Eyejaybee's 100 books in 2015

Thanks for setting up the Group, Hemlokgang.
Best wishes to everyone for some marvellous reading in 2015.

Best of luck to you, too! :)

Eager to see what your 2015 reading brings you (though my to-read list may not thank me)!

Welcome back! Here's to a great year of reading!

I have been thinking back over last year's reading and have come up with the following 'Best of' lists (though I would readily acknowledge that I would probably come up with slightly different selections if I did the same exercise tomorrow!):

Favourite 'new to me' fiction books:

1. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng.
2. An Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
3. Upstairs At the Party by Linda Grant.
4. The Professor of Truth by James Robertson.
5. Colourless Tsukur Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami.
6. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.
7. Darkness, Darkness by John Harvey.
8. The Children Act by Ian McEwan.
9. Enough is Enough by Mark Lawson.
10. Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

Favourite 'new to me' non-fiction books:

1. This Boy by Alan Johnson
2. The Blunders of Our Governments by Anthony King.
3. Cider With Roadies by Stuart Maconie.
4. Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard.
5. H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald.
6. A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre.
7. Walk the Line by Mark Mason.
8. A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson.
9. Please, Mr Postman by Alan Johnson.
10. Power Trip by Damian McBride.

Favourite re-reads:

1. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
2. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
3. The Masters by C. P. Snow.
4. John Macnab by John Buchan.
5. Capital by John Lanchester.
6. Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.
7. The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse.
8. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
9. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson.
10. Various volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.

Books I enjoyed least:

1. Amnesia by Peter Carey.
2. Children of the Revolution by Peter Robinson.
3. Savage Night by Allan Guthrie.
4. The Bat by Jo Nesbo.
5. Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe.

Welcome back, James! Looking forward to reading about your 2015 reads.

Hi Tania.
Likewise here. I hope you and your family have a great year.

1. Star Trap by Simon Brett. (Re-read).

Star Trap is set in 1975 and represents one of the earlier episodes in the investigative career of Charles Paris, down-at-heel journeyman actor.

Charles is recruited to appear in Lumpkin!, a musical loosely based upon Oliver Goldsmith's classic play She Stoops to Conquer. This production has been devised primarily as a vehicle for Christopher Milton, the enormously popular star of one of the leading television comedy series of the time. Charles, however, has not won his role through the customary path of attending an audition and being deemed the most suitable actor for the part. He had instead been contacted by his urbane solicitor friend, Gerald Venables, one of the 'angels' investing in the show, who has been concerned about some odd incidents which he thinks might be part of a greater plot to sabotage the musical. Knowing of Charles's success in solving a couple of previous theatrical mysteries, Venables thinks that he might prove to be a helpful asset to the company management as their man on the inside.

As ever, Simon Brett demonstrates his detailed knowledge of the theatrical world, conjuring an authentic context for the escalating series of incidents that continue to bedevil the show. Personalities and egos clash, and Christopher Milton appropriates more and more of the body of the show to his part, leaving the rest of the cast bereft of any funny or worthwhile lines. He is, however, as Charles continually has to concede (often through gritted teeth following yet another example of the star's dreadful tantrums), exceptionally talented, and though he may be hogging ever larger portions of the work to himself, his decisions do seem to make theatrical sense.

As usual with this beguiling series, the plot is well-constructed (and the relevant clues to the eventual denouement are all there), but delivered with a light touch, and Charles remains a very engaging lead character (I think he is too self-effacing to be called a hero).

2. Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly.*

As I had borrowed this book from my good friend Mark Stockdale, i really wanted to be able to say that it was my second favourite book about the Shipping Zones (as part of a long-running private joke). Sadly I can't say that with any honesty as the only other book I have read about the shipping zones was Peter Jefferson's woeful 'And Now The Shipping Forecast' which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by contriving to render a potentially fascinating subject simply facile.

Connelly also treats the subject with a certain degree of humour but brings far greater knowledge to his account and readily captures the reader's empathy. Having been fascinated by the mantra-like recitation of the Shipping News he found himself being persuaded to sail around all the different zones. The idea sounds absurdly simple, though his journey was to prove anything but easy, but the adversities that he encountered, and overcame, lend a gritty core to this entertaining tale.

He is not a great literary stylist but he does convey his story with lucidity and coherence, and it captured my attention right from the start.

3. Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell. (re-read)

This is the tenth volume of Powell's autobiographical epic, "A Dance to the Music of Time", and his fictional avatar Nick Jenkins returns once more to London's literary world after securing his release from military service. It is now the late 1940s and Jenkins is "doing the books" for the new politico-literary magazine "Fission" while also struggling to complete his own latest work, 'Borage and Hellebore', an exegesis of Robert Burton's classic Renaissance volume, 'The Anatomy of Melancholy'.

Working for Fission brings Jenkins back into regular contact with J G Quiggin who has now relinquished his own aspirations as an author and taken to publishing. The magazine is edited by Lindsey Bagshaw, known to all his acquaintances as 'Books Do Furnish a Room' Bagshaw, or simply 'Books'. He is a veteran journalist and lifelong student of the numerous strains of socialism. Jenkins also makes the acquaintance X Trapnel, a highly accomplished yet dangerously volatile writer who strides around the icy capital in an old RAF greatcoat while brandishing a swordstick.

Jenkins is surprised to find that Kenneth Widmerpool, now a Labour MP and recently appointed as Principal Private Secretary to a member of the Cabinet, is involved with the magazine as one of its financial backers and a regular columnist. In this latter role he churns out wordy pieces espousing the merits of increased cultural and trade links with the Soviet bloc countries.

After an inauspicious first encounter Trapnel becomes utterly enchanted by Pamela Widmerpool's wife. Pamela has hitherto been a fairly ephemeral character but takes a more prominent role in this volume, leaving her husband to set up home with Trapnel in the dim hinterland of Kilburn. Needless to say, life with Pamela is far from tranquil, which drags Trapnel down, and compromises his health (he has never been physically robust) and his writing. The portrayal of Trapnel is based upon the equally melancholic life of Julian Maclaren-Ross, who promised so much but died regrettably young without ever fulfilling his potential.

As Jenkins becomes more deeply immersed in Burton's work he sees ever more characteristics of different forms of melancholia among those people with whom he works, and Trapnel in particular. Trapnel does display a certain style, but is ill-equipped for the vicissitudes of post-ar London, and the Dickensian winter that shows no sign or thawing.

Often very funny this novel is also very closely observed and offers pellucid insight into the difficulties endured by the professional writer.

I've read book 2 - it was a simple idea, but I can see the fascination with trying to do it. Possibly not the most literary book, but it has enthusiasm in abundance.

I agree, Helen.

I was really rather envious of him undertaking the journey.

4. Close Call by Stella Rimington.

It is no surprise that Stella Rimington's novels seem so credible -she was, after all, head of MI5 for several years before embarking on her career as a novelist. This is her eighth to feature Liz Carlyle, rising star of MI5, and reading it this week brought out a chilling topicality, centring as it does on jihadist action in Paris and London.

The action move much more rapidly than with authors such as John le Carre, with whom Rimington is often compared, and while her books may not quite be as substantial or engrossing as le Carre's, she does not allow the faster action to compromise the story's credibility. Rimington gives us an immensely plausible espionage procedural, taking the reader with great care through the MI5 operation as it develops. Liz Carlyle is certainly a very empathetic protagonist, and one who's character become increasingly more credible with each new volume.

I've listened to a few of her books and thought they were quite believable. And a female protagonist, which I feel is somewhat unusual in the genre.

5. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly.

Until about fifteen years ago I used to devour American crime novels, rushing through one after another with a fairly voracious appetite. But then something happened. I don't know what - I wish I did - but suddenly I found it very difficult ever to complete one.

I was, then, pleasantly surprised by 'The Black Echo', the first novel to feature Harry 'Hieronymous' Bosch, jaded homicide detective and Vietnam War veteran. Called to the site of a mysterious death, Bosch recognises the corpse as someone with whom he served in Vietnam, some twenty years previously. The body had been found in a reservoir overflow pipe near the Mulholland Dam, and the initial diagnosis suggests that this is merely another instance of a dysfunctional Vietnam veteran meeting their death through drug addiction.

Bosch could so easily have been a disastrously clichéd character himself. Having been discharged form the army he had entered LAPD and gradually risen to the Homicide Team. As the novel opens, though, we start to learn that his career has had as many downs as ups. He had been instrumental in capturing a serial killer, which had led to a local TV station paying him a fee to use his name for a sensationalist series, but his fatal shooting of a criminal in another incident had led to him being investigated at length by Internal Affairs. All this sounds rather familiar - just another disgruntled, unorthodox detective. Connelly does, however, succeed in retaining Bosch's credibility.

This novel also strays across different genres - while Bosch's unconventional thought processes drives the investigation forward, the book also falls soundly into police procedural territory. Yet Connelly also offers a frightening insight into the work of many of the American troops in Vietnam who literally fought underground. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army used hundreds of miles of tunnels through the combat zones, and teams of American troops would be sent down to try to destroy them, often finding themselves in horrific combat beneath the ground. Connelly marshalls all of this with great dexterity, all the more remarkable as this was his first novel.

I shall definitely be looking forward to reading more about Hieronymous Bosch.

6. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.

This is an atmospheric and intriguing, though to my mind ultimately dissatisfying novel, set in the austere society of late seventeenth century Amsterdam which is governed by the harshly orthodox Protestant Republic. Eighteen year old Petronella ("Nella") Oortman has lived in Alkmaar in a family that commands respect locally, but which, following the recent death of her financially imprudent father, is brutally impoverished. She is, therefore, married off to middle aged and taciturn merchant, Johannes Brandt, in a hastily arranged wedding. Brandt is immensely industrious and has to depart on a new expedition before he can bring his young wife back to Amsterdam. As the novel opens she is making that journey alone.

Upon arrival at the Brandt home she is met by the indomitable Marin, Brandt's sister and housekeeper, who offers only the most grudging of welcomes to her new sister-in-law. The rest of the household consisted of Cornelia, the sassy maid, and Otto, a liberated former slave, who performs a range of duties within the home. When Brandt finally returns he remains curiously distant from Nella. He also seems to be at odds with almost all of his fellow merchants, and the household seems curiously removed from the general drift of Amsterdam life. He does, however, present Nella with an impressive wedding present - a cabinet formed in the shape of a miniature replica of their house. During one of her periods of loneliness in the house Nella comes across an advertisement in the local journal posted by a miniaturist. As she gradually becomes more confident in her new surroundings she decides to write to the miniaturist, telling her about her cabinet and commissioning some items with which to furnish it. This decision sparks off the central actions of the novel, and a aseries of cataclysmic events and revelations ensue.

The descriptions of seventeenth century Amsterdam are marvellous (at least, I found them very enjoyable though I have no yardstick at all with which to judge their accuracy), and Burton captures the fell of an oppressive society. The writing is sound and the plot develops very satisfyingly, too, for the first two-thirds of the book, though once we reach the crucial stage, the cohesion slips away. There are just too many loose ends (not least the role and purpose of the miniaturist!), which made me wonder if the book had been truncated as a consequence of impending deadline issues, or whether Ms Burton has decided to write a sequel, and wanted to hold back some useful material.

That's too bad The Miniaturist didn't pan out. It does sound really interesting until the end.

I have had similar frustrations with a few books that were marvellous for the first ninety per cent but fell away at the end. I found both Audrey Niffenegger's 'Her Fearful Symmetry' and Thomas Harris's 'Hannibal' positively fizzed along but came off the rails at the conclusion.

Definitely agree on Her Fearful Symmetry. I really wanted to have a really stern talk with Niffenegger after I finished that. I haven't read Harris' Hannibal, but I'll steer clear. I read the Hannibal by Ross Leckie and I think it was good all through. That was in a year of a lot of mediocre fiction though, so who knows.

I felt particularly frustrated about Her Fearful Symmetry because I live in the area of London in which the action takes place, and she had caught the atmosphere of the area so well - it was difficult to believe that she hadn't lived in Highgate for several years.

Ah, that would certainly add to frustration. Glad she captured the atmosphere well at least, but how disappointing in the end. I haven't kept track of her new books since that one.

Neither have I!

It seems Niffenegger might make a habit of bad endings. I could quite happily have torn out the last chapter of The Time Traveller's wife. Just urgh. Until that point I really enjoyed it, then she stuck this final coda that was simultaneously sickly sweet and really depressing.

Yes, it was the extent of the contrast that really struck me. I had absolutely loved the huge majority of Her Fearful Symmetry but absolutely detested the final part.

I imagine some authors might let an attachment to their characters over-shadow other concerns towards the end of a book.

7. The Corrupted: Part One - Crime and Punishment by G. F. Newman.

This is a fascinating novel, tracing the story of a fictional family whose fortunes are tied up with the intricacies of gang warfare, organised crime and corruption across all tiers of London society through the 1950s and 1960. The principal characters - the Braden family - are all fictional but their lives are seamlessly intertwined with real people such as the Kray twins, the Richardson brothers, Ronnie Biggs and his fellow train robbers, Tom Driberg MP, Superintendent Slipper and Stephen Ward.

I first became aware of this book after hearing the excellent dramatisation on BBC Radio Four of the second volume of the book while driving through the Scottish Highlands, and was eager to try to catch up on the earlier action. I was a little concerned that the book mioght prove to be a disappointment after the mastery of the radio presentation, but such fears were soon laid to rest. Newman has obvioulsy done extensive (perhaps even exhaustive) research and clearly knows his material in intricate detail. He uses this sparingly, though, and does not weigh don the reader with excessive historical references - the presence of real characters serves to lend a deep patina of verisimilitude.

The story is often pretty grim. Indeed, the opening scene, set amid preparations for the celebrations of the Festival of Britain in 1951, is a flashback in the mind of young Brian Oldman to the sight of his mother, Catherine Oldman (nee Braden) battering his grandfather to death. The only other witness to this attack is Joey, Brian's father and Catherine's husband. The body is left hidden in the cluttered yard of a factory which, fortuitously, is hit that evening by a stray German bomb. We gradually learn that this murderous assault was prompted by Catherine having caught her seemingly preparing to abuse the unaware Brian. It is only much later on that we discover that he had abused Catherine at length during her only childhood and teenage years. The memory of this incident not surprisingly stays with Brian for the rest of his life.

