I’ve read 25 books from NetGalley in the last quarter, but only a few of those have made it to a review on here (although they all get reviewed over on Goodreads).

** Back on full disclosure again – I bought Murder Underground and Death of the Cherwell for myself, but have read various Farjeons and Sprigg’s Death of an Airman via NetGalley over the last year.

Book of the Week, reviews

Book of the Week: Not Quite Normal Service

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Hello!  After last week’s fog of misery and gloom, you’ll be pleased to hear I’m in a slightly better place in my head.  I’m not quite back to normal yet, so this is still not your normal BotW post.  Instead, here’s a brief snapshot of what I read last week.

So, there was a double dose of Janet Evanovich – Steph Plum 18 and Full Tilt, one of her romantic suspenses with Charlotte Hughes.  The Plum was quite a good one – not my favourite, but not quite as strangely magic-inflected as 17 so I was happy.  I’m still not sure what I make of the Full series – they’re not as fun as the other Evanovich series, but I get the feeling that if I just happened across them and they were an author that wasn’t Janet Evanovich I’d feel more enthusiastic about them!

I also finished The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard last week.  This had been popping up in my recommendations lists all over the place and I mostly liked it.  I thought it had a slump at about two thirds of the way through – where I started to lose faith in the outcome, but it recovered and I was enjoying it again at the end.  I’m not sure if I’ll be reading the follow-ups though.  But that might be because it is quite dark, and I was in a dark place last week so it may not have been ideal reading matter for me!

Then there was Death before Decaf by Caroline Fardig, which NetGalley pitched to me as “if you love Janet Evanovich, then you’ll like this” – and while it didn’t quite live up to that billing (heroine a little too stupid to live, love triangle feeling a bit forced) I can see where the comparison was coming from.  A perfectly fine way to spend a few hours though.

Cathy Bramley’s latest, Conditional Love, brightened my mood a lot in the middle of the week – it’s this month’s Novelicious Book Club book – you can read my thoughts here and we’re chatting on Twitter tonight at 8pm.

My last book of the week was a Flavia de Luce – and I’m still not sure what I think of this series – Flavia drives me bonker sometimes, and the plots are a bit bonkers, but this one was really good fun.

So there you are.  I can string my thoughts together enough to give you mini-reviews, but that’s about it.  I’m getting there though.  Next week, dear reader, next week!

Book of the Week, Chick lit, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: A Christmas Cracker

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It will be absolutely no surprise to you regular readers that this week’s BotW is Trisha Ashley’s latest – A Christmas Cracker. You can see my previous musings on her work here, here and briefly here. I’m not usually a Christmas book in October kind of person (although I seem to have read a few of them already this year) but I’m always read to make an exception for Trisha.  Her books are totally my catnip.  Warm and humourous, with heroines on journeys and a variety of different types of heros.  Her heroines have usually made had problems in their love lives before – whether through picking Bad Men or through mistakes and misunderstandings.  I always think of them as second chance romances (as in slightly older people, and not their first love affair), but I know that the “proper” definition of that trope is the “we met when we were young but it didn’t work out, but now we’re trying again” type of story, although Trisha has written a couple of those and they’re really very good.

Why can I never get a good photo of a book with foil lettering on the cover?
The heroine of A Christmas Cracker is Tabby.  She’s ended up doing prison time for a crime she didn’t commit, her fiance has dumped her and given her cat away, one of her friends lied about her in court and her life is generally in tatters.  Then she gets a second chance from Mercy.  She’s been working in Africa for years, but has retired and come back to try and rescue the family cracker business, which is floundering.  She thinks that Tabby could be the breath of fresh air that it needs to save it from the chop.  But Mercy’s nephew Randall think’s Tabby is a con-woman and out for what she can get – he’s got his own plans for Marwood’s Christmas Crackers and he’s watching her like a hawk…

I’m hoping that you’ve read that and thought – “Gosh that sounds generally delightful and festive too” – and it really is (if you didn’t, I’m sorry – I haven’t done it justice).  Tabby is a wonderful and relatable heroine.  I was initially sceptical about a lead character who starts off the book in the clink, but I shouldn’t have doubted Trisha – it’s a masterstroke.  Trisha Ashley’s books have a long history of giving us quirky/fun older/elderly lady characters too (Great Aunt’s Hebe and Ottie in A Winter’s Tale, Mad Aunt Debo in Creature Comforts, I could go on) and Mercy is another great addition to the list – she’s a bundle of energy in light-up trainers who sees the best in everyone and will give hospitality to anyone.

Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about A Christmas Cracker – I got an e-copy via NetGalley – but I went out at the weekend to buy myself an actual copy as well.  And not just because I have all her other books in paperback (and most of them in ebook as well) and I have a thing about sets and completion, but because I wanted to read it again, in a proper book, so I can pick out my favourite scenes so I know where they are in the book so I can go back and read them again.

If you only read one Christmas book this year (or before December at any rate) make this it.  It should be everywhere – Tesco were selling it for a very special price of £2 at the weekend (so cheap that I almost wanted to go and buy it somewhere else in case it meant the author royalties would be smaller) and I’d expect it to be all over the place in the other supermarkets and bookshops.  If I’ve sold it to you as being so good that you can’t wait to go to a shop (and you wouldn’t be wrong), the Kindle and Kobo editions are £2.99 at time of writing. Prices aren’t quite as special for the paperback at the online retailers, but here are the Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles links just in case.

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy, new releases, reviews, Series I love, Young Adult

Book of the Week: The Shepherd’s Crown

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Crivens! This week’s BotW will come as no surprise – it’s the final Terry Pratchett novel, the 41st Discworld book and the fifth to feature Tiffany Aching.  I managed to force myself to read it slowly (for me anyway) and made it last a week. I’m already listening to the audiobook on my walks to work.

 

As you can see I have the others in the series in paperback, but I wasn't prepared to wait this time.
As you can see I have the others in the series in paperback, but I wasn’t prepared to wait this time.

In the Chalk, something is brewing.  Tiffany can feel it coming, the Kelda can feel it coming. An old enemy is gathering strength.  To quote the back of the book, Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.  And there will be a reckoning.

And to be honest, that’s about all that I can say about the plot of The Shepherd’s Crown without giving too much away. I encountered a massive spoiler in the Audible sample a week before the book came out – and my sister ran into the Guardian review which reveals the same Major Event – and I’ve become really concious of the fact that I  don’t want to ruin the story for anyone reading this the way that plot twist was spoilt for me.

What I can say about the book is that it made my cry, repeatedly.  But it’s not a sad book.  As the back cover says, it is a time of endings and beginnings, and they’re handled beautifully.  It is a Young Adult book and there are Serious Issues in there, but it deals with them very well, with Sir Terry’s trademark wit and warmth.  I laughed and smiled and really enjoyed Tiffany’s adventure.

I wish there were going to be more. But as I said earlier this year (in this post), we knew that the end was coming sooner than anyone could have wished for.  I still want the Moist the Tax Collector book.  I am greedy for more from the Discworld.  And the afterword in Shepherd’s Crown drops tantalising hints about what could have been.  But I absolutely respect (and agree with) Rhianna Pratchett’s decision that if her father is not here to write them, there will be no more new Discworld books.

And if the end had to come, The Shepherd’s Crown is a very good place to finish.  There are plenty of old favourite characters and there are some new favourites too.  Of all the Discworld regulars, Mistress Tiffany has more life ahead of her than the others (unless you count Young Sam Vimes) and so it seems fitting that she is the centre of the last book.

The Shepherd’s Crown doesn’t feel like a goodbye, like a world is coming to an end – it feels like the Great A’Tuin is still out there, swimming through space with the elephants and the Disc on his back, it’s just that we won’t get to hear about the goings on there anymore.  And maybe that’s Sir Terry’s greatest achievement – he’s created a fantasy world so real that we can’t believe that it could stop.

The spines of the 5 Tiffany books
It’s not as if I had a matching set to start with, so I’ll cope with the non-matchingness.

I’m planning to re-read the whole series.  If you haven’t discovered Tiffany yet, start with The Wee Free Men and enjoy her whole journey.  If you are a Discworld fan, who’s been hesitant about reading this, don’t worry.  I don’t think this will be a disappointment to you.  It is safe to read it.  It feels right.  You should be able to get hold of a copy of The Shepherd’s Crown anywhere which sells good books – but just in case: Amazon, Kindle, Foyles (sadly no discount), Waterstones.

Enjoy it. Make it last. Raise a glass to it’s creator. And mind how you go.

 

Book of the Week, books, reviews

Book of the Week: The Piano Man Project

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I had a really hard time deciding what to pick for BotW this week.  Like really hard.  I read an awesome thriller – but it was for Novelicious so I can’t pick that, although I’ll try and remember to post a link here when that review goes up. I read some nice cozy crime and a bit of romance.  And then three really fun women’s fiction books which it was hard to chose between.  But I’ve gone for Kat French’s The Piano Man Project because sometimes you need a moody, troubled, Alpha hero – and Hal is a really good one.

