What are you reading this week of November 22, 2015?

[scarletwoman]

8. Hi, hermetic! Thanks as always for doing this thread!

Well, I've got about 3 weeks of book reports to catch up on...

When I last posted my upcoming reading list, I was about to start reading Minnesota author Allen Eskin's second book, The Guise of Another. I had just finished it and had written a somewhat detailed critique in my November 1st OP which got lost in the ether. So, it's not as fresh in my mind at this point. The short version is, I did not enjoy it anywhere near as much as his first book. It turned out to be mainly a cop-centered crime thriller - which is a genre I simply do not particularly care for. Still, it was involving and interesting, and the ending was particularly poignant and more reminiscent of the quality of The Life We Bury. I'll definitely watch for his next book, and hope it's less of a shoot-em-up.

After that I delved into Martin Edwards' Lake District Mysteries series:

1. The Coffin Trail (2004)
2. The Cipher Garden (2005)
3. The Arsenic Labyrinth (2007)
4. The Serpent Pool (2010)
5. The Hanging Wood (2011)
6. The Frozen Shroud (2013)
7. The Dungeon House (2015)

These are your classic British Village Mysteries, nicely done with characters you come to care about, interesting winding plots, and a fascinating setting. Sprinkled throughout are bits of history going back to Roman times and earlier, and lots of literary references - the Lake District is famously home to such notable writers as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, and Arthur Ransome. All in all, diverting and civilized entertainment. I finished the lot in about 10 days, and then I was out of books again...

So, on a quick dash into the library and a quick skim of the "New Arrivals" shelf, I ended up with Swedish author, Liza Marklund's Borderline, #9 of her Annika Bengtzon series. I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with this series - I really do not like the character of Annika Bengtzon, she pretty much drives me up a wall. But Marklund does write good stories - and since she's a bestseller, it's easy to get her books in translation. There are lots of Scandinavian authors I'd rather read, but she'll do in a pinch. There was an awful lot of creepy, icky stuff in this story, but I have to grant that it was a page-turner. Still don't like Annika, though.

And, speaking of creepy and icky, my next book was John Sandford's Gathering Prey, which is #25 in his long-running Lucas Davenport "Prey" series. I'd been putting off reading this one, because the description really didn't appeal to me at all. But I'd read every other book in the series, and nothing else that I had on order was available yet, so I finally gave in. It was bloody, it was nasty, it wasn't anything I really wanted to read - but Sandford is still a damn good writer, and after following the series from the very beginning, I sort of had to find out what was going to happen with Lucas next. So, I got through it. I'll probably read the next one, too - although I'm much more looking forward to his next Virgil Flowers book, which tend to be less grim and bloody than his Lucas Davenport series.

And now for something completely different... My next book was a debut by a new author, Sarah Ward: In Bitter Chill. And what an impressive debut it is! Back to Britain, to the Peaks District of Derbyshire this time; the story goes back and forth in time from the unsolved 1978 kidnapping of two 8-year old schoolgirls to the present. One of the girls was found unharmed but without any clear memory of what happened, and the other girl was never seen again. A present day suicide, and a murder a few days later, lead police detectives into a complicated investigation that eventually unravels the old secrets that led to the original kidnapping. It's all very exquisitely done, and I will be adding this one to my "Best Books of 2015" thread. I very much recommend it.

Right now I'm reading something else completely different: Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska, a British writer of Polish ancestry. It's a very different milleau from my usual fare - featuring the Polish immigrant community in London's East End. It's pretty dark and gritty, but very fascinating. Published in 2013, it's the first of series - with three books out so far. Sadly, this is the only one of the series that's available in my library system at this point. I like this book, it's a very interesting read with lots of references to the history of Poland's struggles for independence from the Nazi Occupation through the Solidarity movement and the collapse of the Soviet Union, up to the present day European Union and the rule of Multi-National Corporations. I really hope the other two books in this series become available.

I'll be crossing my fingers as I hit "post" - and hope that not only does it not get lost, but that someone here will enjoy reading my very long book list!