Catherine's younger brother is Jack Braden who is obsessed with boxing, and wants a shot at the World Light Heavyweight Championship. He really could have been a contender, and much of his early life is spent in vigorous training to follow this path. Jack does, however, also find himself on the fringes of a criminal subculture which increasingly lures him to become a 'player', and he is soon regularly involved in robberies for which his physical fitness and prowess as a fighter leave him particularly well suited. It is as this stage that he first crosses the Kray twins who are then just starting out on their eventual rise to dominate the east end of London.

Before each episode of the radio version the announcers give a warning that the drama contains 'violence, prejudicial dialogue and attitude prevalent in the time in which the events depicted took place'. It is certainly not for the faint-hearted, though the language is never gratuitous.

The plot twists and turns in a sinuous dance, peppered with references to the changing times as the London population emerged from the post-war austerity into the swinging sixties and beyond. As appatites for consumerism take increasing strong hold, so do the criminals' scope for advancement, cashing in on all aspects of lie.

I understand that Newman intends to take the story right up to the 1980s, and I am eagerly awaiting subsequent instalments.

8. Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas. (Re-read)

I was going to start by suggesting that Scarlett Thomas must be an extraordinary person if the protagonists of her novels are even remotely drawn upon her own character. Such an assertion is, however, probably superfluous as the simple fact of having written novels as engaging and thought provoking as 'PopCo', 'The End of Mister Y' and 'Our Tragic Universe' attests to talent beyond the ordinary. In Megan Carpenter, the narrator of 'Our Tragic Universe', Scarlett Thomas has excelled herself.

Megan is struggling to make a living from pieces of occasional journalism and writing teenage fiction under a pseudonym. Hers is a simple lifestyle complicated by the need to support her appalling and utterly inadequate boyfriend, Christopher, who spends his time engaged on voluntary work on a local heritage project. As the novel opens Megan has been reading 'The Science of Living Forever' a faux-scientific work by Kelsey Newman, a new-age charlatan who believes that the universe, which is really a computer, will for one fleeting moment become so dense and compacted be able to simulate a new universe that will never end, and in which everyone will live forever in infinite incarnations. Not surprisingly, in her review Megan unbends herself at some length, debunking the hapless Newman while offering a pellucid and enthralling exegesis of a number of scientific and quasi-scientific theories.

I remember attending a lecture several years ago on the concept of Horacian Liberty and the need for clarity of expression and thought, one of a series of talks on perspectives on the Renaissance. The crux of that particular address was the writer's responsibility to his or her readers, and the obligation to encapsulate even the most complex of theories in clear, simple language. This marvellous novel is a 400 page evocation of that principle. At different points within the book Megan Carpenter offer us an engaging exploration of the relationship between art and science, while also exposing the fallacious origins of many prevalent misconceptions about physics and chemistry. I can imagine people's eyes rolling now, wondering whether Ms Thomas's novel is just a hollow sounding board for her own pet likes and dislikes. I can reassure you, however, that the plot is solid, plausible and (most importantly) entirely (and instantly gripping. I found myself caught in an insoluble dichotomy: I could not put this book down, but I was, simultaneously, reluctant to finish it

'Our Tragic Universe' is Ms Thomas at her exquisite best and Megan Carpenter is a simply astounding character: articulate, widely-read, tender, considerate and immensely empathetic.

Over the last thirty or so years I have read more than four thousand books, and would, without hesitation, place this in the top ten.

It also happens to be sumptuously presented by the Canongate Press.

High praise indeed to single a book out for the top ten out of 30 years of reading! Definitely putting Our Tragic Universe on my list.

9. Exit Music by Ian Rankin. (Re-read)

The creators of popular fictional detectives have always been faced with a taxing dilemma. Do they allow their characters to age in (or at least close to) real time, or do they leave them in an eternal prime, letting neither age weary them nor the years condemn. Prime examples of the latter approach might be Chief Inspector Wexford, who has been solving crimes in Ruth Rendell's novesl for nigh on fifty years, or Commander Adam Dalgleish, the former poet who investigated numerous murders in the pages of the recently deceased P D James's books.

Colin Dexter veered towards the former approach with Chief Inspector Morse, and prior to his eventual death in 'The Remorseful Day' he went through a diabetes-led decline in health chronicled in 'Death is Now My Neighbour' and 'The Wench is Dead'. Morse did, however, leap fully formed from Dexter's brow, already exhibiting a querulous middle age and bearing the rank of Chief Inspector in his first outing in 'Service of All the Dead'.

Ian Rankin showed greater verisimilitude with his creation, the 'thrawn' Inspector John Rebus, and in the seventeen novels that featured Rebus up to 'Exit Music' he aged in real time, grappling to accommodate new technology and the comings and goings of his colleagues. Rebus has, however, gone through various changes. I seem to recall that in one of the earliest novels in the canon (was it 'Hide and Seek' or 'Tooth and Nail') he was a jazz aficionado and a bit of a wine snob. Thereafter Rebus's prickly personality became clearer in Rankin's mind and crystallised into the character that has become one of the most popular of British fictional detectives. The Rebus books are all well-crafted, blending the almost schizophrenic nature of Edinburgh itself (with an all too thin patina of grace and elegance covering a seamy subculture of crime, grime and sordidness never far below the surface) with tautly plotted stories and a policeman who seldom runs away from confronting his own demons, though that particular internal conflict is seldom resolved.

As 'Exit Music' opens, Rebus is nearing retirement, with only another ten days to go before he hands in his warrant card and leaves the force. True to form, and contrary to what might have been expected, he is not slowing down or easing himself out of the saddle gently. On the contrary, he is as agitated and haunted as ever, depressed because, despite his fiercest efforts over the last two decades, he knows that he has not succeeded in taking down local crime boss Maurice Gerald Cafferty who, as 'Big Ger' has run the city, holding the reins on organised crime all across the Scottish capital.

On a freezing night in December 2006 a young woman and a rich banker out with his wife simultaneously come across a still bleeding body on the pavement of a back street now far from the glamorous heart of the city, just outside a multi-storey carpark. The police are called and the corpse is taken away for forensic investigation, where he is identified as that of Alexander Todorov, a celebrated Russian poet, who has made a name for himself on the back of his dissident views, which he is seldom slow to share with anyone who would listen. Is it a coincidence that the city is currently playing host to a visit of Russian dignitaries and leading business investors, many of whom had been publicly vilified by Todorov. It is clear that a number of high-raking business and commercial transactions are at a delicate stage, and politicians and bigwigs are eaer to stifle any public speculation about the murder, and to ascribe it to a 'mugging gone wrong'.
It is clear that the investigation should be handled by someone well-versed in tact, diplomacy and sensitivity. As luck would have it, the case is assigned to Rebus, so it is only a matter of time before sensitivities are outraged, and the 'high heid yins' are baying for his removal.

This is Rankin and Rebus at their best. The plot is involved with the whole range of Rebus's behemoths running riot. He clashes with politicians from Holyrood and Westminster, local councillors and the Lord Provost, senior politicians and also the highest hierarchy of bankers - one of the principal organisations that comes under Rebus's scrutiny is 'First Albannach Bank' (FAB), which bears ore than a little similarity to the Royal Bank of Scotland before its hubristic fall into ignominy following the international economic crisis of 2008. In the meantime Rebus is still pursuing his personal quest against Big Ger.

Marvellously crafted, and authoritatively written, this proved a worthy swan song for Rebus from his career on the force.

10. Want You Dead by Peter James.

There has been an explosion in the numbers of fictional detectives featuring in their own series of novels, and one of the most prolific of recent years has been Peter James's Superintendent Roy Grace. Nowadays any fictional detective worth his salt must have an identifying characteristic, and Grace is no exception. While Morse has (or, rather, had) his love of opera, and Adam Dalgliesh had his past as a poet, Roy Grace's claim to unorthodoxy is based on the fact that some ten or eleven years ago his first wife disappeared. Grace had sent years trying to trace her or, failing that, even to find some explanation for her sudden disappearance which happened on his thirtieth birthday.

This was certainly an unusual facet to hang n a protagonist, and initially May handled it well, not letting it intrude too far into the plot of each subsequent novel. In recent volumes, though, it had started to wear a bit thin. By now Grace, having accepted that he won't ever see her again, has completed the various legal procedures to have her declared dead, enabling him to marry Cleo, the new woman in his life, who also happens to be the forensic scientist who has worked on many of the victims of his recent investigations.

Sadly, something else that seems to have worn a bit thin is Peter James's plot material. Yet again we are faced with another criminal obsessed with his former, now estranged, lover. In this instance, the book opens with him kidnapping and then brutally murdering the latest swain of his estranged partner, whom he is keeping under close electronic surveillance despite her having been established in what was supposed to be a safe home.

The police procedure is dealt with effectively, remaining utterly plausible without descending into minute detail. We are, however, subjected to more of the banal banter between Grace and his sidekick, Detective Inspector Glenn Branson, which has become hackneyed and predictable beyond belief.

For me this novel never quite made it into top gear; it just bounced along comfortably without ever grabbing the reader's attention and making them feel involved. I almost wondered why Peter James bothered, though the answer is quite plainly printed on the front cover. Apparently the sales of books in this series now top fifteen million, which seems an incredible return for something which seems to have been produced in so patently formulaic a manner.

11. The Firemaker by Peter May.

While most crime writers are content to create a single sequence of connected novels Peter may works on a bigger canvas and has created three separate, and entirely different series (so far). He first achieved prominence as the author of 'the Enzo novels' a sequence of five books following the escapades of Enzo Macleod, half-Scots half-Italian forensic expert now living in the south of France who has undertaken to resolve some of the most high profile crimes that have, as yet, baffled the French police force. He has also produced the bleak Hebridean sequence, set on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, in which Inspector Fin Macleod (I don't know if he is supposed to be related to Enzo), still distraught following the death of his eight year old son, is despatched back to Lewis to assist in the investigation of a murder bearing many of the hallmarks of a case he had been working on in Edinburgh.

His third series is known as the China books, and this is the opening volume. It is the summer of Dr Margaret Campbell has built up a reputation as a leading forensic scientist, specialising in the examination of bodies that have suffered severe fire damage. Life has, however, become very difficult for her so she opts to take a six week secondment to work in Beijing. She manages to irritate and offend her hosts right from the moment of her arrival, inadvertently snubbing their gestures of welcome and hospitality. She also has a series of unfortunate encounters with Senior Investigator Li Yan, who strikes her as unnecessarily boorish.

Within hours of her arrival the Chinese authorities find the severely burnt corpse of a senior government official in a public park following what appears to have been a particularly gruesome suicide. In recognition of her expertise in the field, Margaret is invited to participate on the autopsy, and she uncovers some serious inconsistencies. Almost predictably, Detective Li Yan is assigned to the case and has to work closely with Dr Campbell.

The investigation is set against the background of the criminal underworld of Beijing, and the plot follows a complex course, occasionally stretching credibility beyond acceptable bounds. It is, however, an entertaining story.

12. The Strange Library by Huraki Murakami.

This long short story (or novella? - I am not sure where one end and the other begins) was very disappointing.

This edition was sumptuously produced, though now I am wondering whether the elaborate packaging was a ruse to try to hide the weakness of the story itself. It certainly fell far short of the very high expectations I now have of Murakami's works. I imagine he probably just dashed this off in a hurry one morning, probably rushing to meet a publisher's deadline, and never got around to polishing it. We all have bad days at the office, but most of us don't broadcast them to the world.

If this had been the first Murakami work that i had read it is extremely unlikely that I would have gone on to try anything else by him, which would have been a great shame given the mastery of his novels such as 1Q84 or Kafka on the Shore'.

Oh no! He's one of my favorites and I was looking forward to this book.

13. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel.

I have tried to write a review that adequately captures the sheer brilliance of this novel, though I think that SouthernBlueStocking said all that needed to be said in her thread within this group. It is, quite simply, a superb novel.

I can scarcely remember my first encounter with the post-apocalyptic road story genre. Perhaps it was the BBC television series 'Survivors' which initially enthralled before merely irritating viewers during the late 1970s. Shortly afterwards there was Stephen King's 'The Stand', which lowered the bar a bit further. Cormac McCarthy restored some class to the genre with 'The Road', but it has been to Emily St John Mandel to bring it to its apotheosis with the awesome 'Station Eleven'.

The basic scenario is simple, but chilling. As the novel opens, feted actor Arthur Leander is performing in the title role of 'King Lear' in the Elgin Theatre, Toronto, when he suddenly collapses and, despite the sustained efforts of Jeevan, who yearns to become a paramedic, dies on stage. Arthur is not the only person dying unexpectedly in Toronto that evening. Earlier in the day a plane had landed from Eastern Europe with a number of passengers unaware that they were carrying Georgian Flu. As snow starts to fall, the emergency rooms at the city's hospitals are already filling up with patients in the deeper throes of desperate illness, and the epidemic has already taken hold. The spread and impact of the disease is unstoppable, and within days hundreds of millions of people around the world are dead, and the fragile foundations of the infrastructure of cohesive civilisation are crumbling.

The action then moves on twenty years and focuses on Kirsten Raymonde who is part of a band of survivors who move around the Great Lakes area of North America. There is no society left. All that remains are scattered gatherings of survivors. There is no electricity, and what fuel that remains has gone stale and cannot be used. There is certainly no imposed authority - each settlement has established its own laws and focuses on its own survival. Some of these communities are worse than others, but there are some common factors throughout: outsiders are unwelcome and viewed with suspicion.

Much of the above must sound like fairly customary post-apocalyptic fodder. Where Mandel makes such a difference is in her decision to make Kirsten's band of survivors so different. The group is known as 'The Travelling Symphony' and comprises a selection of musicians and actors who have taken to performing some of the more popular works of classical music and performing Shakespeare's plays. Their motto, taken from an episode of 'Star Trek: Voyager' is 'Mere survival is insufficient'. We subsequently learn that Kirsten had been one of a group of young girls who had actually been in the production of 'King Lear' featuring Arthur Leander.

The story flashes back at various stages to illuminate the earlier life of some of the characters, and Mandel interlaces the story with terrific dexterity. Her language is amazing, too. She manages to combine a ferocious clarity with moments of almost poetic beauty. The title of the novel is a reference to a comic series featured in two books that are among Kirsten's most prized possessions from before the demise. There is a complex and moving back story involving these comics which lend a spellbinding further dimension to the novel.

It's not all positive though!. It is only early February but I am already now facing the remainder of 2015 with some disappointment because I find it difficult to believe I will be lucky enough to read anything as good as this novel throughout the rest of the year.

{Amended on 9 February to correct some atrocious typos!}

Your wonderful review made me check where I am on the holds list for this book. Number 8! Better than where I was a couple of weeks ago, but still too long to wait!

Impatiently waiting for my copy - great review!

