A new Kirk

There is a new J D Kirk coming your way. It’s about his 58th by my reckoning. (I obviously haven’t counted. It just feels like it.)

Publishes in May, so you have to exercise a little patience (but that’s all right because in the mean time there are all those other Kirk crime novels).

New detective, D I Heather Filson. I like women detectives. And she gets to be published as a conventional book, printed on actual paper. Thank you, Zertex. You’re a good publisher.

I haven’t read this one. But I’ll take a giant leap of faith and say I expect it to be great. And successful. After all, appearing on the cover of The Bookseller must bring it to the attention of quite a few booksellers.

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Sweet sixteen

A year ago Bookwitch ruminated on what sells and what she reads and why.

Today I’m – because we are the same, Bookwitch and I – thinking about the effect Bookwitching has had not just on me but on the young and innocent, like Daughter. We have both put sixteen behind us – but only just. Obviously. Today it’s Bookwitch’s turn to hum ‘She was only sixteen…’

As you may have gathered, Daughter has recently moved and has some vintage shelves to arrange with books. And, it seems, a polar bear. Also two bookmarks, one of which I was intrigued to find personally dedicated and signed by Michelle Magorian.

This is the effect I mean. Somehow a lot of young literature has happened to Offspring. The vintage shelves I mentioned seem to contain mostly books by people I ‘know’ and who Daughter has met through being dragged on bring-your-child-to-work days.

There are an inordinate number of Cathy Hopkins books, and that’s as it should be. Likewise Caroline Lawrence and Liz Kessler and Jacqueline Wilson. Although the latter has had to be pruned down to more manageable numbers of books.

I won’t list them all, but basically, the story of Bookwitch can be seen on these shelves. There won’t be so many new ones, as the e-reader has taken over. This is just as well, because however lovely the vintageness from the local auction-hunter, a flat has only so much space.

Apologies for the tile samples. There is a kitchen splashback to deal with. And I would like it to be known that that book by Vaseem Khan has been ‘borrowed’ from a kind parent.

The Killing Code

What a relief it was to be back with J D Kirk and his DCI Logan! Bad language and bad diet in Inverness, and some bad killings, obviously. They are gruesome, true. But he’s quite kind, with it, is J D. We don’t get to know the victims all that well, which helps, when they die a few minutes after you’ve met them. Yes, we care, but it’s not a personal loss.

You can tell I’m slow, can’t you? This is only my third J D Kirk. But it’s kind of nice to know there is a whole bunch* of them, still to be enjoyed, as and when I need them. And I think I’ve now learned that the peril that we know is coming to one or more of the regular characters, somewhere towards the end, is not going to be too bad. J D’s characters will come out of that danger, and the reader’s heartbeat can return to normal.

In The Killing Code someone goes round murdering people around town, including at the hospital, of all places. You can generally work out who – probably – did it, even when it seems somewhat farfetched, and the thrill is in reading on as Logan and his detectives bark up the wrong trees for a while, and wondering when they will see the light.

And Inverness comes across well. I’ve not been for many years, but I can tell it has changed a bit.

*I recommend the ebooks. If not, the way he’s going, you may well end up with a shelf with nothing but J D’s books on it. (Which, I suppose, is not a totally bad thing, but…)

Bad Dog

It will be some time before I relax when we go to the park again. All those dogs running around.

Bad Dog is Alex Smith’s second book featuring DCI Kett, and he is no more sensible this time round. He risks his life, while his three young daughters are at home, missing their mum, but thankfully being looked after by someone who is good at it.

This one, as you might have gathered, is about dogs. And I’m sure you can work out what a bad dog might do. (Don’t read this with a meal!) But I like Robbie Kett and his fellow detectives, and even the boss, Clare, when I can remember that he’s not a girl, and that Clare is his surname.

There are dog attacks in the woods. There are some quite unsavoury characters living nearby. In fact, there are a number of neighbours, and you need to take your pick as to which way to direct your suspicions. (I was mostly right. But that only makes you even more worried about how things will develop.)

The girls are lovely, if somewhat wild and noisy. They, and I, would like DCI Kett to stay at home in a calm and orderly fashion for a little while, but that will never happen. Especially not after that cliffhanger.

Purged

We rolled up our sleeves and started chucking books at the sofa. Although first Daughter and Hetty dusted off the very worst, and let me tell you, the worst was pretty bad. Maybe dusting twice a year isn’t often enough?

There were books I felt really could go, because if I’m not getting any younger, I probably won’t reread them. And another thing about age; we find we don’t see so well when we [try to] read the classic Penguin Classics. The print is very small, isn’t it? The Resident IT Consultant is a firm believer in the e-reader, and the fact that if the author is long enough dead, then financially it makes sense – and sensibility – to go for the classic ebook experience. Out went Austen and Brontë. Gaskell is still here, but she can leave next time.

But yeah, we can both carry the complete works of – insert name of old author here – in our pockets. All at once.

And Daughter says we haven’t got rid of nearly enough books, but as I said, there can be a next time, or so I hope.

The odd thing about all this is that for all the books on the sofa – now in carrier bags for the charity shop – the gaps on the shelves are nowhere near as large as one would expect…

(And with the Edinburgh International Book Festival opening its doors tomorrow morning, I am rubbing my hands in anticipation of the bookshop experience I might have there!)

