13. Ian Rankin - Tooth & Nail

Not only was this an amazing crime novel (I might actually get addicted to these) it also helped me to appreciate Edinburgh and loathe London a bit more. Even though I was considering moving to London for a while, not any more. Ian Rankin paints such a horrible picture of it in Tooth & Nail that it doesn't appeal to me at all after this novel. Job well done!

This novel is about Rebus who moves down to London to help the MET police hunt down and kill The Wolfman. A killer who mainly focuses on women, he or she stabs his victims in the throat and then takes bites in their stomach. Due to his previous succes in Edinburgh the Metroplitan police reckon Rebus would be perfect for the job. He himself is not so sure...

The passage that speaks to me most, is the short paragraph about his books. I fully agree with him and I feel I have met a like-minded soul. 15 more Rebus books to go and I mean to read them all:

So many books. One man could not hope to read them all in a lifetime. He tried to walk through the aisles without focusing. If he focused, he would become interested, and if he became interested he would buy. He already had over fifty books at home, piled beside his bed, waiting for that elusive weeklong break when he could concentrate on something other than police work. He collected books. It was just about his only hobby. Not that he was precious about it. He did not lust after first editions, signed copies and the like. Mostly, he bought paperbacks. And he was nothing if not catholic in his tastes: any subject matter would do. (Rankin 154)

12. Stephen King - Under the Dome

Wow... I'm still completely silenced by the fact that firstly I managed to read this humongous book in one week (877 pages) and secondly by the epic quality of it all. Stephen King started writing Under the Dome almost thirty years ago, but last year he finally managed to finish it. A lot of hard work has gone into writing this novel and it shows. 

This is literally a novel with an epic scope. It's about a tiny village which is suddenly covered by a big invisible dome and the effects it has on the inhabitants. It doesn't help the situation that the main man in the village is a idiot who is on the edge of losing all his common sense, Jim Rennie, and the fact that most of the town are set to follow him in every stupid decision he makes. And it really doesn't help that the town's temporary visitor who after a fight wants to flee the town, Barbie, becomes encased by the Dome and promoted as Colonel by the people on the outside.

I must say that I thought the ending was kind of weak. But it's not about the last 10 pages. It's about the full novel and the build up to the main event. And King has done that in a very King-esque manner.  

I know most people will wait for the mini series to come out. And I'm certain it will be good, but please try to read this book. It's a sensational read and it really doesn't stop anywhere it just keeps going with a "foot on gas narrative" as the Washington Post calls it. Just be aware that you shouldn't be eating anywhere near the book, lots of scenes are really gory. In the way that only Stephen King can do it. 

11. John Grisham - The Confession

Sometimes a book is so good it just grips you and you can't put it away. I had it a while back with Larsson's Millennium trilogy and now John Grisham did it to me again with The Confession. 

In this book, he does not beat around the bush. He takes us straight to the main events. An innocent black man is awaiting execution in Texas for a crime he did not commit. Donte Drumm has been in prison for nine years and the needle is only a week away when the man who did commit the crime, that of killing and raping a high school girl, confesses to a priest in Kansas. The man is a well-known felon in three states and the priest Keith decides to help Travis Boyette jump parole to confess his crimes in Texas to make sure the execution does not take place. The reason Travis wants to confess after nine years is because he is dying of a brain tumour. 

This is the first time I've written such a lengthy summary, but this novel really needs it because it needs to be read. I'm not a stranger to Grisham's books. I've read A Time to Kill and The Client. I've read these a long time ago but I still remember how much I loved them, especially A Time to Kill. For some reason unknown to even me, stopped picking up his books. Maybe it's because I didn't like my studies in Law as much as I thought I would and I stopped reading the author who inspired me to start it. 

In any case, this book is a definite must-read. I can't even describe the sentiments that went through me when reading about the long and impossible task of getting Boyette in Texas on time for the execution. I felt with Keith and I felt for Robbie, Donte's lawyer, who had been trying for years to point out to the jury and the court that evidence in the case against Donte was seriously lacking. Very frustrating. But such an amazing book and Grisham describes all the events with such detail that it just reels you in and for a week you feel like you're in Sloan, Texas.

10. Roald Dahl - The Magic Finger

I have to admit that I'm cheating this week. I'm going to Sweden for the Midsummer Festival this weekend and I'm not sure how much I can read there. That's why I picked an extra short book that arrived by post today. I ordered the full box set of Roald Dahl's children's books and this week's pick was The Magic Finger. 