14. Over the Edge by Stuart Pawson.

Staurt Pawson's series of crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Charlie Priest has described a sine-like path, notching up notable highs yet also occasionally plumbing some fairly lamentable depths. 'Over the Edge' is, however, a welcome return to mid-season form, and Pawson seems to be back to his impressive best.

The plot encompasses several well-developed themes which Pawson manages deftly, maintaining the tension without ever compromising the story's plausibility. He manages to cover a lot of ground, too: gang warfare, sex-trafficking, illegal car-racing, mountaineering rivalries and, for the first time in any novel that I have read, shahtoosh smuggling, and all of this takes place in West Yorkshire.

Charlie Priest is a very believable detective, being both empathetic and slightly flawed, and his team at Heckley CID are all equally realistic. They also seem to tell each other even feebler and less tasteful jokes than my colleagues in Finchley Tax Office used to stoop to, which is saying quite something.

15. The Accident by Chris Pavone.

Isabel Reed is a reader for an independent New York literary agency. Her long-term friend Jeffrey is a reader for an ailing publishing house that has come under threat of takeover by a burgeoning multimedia empire. Charlie Wolfe is a multi-millionaire who owns the media giant and he dreams of seeking public office. Out of the blue Isabel receives a hard copy of an anonymous biography of Wolfe which makes some devastating, potentially career-wrecking allegations.

As the novel opens Isabel has just finished reading the draft and is amazed at the potential of this book, and starts to think in terms of seven-, or even eight-, figure advances for publication rights. She also realises that such a valuable publishing property, susceptible to legal intervention, must be kept secret for as long as possible. She has the manuscript and her assistant has what she believes is the only photocopy, and she wants to keep it that way for as long as possible. The manuscript had been delivered by a courier, and the only contact detail provided for the author is an email address. This, however, appears to have been disabled, and Isabel's attempts to write to the author bounce back as 'undeliverable'. And then events take a sinister turn, and it becomes clear that someone is very anxious to ensure that the book is never published.

The novel flits between Isabel, the anonymous author and the nefarious agent who is striving to recover the manuscript before its contents can reach the public domain. These ingredients lend themselves to a taut thriller as the hunt for the manuscript moves at lightning speed between Europe and America. We are drip fed nuggets from the biography, though Pavone tantalises the reader with a series of unexpected twists. I congratulated myself on seeing through one of the major turns but was completely sold the dummy over a couple of others.

The writing is taut and stark, which supports the build-up of the tension. There is little flamboyancy in the prose, but none is needed - the plot generates, and sustains, enough excitement to hold the reader's attention throughout, and despite the intricacy of the layered storylines, I don't think that there were any loose ends left dangling at the conclusion.

16. The Corrupted - Part Two by G F Newman.

The second volume of G F Newman's fictional account of organised crime in London picks up immediately from the previous volume. There is not even a hint of preamble, and Newman pitches us straight into the action. Jack Braden, former aspiring boxer turned gangster, is becoming increasingly unstable as he tries to keep his 'firm' afloat against the backdrop of the vicious gang warfare that seethes throughout London of the lates1960s and early 1970s. Still bitter that he was not invited to participate in the 'Great Train Robbery', Braden's sense of proportion has become seriously diminished, and he senses conspiracies in every shadow. Even relations between Braden and his nephew, Brian Oldman, have become strained almost to breaking point. For his part, Brian has come to hate his uncle and sees him as the principal obstacle preventing their firm coming to prominence.

As with the previous volume, Newman concocts a fascinating mix of fact and fiction, with real characters scattered throughout (though they are all now dead, relieving Newman of fears of any libel proceedings). He does not restrict this blend of real and imaginary characters just to the gangsters. Arnold (later Lord) Goodman and George Carman make regular contributions throughout the numerous court scenes, and there is even a cameo appearance from John Mortimer. Meanwhile there are real coppers involved, too, with Superintendent Slipper and Chief Commissioner Robert Mark presiding over the campaign against corruption. Newman also weaves in real events, including the huge robbery on the safety deposit vault of Lloyds Bank in Baker Street which yielded huge sums to the villains (though the exact amount was never established because of the secretive nature of such stashes). This raid was celebrated separately in the film 'The Bank Job'.

The principal characters are, however, all fictional, and they offer up a rich mixture. Jack Braden is psychotic, and subsiding into drug-fuelled paranoia; Brian Oldman is prone to bouts of self-loathing and wants out of the gangster world, though his roots in the gangster milieu keep calling him back; Catherine Oldman, Brian's mother and Braden's sister, is obsessed with her work for the Conservative Party and the concomitant social climbing that it brings her; and Joey Oldman, Catherine's husband, is steadily building a criminal empire of his own, supported by his astute grasp of black economy investment rather than reliance upon his son's strong-arm approach.

Corruption and criminality abound, even (perhaps especially) through the ranks of the police. Orphanage boy Tony Wednesday has made good, joining the police force and rising to inspector, but is as crooked as they come, with an opportunist's eye constantly seeking the main chance. The only bulwark against the sea of corruption is the self-righteous John Redvers, appointed by Sir Robert Mark as a Superintendent, and principal crusader against the London gang world.

The plot takes numerous twists and turns, and Newman deftly keeps the reader guessing. All decidedly gripping and frighteningly plausible. I would also heartily recommend the recent dramatisation of this book by BBC Radio 4. It made slight changes to the story but caught the spirit and power of the book marvellously.

17. The Black Ice by Michael Connelly.

The second outing for Heironymus 'Harry' Bosch is as entertaining as the previous volume ('The Black Echo). Harry Bosch is a surprisingly appealing protagonist. As is almost obligatory for fictional police officers, he goes his own way and has frequently been at odds with his senior officers. He is, however, clearly a 'good' cop, empathetic to the victims of the crimes he investigates, and capable of astute judgements and inspired leaps. All of this might make the book sound rather clichéd, but Connelly pulls it off admirably.

This novel opens on Christmas Day in Los Angeles. Harry Bosch is at home but provisionally on call, and as he relaxes listening to traditional jazz, he also has his police scanner on. From this he hears of the discovery of a corpse in a motel room. Realising that the motel is within his precinct's patch he decides to attend the scene, even though he has not been summoned through the formal duty officer channels. Upon arrival he finds a smattering of senior officers, and it gradually becomes evident that the corpse is believed to be that of Cal Moore, an experienced officer in the LAPD Drug Squad.

The last thing that the senior officers want is Bosch taking on the case and stirring up his customary farrago of complications. He is, therefore, dispatched to contact Moore's ex-wife to advise her of the possibility that her husband might have been killed. Bosch goes to break the news to Sylvia Moore, perhaps the hardest job within the police roll of duty, and finds himself drawn to her.

On the following day Bosch is called into his boss's office and asked to take over a few stagnating cases that had been worked by one of his colleagues who has suddenly applied for early retirement on the grounds of ill health. Reluctantly Bosch takes this job on, and starts investigating the death of an unidentified Hispanic man whose body had been found in a Hollywood alleyway. His researches uncover possible connections to local drug dealers, and Harry discovers that the body had been found by Cal Moore himself. Further connections between the two crimes emerge, and Bosch becomes enmeshed in a complex web of undercover operations in both Los Angeles and Mexico.

Connelly manages the plot very capably - there are a number of separate storylines, and he resolves all of them without compromising plausibility or characterisation. All in all, very entertaining and gripping.

18. No Trace by Barry Maitland.

Well! Someone sold me the dummy there! It is quite some time since I last read one of Barry Maitland's 'Brock and Kolla' novels, and I am now wishing that I had left it even longer. At their best such as 'Silvermeadow' they demonstrated watertight plotting, finely-crafted characters and a magnetic storyline. This volume, published some ten years ago, had all those traits … except the plotting characters storyline.

What a falling off was there! His widow, Gertrude, copping off with his brother, Claudius, could not have come as a greater disappointment to the ghost of Hamlet's father than this weak melange of mindless blether came to me. That's three quid I'll never get back!

19. The Peripheral by William Gibson.

I was very disappointed with this book.

Gibson's Pattern Recognition' is one of my favourite books, ever, and I also enjoyed 'The Bridge' trilogy and his earlier cyberpunk classics 'Neuromancer' and 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'. I confess, however, that I found this latest offering utterly impenetrable, and had to make three attempts at starting it before I was able to build up sufficient momentum to get through it. Quite frankly, I think my persistence was rather misplaced - an expense of spirit in a waste of tedium, or something like that.

@ 42 thanks for the warning!

Oh dear, that's a couple of poor books in a row. Hoping you're not in for a line of them.

Well, I guess we all go through occasional dips now and again. It makes us appreciate the good books even more.

20. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh-Fermor.*

I know that lots of people have written and spoken very favourably about this book but I really struggled to see what was special about it. I certainly didn't dislike it, but I simply couldn't see anything special about it. Basically a few years ago a young, unemployed (indeed, well-nigh unemployable) man went for a long walk …

Of course, there was more to it than that, but not as much more as there might have been. Given that he set off on his journey in December 1933, just eleven months after Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany, with Europe still wracked with economic depression, I would have preferred rather more insight about the political tensions bedevilling the areas through which he travelled. He did describe a few members of the Nazi party whom he encountered in Germany, but that was almost in passing. Of course, you might say that my view distorted by the inescapable influence of hindsight, but then so is Patrick Leigh-Fermor's. It did, after all, take him forty-four years between making the journey and writing the book.

I think my final verdict is that this is not so much a travel book as a lengthy essay in self-regard. On balance I think I will forgo the second volume

Sometimes lots of favorable press does a book the least good, at least for people who read a lot. I think we all come to distrust it eventually.

Your thread makes me wish I were more a fan of crime/mystery books, but I pass on the best stuff to my mom who always needs more to read in those genres.

Having looked back over this thread i realise that i do seem to be reading a lot of crime fiction so far this year. I seem to go through phases when I devour crime fiction, followed by other periods when i read rather more elevated works.

21. The Expats by Chris Pavone.

What could be more normal? Kate Moore is an American housewife, living in Luxembourg. The most taxing part of her day is deciding how she will pass the time between dropping her two young boys at kindergarten in the morning and collecting them in the afternoon. Each morning she sees her husband Dexter go off to his office where he works to improve banks' security systems, earning the money that funds the family's relatively luxurious lifestyle. Idyllic? Well almost … but not quite. Kate has a secret, and a past, and she has started to suspect that she might not be the only one..

Pavone takes the reader on an engrossing trip through a succession of European cities, with flashes both back and forward in time, gradually revealing more of Kate's past. The plot is sinuous but always plausible, and utterly gripping. There were several points throughout the book when I was convinced that I had resolved all the separate threads, only to find my self sent careering off at a wholly unexpected tangent.

22. A Lovely Way To Burn by Louise Welsh.

Until very recently it had been a long time since I read a post-apocalyptic style of novel, and it had been a genre that I had generally avoided. I did, however, think that Emily St John Mandel's 'Station Eleven' was marvellous, and now, just a month later, I have been struck by Louise Welsh's 'A Lovely Way to Burn'. The starting point is similar, with a population devastated by the sudden impact of a killer virus, though this story is set in London rather than Canada.

As the novel opens Stephanie 'Stevie' Flint has just finished her night shift as a presenter on a television shopping channel, and is hurrying through Soho to meet her boyfriend Simon, a successful paediatric doctor. Simon, however, never turns up and, enraged,, Stevie takes a late tube journey back home to her own flat, finding herself sitting next to someone who starts coughing vehemently. Returning home, Stevie almost collapses into bed suddenly feeling ill. Stricken with what seems to be flu she is unable to rise from her bed for about three days. Still annoyed with Simon, she decides to go to his apartment while she expects him to be working his shift at hospital to retrieve the various belongings she had left there, calling a halt to the relationship. Having let herself in and found her stuff she is on the point of leaving again when, on a whim, she checks the spare bedroom where she finds Simon's corpse. He has been dead several days. Because of her illness Stevie has been out of touch with the news, and it is only as she listens to the radio in her car that she realises that London has been hit be a dreadful, plague-like outbreak of flu.

It soon becomes evident that she is in a very small minority of people who have suffered the flu but survived. For most patients the onset of the flu proves fatal, most of them dying within three days. As the flu, known colloquially as 'the sweats' takes hold, law and order start to dissolve. In the meantime Stevie is trying to investigate Simon's death, having discounted her initial suspicion that he too had succumbed to the aging epidemic. It soon becomes apparent that Simon might not have been the squeaky clean character that Stevie had imagined. It also becomes clear that someone is pursuing Stevie, and will not baulk at violence.

Welsh mixes the two themes of the story (the progress of the plague and the consequential fragmentation of society on the one hand, and Stevie's investigation into Simon's past on the other) very deftly, and conveys a growing sense of menace as the institutional infrastructure of the state crumbles and the survivors revert to feral self-protection. This is, apparently, the first volume of what will become the 'Plague Times' trilogy, and I am already hooked and waiting for the next instalment.

23. Mobius Dick by Andrew Crumey.

A quick glance at the customer reviews of this book on Amazon shows how widely it has divided readers' opinions. One five star review asserts that it is 'original, thought-provoking, erudite … and above all great fun' while the next dismisses it as 'confusing and tedious'. I am not sure whether I agree with neither … or perhaps both.

There can certainly be no question about the thought-provoking. In its three hundred pages this book offers a wide swathe of subjects including theoretical physics with cameo appearances from Schrodinger, psychology and the interpretation of dreams, the travails of nineteenth century novelists with an exchange between Hermann Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the descent into mental disrepair of Robert Schumann, all enmeshed with some what-if speculations about the outcome of the last world war and a contemporary physicist's recollections of an old lover. 'What, no ventriloquists? I hear you ask, and that does indeed some to be one of the few fields of artistic endeavour that doesn't rate a mention.

On reflection I feel I did enjoy it. It is not an easy read, but it is rewarding, though I also think that some of the apostrophising was a little over-extended. Hamlet with nothing but the prince, perhaps, and a surfeit of tangential sidebars.

24. Above Suspicion by Lynda La Plante.

Lynda La Plante has carved out an immensely successful career as a writer and producer of gritty television crime drams, such as 'Prime Suspect' and 'Trial and Retribution'. I had not, however, ever thought of her as a novelist, and was intrigued when I picked up this book in the local Oxfam shop.

She writes well, and, as might be expected from her mastery of the television format, she certainly knows how to capture and then hold the reader's attention. There isn't much in the way of purple prose, but she writes clearly and drive. Her character all seem plausible and her plot is soundly constructed.