Thicker Than Water

The second DCI Jack Logan thriller, by J D Kirk. This is what I went for last week, abandoning something that wasn’t doing it for me, opting instead for what Kirk’s alter ego Barry Hutchison cheekily describes as ‘quantity before quality.’ (This was ‘my’ second of the Jack Logan books, whereas in real life there are now about ten, unless he’s got to no. twenty without letting me know…)

It is quality. Yes, these are comfortable length, fast paced crime stories, but they are good. I’ll have to buy the next one(s) now.

I worked out, or rather, I sensed, who had done it from very early on. I just didn’t know how, or how the team would work it out and what impact it would have on them. That’s what makes you sit there as they chase after all the other potential suspects, until soon there is only one left. And you wonder how much peril there will be as the police discover their mistake.

Nicely set in and around Loch Ness, I can see how tourists might want to come and sightsee the murder scenes or picnic where the bodies were found. It all rings so true, too. I know very little about murderers and the police, but the books have got a nice Scottish feel to them.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Apocalypse Kings

This made me quite happy. It’s the World Book Day offering from Derek Landy; a short story within the world of Skulduggery Pleasant. Judging by Valkyrie Cain, it was set a few years ago. But that’s just fine. The world was a better place then. And he has dedicated the book – which I read as an ebook – to his pets, dead and alive, and among them Lorelai and Rory. Although he points out there are no pets in the story. Just as well.

We meet Adedayo, who until he was fourteen had no idea he was magic. And then he discovered a lot more than he might have bargained for. Like, he had to save the world.

But at least he also gets to meet Valkyrie and Skulduggery. Plus some fairly unsavoury characters who just want to end the world. Thanks to his soon to be dead Nigerian grandmother he has learned a few useful things, although if he spoke Yoruba it would have helped a great deal. He’d have known what she was trying to tell him, for one thing.

Apart from all this, Apocalypse Kings is a pretty standard school story, with the added characters he meets so suddenly, not to mention unwisely.

By standard, I mean that it is fun. As much fun as you can expect for 75p, or however much I paid.

Sparrowfall

Nick Green’s new ebook Sparrowfall is quite something. Nick reckons it’s adult fiction, whereas I feel it’d be fine for younger readers as well. Some serious topics are covered, but children and teenagers today are exposed to these kinds of things.

(And now that I’ve read the book, the cover makes a lot of sense.)

This is science fiction, and it takes you to a harsh and completely unknown landscape. While in its other half you find a perfectly ordinary setting as well.

Let’s start with the ‘normal’ story, which is about 12-year-old Eleanor, recently adopted and loving living with her new parents. She also loves the must-read fantasy novel Myriad, and acting. So when she gets a part in the new film of Myriad it feels as if life is perfect.

Myriad is set in a strange world, with strange people and strange goings-on. We don’t see all that much of it, as it’s primarily the film set which matters here.

And then there is the world of Captain Luke S Zeit, which is beyond anything I could imagine. My mind simply boggled as I tried to envisage where Luke is and where he goes. Even what he is. What is quite clear however, are his feelings. He comes across Becca, a refugee from some unknown corner of his world and she changes his life.

It’s not the world of Myriad, though. I suppose that would have been too easy. But if it’s not, how are the parts of this story connected? It took me unusually long to discover, and even when I had, I needed to unsee what I’d found. And I still couldn’t work out how this was all going to work out.

And what of the man sleeping rough in London?

This is refreshingly beautiful, and Nick’s science fiction world is truly different.

The real mystery of course is why Sparrowfall isn’t out there as a big-selling actual book printed on paper, and not just as an ebook. The advantage here is that it will only set you back £2.95, so there is no need for procrastination. Buy it today! And tell your friends.

Paper Girls

DCI Kett is the most father-like detective I have ever come across, by which I mean Alex Smith’s description of what it’s like to be the [currently] lone parent to three young girls is spot on. And once they’ve arrived in Norwich, his detective also kicks in doors left, right and centre. Because he has to.

As an expert on missing people, Kett is on compassionate leave and has come home to Norwich after his own wife goes missing and he fails to find out what’s happened to her. It’s hard. His eldest is six and autistic, the middle girl always wants to poo, and the youngest comes along on his detecting, in her pushchair, because Kett has yet to sort out childcare. Not that he should be working, of course.

But three eleven-year-old girls have gone missing while doing their paper rounds, and the local police want his help. And even if he wanted to, Kett can’t ignore this case. He might have forgotten to bring bedlinen, but he is still a good father.

And a good detective.

I’m not generally too keen on crime novels featuring suffering children, but this is kept at an OK level. And Alex’s writing is great. It’s extremely readable.

I did guess quite early on who to suspect. Perhaps I was meant to. But you still have to wait to see how it will all work out. If it works out. You want to believe it will, because of the many children involved, but you can’t be sure.

As for the missing mother; we are clearly meant to see how Kett manages – or not – without her, so I don’t imagine there will be a speedy, happy outcome.

There will be more poos, and more doors to kick in. And naming a couple of potential suspects after his real life author colleagues is genius. Made me very happy.

Success ahead

So, two weeks later another one gets ahead to the number one spot for ebooks.

This week it is J D Kirk’s Ahead of the Game, which sold better than the others, including his pal Alex Smith who has been ‘relegated’ to fourth place with his Paper Girls. (But fourth is still really good.)

I’ll probably tire of this, but so far I am enjoying the successes of ‘my’ former children’s books authors. And J D – or Barry, as I call him – shot to the top on the very day his tenth DCI Logan novel was published. Without my assistance, because I wasn’t going to buy book ten* when I have all those other single digit books to get through, was I?

But 14,501 fans did buy. Well done.

*And I hear book 11 is due in May. Doing better than trains and buses, being both regular and on time.