Samantha Smythe's Modern Family Journal by Lucy Cavendish

What the cover says:
"Very few women think they have the 'perfect' 21st-century family, and Samantha Smythe i no exception. Most of the time she takes that in her stride - unfazed by the amount of time Edward, 8 spends drawing pictures on his willy, Bennie, 2 avoiding a potty and baby Jamie refusing to eat anything but butternut squash. Samantha and her husband, John, are holding it together and embracing the chaos. But sometimes she does wonder: is it possible, when your first son's father is entirely absent, and you are now the mother of two more boys by your second husband, to have a real family? The one you always dreamed you'd have?
And then the absent ex-husband makes a dramatic reappearance and somehow ends up borrowing the spare room. This, of course, is enough to throw the family dynamic entirely off-course. With sanity, and capacity for rational thought in short supply, can Samantha protect everything she hold dear, without disappearing out of sight herself...?"

The 'aside' parts of this book that deal with life with children are sadly more interesting than the main story. The characters of the boys are probably the most realistic; but I found Samantha to be neurotic and irritating, John 2 to be far too patient and too good to be true, and all the other characters just too one-dimensional and contrived. Ok, but not a must-read.

7/10

The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry

What the cover says:
"Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too.
Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months' repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan.
But strange things have been going on at Swafford. Miracles. Healings. Phenomena beyond the comprehension of a mud-caked hippopotamus like Ted..."

I really really wanted to love this book as much as I love Stephen Fry, but I found it quite tricky. Didn't get into it until past half way through, and found it quite meandering up to that point. From there on in it slowly gripped me and I loved the last 2 or 3 chapters. I could have done without the detailed boy/horse encounter though. Beautiful use of language throughout of course, as one would expect from Mr.Fry.

7/10

The Iron Horse by Edward Marston

What the cover says:
"Derby Day at Epsom Downs. A multitude of people crows to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes. The gamut of Victorian society and a hotbed for crime abd crooks of all kinds.
With the country a-flutter in the run-up to this national occasion, events reach a fever pitch when a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing. Detective Inspector Colbeck and his assistant are assigned to the case and are soon snarled up in a web of skulduggery stretching across the country. Soon, they are forced to ask themselves: just how much is someone prepared to hazard in order to win?"

I've written before about the style of The Railway Detective books, and this is no different. An intriguing storyline - I thought I'd guessed the identity of the criminal but was only half correct, and had to wait to the very end to find out. Splendid stuff from Marston once again.

9/10

The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill

What the cover says:
"Can it be true? Has the Fat Man really sung?
Caught in a huge Semtex explosion, it seems the only thing preventing Superintendent Andy Dalziel from stepping through Death's door is his size - and sheer bloody-mindedness.
An injured DCI Pascoe works to uncover what he feels sure is a conspiracy - despite the security services believing the blast was an accident in which the terrorists blew themselves up.
Who, then, are the mysterious Knights Templar, bringing the war in Iraq back home with their gruesome acts of vengeance? What have they got to do with a hit-and-run on Yorkshire CID's most inept officer? And, most importantly, will Dalziel ever wake up to hear the truth...?"

I've always loved the tv adaptations of the Dalziel and Pascoe books, and I think Warren Clarke is an inspired choice to play the Fat Man. The books are different, but just as good if not better. This is a fascinating tale as for the first time Dalziel takes a major backseat, and Pascoe comes into his own - but not in the way that he would ever have imagined. A clever tale with everything you could ever want from a crime thriller, and gripping from start to finish. The only bit I didn't like was the very last page, but that's more to do with my (slightly irrational) dislike for one particular character as much as anything.

9/10

Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin

What the cover says:
"Gordon Reeve has a funeral to go to. His journalist brother has been found dead in a car, a presumed suicide. Not a nice reason to be flying the Atlantic.
And when he gets there it seems that nobody wants to answer his questions - why was the car in which his brother's body was found locked from the outside? Why does the local cop act like his shadow and prevent him talking to the friend who saw Jim last? Why does he have the sinking feeling that it wasn't a ghost he saw parked outside the crematorium?
Ex-SAS, a professional killer with an anger management problem, it's not in Reeve's nature to let such questions go unanswered, particularly when the murderers come knocking on his own front door."

I'm a big Rebus fan, and didn't really twig that this was one of Rankin's forays outside of Edinburgh until I started reading it. It's a slow-burner and took me a little while to get into, but then I began to be gripped, particularly towards the end. The scientific bits that are dropped in there did confuse me a little, but it didn't matter too much. Dark as any Rebus novel, but just as delicious.

8/10

Over The Edge by Jonathan Kellerman

What the cover says:
"Is it all in your mind?
Jamey Cadmus is clearly a deeply troubled young man but is he guilty? Found clutching a bloodied knife at the scene of a brutal double homicide he must be the vicious serial killer who's been terrorising LA, what other explanation can there be?
The public are demanding the death penalty but his lawyer is pleading diminished responsibility. Psychologist Alex Delaware is asked to make an assessment of Jamey's mental health but to do that he needs to look into Jamey's past and no one - not the police, not his family, not even his lawyer - wants Alex digging there..."

This is a fantastic Kellerman novel - lots going on, characters you can care about and an ending that is both happy and sad all at once.