The novel opens with Detective Chief Inspector Langton and Sergeant Anna Travis attending the recovery of the corpse of a young woman who had been murdered some five or six weeks previously. Langton is a slightly clichéd character - the hard-bitten senior officer who has seen it all while Travis is recently promoted, newly-appointed to the Murder Squad and desperately ambitious. We soon learn that her late father had been a well-respected superintendent, one of the old school.

Forensic investigations reveal that the corpse was the latest victim in a string of brutal sex crimes stretching back for several years. As the police follow up the meagre selection of leads one potential suspect emerges: Alan Daniels, a successful actor who, after securing a string of gradually larger television roles is now on the cusp of major stardom.

La Plante takes the reader through an intricate web of blind alleys, and Travis is an appealing protagonist - essentially sympathetic but not without her own flaws.

25. The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly.

I am feeling rather disappointed about this novel. After a couple of excellent books to kick off the sequence, Connelly definitely sold me the dummy with this one.

The basic premise was sound enough. There had been various references in the previous two books to an incident in which the protagonist, Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch had confronted and then shot a man suspected of being the serial killer known as The Dollmaker. Bosch had fired because the other man had ignored warnings to stand still and had reached in desperation for something beneath a pillow. Bosch fired without hesitation, only to discover that he had been reaching for his discarded toupee rather than a gun.

Now, four years later, the victim's widow is suing the police force for compensation. As the trial opens a new corpse bearing all the hallmarks of a Dollmaker killing is discovered, leaving everyone to draw the uncomfortable inference that the man whom Bosch shot might have been innocent.

This all made for an intriguing backdrop to the story, but somehow it never quite seemed to get going. The courtroom scenes subsided into predictable turgidity, and even the investigation into the 'new' murder just rumbled on without Connelly's customary flair.

26. Mort by Terry Paratchett.

I have to profess myself somewhat bemused. The announcement last week of the death of Sir Terry Pratchett led to debate among a few of my colleagues about his Discworld novels. There was a rather stunned silence when I remarked that I had never read anything by him. One in particular seemed surprised, almost to the extent of being personally affronted, and kindly lent me a couple which he identified as good starting points for a belated neophyte.

I found myself significantly underwhelmed. I might well have enjoyed this book if I had first come to it when I was about eight years old, though I imagine that by the time I had turned nine I would have been rolling my eyes and feeling that I had long left such things behind me. I know Sir Terry brought a lot of entertainment to a lot of people, who will sorely miss him, but I fail completely to see the attraction.

The most interesting aspect of this misplaced venture was the fact that my colleague was somehow able to email me the Kindle file for this book, and that I was able to read it on my phone. I feel a bit like a teenager at the turn of the century suddenly stumbling across Napster and racing to fill my iPod.

Mort is never a book I'd recommend as a beginning point for Pratchett, frankly. Hogfather, Witches Abroad, Small Gods or Going Postal are far better starting points, in my opinion.

27. Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail by Hunter S. Thompson.*

I turned nine during 1972, living in the English Midlands, so my recollections of the American Presidential campaign of that year are conspicuous by their paucity. If anyone had asked me during the summer of that year who Richard Nixon was, I might well have replied that I thought he was king of America. Endearingly misguided, perhaps, though it become evident from this collection of Hunter S Thompson's contemporaneous columns for 'Rolling Stone' that he believed that Nixon himself would have agreed with me. For any regular viewers of Fox News, please note that Richard Nixon was NEVER King of America!.

These pieces are among Thompson's finest - resonant with his rage and increasing disbelief at the vagaries and hypocrisies of politicians and the huge sums of money thrown at the campaigns. It is not clear whom he despised more - President Nixon himself or Hubert Humphrey, for whom his most vitriolic diatribes are reserved. George McGovern, who would eventually secure the Democratic nomination, emerges as a figure worthy of respect. Thompson clearly didn't endorse the whole of his campaign but, let's be honest, it is unlikely that any candidate for any public office who could tick every box in Thompson's manifesto requests could secure backing from the more orthodox political cognoscenti.

More than forty years on these pieces still bring the salient issues to life, and offer a sharp insight into American social history, and the already gaping chasm between 'normal' people's lives and those of the politicians professing to represent them.

Mort was my first Pratchett; aged 16 I fell in love and have remained so ever since. I struggle to read them objectively and explain why I love some of them so very much. In that way I'm with your colleague (although I'd never have lent you one of my collection and certainly not my considerably aging copy of Mort!). I would disagree with Mabith, I think the earlier ones are better start points, as I think the later ones have too many in jokes and back references for them to work well as first entry points. Anything after Guards, Guards is, in my opinion, to far in. While I'm a fan of his writing I can't say I've loved everything he's written and can accept that he's not for everyone. I think you're wrong, clearly, but you are allowed to be wrong.

*grins* I believe Guards, Guards! is the best start into Discworld ;)

And I very much agree with Helenliz ;)
While I'm a fan of his writing I can't say I've loved everything he's written and can accept that he's not for everyone. I think you're wrong, clearly, but you are allowed to be wrong.
*nods wisely*

Helen, well, I started with later books (Hogfather was first, then Going Postal) and read randomly for a while and loved every minute. I definitely didn't feel like I was missing a lot of references. Come to that, Discworld is full of references to history, mythology, and folklore, but I don't think the people who don't get those references will dislike the books. Since Discworld must be re-read many times in order to catch every reference and nuance and joke, starting later when the books are more even doesn't seem bad (and worked brilliantly for me).

*grins moar* and I was very unimpressed with Hogfather and didn't like Going Postal at all... and don't believe Mort is a good place to start either.

I think it very much depends on the person and the person's reading background and desires... Reading randomly is a good thing, there is so much to explore!

What I value in Pratchett's work is his insight into 'humanity', his understanding of human thoughts, actions and reactions, and how 'real world' conditions are mirrored with a twist on Discworld.

28. Abattoir Blues by Peter Robinson.

It is always rather painful to see a novelist whom one formerly viewed with great respect now subsiding into literary torpor, churning out lame plots riddled with implausible characters and facile dialogue. That, sadly, seems to be the fate befalling Peter Robinson.

After a solid start with a series of dependable if never quite spectacular novels featuring Inspector (later Chief Inspector) Alan Banks, he suddenly hit mid-season form with 'In A Dry Season' and the five or six novels that followed it, and he became one of the leading British exponents of the police procedural novel. Unfortuantely he seemed to take the pitcher to the well not merely once too often but six or seven times more than the source could sustain, and his recent novels have been pale imitations of his best work.

Abattoir Blues does not reverse this downward trend. It came close to succeeding, and the two entwined stories (traces of human blood and remains found on a disused government-owned airfield out in the Peak District and the theft of an immensely expensive tractor from a farm out in the moors) offered sound potential. Somehow, though, Robinson seems to have lost the ability to build on these starts. His characters' dialogue used to crackle with verisimilitude and verve, but now they all seem to have been supping valium-laced cocoa and stumble through their conversations in a painfully laboured manner.

I tend to recommend Wyrd Sisters to start, and I find people either 'get' Terry's writing or they don't, if you do it's awesome !!

29. Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell. (Re-read)

The eleventh volume of Powell's masterful Dance to the Music of Time sequence opens in Venice where the narrator, Nick Jenkins, has been lured to attend a literary conference. Among his fellow delegates are the erudite but slightly intimidating academic, Dr Emily Brightman, and Russell Gwinnett, an American academic who has taken a sabbatical break to work on a literary biography of the talented yet personally disordered novelist X Trapnel whose chaotic life formed much of the backdrop to the previous volume, 'Books Do Furnish A Room'.

Gwinnett advises Jenkins that he is particularly eager to meet Pamela (now "Lady" following her husband's elevation to a peerage) Widmerpool, who had been instrumental in Trapnel's decline after her wanton destruction of the manuscript of his unfinished novel "Profiles in String". This encounter duly happens as the senior attendees of the conference are invited to visit the palazzo where the Widmerpools are staying. One of the principal attractions of the palace is a ceiling painted by Tiepolo which depicts the story of Candaules and Gyges, as recounted by Herodotus. Candaules, King of Lydia, had frequently boasted of the beauty of his wife, and arranges for his friend Gyges to lurk in their chamber where he can see for himself. The particular poignancy of this situation revolves around the fact that nakedness was a near taboo among the Lydians. The Queen, however, glimpses Gyges watching her naked form and subsequently confronts hi, advising him that he must either kill her husband and marry her himself (en secondes noces), or she would arrange for him to be killed, thus either formalising his illicit knowledge of her nakedness, or removing him all together. Not surprisingly Gyges opts for the former course, and after killing Candaules and marrying the Queen, he ruled the Lydians for forty years.

Pamela is intrigued by the painting and seizes on its voyeuristic theme as an opportunity to denounce some of her husband's own unsavoury habits. Widmerpool is surprisingly unfazed by revelations as he has other worries to consider - he is currently under investigation following allegations that he had been a Communist spy with connections to Burgess and Maclean. Meanwhile Jenkins gets to visit his former boss, Daniel Tokenhouse, who turns out to have extreme left wing sympathies which have brought him into contact with Widmerpool. Powell manages all this with consummate ease, and right up to the end of the novel one is never quite sure whether or not we are going to witness Widmerpool's final demise.

Powell demonstrates, yet again, his extraordinary ability to write a novel in which precious little actually happens yet throughout which the reader is kept at a pitch of excitement and expectation comparable to the most rip-roaring thriller.

30. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. (Re-read)

I first read this novel just weeks after its initial publication in 1988 and thought it was spellbinding then. Twenty-eight years on it has lost none of its power to enthral. Like Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" this is quite definitely a novel without a hero, though there are several victims.

The basic premise is very simple. High flying Wall Street bond dealer Sherman McCoy, scion of one of New York's leading 'WASP' families and self-styled Master of the Universe, is conducting a clandestine affair with Maria, the young, sexy wife of an ageing multi-millionaire. Having told his wife that he has to work late, Sherman collects Maria from the airport but, in a moment of inattention, he finds himself stuck in the wrong lane and ends up taking a wrong turning. Instead of heading home to Manhattan he and Maria find lost in the depths of the Bronx. As they drive around ever more frightening streets, an incident occurs as a consequence of which a young black boy is accidentally knocked down by their car. They drive away, unaware of the injuries that the boy has suffered, and return to their insulated life within New York's beau monde.

It transpires, however, that the young man, Henry Lamb, has been badly injured. Having called at hospital for treatment of a badly hurt wrist he returns home but subsequently complains of head pains, and subsides into a coma. Through the intervention of a radical activist in the African American community, aided by veteran radicals desperate to find a new cause, a crusade for justice for the stricken boy gathers pace. Gradually the foundation stones of McCoy's existence, that had previously seemed so secure, are pulled away and his enviable lifestyle starts to disintegrate.

In the meantime Peter Fallow, a particularly odious British journalist who had been struggling to make his way in New York, finds himself being given exclusive after exclusive as the campaigners harness the tabloid press to press their cause. Fallow is a desperate parasite with a growing drink problem (some of the descriptions Wolfe offers of the journalist's morning hangovers are quite astounding), but he gradually finds his fortunes waxing as McCoy's wane.

Wolfe captures the racial tensions and jealousies with a pellucid sharpness that he also directs against the vagaries of the American criminal justice system in which, in a year in which the local District Attorney has to fight his re-election campaign, McCoy becomes the "Great White Defendant", the target that every prosecutor has dreamt of. As I said at the beginning of this review, there are no heroes. Everyone, except poor Henry Lamb, is tainted. McCoy, indeed, emerges as one of the better characters. He recognises that he has, inadvertently, done something dreadful and he recognises the hollowness of many aspects of his life as a Master of the Universe, even though he is unable to summon the strength of spirit to opt for a different lifestyle.

There is a Dickensian acuity of observation throughout, mirrored in Wolfe's pillorying of the higher end of the legal profession. Top 'WASP' law firms are given names such as 'Dunning, Sponget and Leach' or 'Curry, Goad and Pesterall', reminiscent of 'Private Eye's parody firm, 'Sue, Grabbit and Runne'

Simply amazing!

31. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.*

Niccolo Machiavelli may represent the epitome of a politician born in the wrong age. Nowadays anyone as politically astute and accomplished as Machiavelli undoubtedly was would make sure that they had a slick PR team in place, ready to put a positive spin on their every utterance. Even then, things can come adrift. In recent years even as experienced a political operator as Peter, now Lord, Mandleson, New Labour spin doctor extraordinaire, though having a whole team of press consultants and PR men at his behest, found his ceaseless machinations earned him a reputation for duplicity and divisiveness, rendering him a hissing and a byword within his own party, let alone among his Conservative opponents. Yet even Lord Mandelson didn't suffer the vilification and revulsion that have attached themselves to Machiavelli over the last six centuries.

The very word 'machiavellian' carries with it a heavy semantic weighting, with connotations of intricate and decidedly underhand plotting; shameful manoeuvres best left in the shadows, hidden from view. There is even a solid body of belief that ascribes the origin of the Devil's cognomen 'Old Nick' as a reference to Machiavelli's practice of the dark arts of political persuasion, and to this work in particular.

Florence in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries may have been at the centre of the Renaissance, but it was also a hub of political and military activity. Machiavelli had held public office during the brief history of the Republic of Florence before the Medici dynasty reasserted itself. As so often befalls senior in times of violent regime change, Machiavelli found himself imprisoned and even tortured in 1512. It was in the years shortly after this that he wrote this work, an observation on the practical application of political rule. He is careful not to become bogged down in moral considerations. He is, instead, principally concerned with the establishment of a strong administration that can defend and maintain its borders and protect its people. The implication is that if military security can be established, the populace will benefit in the long run. His advice is, therefore, essentially dispassionate. He has studied politics in action during disturbed time, and synthesis his experience into a handbook for the ambitious ruler.

He was clearly a scholar and shows great familiarity with the classics. His chapter on the impact of ruler who achieve their position as a consequence of crime is a distillation of Herodotus's life of Agathocles of Syracuse. Born the son of a potter, Agathocles combined courage and ambition with criminal intent, allying himself with the Carthaginians to establish himself as King of the Syracuse throne. Having stolen the throne, he established himself as a pragmatic and successful leader who protected his realm and people, and this reigned for several years in relative stability.

His taste for pragmatism does occasionally lead him into blunt and even reckless assertions. Comments of the nature of, 'I say it would be splendid if one had a reputation for generosity; nonetheless, if you do earn a reputation for generosity then you will come to grief' can never constitute a popular manifesto!

