gnewt58 commented on The Inverted World by Christopher Priest
Priest had such a vivid imagination. This is shaping up as a great read...
Reviews and Comments
He/him. Living and working in Melbourne Australia. Aging, with a lifelong interest in reading but not many books actually consumed these days. Would love to recapture the voraciousness of my youth.
Mastodon: @gerg@hachyderm.io
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gnewt58 reviewed Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
If at first you don't succeed...
4 stars
Content warning Slight plot reveals
Originally published in 1933, this book is set at a murder-themed country house party that goes wrong (or is it right) when one of the guests is found dead. The characters are variously painted as vain, weak, alcoholic, stupid or selfish but all are willing to commit perjury to protect one of their own. A deserving victim for whom justice is not done, and a neat ending twist made this an entertaining read.
gnewt58 finished reading Murder Against the Grain by Emma Lathen
Murder Against the Grain won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 1967.
> …
First in a long and well respected series but a little dated, which given my recent reading history is an odd thing for me to say. I'm unlikely to follow the sleuthing banker any further...
gnewt58 commented on Murder against the grain by Emma Lathen
Murder Against the Grain won the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award in 1967.
> …
Slowly bringing my reading towards the 21st century...
gnewt58 reviewed Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Martin Edwards
>>He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of …
Muddy stolid drama
4 stars
A tale of muddy moors, muddy towns, muddy people living lonely depressing lives (and deaths). A grim alternative picture to the Yorkshire of "All Creatures Great and Small"
gnewt58 reviewed Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Martin Edwards
>>He could feel it in the blackness, a difference in atmosphere, a sense of …
Muddy stolid drama
4 stars
A tale of muddy moors, muddy towns, muddy people living lonely depressing lives (and deaths). A grim alternative picture to the Yorkshire of "All Creatures Great and Small"
gnewt58 reviewed The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Wait? What?
4 stars
No (extra) spoilers here - the overall premise of the book is well publicised. It's only when you start reading it that the utter confusion of the protagonist(s) worms its way into the reader's mind. It cracks along at a brisk pace, the caricatures of the British upper-crustery are well drawn, and the mystery is, well, mysterious. Well worth a look.
gnewt58 stopped reading A quiet life by Natasha Walter
Wife. Mother. Spy. A double life is no life at all. Since the disappearance of …
Made it half way through this and stopped reading a couple of months ago. The characters are unappealing and their motivations seem vague and vapid. The premise seemed promising but I just couldn't force myself through it.
gnewt58 reviewed Murder in the Frame by Dave Warner
A little disappointing
3 stars
The protagonist's misogyny and the contrived solutions to the locked-room mystery left me cold after remembered enjoyment of Dave Warner's earlier efforts.
gnewt58 commented on A quiet life by Natasha Walter
Wife. Mother. Spy. A double life is no life at all. Since the disappearance of …
Finding it a bit hard to get inspired by this. Took a week off to read a 1950's mystery...
...now back to this.
gnewt58 reviewed The Man Who Didn't Fly by Bennett Margot
Deceptive bends
4 stars
gnewt58 reviewed Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin
The Hours Before Dawn (1958) was Celia Fremlin's debut fiction, and won the Edgar Award …
Oh mother!
4 stars
Content warning Slight spoiler
The author invites you inside the protagonist's exhausted and possibly paranoiac mind, and for most of the book you're wondering if we're all headed for the funny farm. The denouement celebrates the resilience and capability of an exhausted parent in very unexpected ways.
gnewt58 reviewed Force and Fraud by Ellen Davitt
Melodrama
3 stars
First published in 1865, and billed as "Australia's first murder mystery", Force and Fraud is a well paced 19th century melodrama. The characters are fairly thinly drawn, but the social observations seem (from this temporal distance) accurate to time and place. To the reader the outcome seems obvious from early in the book, and the mystery is only in the minds of the characters themselves. Not a bad read at all, and the biographical notes on the author are a great read in themselves.
gnewt58 started reading Force and Fraud by Ellen Davitt
The name behind the Davitt award
gnewt58 reviewed Fancy Bear Goes Phishing by Scott J. Shapiro
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing is an entertaining account of the philosophy and technology of hacking—and …
Not the darknet diaries
4 stars
While the book does review some pivotal cybersecurity incidents the conclusions it draws are way more thought provoking than (for example) the Darknet Diaries.