Set in the fictional landscape of an English university, the story begins with the sudden disappearance of an enigmatic campus cat. This feline character has become an essential, if unofficial, part of the academic community, weaving its way into the routines and lives of staff and students alike. When the cat vanishes, it throws the campus into an amusing frenzy, prompting an investigation that unravels more than just the mystery of its whereabouts.
Woolf’s writing sparkles with humour, and you are swept along with her affectionate and authentic critique of academia. The vividly drawn characters each play their ... View Full Review
This was the big one for me – the proximate cause, the inciting event, the tipping point. I chose it at random in an airport bookstall in Miami. It turned out to be the twenty-first and last installment in the Travis McGee series, which ran from 1964 to 1985. McGee was a boat bum from Florida, taking his retirement in advance by working only when he had to, usually by retrieving stolen property from thieves and fraudsters. He was a big, scruffy, rawboned character. The series as a whole stands as one of the finest ever. It’s markedly ahead of ... View Full Review
Durand was an obscure French crime writer, but this novel – impeccably translated into English by J. Maxwell Brownjohn – hit me like a freight train. It’s fundamentally a chase thriller, in which the chaser is the Gestapo agent Laemmle, representing the might of Hitler’s Third Reich, and the chased is an eleven-year-old French boy named Thomas, the only living person who knows the long strings of numbers that can unlock his late great-grandfather’s bank accounts, which contain hundreds of millions that the Nazis want. Laemmle is a gourmet and an epicene, but cruel ... View Full Review
Smith was a fanatically dedicated fiction writer who honed his craft by running a 1960s pulp magazine in New York. The content was pacy, robust and manly short-story fiction. Smith commissioned work from writers such as Ted Irish, Dr Emile Korngold and Sol Roman – all of whom were himself, typing like mad under pseudonyms. But his aim was a big novel idea he had – a Soviet detective solving a sensitive crime in Moscow, thereby mining the exquisite difficulties faced by a diligent policeman working inside a rigidly bureaucratic and hostile structure. Smith saw his detective as a reluctant ... View Full Review
MacLean was a wildly successful Scottish thriller writer who dominated the adventure genre during the 1950s and 60s. He started with three novels set during the Second World War, and then came what I think of as ‘peak MacLean’ – a magnificent run of six novels from 1959 to 1966, from The Last Frontier (The Secret Ways in the US) to When Eight Bells Toll. All were set in contemporary times, but crucially with plot and character backstories firmly rooted in the recent wartime conflict. It was clear that wartime experience served as a permanent and automatic ... View Full Review
In thrilling news for new generations of YA readers (and adults), this two-in-one tome brings together both books — Blood Tide and Blood Song — in Melvin Burgess’ outstanding dark fantasy duology. Melding myth and sci-fi with arresting contemporary style, it’s outrageously bold and powerful.
First published some 25 years ago, the duology’s ferocious world transposes the Icelandic Volsunga Saga to future London. A city destroyed. A city cut off from the rest of the country and wracked by violence as a pair of warring families contest power, with the second novel, ... View Full Review
Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize 2024
Girl, Goddess, Queen is a feminist, fierce and fresh YA fantasy retelling of the classic Greek myth of Hades and Persephone with a hefty dose of steamy romance. Fitzgerald’s reimagining shifts the power dynamic and repositions Persephone as a heroine with agency to control her own narrative, with extraordinarily fun results. View Full Review
If ignorance is bliss, then stupidity must be orgasmic.
Brookmyre is one of those annoying authors who can turn his hand to almost anything. He’s written psychological thrillers, police procedurals, a crime novel set in space and his forthcoming book The Cracked Mirror is a frankly mind-blowing detective novel like no other you will ever read. It’s in his award-winning debut novel though, that his genius as a satirist was first showcased. Brookmyre is a man who has funny bones (I’ve seen him bring the house down at the Comedy Store) but as a ... View Full Review
All this happened, more or less.
Comedy has sometimes between defined as ‘tragedy plus time’ and this is nowhere better illustrated than in Vonnegut’s 1969 classic. In the book for which he will be best remembered, Vonnegut processes his own experience as an American serviceman during the fire-bombing of Dresden, using mordant wit (and aliens) to examine one of the most senseless and tragic acts of war in modern times. Billy Pilgrim is ‘unstuck’ in time, and the dark humour with which his absurdist, time-travelling adventures are infused make this a captivating read. It’... View Full Review
This is a very special series for pony-mad 7+ year olds from one of the best known riders competing today. Each book is not just a great story, but also full of expert advice that readers will pick up along the way.
Pippa had the idea for an ongoing story about Tilly’s family from the beginning. Though Tilly owes her appearance in part to a friend of Pippa’s, the riding champion admits she has more than a passing resemblance to her lead character. Though readers will learn a lot about horse care from the stories, at the ... View Full Review
Trish Hinde’s wants the lasting message of her memoir to be that secrets are never a good thing.
She spent her childhood and much of her adult life not revealing her worst secret: that her father had sexually abused and raped her on multiple occasions. He told her to keep it a secret, and she listened to him.
In Not My Fault, which she wrote with Ann Cusack, Hinde details the horror of her father’s actions, but also the chaotic home life that went with it. One of six siblings, Hinde recounts the food shortages, ... View Full Review
Bestselling author and Great British Bake Off winner Nancy Birtwhistle is on hand with helpful advice on how to run a home on a budget, with solutions that don't cost the earth. Literally, these environmentally friendly hints and tips cover everything from how to remove mould safely to healthy, tasty and cheap meals with your trusty microwave.
Building on the hints and tips that already made her popular with her readers and on social media, this is a vital guide for anyone looking to use 2024 to budget more effectively while being eco friendly. View Full Review