In the end, the question of whether he was evil and manipulative, or merely pragmatic, is really somewhat irrelevant. His book has survived for centuries, and offers a fascinating observation of the political life in a turbulent city state, caught between the Scylla of impending military intervention by the French and the Charybdys of an omnipresent Church that dominated everyday life.

The translation that I read (which I bought more than thirty years ago while still at school) was that by George Bull, published by the Penguin Classics series in 1961, and it did seem rather dated in parts. The introduction offered lots of fascinating information about Machiavelli's life and the prevailing context against which he wrote, though I have seldom seen a scholarly tract that was so poorly written. Bull obviously poured all his efforts into the translation and just dashed the introduction off against a too tight deadline!

32. Sicken and So Die by Simon Brett. (Re-read)

Simon Brett's series of novels featuring down at heel actor Charles Paris have all been entertaining, and this is perhaps the best of them all.

As the novel opens things seem to be going well for Charles Paris. Not only has he landed the desirable role of Sir Toby Belch in a new production of "Twelfth Night" but he seems well on the way towards a rapprochement with his former wife Frances from whom he had been separated for several years, principally as a consequence of his drinking and philandering. Always a committed fan of Shakespeare's work, Charles has longed to play the part of Toby Belch, and is looking forward to delivering a traditional performance straight out of the old school.

Obviously this is all too good to last, and things start to go awry almost immediately when Gavin Scholes, the benign but almost totally unimaginative director is taken ill, and is replaced with the radical, Romanian "enfant terrible" Alexandru Radulescu. Radulescu is no respecter of theatrical sacred cows, and sets about transforming the production into an avantgarde extravaganza, much to Charles's disgust. However, even Charles has grudgingly to concede that some of Radulescu's ideas, bizarre as they seem, do produce startling effects. But then more mishaps start to happen, culminating in the sudden death of one of the cast.

Brett has sustained a highly successful career as a novelist and writer of comedy series for both television and radio, and this novel shows him at his best. The wry humour never detracts from a tightly constructed plot, and his depiction of the thespian peccadilloes of the cast amuse the reader but never reduce the story to farce.. He clearly knows his Shakespeare, too, and the novel offers intriguing insights into the various relationships between characters in the play.

Highly entertaining and informative.

33. A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C Clarke. (Re-read)

I see from the now barely decipherable scrawl on the flyleaf of my copy of this book that I bought it in November 1979, now thirty six years ago, and it was already nearly twenty years since the novel's first publication. By way of context, I was then sixteen and had just entered the lower Sixth Form at Loughborough Grammar School. Pink Floyd were on the verge of releasing 'The Wall', and we were six months into Margaret Thatcher's first term as British Prime Minister.

Is it fair to criticise a novel that is now more than fifty years old for seeming dated? Probably not, though the mere fact that I offer the thought is a testament to how well Arthur C Clarke's other novels have survived the passage of time. I do recall thinking this novel was marvellous when I first read it as a teenager, yet a little of that glow was absent now.

The basic story is, as so often with Clarke, beguilingly simple. At an unspecified date in the 21st century man has colonised the Moon, and some of the wealthiest citizens now spend their holidays there. Several of them have gone for an excursion in the Selene, a specially designed craft which skims across the dust filled 'seas' of the moon offering fantastic view of earth dominating the lunar skyscape. By great misfortune, Selene's passage over the dust bowl coincidence with a 'moonquake' which causes an underground cavern to collapse. The disturbance causes Selene to be pitched down into the chasm where it is immediately covered by tones of fine silicon dust which, as well as smothering the ship and hiding it from vie, also render radio contact impossible.

The rest of the story revolves around the attempts firstly to locate and then rescue the Selene. Clarke always pitched his stories in the realms of the scientifically plausible and unlike many science fiction writers, he had a great understanding of human relations. His characters are always utterly believable, regardless of the outlandish circumstances in which they might find themselves. Here he gives us a varied list of passengers from different walks of life back on earth, including, fortuitously, ex-Commander Hansteen, one of the leading space navigators of his generation, who happened to be visiting the Moon in his retirement.

The sense of datedness arises partially from the attitudes of the characters. The all-pervasive male chauvinism is, no doubt, a reflection of attitudes prevalent at the time it was written, but that does not hold true for most of Clarke's other works. I also felt that he might have dashed this off rather quickly - it displayed an uncharacteristic ponderousness that left if feeling more like a latest draft than the finished article. Despite these doubts, I enjoyed rereading it, but this is clearly not a work in the forefront of what is generally an outstanding portfolio from one of the masters of the oeuvre.

34. Education, Education, Education by Andrew Adonis.

If I am to be honest, I can't, legitimately, call Andrew Adonis a close personal friend. A few years ago I lent a book (and what a book! Iain Pears's 'The Dream of Scipio') to my friend and colleague in the Department for Education, David Bell. He in turn lent it to his namesake, the Department's Permanent Secretary, Sir David Bell, who then passed it on to Lord Adonis who was, in his guise as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for School, one of our Ministers. Lord Adonis returned it to me through the internal post with a very gracious hand-written note, but that marked the full extent of our contact.

Having read his fascinating account of the development and implementation of the academies programme across school I am amazed he found the time for leisure reading, even for such a marvellous novel as 'The Dream of Scipio'. He conceived the programme as a response to his own experiences as a child growing up in relative poverty, and under the care and maintenance of the London Borough of Camden. Clearly immensely talented, Adonis experienced both ends of the spectrum when it came to his own education, suffering for a while at an utterly inadequate school where bullies ran rife and the teachers had lost the will, energy and even the basic engagement to intervene. At his next school, however, he found himself being taught be a selection of excellent, engaged and engaging teachers, and he thrived to the extent that he landed a place at Oxford University, where he subsequently became a lecturer.

From there he progressed, through various intermediary roles, to being one of Tony Blair's advisers at No. 10, where he started putting together his plan for the roll out of academies. Independent state-funded schools with external sponsorship, and a governance structure that left them free from intervention by the local authority. The book details how he gradually came to persuade a succession of Secretaries of State in the Education Department (and there have been a fair few of them: I have worked in the department for fourteen years and have seen eight of them come and go!) to embark upon the programme, though he was encumbered by his position as an éminence grise which limited his capacity for hand on engagement. As a succession of Secretaries of State wove their temporary way through Sanctuary Buildings, the Department's headquarters under the shadow of Westminster Abbey, he became increasingly frustrated as none of them showed the same zeal as him for promoting academies. David Blunkett, Estelle Morris, Charles Clarke and Ruth Kelly all came and went without ever being galvanised into academisation! But then Alan Johnson was appointed, and he seemed to understand the idea immediately. There had, however, been a new development. Adonis was no longer working from the No. 10 bunker. Following his third general election victory in 2005 Tony Blair elevated Adonis to the House of Lords and made him Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools. This gave him the opening to accelerate the programme, and he seized it with alacrity. The book tells of how the programme grew from strength to strength with numbers of opened academies leaping forward exponentially.

One of the great strengths of Lord Adonis that becomes apparent from this book is his urge to make things better rather than to score political points. Having always been known as a 'Blairite' he worried about the impact for the programme of Gordon Brown's elevation to Prime Minister following Blair's resignation in June 2007, and the consequential appointment of Ed Balls, Brownite extraordinaire, to the position of Secretary of State. He was, however, able to convince Brown of the value of the programme in a single meeting, and thereafter, for the rest of that administration, funding flowed into academies as never before.

A greater test of the merit of the programme was to ensue in 2010 following the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government. Ed Balls was succeeded as Secretary of State for Education by Michael Gove, who proved to be as ardent an advocate of the academy programme as Lord Adonis himself. The programme has continued to expand throughout the whole of that administration, and now more than half of state-funded secondary schools in England are academies. As a true bipartisan pragmatic politician Adonis is very even-handed in his treatment of the Conservatives' education policy and their programme of extensive curriculum and qualification reform. He doesn't agree with everything that the Coalition Government has done, but he doesn't score points simply for the sake of it.

The book is fascinating. He writes very clearly and avoids jargon. There is no political axe to grind. Adonis emerges from these pages as a latter-day Renaissance Man, who looked back to his own challenging experiences and simply wanted to make things better. Perhaps in subsequent editions he might even add a reference to borrowing my book!

35. Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon.

Now well ensconced in my fifties I think I may be falling prey to learning curve issues!

I seem to keep buying books by Joseph Kanon, beguiled by enticing blurb on the back cover. Perhaps one day I might even manage to finish one! Failing that, I might at least remember the next time I see one in the bookshop how utterly impenetrable and inaccessible I found this one.

>68 Eyejaybee: that sounds like one to look out for. I have little time for politicians who haven't ever done anything (and there are far too many of them), whereas your review makes it sound like he knows what he wants to do and why. I was unaware of his history, which makes his drive seem entirely logical. As someone from a poor working class family, I was stretched at school and encouraged to be stretched at home. I was the first in the family to go to university. Without education I'd be bored out of my tiny little mind and no where. Anyone in favour of education for all, especially those kids like me, gets an enthusiastic ear. Although I'd still love to know where that surname came from. >;-)

>70 Helenliz: Helen, I think his family was of Greek Cypriot origin.

I remember seeing him on an episode of 'Question Time' where he was introduced by David Dimbleby as 'Perhaps more Andrew than Adonis' which seemed unnecessarily rude.

36. John Macnab by John Buchan. (Re-read)

This is one of my favourite novels, ever, and I seem to re-read it just about every year. Like so much of Buchan's prolific output, it might nowadays at first sight seem rather archaic, with characters romantically hankering after a Corinthian past largely of their own imagining, but it espouses simple values that effortlessly stand the test of any time.

The novel opens on a summer day in the mid-1920s with Sir Edward Leithen, accomplished barrister and MP, visiting his doctor seeking a remedy for a dispiriting lethargy or ennui that has recently befallen him. His doctor is unable to identify any physical source of Leithen's discomfort and recalls the bane of the intellectual community in the Middle Ages who were plagued with tedium vitae. His brutal prescription to the beleaguered barrister is that Leithen should endeavour to steal a horse in a country where rustling is a capital crime. Later that evening Leithen dines in his club and meets an old friend, John Palliser-Yates, an eminent banker, who has been similarly smitten. When the two of them are joined for a glass of restorative brandy by Charles, Lord Lamancha, Cabinet Minister and general grandee, who also claims to be suffering from this disturbing listlessness, and Sir Archibald Roylance, general good chap about town, the four of them hit upon the idea of issuing a poacher's challenge, writing to three landowners and stating that they will bag a deer or salmon between certain dates and inviting the landowner to do their best to stop them. They base themselves at Sir Archie's highland estate, and proceed to challenge three of his neighbours. Seeing a half-empty bottle of John Macnab whisky on the next table they adopt that name as their soubriquet.

As always with John Buchan's works the prose is beautiful - clear and sonorous - and his love of the Scottish landscape comes shining through. Though I have no love of hunting, the descriptions of the stalking manoeuvres are described in close, though never overwhelming details, and the characters all appear entirely plausible. Buchan has often been dismissed as writing stereotypical characters wholly lacking in political or social conscience. This novel triumphantly decries that: it positively rattles with social conscience, often dispensed from unexpected sources.

It also offers a heady mix of out and out adventure, humour, and even a love story. A little bit of everything, conveyed in Buchan's unerringly gifted prose.

A heart-warming paean to a better ordered time.

37. Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson.

There has been terrific hype about this novel recently, which is unusual for a book published more than twenty years ago. Various authors whose own works I have read and enjoyed, such as Philip Pullman and Charles Cumming, have been quoted as citing it as one of the finest thrillers they have ever read. Having just tried to read it myself I am left wondering whether they were talking about some other book, because it is difficult to reconcile their views with mine.

To be fair, it did start rather well (at least, if one sets aside the rather laboured, scene-setting prologue). A series of coded messages are sent to Professor Lazenby, an ageing Oxford academic specialising in some of the more esoteric aspects of biology. In fact, the first message is sent in such a convoluted manner that Professor Lazenby never receives it. The second is identified as such, and eventually decoded, though Lazenby is initially mystified as to the sender. Gradually, however, he calls to mind an encounter at an academic conference some years previously with a Soviet counterpart and a young Native American who turned out to be a dynamic prodigy in both linguistics and anthropology. It transpires that the messages are indeed seeking to engage the Native American, inviting, or even exhorting him, to make his way to an ultra-secret Soviet base in the depths of Siberia where strange things, including the development of a quasi-Neanderthal race, are happening.

It does, however, soon sink into farce. The young man, known as Johnny Porter, is certainly out of the ordinary, though as the novel progresses he evolves into something virtually superhuman. Not only does he seem to have mastered English, a plethora of Native American languages and dialects, Russian, Japanese, Korea and every dialectic variance of all of those languages, he is a master of disguise and also manages to build a jeep by hand on his own in a cave by the Kolyma River.

It was at that stage that I gave up. I know that one should be able to suspend disbelief now and again, and to grant a degree of licence to the novelist, but there are limits. My disbelief would have had to have been utterly moribund in order to persist with this book.

38. The Last Word by Hanif Kureishi.

This might so easily have been a really good book. Aspiring writer Harry Johnson is taken by his old friend Rob Deveraux, a thrusting literary agent with severe substance dependencies, to meet one of his heroes, ageing Indian-born writer Mamoon Azam. Deveraux has brokered a deal in which Harry will write a biography of Mamoon in the hope that it will help to revive his flagging career.

This is all very well, and the novel starts off quite humorously. It subsides fairly quickly, however, into barely disguised misogyny. There are a series of well-developed literary allusions, though the principal purpose of these seemed to be to show us how clever Kureishi is, though I don't suppose that has ever been in question. It was reminiscent of Kingsley Amis's rather tortured late work, 'The Biographer's Moustache' (and I didn't like that much, either).

In the end I simply found it all rather unnecessarily squalid. That's another nine quid i won't get back and, even worse, another inch of precious shelf space wasted!

39. The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski.*

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the rise of the blockbuster documentary series, such as 'The World at War', with Laurence Olivier's chilling narration, 'Alistair Cooke's America' and 'Civilisation', presented by Lord Kenneth Clark (father of the scurrilous diarist, Alan Clark). Professor Jacob Bronowski, renowned principally as an academic mathematician, conceived his own series, 'The Ascent of Man' as a match for Clark's 'Civilisation', presenting the development of human understanding and application of science.

The book is an almost verbatim transcription of Bronowski's series which was notable for his clear, readily accessible explanations of seminal moments in the history of scientific progress right from the earliest exploits of primeval man, through to theoretical physics and the commencement of the exploration of space. Even more impressive was the fact that most of Bronowski's eloquent disquisitions were entirely unscripted.