  
Honeysuckle has a problem – and it’s not that her name is Honeysuckle.  She needs a man to fix a… problem that she’s encountering.  He needs to be good with his hands *wink wink*n- and so her friends decide a pianist may be the answer and start trying to set her up. But then there’s Honey’s new neighbour Hal – he’s anti-social, grumpy and troubled, but Honey keeps coming back to try and help.  On top of all this the old people’s home where Honey works is under threat and she’s got to do something to try and save it.

This is touching and funny and has a darker edge perhaps than my summary above might suggest (I’m not going into why because it would be too much of a spoiler).  It’s also a bit sexier than some of the other books you’ll find alongside it on the shelves.  Author Kat French has an alter-ego who writes erotica and she’s brought some of that to the table in this.  It’s not in 50 Shades territory, but it is a notch above what I’ve usually found in romantic comedies.

Honey does have a strong streak of trying to fix things/people which I guess might rub some readers up the wrong way, but I found her charming and caring and not a doormat.  And there are problems in this book that aren’t fixable no matter how hard she tries – and I liked that.  I found Hal a compelling hero – even though he’s hard work and demanding and doesn’t really appreciate Honey’s efforts on his behalf for a lot of the book.

The Piano Man Project was well in evidence in my local enormous supermarket this week – as you can see from the picture above – so it should be nice and easy to get hold of, but it’s also just 99p on Kindle at the moment so it’s a real bargain (Amazon have the paperback for £3.85 too which isn’t to shabby either).

Book of the Week, fiction, historical, reviews

Book of the Week: The Paris Wife

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This week’s BotW is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain – which has been sitting on my to-read pile for far too long  What’s new.  How many times have I said that now?  But yes, once again, a really good book stuck in the backlog for ages.  You’d think I’d learn by now, and yet The Pile is still out of control. Hey ho. Moving on. 
The Paris Wife tells the story of the marriage between Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson.  The novel is told predominantly from Hadley’s perspective, interspersed with occasional diary style snippets from Hemingway.  Hadley and Ernest are clearly very much in love when they get married and this paints a very convincing portrait of a marriage torn apart by genius, ego, Jazz Age Paris, children and other women.  You can see the train wreck coming and they can see it coming – but they don’t seem to be able to do anything to avert it.  But this isn’t a miserable book, it’s sad in places, but it’s also fascinating.

Whilst I haven’t read a lot of Hemingway’s work, I have read a fair bit of F Scott Fitzgerald’s – who is another member of this crew – and as I’ve mentioned before, I love this interwar time period. After reading this, I’ve realised that I’ve got a bit of a glut of books about this set sitting on my shelves – not only Mrs Hemingway, but also Villa America and I think another one that I can’t remember the title of.  I might have to space out reading them so I don’t get too confused/overloaded, but I am looking forward to reading them soon.

I wouldn’t expect you to have too much difficulty tracking this down in the bookshops – it’ll probably be on the shelves rather than the tables by now though. But here’s a link to Foyles and Kindle just in case.

books, Chick lit, cozy crime, historical, reviews, romance

Summer Reading 2015 Recommendations

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Here it is at last – Verity’s top suggestions for what to read on your holiday. And less than six weeks after my holiday when I started the list of what I wanted to include. Ahem. It has a lot of footnotes (sorry) and I still haven’t got to the bottom of the list of books that I thought I might want to include, so it may yet have a sequel!

The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance by Kirsty Greenwoodª

This was my favourite book that I read on holiday – and not just because the fab Kirsty runs Novelicious (who I also review for).  The Vintage Guide is funny and sweary and perfect and I nearly got sunburnt because I was to distracted by Jessica Beam’s antics.  I laughed and I cried (on the beach – how embarrassing) – and I was rooting her on.  She’s got a lot to figure out and some issues to overcome, but Jess is so easy to identify with.  Everyone’s had similar experiences to some of the stuff that she goes through albeit probably less extreme. Perfect for lazy days on the sunlounger. Amazon* Kindle Kobo

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnettª

This one isn’t out in paperback yet, so it might be one for your e-reader rather than your suitcase, but Laura Barnett’s debut novel is well worth a read.  It’s been hyped as a One Day meets Sliding Doors – and that’s kind of right – except that I liked it much more than I liked One Day – and it’s got three different realities to Sliding Doors’ two. The Versions of Us presents three different futures based on one encounter in Cambridge in the 1950s. For me, the best part of it was that none of the possibilities seemed to be marked out as being the “right” one – all of the different versions felt real – with ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies. I’m not usually one for books that have been really hyped – but this one’s worth it. Foyles, Kindle, Kobo