There's not much to say about this book. It took me ten minutes to read it. It's about a girl who, when she's upset, can use her magic finger to change the situation. In this story she is upset by the Gregg's because they shoot animals. This enrages her and she changes them to geese. It's a cute little tale, but nothing more than that. I wouldn't say it has a happy ending though and that's why I always kind of enjoy Dahl's books. They're cute horror stories for kids. To be honest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory still scares me. I think I should start reading that one soon as well... 

9. Stephen Fry - Moab is my Washpot

For this week I had the idea to read Fry's first autobiography because his latest the fry chronicles amused me a lot, but when reading Stephen Fry's Moab is my Washpot I suddenly remembered how much I loathed reading his non-fiction book The Liar. This novel he wrote around the same time as his first autobiography, in 1997. Fry's language can be so pompous, which is often enjoyable in real life.

However, in this case, in book form, it's terribly tedious. I am so used to reading about English boarding schools because of my Literary education. And to read the same story again only then by Fry's hand is nothing short of annoying. I had to read half of the book in one day simply because I kept dreading to read more at the beginning of the week. I even started displaying SOG (study evasive behaviour as we used to call it at uni) and I almost started cleaning the whole house because I didn't want to continue reading. 

He sums himself up in such a great way that I almost feel I don't need to add anything to my little article:

"No. I was Stephen. I was always going to be Stephen. I would always be that same maddening, monstrous mixture of pedantry, egoism, politenes, selfishness, kindliness, sneakiness, larkiness, sociability, loneliness, ambition, ordered calm and hidden intensity. I would cover my life with words. I would spray the whole bloody world with words. They were still all that I had but at last they were getting me places." (Fry, 432)

Don't get me wrong I love Stephen Fry. I love watching him on television and reading his tweets. But I don't know if I fancy 500 pages of him in one go. For me it's now 1 - 2 for Fry. And only future will tell if I will ever pick up one of his books again.

Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

I missed my deadline by one day again, but you can't blame it on me this week, my mum and her friend came to Edinburgh for the weekend. So I was busy showing them around. 

It's not because I was procrastinating reading this book. As I may have pointed out before I'm not the biggest fan of crime novels, but I have been a big fan of Mo Hayder. Ever since I read Tokyo I bought all her books the moment they came out. Even if they were only available in hard cover. I did the same with Hanging Hill this year. However, I'm sad to say that for the first time in a long long time, she has disappointed me. 

Firstly, by not  writing another Jack Caffery novel, since I want to know how he is doing after Gone. And secondly, by not making this book interesting or surprising in the slightest. Tokyo wasn't a Caffery novel but it packed a punch. This novel does not overwhelm you at all. If anything, it's boring. The story of the two sisters who grew apart due to an incident (which is never really clarified), never really appeals to me. It's almost as if Hayder as made writing about solitary characters her trait, but when she has to write about familial situation, she fails. It's a pity, because this means I'll probably have to wait another year for a new book. Please let it be another Caffery novel then, because I don't particularly enjoy these deviations. Thank you.

Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

This week the challenge was even harder than last week. Stieg Larsson's third book in the Millennium series The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is considerably lengthier than it's predecessors. In this case, that wasn't bad at all, because you get the desire to finish it as soon as possible since you want to know how the events that started in The Girl Who Played With Fire come to a conclusion. 

It's hard to say anything about the book because it literally continues the story that ended abruptly at the end of the second book. I can't tell you whether I find it more or less enthralling than the second one, because it's as if Larsson wrote a book that 1300 pages long, only he decided to sell it in two different covers. The only problem is is that the first book in the Millennium series does not really fit in with the other two books. So I don't think of it as a trilogy. It's a pity Larsson is not among us to continue the series of Herr Blomkvist and Fru Salander because even though things come to a good conclusion in the third novel it would be good to stay with the main characters for a bit longer. Larsson is someone with such a good writing style, for example the passage in the court room; we already know all the details of the story, but he makes it interesting for us to read again. And someone with such a good eye for detail, should have written more books than only these three. 

As I said before, there is not much I can write about detective novels, so I'll skip most of the book talk and start reading the book for the next week. I'm quite impressed with myself that I've been keeping this project up for at least seven weeks now. To be continued....