Though his own discipline was that of mathematics, Bronowski displays an enviable ability to convey complicated subjects in a manner understood by the layman. He is not reluctant to take on some of the more complex and daunting subjects, but he manages to render even Einstein's theories of relativity into a sufficiently digestible form.

He shows great sensitivity throughout building each chapter through a series of simple, logical steps to give a concise history of the development of a different aspect of modern science. The book was published more than forty years ago, so the frontiers of research in each discipline have been pushed to lengths that Bronowski could not have foreseen. His book, however, remains surprisingly current because he focuses on scientific methodology and trends in innovative thought, all portrayed with a compelling directness and simplicity.

The Ascent of Man sounds great! I'll definitely want to pick that up soon.

<76 Hi Meredith. Yes, I really enjoyed it, and wissh i had read it a lot earlier.

40. Poison by Ed McBain.

I first encountered Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series of novels as a teenager and thought they were marvellous. Indeed, they were probably the first so-called 'police procedurals' that I read, and I devoured them with great eagerness. It is, however, probably about ten years since I last read one, though when I saw this on offer very cheaply in the Kindle store I thought I would give it a go.

Sadly this was not McBain at his best. It lacked both the gritty immediacy and the basic plausibility of his most accomplished novels. All of the old favourite characters are there: Detectives Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Bert Kling and Cotton Hawes, preserved in some form of aspic. Many recent writers of crime fiction have tended to see their character age in real time, while others such as Ruth Rendell and P D James left their protagonists Chief Inspector Wexford and Commander Adam Dalgleish in an unspecified middle age while technology and police procedures evolved around them. McBain adopts this latter approach, with the 87th Precinct standing like the kingdom time forgot, with his Peter-Pan-like detectives featuring in more than fifty novels without ageing at all.

That is not, of course, a problem in itself, and if the plot had matched up to his earlier ones I would have been perfectly happy. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. While it started promisingly with the discovery of a victim of a particularly unpleasant poisoning incident, it quickly subsided into mindless implausibility, if not inanity.

I am hoping that this is not typical of his later work but I am reluctant to try any more in case my disappointment starts to erode my fond memories of his earlier books.

41. The Deaths by Mark Lawson. (Re-read)

I used to enjoy listening to Mark Lawson's "Front Row" programme on BBC Radio 4, and was looking forward very eagerly to reading this novel, though, as always in such circumstances, there was a slight fear that I might prove disappointed. Such fears were groundless, however, as Lawson definitely delivers in spades with this finely crafted novel about life in Middle England during the recent economic downturn and the Government's austerity measures.

The novel is based around four families living in a village in the commuter belt of Buckinghamshire. Self-styled as 'The Eight', the four couples occupy the four largest houses in their village and have gradually created their own exclusive social circle. Despite their closeness, however, a degree of stratification is already evident as the novel opens. At the pinnacle of the inner society stand the Dunsters, Max and 'Jenno', whose position is supported by Dunster Manor Ltd, the family firm that Max inherited and which makes high class diaries and calendars and similar products popular around the world. Next in line come the Crossans, Jonny and Libby. Jonny, son of a now ennobled Tory Minister from the Thatcher and Major administrations, is a very successful barrister while Libby sits as a local magistrate and also features in countless local committees. Former soldier Tom Rutherford is chief executive of his own security firm while his wife Emily is a local doctor. The fourth couple is made up of Natasha ("Tasha") and Simon Lonsdale. Tasha owns a catering company while Simon is a senior executive in a PR firm which is currently struggling to rehabilitate the image of a failed bank. All four couple have children who go attend the same local private school, and almost all of their socialising seems to be conducted within the clique.

Alternating chapters of the story recount the discovery of a brutal mass murder in which one of the families is killed by the husband/father who then shoots himself. The other chapters show the lead up to this awful crisis, taking the families through a chaotic series of set pieces, each more splendid extravagant than the last. Lawson handles this crescendo of conspicuous expenditure with great deftness, sowing clues to the startling denouement that might feasibly apply to any of the four families.

It was very reminiscent of John Lanchester's "Capital" (one of my favourite novels ever), with the scene transplanted from South London to rural Buckinghamshire. Lawson is as capable as Lanchester at making telling observations about the state of the nation, and the ever-widening chasm between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in divided Britain.

Supremely enjoyable.

42. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly.

Michael Connelly's masterful creation, Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch, could so easily lapse into cliché though, like Ian Rankin's John Rebus, whom he resembles in many other ways, he retains his plausibility and integrity.

Like Rebus, Bosch had ended up as a police detective having previously served as a soldier, and has Rebus's deep-rooted aversion to authority. In the first tow novels in the series he found himself either under investigation by Internal Affairs or actually on suspension; in the third he was the defendant in a civil action prompted by his shooting dead a suspected serial killer. As this novel opens we learn, gradually, that he has once again been suspended following a confrontation with Lieutenant Pounds, his divisional commander, which resulted in the senior officer being thrown through a window. As a consequence of that incident Bosch is required to attend psychiatric evaluations with a therapist used by the police force who will contribute towards the decision over Bosch's future.

In the meantime, finding himself with ample free time, Bosch decides to investigate the murder more than thirty years earlier of Marjorie Philips Lowe - his mother. The circumstances of his mother's death bear a close resemblance to the Black Dahlia killing recounted by James Ellroy, though Connelly puts a different twist on it (and relates the story in a far more accessible manner).

Like Rebus, Bosch is a man driven by inner demons, though he always retains his sensitivity. Connelly writes clearly, never relaxing the tension, though also never compromising his character's plausibility or essentially empathetic nature. The plot is sinuous but credible, and conveyed with great cohesion.

The Deaths has been on my list for a while (I don't think it's actually been published in the US yet), but I'm glad to know it's similar to Capital so I can space my reads of both well apart.

>81 mabith:. Hi Meredith, of the two I slightly preferred Capital which I have already re-read two or three times, though The Deaths runs it pretty close. Another excellent book that always strikes me as similar to Capital is Sebastian Faulks's One Week in December which was also very engrossing and enjoyable.

43. The Return of John Macnab by Andrew Greig. (Re-read)

The judgement of history has not been entirely kind to the First Baron Tweedsmuir, as John Buchan became known following the ennoblement that accompanied his appointment in 1935 as Governor general of Canada. Now remembered principally for his thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, a classic rollicking spy story that has been brought to the cinema or television screen many times (though never once in a version that does justice to the original), Buchan is often pilloried as the embodiment of the worst vices of Britain's imperial past. This is, I think, unfair. It is true that some of his characters offer what now appear to be regrettably racist remarks, though they were sadly representative of views more widely prevalent at the time of his writing.

Despite the enduring success and popularity of The Thirty-Nine Steps, and the other novels featuring the slightly wooden and self-regarding heroism of Richard Hannay, I consider that his abiding masterpiece is John Macnab, one of my favourite novels ever. Even this marvellously written book does not escape from critical consideration entirely unscathed. Buchan's prose is beautifully pellucid, concise and elegant, and lends an effortless grace to the story. It is, however, a paean to an age of Corinthian values largely of Buchan's own imagining. One feels that even the finest knights of King Arthur's Camelot might have struggled to live up to the values espoused by Sir Edward Leithen and his comrades. That is, of course, no reason not to try, and the book resonates with nobility without ever falling prey to the cloying self-righteousness that might so readily have claimed it if Buchan had not been such a masterful writer and observer of the human condition.

Andrew Greig's novel The Return of John Macnab brings Buchan's Corinthian view bang up to date, with three friends deciding to revive the poacher's challenge in a manner appropriate for the end of the century. The three challengers are of a very different cast from Buchan's trio. Neil Lindores is the analogue for Sir Edward Leithen, the intellectual power house (- yes, a quiet Buchanesque pun for the cognoscenti) and emotional touchstone of the new trio, and perhaps the closest resemblance to a Buchan character. He is partnered with Alasdair Sutherland, a former Special Services operative, and Murray, a would be political activist who has gradually lost his fire as family responsibilities exert their force. This is to be the last major prank for the three of them before middle age take its toll.

Following Buchan's original, the three issue challenges to a selection of Highland landowners signed in the cognomen 'John Macnab' undertaking to bag a salmon, brace of grouse and a stag respectively. The three estates to which the challenges are issued are, however, rather different from those in Buchan's novel: the first is owned by a Moroccan prince, the second by a consortium of billionaires headed by a Dutch merchant banker, while the third is the royal estate of Balmoral.

In Buchan's book, the driving force behind the challenge was the feeling of ennui suffered by the three would be poachers. In Greig's novel, there are slightly different motives behind the prank. Neil has been burdened by grief following the sudden death of his wife four years earlier; Alasdair is driven by misdirected rage arising from his failing relationship with his wife; Murray wants to strike a blow for the rights of the common man, and to puncture the hegemony of absentee landowners over much of the land in the Highlands.

Buchan's three campaigners find themselves being helped by Fish Benjie and, later, Crosby, a journalist who is also 'a bit of a sportsman'. Greig's three protagonists find themselves unmasked early on by Kirsty Fowler, a local journalist who is fleeing from demons in her own past and who more or less hijacks their plans, with devastating consequences.

Although not written in prose quite as beautiful as Buchan's, Greig's novel stands as a rattling good read in its own right, and a powerful act of homage to the earlier work. I rather fancy that, given suitably sympathetic treatment, they might both make enchanting films.

For anyone wishing to know more about both books I would refer you to John Corbett's gloriois review, written in Lowland Scots dialect available at: www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/John_Macnab.html.

44. Freeze Frame by Peter May.

This is the fourth instalment in Peter May's 'Enzo Files' series in which expatriate Scot Enzo Macleod attempts to solve infamous 'cold cases' that have, hitherto, baffled the French authorities. In this case, the victim had been Adam Killian, a Englishman who had lived in Brittany on the Ile de Groix, a small, close-knit community, until his murder twenty years ago. He had known that he was about to be murdered and had phoned his daughter in law. Sadly she was not there, but he had left a frenzied message on her answering machine to explain that he thought he was about to be killed, and that he had left clues in his in his study which Peter, (his son, her husband) would immediately understand.

His son was never able to investigate the murder because he himself died in a freak (and totally unconnected) car crash before he could return home. Jane, Peter's wife, had, however, left her father in law's study unchanged from that fateful night. Enzo is, therefore, able to make a fairly sound start in his investigations.

There had been a clear suspect at the time, who had been tried but subsequently acquitted, though this was popularly believed to be a consequence of an amateurish prosecution rather than that he was genuinely innocent. This suspect is still living on the small island where he is widely reviled. Enzo is disappointed to find that his arrival on the island is expected - Jane had, injudiciously, mentioned his imminent investigation to a number of people on the island, and it had featured on the front page of the local newspaper. As a consequence, Enzo finds himself being challenged, and threatened, by the prime suspect before he has even made it to the Killian household.

May develops the plot very adeptly. The basic scenario may stretch plausibility, but the investigation itself is developed very adroitly. Enzo is more empathetic in this novel than in some of its predecessors. All in all, a well-developed and engrossing thriller.

45. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I was very disappointed by this book. I had eagerly awaited its publication and then deliberately deferred reading it until a spell of leave from work so that I could devote sufficient time to it, hopefully luxuriating in it. That never happened. I found it utterly impenetrable

The story is set in an early medieval period in England. The Romans are long gone and there are already Saxon settlements scattered around, though the principal characters (Axl and Beatrice) are Britons, living in a labyrinthine warren of caves. Axl and Beatrice are the oldest members of their community and there are frequent early references to the teasing they suffer from the children in their settlement. They also seem to have only intermittent memory. They both have a dim recollection that their son has left their community and set up home elsewhere (they are not sure where). Indeed, the whole of their community seems to have a shared amnesia. Axl can recall a red-haired woman who went among them all a few weeks earlier, offering gnomic advice to all and sundry. His neighbours, however, have no recollection of her at all.

The story recounts Axl's and Beatrice's journey to find their son. I found it very irritating - more than anything else, it seemed to me like a tortuous version of Jack and the Beanstalk, with the two of them trekking though vaguely-described countryside while maintaining a rather demented dialogue. I might leave it a while and try to read this again … on the other hand, I might not!

46. Call for the Dead by John le Carre.

This was le Carré's first published novel and also marks the debut of George Smiley. Even in this book, published in 1961, Smiley is already world weary, and tarnished, bowed down by the pressures of the world of spies and counter-espionage manoeuvres, at a time before Kim Philby's public unmasking or the raising of the Berlin Wall.

Many of the traits that would become so evident in the later works, and in particular the three novels forming the 'Quest for Karla' trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'', 'The Honourable Schoolboy' and 'Smiley's People'), are already visible: the close attention to detail, the air of unrelenting melancholia and the sense that he is largely at the mercy of the whim of others (including his errant wife Ann). Also present is the irremediable shabbiness of the spy's art. Hitherto, perhaps with the exception of Graham Greene's books, spy novels (with Ian Fleming's Bond stories leading the pack) had fizzed with excitement, played out in glamorous locations, with the protagonists weighed down ultra hi-tech gadgets. This book changed the nature of the spy novel, and henceforth serious authors of spy fiction would site their stories in le Carré's world.

The novel opens with Smiley being summoned to see 'The Advisor',(the head of the Counter Intelligence Service) where he learns that Samuel Fennan, a senior civil servant at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, has killed himself as a consequence of allegations of treachery levelled against him. Devastating enough in itself, this drastic outcome looms even more significantly because Smiley had interviewed Fennan the previous day about those allegations, and had informally advised him that he was in the clear and that no further action would be taken. Smiley is dispatched down to Fennan's home in Surrey to interview his widow, and to try, as subtly as possible, to establish exactly what had happened.

I first read this book more than thirty years ago, by which time le Carré was already established as a master of the art. I remember enjoying it that first time, and re-reading it now it still retained its tension, and early traces of le Carré's unique prose style are already evident.

47. The Stone Wife by Peter Lovesey.

I am surprised that Peter Lovesey's novels featuring Superintendent Peter Diamond haven't found been dramatised for television. After all, the combination of the photogenic city of Bath, the irascible protagonist and the engaging and soundly-constructed plots strikes me as a winning formula, readily susceptible of the same effect that the Inspector Morse series has had for Oxford.

This latest instalment, which revolves around the shooting at an auction room of a scholar specialising in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a welcome addition to the series. Superintendent Diamond is always entertaining, alternating between down to earth common sense and explosive rage, and in this latest outing he also displays hitherto unsuspected remorse and concern for the wellbeing of his junior detectives.