The Other Daughter by Lauren Willigª

Another hardback recent release (I’m sorry) but Lauren Willig’s latest stand-alone book just had to go on this list.  Rachel Woodley infiltrates the Bright Young Things after discovering that her life-story isn’t quite what she thought it was.  If you’re interested in the 1920s, you’ll spot familiar faces as Willig weaves her fictional characters into the real crowd who were racketing around causing chaos and scandalising their parents.  This is less romance than Willig’s other books** – and is the first to be set just in one time period, and it’s engrossing and brilliant.  This one is pricier and harder to get hold of in the UK, although if you’re holidaying in the States you could buy it out there. Kindle, Amazon, Foyles, Kobo

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

This is new Christie Estate sanctioned Poirot mystery – out now in paperback and which should be easy to get hold of at the airport should you arrive there and discover that you’re short of reading matter.  I enjoyed it – but a week on I’m still trying to work out if it felt like a “proper” Poirot or not.  It certainly helps that Hannah has created herself a new policeman who narrates the story – so the famous Belgian is not always centre stage.  The mystery is well put together and intriguing although I have some of the same reservations about this that did about the Wimsey continuations – but I can’t go into them because it’s a sort of plot spoiler. Never the less it’s a good crime novel set in the Golden Age which will entertain you by the side of the pool. Amazon*, Kindle, Kobo.

First Class Murder by Robin Stevens

It wouldn’t be a list of recommendations from me without a kids/YA recommendation – and this time its the latest Wells and Wong mystery.  Both the previous books in the series have already appeared on the blog (first one, second one) and book 3 is Steven’s homage to Murder on the Orient Express.  Yes I know, two Poirot-y books in one post, sue me. One of our regular treats when I was little was to borrow the audiobook of David Suchet reading Murder on the Orient Express from the library to listen to in the car on the way to our holiday – and my parents had their first date at the Peter Ustinov film version, so it has a very special place in my heart.  Stevens’ story has enough nods to the Poirot for those who’ve read it to get the warm fuzzies inside, but still manages to be totally its own book too.  One for the late primary kid with a good reading age, or lower secondary kids and of course for grown-ups who are children at heart. Foyles, Waterstones*** Kindle, Kobo

So there you have it.  My favourite holiday books for your summer break.  Or your next holiday if you’ve already been and got back! Hopefully there’s something here that appeals to you.  And sorry again for the footnotes, but the history graduate in me finds it the best way to deal with my stream of consciousness ramblings!

ª Books with an ª next to their titles came to me via NetGalley.  The others I bought for myself, with actual, proper money.

*By a fortuitous chance, several of my picks are in Amazon’s 3 for £10 promotion – so I’ve put amazon links to those (rather than Foyles) to help cut the cost of buying my recommendations. If you don’t make it to three on Amazon, recent BotW’s The Cake Shop in the Garden and The Day We Disappeared are also in the promotion, as is the paperback of Marian Keyes’ The Woman Who Stole My Life – a BotW back in November, RJ Palacio’s Wonder (a March BotW) and Graeme Simison’s The Rosie Project which I have raved about plenty and you should have read already!

** Willig’s 12th and final Pink Carnation book has just come out as well – if you haven’t discovered her yet and are looking for a series to binge on on your holiday, they may be a good choice – timeslip historical spy romances – featuring a heroine in Napoleonic France and a modern day American grad student researching her.

***Waterstones have totally championed the Wells and Wong series – so they get a link as well as Foyles.

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Chick lit, reviews

Book of the Week: The Day We Disappeared

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So this week’s BotW is Lucy Robinson’s latest – The Day We Disappeared.  And this is likely to be quite a short post because I’m terrified of saying too much about this.  You may remember Lucy Robinson from previous posts – about The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me which was one of my books of the year in 2014.

The Day We Disappeared tells the stories of Annie and Kate.  Annie has a secret and it’s caused her a lot of problems – but now there’s someone who wants to fix her.  Kate is running away and she’s not going to tell you why – because that would defeat the object the reinvention that she’s trying to pull off.  And there are undercurrents.  Lots of undercurrents – of different types – and there are complications.

And that’s all I dare say.  Which isn’t much more than the back of the book says.  But that’s because to tell you more would Give Too Much Away and Ruin It All.  And Lucy Robinson’s clearly worked really hard in writing this not to do that and I don’t want to spoil it.  Because this book blew me away – in a really good way.  As you can tell, I loved Unfinished Symphony, and I think I like this more – even if there isn’t a side-kick as funny as Barry.  This is a bit different though.  The last book had me in tears – of both types, whereas this one had me holding my breath and totally gripped.  I did laugh and I nearly cried, but there’s so much suspense and tension in this as well that wasn’t in the last one.