8/10

The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross

What the cover says:
"They say bad luck comes in threes. But for Karen Friedman's family, bad luck is just the beginning.
It starts with her husband Charlie's investments going wrong and the sudden death of a much-loved family pet. Then one morning Charlie takes the train to work - straight into a lethal terrorist blast. For Karen and her children, all that remains of Charlie is a memory.
Or is it? When the Friedmans being to receive terrifying threats Karen turns to Detective Ty Hauck for help. Hauck's family fell apart too after a tragic accident he still blames himself for. Now he's determined to keep Karen's family safe. But Hauck doesn't know how the people who investigate Charlie have a way of ending up dead..."

This is an ok book, keeps moving along, keeps you guessing, but didn't grab me somehow. Similar to the ones that Andrew Gross has co-written with James Patterson - good but not great.

7/10

The Timer Game by Susan Arnout Smith

What the cover says:
"CSI Detective Grace Descano gets a call to work a routine crime scene, but two hours and three dead bodies later, Grace is the one under investigation.
When her 5 year old daughter is snatched, Grace is thrown into a nightmare world of timed riddles, which must be solved - if she wants to see Katie again.
She's got 24 hours.
Welcome to the Timer Game."

A breathless chase from beginning to end. You're thrown straight in from the first chapter in a completely unexpected way, and the pressure doesn't really let up from there. Twists and turns along the way add to the suspense, and this could easily be read in one sitting - not because it's short, but because you won't want to stop till the end.

9/10

Scream For Me by Karen Rose

What the cover says:
Special Agent Daniel Vartanian has made a horrific discovery - photographs, taken years ago by his brother Simon, showing a gang of teenagers raping young girls. Disgusted, Vartanian is determined to bring the rapists to justice.
Alex Fallon's family fell apart when her sister was murdered thirteen years ago. And history now seems to be repeating itself with her stepsister Bailey's disappearance. When Vartanian meets Alex, and realises that her dead sister was in the photos, he starts to believe that the rapists may be behind Bailey's disappearance.
Bailey Crighton is being held captive by a monster. Alone and unable to escape, all she can do is scream for help. Vartanian and Alex must confront their pasts head-on if they are to find Bailey - before it's too late...

Excitement from beginning to end. It does get rather confusing at times, particularly with the use of code names, but this really is part of the story, and it wouldn't work as well otherwise. Gripping and unputdownable.

9/10

Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris

What the cover says:
"They spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. Away from friends and family, they share a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers they call colleagues.
There's Chris Yop, who is clinging to his ergonomic chair; Lynn Mason, the boss, whose breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about; Carl Garbedian, secretly taking someone else's medication; Marcia Dwyer, whose hair is stuck in the eighties; and Benny, who's just - well, just Benny. Amidst the boredom, redundancies, water-cooler moments, meetings, flirtation and pure rage, life is happening, to their great surprise, all around them.
Then We Came to the End is about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch. It's the story of your life, and mine."

A huge great disappointment. Described as 'The Comedy Debut of the Year' yet I didn't find a single sentence even remotely amusing. And as for being a story that everyone can relate to, it bore no resemblance to any office I've ever worked in. I was hoping for an amusing day-to-day account of normal office life, where this  was actually a tale of a firm going through the process of 'downsizing', when if it had been a real company and these the real employees it would have just needed to be closed down for everyone's sake.

3/10

Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein

What the cover says:
In District Attorney Alexandra Coper's line of work, the discovery of a corpse isn't unusual. Not even the corpse of a young woman who was bound, bludgeoned and tortured to death. It's the location which is unusual - an abandoned ferry terminal at the southern tip of Manhattan, from where the ferries only went to one destination... Governors Island.
The corpse is identified as that of a part-time prostitute with a side-line in kink and a high-end client list. A list to kill for and, clearly, to die for.. but the list is missing, and so is another girl. The her body is found. Another deserted location, another viciously violent killing.
There is a faint trail to follow, but when another young woman disappears not far from Governors Island, Alex joins the desperate hunt for a singularly depraved murderer. A chase which catapults her into one of the most chilling encounters of her life.

This one is quite a slow burner, and doesn't feel to really get going until at least two-thirds of the way through. Not one of the best 'Coop' novels, but fairly readable nonetheless.

7/10

Every Breath You Take by Sheila Quigley

What the cover says:
"A stranger stalks the streets of Houghton-Le-Spring and for Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt he is getting too close for comfort.
Selina, the daughter of Lorraine's partner, DS Luke Daniels, is a beautiful and wilful sixteen-year-old with a dark past. Just as it seems she's finally getting back on her feet, she is attacked. Is Selina's past catching up with her? Or is there an even more sinister motive for the assault?
Before long, Lorraine and Luke's worst fears are realised, and a body is found. A young woman, brutally murdered, her heart cut out, and in its place - a single white rose.
Soon the White Rose Killer steps up his campaign. Is DI Hunt imagining it? or does he have a message specially for her? As he circles ever closer, nobody escapes suspicion and Lorraine faces her toughest case yet."

This isn't a bad book, good characters and storyline, with a highly exciting ending. Unfortunately, the inconsistent and wholly unnecessary use of "yer" for "you" was deeply irritating. Writing in dialect is all well and good, but changing just one word on an intermittent basis adds nothing to the storyline and detracts on reading pleasure.

6/10