Lovesey tends towards the gentler end of modern crime fiction, and doesn't subject his readers to the more gory aspects of murder. Indeed, one of the more notable facets of Superintendent Diamond's psyche is his reluctance to attend post-mortem examinations. The corollary of this is that, occasionally, the plots veer away from strict plausibility. This is not, however, necessarily a fatal flaw. The novels may be slightly escapist, but they are certainly enjoyable, and Lovesey uses Diamond's prickly sensitivity and his interaction with junior colleagues (the feisty Sergeant Ingeborg Smith in particular) to great effect.

48. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St John Mandel.

I suspect that I will look back on 2015 as the year of Emily St John Mandel. Until a few days ago I might have been tempted to put money on her marvellous novel 'Station Eleven' being the finest book I will read this year. That, however, was before my boss recommended her first novel, 'Last Night in Montreal'.

Right from the first page, when Lilia leaves the Brooklyn apartment that she shares with mature PhD student Eli, I was captivated by this beguiling story. Lilia is beautiful, speaks four languages and can't stop travelling. She also has a complicated past.

As the novel opens she is in her early twenties and has been travelling through America, moving from city to city and never staying for long in any one place. We soon learn that this has been the story of her life, as far as she can remember. She was born in Montreal, though her parents separated shortly afterwards. Denied access for years, her father abducted her one evening and, having hastily driven south across the border, they just kept on moving.

Mandel drip feeds us little gobbets of information about the principal characters, moving around in time and place. Her father had taken on various careers after leaving Lilia's mother, from one of which he derived a sizeable fortune which would subsequently fund their chaotic odyssey throughout mainland America. Eli has been studying dying languages, and enchants Lilia with some of his descriptions of metaphors and similes in remote dialects that completely defy translation. Christopher is a private investigator hired to try to find and retrieve the abducted Lilia, though he gradually succumbs to a protective obsession with his quarry, to the extent that he neglects Michaela, his own young daughter back in Montreal. Michaela just wants to run away with the circus.

From these seemingly inchoate characters Mandel weaves a beautiful tapestry that manages to combine a road story with a lucid dissection of love, longing, loss, obsession and hope, with a gentle sprinkling of philology thrown in. What is more, she encompasses all this in just 250 pages that, once begun, are difficult to put down.

49. Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn.

This came tantalisingly close to being a splendid novel. The characters were very well developed, the historical context finely drawn and the plot was engaging and convincing . .. until the final denouement.

The story is set in London in the 1930s, against the backdrop of constitutional uncertainty as the King's relationship with Mrs Wallis Simpson became more widely known. When not stirring public outrage about the King's dalliance, the tabloid papers are full of prurient coverage of a series of murders perpetrated by a villain dubbed 'The Tiepin Killer'.

Stephen Wyley is a successful painter who has been establishing himself as a society portrait artist. He is having a secret affair with up and coming stage actress Nina Land who is currently starring in 'The Second Arrangement' at the Strand Theatre. While leaving after having enjoyed an illicit liaison in a hotel in Russell Square, Nina hears screams coming from a room on the lower floor. Her knock on the door seems to interrupt a vicious attack, and a woman manages to escape from the room and run away. Nina realises that she may have disturbed the Tiepin Killer.

Meanwhile ageing theatre critic Jimmy Erskine is living beyond his means, caught up in a cycle of decadence reminiscent of his great hero, Oscar Wilde. The vignettes of his grotesque entertainments are hilarious, though they also leave Erskine exposed to danger as he darts between the higher echelons of society down to the darkest back alleys. His secretary and majordomo is Tom Tunner, a shy epileptic who has been trying for years to disentangle himself from Erskine, though somehow he never quite manages to escape. As the story develops Tom meets and falls in love with Madeleine Farewell, who turns out to be the victim saved by Nina Land's fortuitous intervention. Madeleine is a woman with a secret.

The plot moves forward very deftly, and the story is strewn with vignettes of historical people such Oswald Mosley and William Joyce (who later became infamous as Lord HawHaw). I was captivated until the last thirty or forty pages, at which point I felt that it descended into a facile simulacrum of a mystery novel. I found the conclusion very disappointing, and wondered whether it was hurled together at a great rate in order to meet a publisher's fast-looming deadline.

50. The Singer's Gun by Emily St. John Mandel.

Yet another clear winner from Emily St. John Mandel. In fewer than three hundred pages she manages to weave a complex tapestry that ranges from New York, the remote Arctic reaches of Canada and the Italian island of Ischia and encompasses themes of love, loss, fidelity, forged documents, trafficking and murder, with disenchantment, disenfranchisement and the war against terror thrown in for good measure. At times this book reminded me of William Gibson's haunting 'Spook Country', though it also recalled Jonathan Raban's marvellous 'Waxwings'. It manages, however, to eclipse both of those accomplished works.

Anton Waker grew up knowing that his family's architectural salvage business frequently strayed into nefarious territory, selling goods of dubious provenance. While this troubled him, it didn't bother his cousin Aria who came to live with the Wakers. She took inspiration from her aunt's and uncle's flexible sense of enterprise and, from an early age, developed her own line of business, in which Anton gradually collaborated. However, as the novel opens, he is primarily concerned with the state of his relationship with his fiancée Sophie, who has already cancelled (or at least postponed) their wedding twice. When they do eventually make it down the aisle, they go to Ischia for their honeymoon, where, after a couple of days, Anton delivers his own bombshell, telling Sophie (without any prior hint of such an idea) that he wants to stay on in Ischia for a couple of weeks, with a view toi writing a book. Sophie is unimpressed and departs back to mainland Italy, and thence to New York, almost without a word.

We are then given an insight into Anton's life in the weeks immediately preceding the wedding. Having striven to pull himself out of the criminal subculture into which his family had been driving him, he had been working as a consultant for a water provision company. Things had, however, started to go awry, and he found himself reassigned to a different office, with alarming consequences. Meanwhile, his secretary Elena, a Canadian from a small settlement well into the tundra wastes of the Arctic Circle, has begun behaving oddly.

The story unfolds in a series of episodes, moving backwards and forwards in time, and shifting focus. Such an approach can, of course, be confusing or distracting, but Mandel handles it brilliantly, and the shifting timeline and perspective serve to illuminate rather than confuse the flow of the story. She also has an extraordinary ability to create characters who are immensely believable and who remain essentially sympathetic even when their behaviour is far from exemplary.

Another exhilarating facet of the book is Mandel's mastery of a complex and interlaced plot, and P. G. Wodehouse would have been proud to have conceived and delivered such an intricate but beautifully resolved plot.

51. The City and the City by China Mieville. (Re-read)

Divided cities have always captured the attention. There are those split by a river such as Buda and Pest, Minneapolis and St Paul, or (perhaps on a less globally significant scale) Huntingdon and Godmanchester. Then there is the additional poignancy of those cities subjected to political or religious division such as Jerusalem or Berlin, which has offered great scope to the novelist. The initial scenes of 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold', centred on one of the bleak checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, encapsulate the grimness of the Cold War and allows John le Carre to deliver one of the most gripping openings of a spy novel.

'The City and The City' is a dazzling and unusual story, gives the idea of divided cities an additional twist., being set in the twinned cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma. These cities are merged - neither split artifically like East and West Berlin, nor by a river like Buda and Pest. Instead, both cities occupy the same physical space but, essentially but through the acquiescence of both populations (reinforced by the threat of severe compliance action at the hands of a clandestine force known as "Breach)", they are perceived as two different and separate cities. Indeed, each city is its own, separate city state, with its own government and foreign policy (Ul Qoma being the more prosperous), and passports and visas are required for legal movement between the two of them. As a consequence, although aspects of each city are constantly potentially visible to residents of either city, they all follow a policy of 'unseeing', in which they consciously fail to notice characteristics of the other city.

For each set of citizens any street or building falls within one of three possible classes: total, alter or crosshatch. "Total" buildings or streets are wholly within their own city; "alter" ones are wholly within the other city, and consequently not to be recognised or acknowledged; "crosshatch" areas lie within both cities and are accessible to the residents of both, though Besz citizens will deliberately "unsee" their Ul Qoman counterparts (and vice versa). "Unseeing" is relaxed to the extent that while driving through crosshatched streets the residents of both cities are capable of avoiding accidents with vehicles from the other city. But that is as far as it goes, legally. While no physical barriers exist, few people from either city are tempted to cross from one domain to the other because of their fear of the punitive measures that might be taken by Breach, the secretive body that polices the borders.

This all sounds seriously complicated, but it is amazing how quickly the reader accepts this background, and gets sucked into the plot which revolves around the investigation into the murder of an American archeology student, Mahalia Geary, who had been researching some of the deep-rooted political sensitivities within both cities (each of which has its extreme nationalist tendencies but also committed movements seeking formal unification). Inspector Tyador Borlu leads the investigation within Beszel but soon runs into unexpected obstruction from senior local politicians from both the nationalist and unificationist camps.

This novel works very well both as a straight detective story and also as a dystopian exercise (I don't think that "science fiction" is an appropriate term as all the technology involved is entirely contemporary). Mieville is particularly deft at offering little touches to add verisimilitude, and it is a long time since I have read anything as imaginative.

52. Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane.*

In his previous books Robert Macfarlane has declared his love of walking, swimming, sailing and climbing on remote areas, and the sense of belonging that such areas evoke. In this book he turns more to the lexicon of landscape, and the multiplicity of dialect terms for different aspects of the natural world, and bemoans erosion of these terms from the common consciousness.

He writes with an enthusiasm that occasionally supersedes syntax and clearly feels to sense that prepositions are the wrong words to end sentences with ha!. He does, however, achieve great clarity with his central message. The natural world, and the physical landmarks that identify our respective localities are part of our common inheritance, but so too are the dialect terms that describe them. Each chapter is followed by a glossary of terms from different regions, reaching across several centuries.

He also writes at length and with deep sadness about the rapid diminution of children's access to the landscape. When he was a child, one in two children reported playing in the countryside, though that figure is now just one in ten. Most children now only play in their house, their garden and, possibly, their street. That certainly resonated with me. Growing up in North Leicestershire, in the summer holidays my friends and I would wander or cycle miles from home, spending out time playing in the woods, clambering over farm machinery or pushing each other into streams or beds of nettles (well, we were simple folk and very easily amused). I couldn't say with any honesty that we went out specifically to look for rare birds or that we yearned to tick off different species of tree, but we knew that they were there, and derived great enjoyment from what the landscape had to offer. It is a sad loss for today's children that that avenue of fun is no longer available, or at least no longer generally pursued. (Well, perhaps they might get by without being pushed into a bed of nettles …)

Generally well written, Macfarlane's zest shows through, and it is difficult not to share his passion. The book is beautifully produced, too.

53. The Poet by Michael Connelly.

This was Michael Connelly's fifth novel and the first not to feature Heironymus 'Harry' Bosch. The protagonist is, instead Jack McEvoy, crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain. 'Death is my beat' he announces, opening the novel. This is a sombre reflection as he has just learned of the death by suicide of his identical twin brother, a homicide detective based in Denver. The apparent explanation is Detective McEvoy's increasing frustration at his failure to solve the brutal murder of a local student.

As a form of distraction from his grief, Jack starts looking into the incidence of police suicides. His researches uncover a surprisingly large number of police officer suicides, with a disproportionate preponderance of homicide detectives among them. Closer analysis revealed alarming similarities among many of these cases, including some unexpected aspects of the suicide notes that were left. Upon his return to work after compassionate leave, McEvoy convinced his editor to let him look into the issue in more depth, with a view to running a feature on it in a forthcoming weekend edition of the paper.

As his investigation gains pace McEvoy becomes increasingly convinced that his brother had in fact been murdered. Having amassed his evidence he is able to convince the FBI that there may be some substance to his theory, and they begin a full scale investigation. Meanwhile the story flits back to William Gladden, a previously-convicted paedophile who has been released and has broken his probation.

Connelly builds the tension very effectively, taking time to develop the various characters both within the FBI team and also William Gladden. The progress of the story is reminiscent of Thomas Harris's 'Silence of the Lambs', but is managed even more deftly and plausibly. The denouement is particularly well crafted, with red herrings a-plenty.

54. A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson.

I think I am going to try to stop looking forward to the publication of high profile books. I had been waiting for 'A God in Ruins' for what seems like several months, my appetite repeatedly pricked by snippets drip-fed through Kate Atkinson's Facebook page.

Sadly, my fervour proved rather misplaced as I found the book wavered between tedium and impenetrability. This might not be the best time for me to be reading this book, so I will come back to it again later, But right now my overriding response is of being rampantly underwhelmed.

55. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. (Re-read)

One grows older and, hopefully, one also grows wiser and more discerning, though this can have deleterious effects on one's illusions.

I first read this novel nearly forty years ago, and thought it was marvellous. Something (perhaps the recent coverage of the re-burial of the remains of Richard III) prompted me to read it again, which proved to be a mistake. When first reading it as a callow youth I didn't spot the relentless smugness. This sense expends beyond the characters (though surely Inspector Alan Grant must rank as one of the most irritatingly self-satisfied fictional detectives) to the narrator. Every description is delivered with a barely concealed sneer.

The sad thing is that the premise of the book is so clever, and potentially entertaining. Having sustained an injury falling through a trapdoor while pursuing some brigand,, Grant is consigned to a lengthy stay in hospital where crushing boredom quickly descends. Knowing his predilection for studying faces, an actress friend brings him a selection of photographs of paintings in the National Portrait Gallery. One in particular grabs his attention. This turns out to be King Richard III, though he is depicted as a handsome character, with signs of ill health, trather than the hideously deformed monster that has been enshrined in the works of Holinshed and Shakespeare.

This revelation of a different Richard III spurs Grant to read more deeply into the life and times of Richard III, and in particular to review what really happened to his nephews, 'the Princes in the Tower'. He does come up with some interesting fallacies in the received version of the story, though, in the nature of things, he does not offer any definitive conclusions. Josephine Tey does provide some interesting lessons in the history of the fifteenth century, but not enough to redeem the smugness of the tone. This is not a novel that has aged well.

I feel like Tey writes a huge number of smug characters in general. It hasn't really bothered me though, I think in part because her books all feel rather different than Christie and Sayers in ways I can never quite pinpoint. I still really enjoyed The Daughter of Time when I read it four or five years back.

Oh no! I also really enjoyed The Daughter of Time. I will not reread it in 40 years.

56. The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid.

This was not Val McDermid's best novel though that still leaves considerable scope for it to be very good, and she (and it) delivered.