It did take me a while to read this – but that’s mostly because I was worried about ending up in tears in public again.  Crying on the train is so embarrassing. To be honest, my only problem with this book is that the cover does not match the rest of Lucy Robinson’s books – which is more about my issues with matching books than anything else.  And I read this on my e-reader. So it’s not really a problem at all until I buy a paperback version for completeness…

My copy came from NetGalley* (yes, I know, I’m behind again) but you can get yours from all over the place – like Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Kindle (for a bargain £1.79 at time of writing), Kobo and hopefully the supermarkets too.  It’d be a great book to take on holiday,** as long as you don’t have any pressing plans to do anything other than reading it because you’ll be glued to your sun lounger!

*With the usual provisos – honest review, only write about stuff on here I do genuinely love etc.

** Yes I know, I promised a holiday reads post.  It is coming. It really is. I’ve even started working out what I’m going to include.  But there are a few more books that I need to read before I can be sure I’ve covered all bases.

Book of the Week, new releases, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Fire Colour One

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This week’s BotW is Jenny Valentine’s Fire Colour One.  I do try to mix my choices up a bit – although when I go on a massive reading jag of one author that doesn’t help – so here’s some new YA fiction.  I got my copy via NetGalley and raced through it in two train journeys.

Iris likes lighting fires.  She doesn’t like her mum – or her mum’s boyfriend.  She’s lost touch with her best (and only) friend Thurston. Then the dad that she hasn’t seen for years gets in contact to say he’s dying.  Her mum is delighted – she wants Ernest’s art collection to fund her lifestyle. Iris is angry.  But her dad has things he wants to tell her.

Now, it took me a while to warm to Iris.  She’s a bit difficult to like at first, but then you see what she’s dealing with.  And she’s dealing with a lot.  Her mum sees her as an inconvenience and really isn’t on her side.  Her mum’s partner is the most narcissistic guy I’ve come across in a book this year.  Iris can control the fires.  She can’t control her life, or stop her dad from dying (and she’s not sure she wants to either).

Death is such a theme in YA literature at the moment, that I was worried that this book was going to leave me miserable and upset*, but I got to the last page with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.  Then I went back and read the last chapter all over again.  I can’t really say much more about why the end worked for me, without giving it away and that would really spoil the book, but it’s clever.  Really clever.  And I’m desperate to know what Iris does next.

So, I didn’t read a lot last week, but I’m still thinking about this one – and I’m wondering if there are any teenagers in my life that I can buy it for (I’m not sure there are).  I know that I’ll go back and read it again too, which is unusual for me and YA fiction that’s not boarding school stories.  I’ve added Jenny Valentine’s other books to my to-read list too

Fire Colour One came out last week – get your paperback from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones or on Kindle or Kobo.

 

* A la the 3am Fault in Our Stars crying jag.

Book of the Week, detective, Fantasy, reviews

Book of the Week: Rivers of London

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So, last week was a holiday week and I read a fair few books (some of which will feature in a holiday reads post in the near future) but my favourite book of the week was Ben Aaronvitch’s Rivers of London.  This appeared on my radar as an if you like then you might like recommendation from someone/somewhere and I laid in a copy and saved it for one of my paperbacks for the holiday and it was so, so good.

I love the cover illustration, but I’m not sure it actually reflects the sort of book this is

Peter Grant is a newly non-probationary police constable in the Met.  He’s just been assigned to the unit which does the paperwork so everyone else doesn’t have to, when he tries to take a witness statement from a ghost after a particularly unusual murder in Covent Garden.  Then Chief Inspector Nightingale turns up and he’s suddenly an apprentice wizard.  And that’s where the fun begins.

This book is a total mash-up of some of my favourite things – it’s a police procedural (but not too thrillery chillery) with a strong fantasy element (magic! ghosts! spirits!), which knows exactly how its world works and isn’t going to dump it all on you at once, with a cast of intriguing and complex characters and a load of humour too.  So Urban Fantasy Crime Comedy. Maybe.  Anyway, it’s fabulous and I need to read the next one, not least because there are still some fairly important questions unresolved about the characters and the wider world.

You should be able to get a  copy of Rivers of London at any good bookshop – I checked a mid-sized WH Smith in a local supermarket shopping centre* and they had two copies and 3 other books from the series.  If you have poor impulse control (like me) the kindle edition is just £1.99 at time of writing. Or you can buy actual copies from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and the like.

* The sort of shopping centre that is based around a giant supermarket.  Like you get in France, but less classy as this particularly shopping centre was on the front page of the Daily Mail website the other week as the Tesco shoppers went a bit nuts over reduced price meat.