There are two separate plotlines, one revolving around the discovery of a decayed corpse, with a bullet in the skull, in the attic of an abandoned building in Edinburgh while the other relates to the murder in Crete of a Balkan war criminal. The Edinburgh investigation is led by Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, whose first challenge is to identify the remains and establish when the death might have occurred. McDermid takes us through the forensic aspects with great detail, though never lets her extensive insight into police process to compromise the development of the plot.

Meanwhile, two British lawyers working for the International Criminal Tirbunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which has been hunting down, and then seeking to prosecute, alleged war criminals from the Balkan genocides. As the novel opens they find themselves berated by their new boss who is eager for advancement. It emerges that yet another suspected war criminal, who had been tracked down to Crete where he is living a domesticated new life, has been murder by someone taking justice into their own hand. While no-one is distraught at the death of such a man, his death represents the eighth such vigilante killing of a suspect under the scrutiny of the Tribunal, and the boss is anxious to find the leak.

McDermid always writes with an honesty and clarity of expression that reflect her own determination that criminals should be apprehended, and that the stable application of law and order, with complete equality before the law, are paramount. She does not, however, allow her protagonists to be too self-righteous, and they are always highly plausible. I felt that this novel was a little over-long, but the plotting is deft and watertight, and the suspense is maintained throughout.

57. Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis.*

I used to think I had a fair understanding of the ways of money and banking mechanisms (I was, after all a tax inspector for several years, and then helped to design tax efficient investment packages). This book did, however, swiftly disabuse me of that delusion, and Michael Lewis has pulled off a major coup by making his expose of the machinations of the Wall Street brokers, and in particular the High Frequency Traders, simultaneously very informative and entertaining.

His account describes in detail the quest on Wall Street during the opening years of the current decade to cut down the length of time lost to broking houses communicating with the traders. Even a few milliseconds proved significant, the Royal Bank of Canada discovered, as this allowed rogue traders to get ahead of proposed transactions and manipulate prices to their advantage. The book details the investigations led by the RBC to discover how this was happening, and then how to eradicate it.

In an America reeling from the financial crash of 2008 it might have seemed difficult to imagine how investment bankers might further damage their already low reputation. The exposure of this story did, however, manage to achieve that without too much trouble.

Lewis takes the reader through some very technical material, both relating to the intricacies of high finance and the computer software and hardware that enabled the shenanigans, but he makes every step clear and lets the story unfold at its own pace.

58. The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel.

Until late January I had never heard of Emily St John Mandel. Now I have read four amazing novels by her and she is firmly established among my favourite authors. 'The Lola Quartet' is her third novel, published in 2012, and is probably the weakest of the four, though that still leaves plenty of scope for it to be exceptionally good.

The Lola Quartet of the title is a jazz band formed of pupils in their last year in high school in Sebastiana, Florida, and their final concert is the occasion for event that will reverberate for all of them throughout the next ten years. The novel resonates with a rich melange of themes ranging from teenage love, hope, despair, fear, mental fragility, gambling addiction, substance abuse, drug dealing, music and murder. Mandel adroitly moves between the present and various points during the previous ten years. Beyond their membership of the quartet the four members have relatively little in common and are all set to go their different ways after leaving school.

The book initially focuses on Gavin who, after having secured a place at the prestigious Ivy League Columbia University, is now a reporter in New York. Gavin is now living alone after his long term girlfriend Karen had left him a short time ago. A chance assignment leads Gavin to return to Florida for the first time in several years. There he meets his sister Eilo (short for Eileen) who shows him a photograph that she had recently taken of a girl who looks just like she had done when she was that age. Gavin is intrigued and wonders whether the girl might be his daughter, from his girlfriend during his last year in school. This precipitates a series of memories of Gavin's final weeks at school, and also starts to have a deleterious effect on his work. Meanwhile the focus moves to the other former members of the Lola Quartet who have all led rather hectic lives since leaving school.

The plotting is tense, gripping and always plausible. Mandel has a great facility for conveying the seedier aspects of life without glorification or condescension - this is how some people live, so get over it, she seems to say, though that does not preclude her characters from viewing aspects of that lifestyle with searing squeamishness. Her dialogue is always vibrant but somehow immensely believable, and she captures all the different voices with a deft ear.

59. Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel.*

While I might try and hide this from my sophisticated, urban and urbane colleagues, I am, at heart, a simple country boy. I have now lived in London for more than thirty years but I grew up on the fringes of a small hamlet which itself languished in the vague hinterland of a small provincial town in North Leicestershire. I am sure that such biographical detail must seem insignificant - even otiose in the extreme - though I feel it does give some provenance to my claim to know more than a little about meadows. Not as much as John Lewis-Stempel, though; not by a long chalk.

Even at the most superficial level, as a journal describing the changes in his meadow in Herefordshire throughout the course of one year, this is a beautiful book. He makes the meadow come alive. In modern parlance the term 'meadow' has come to mean any rough pastureland near a stream or river, though the designation originally referred to a field left as grass for the specific purpose of being converted to hay. In Lewis-Stempel's account, though, the meadow is so much more than merely a pasture land and source of winter fodder. It is a haven for a huge range of flora and fauna, that Lewis-Stempel describes with deep affection.

The farm, which straddles the River Ecsley just a mile from the Welsh border, has been in Lewis-Stempel's family for generations, stretching back at least as far as the early seventeenth century, and he seems to know every inch of it, and almost every creature. In addition to his encyclopaedic knowledge of the cyclical comings and goings of the meadow's inhabitants, which he describes with endearing affection, Lewis-Stempel offers fascinating insights into the linguistic history of the names of the plants and creatures he describes. I did wonder how much farm work he managed to do as every time he ventures into the meadow he encounters yet another amazing sight, which he recounts with pellucid, beautiful prose. Strewn with literary quotations from as diverse a range of sources as Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Lily and Wordsworth, and peppered with historical glosses detailing the use of the land by his Roman and Anglo-Saxon predecessors farming this tract of land. He delivers enthralling vignettes about the natural history of the mole and the badger, and describes the mayhem wrought upon his newly-born lambs by swooping red kites.

The book is immensely informative, too. For instance, he takes the reader through Hooper's Rule, for estimating the age of a hedge row (for a simple rule of thumb, multiply the number of different hedge species identified within a thirty yard stretch, and then multiply by one hundred). He peppers the description with gems from the history of farming, and thumbnail sketches of the gradual development of the tractor, though even here he rues the fact that the greater comfort now available to the farmer had removed him from his former closer contact with the land, insulating him in his cabin from the breeze and scents of the different stretches of the land.

This book was utterly enchanting. Elysian, even.

I had no idea Emily St. John Mandel had written other books! For some reason I thought the absolutely beautiful Station Eleven was her first work. I've just added Last Night in Montreal to my list. Thanks for the head's up and the excellent review.

(Also, so much great reading here! Adding many to my list.)

I am immensely grateful to you for putting me on to Station Eleven in the first place.

60. Trunk Music by Michael Connelly.

I wonder whether I may have read a few too many of Michael Connelly's books within too short a space of time. It is an easy error to slip into. They do, after all, tend to be well written with tightly-constructed plots, empathetic characters and an intriguing setting in the seedier reaches of Hollywood where vicious murders abound.

So far this year I have read six of his novels, and I have started to recognise some degree of formulaic approach. For instance, in Trunk Music, a minor film producer is found dead in the boot of his car (a white Rolls Royce), and it appears that he may have been the victim of organised crime - a 'hit'. Heironymus 'Harry' Bosch is on the scene fairly early after the discovery of the corpse and takes over the investigation. Things initially progress fairly well, and Bosch is soon following up potentially fruitful clues that lead him to Las Vegas where, among other encounters, he meets up with a former partner. Predictably, however, Bosch is soon hauled in by his senior officers and investigated by Internal Affairs Division for alleged inappropriate behaviour. Sooner or later this happens in every Bosch novel - all that varies is the distance one has top penetrate into the book before it happens.

Trunk Music was certainly a decent novel, but I found it very quickly merged into a morass of all the other Connelly novels I had read earlier in the year. I will definitely return to Connelly's books - I have become a sort of addict of 'Boschland' - bit I think I will leave it a lot longer before my next return.

61. Corporate Bodies by Simon Brett.

Charles Paris's acting career continues to slump, and roles are harder to find than ever. He is, however, offered temporary respite when Will Parton, with whom he worked on an ill-fated television mystery series some years previously, recruits him to participate in a corporate PR film that he has been hired to make for Delmolleen, a leading health foods manufacturer.

Will Parton had hitherto been known as the writer of some moderately successful television series, though he secretly yearns to write at lest one serious, literary play. In the meantime, however, he is happy to pander to commercial success, and he has formed his own production company to try to garner some of the burgeoning corporate business.

When we first meet Charles, however, his part is far from glamorous, as he is driving a fork lift truck around the Delmolleen factory, occasionally stopping to deliver a suitably platitudinous message about "the Delmolleen family" to the camera. Needless to say, within a very brief period, someone suffers a dreadful accident, and Charles's suspicions are aroused.

For once Charles's investigations come up against the morass of company politics rather than the more usual farrago of actors' rivalries, . Though this is new ground, Brett handles it with his usual deftness, and the plot stands up to close scrutiny. Wholesome, plausible and very entertaining.

62. January Window by Philip Kerr.

Philip Kerr has a track record of versatility. His first three novels introduced Bernie Gunther, a former cop turned private investigator operating in Berlin before and then immediately after the Second World War. He then switched tack completely, earning the title of Britain's Michael Crichton through his dabblings in futuristic crime novels such as 'A Philosophical Investigation', 'Esau' and 'The Second Angel'. These were followed by some more orthodox science fiction (such as 'Gridlock') before he resumed his chronicles of Bernie Gunther, taking him through the post war years with a series of well-crafted novels mingling historical verisimilitude with deft plotting.

Kerr obviously relishes new departures because his latest novel is bang up to date, set in the feverish world of English Premier League football. Scott Manson, his latest protagonist, is the football coach and assistant manager of London City, a newcomer to the English League formed from the financially drained remnants of four East London clubs. Kerr is not reluctant to embrace cliché, but he handles it very suavely. London City is owned, and financed, by Viktor Sokolnikov, a Russian billionaire, the questionable provenance of whose fortune was recently the subject of a special episode of 'Panorama'. The team's manager is Joao Zarco, an immensely self-assured Portuguese with a penchant for exceptionally expensive suits, now in his second stint at the club (though any resemblance to Jose Mourhino is purely intentional!).

Manson has his own demons, but is himself far from a footballing cliché. Half-German and quarter black, he is a university graduate and fluent in French, German, Spanish and Italian in addition to his mastery of English. He is also independently wealthy (though on a hugely more modest level that Sokolnikov). As the novel opens, he is preparing to help London City emerge from the hectic Christmas and New Year programme, by things start to go wrong on a drastic scale.

I have often wondered why there haven't been many novels set against the world of football. There is, after all, so much potential material. This was, however the first successful one that I have read. Kerr clearly understands the game well, and captures the excitement and the frustration and despair that it so often brings. He even takes the opportunity to make a passing reference to himself as ghost writer of Zarco's autobiography: 'that loser, Phil Kerr!' The timing of its paperback release was almost immaculate, coinciding with the arrest by the FBI of several high ranking FIFA officials. Kerr, or at least his characters, have a lot to say about the vagaries of FIFA financing and administration.

All together, very enjoyable, though readers of a sensitive disposition should be warned that it features fairly robust language throughout - at times I almost felt as if I was back in my office!

63. The Churchill Secret KBO by Jonathan Smith.

In 1951, at the age of 75 and already in poor health, Winston Churchill resumed the office of Prime Minister. His Foreign Secretary, generally acknowledged as the Great Man's successor, was Anthony Eden. Though more than twenty years younger than Churchill, Eden's health was similarly fragile as a consequence of slipshod surgery to correct a gall bladder ailment that had actually served to make the problem worse.

By the summer of 1953, Eden's health had plummeted further, to the extent that the leading American surgeon, Dr Richard Cattell, considered to be the leading expert in the world, was commissioned to operate. Cattell's eminence was of such a degree that he could name his own terms for such an undertaking, and he decided that he would only conduct the operation back in his own hospital in Boston. Eden had, therefore, been despatched to America and was preparing to go under the knife.

In the meantime, Churchill planned to spend a restful summer, marshalling his declining physical resources in readiness for his appearance at the Conservative party Conference at Margate in the autumn. Earlier in the year Sir Edmund hillary and Sherpa Tensing had conquered Mount Everest on the day before the Queen's coronation, and England had regained The Ashes for the first time in twenty years, leaving the nation feeling broadly positive.

In view of this prevailing sense of national elation, most of the Conservative party faithful, including Eden himself, expected that Churchill would use his speech at Margate to announcement his retirement as Prime Minister, making way for Eden to take over with enough time to put his stamp on the office before the next general election. Those plans were thrown out of kilter on 23 June when, at a dinner in 10 Downing Street thrown for the Italian ambassador, Churchill suffered a stroke while concluding his speech. Fortunately the guests didn't notice the extent of his ordeal, and the inner circle were able tactfully to clear the room and convey Churchill to his bedroom. Having settled him for the night, his personal physician, Charles, Lord Moran, President of the Royal College of Physicians, was summoned to examine him the following morning.

This sets the context for the rest of the novel which focuses on the various relationships between Churchill and Lady Clementine (his long suffering wife), John Colville (his Principal Private Secretary), Lord Moran, and the desperately ambitious yet physically faltering Anthony Eden. Jonathan Smith makes the various exchanges seem immensely plausible, particularly those between Churchill and Millie Appleyard, the nurse commissioned to attend to his every need (and the only wholly fictional character in the novel).

Intriguing and engrossing, the story captivates the reader with a fascinating insight into the inner sanctum of Number 10, where all the major players have their own agenda. Perhaps the most amazing aspect is the insight into Churchill's relationship with the Press, as represented by Lord Beaverbrook, Viscount Camrose and Viscount Bracken who between them owned the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, The Economist, The Banker, The Financial News and The London Evening Standard. Things were organised very differently in those days, long before the advent of the internet and a time when even the paparazzi had their own code of conduct!

Smith also succeeds in making Churchill an empathetic character. Capable of occasionally brutish behaviour, Smith also casts him as a delicate and sensitive man, moved by the power of oetry and the gentleness of a nurse's care.

64. The Human Factor by Graham Greene.

I am a great fan of Graham Greene's books. I first read one of his novels (I think it was the now largely overlooked 'England Made Me') nearly forty years ago and have since read most of his oeuvre, and have eagerly re-read more than a few of them. I do, however, frequently find myself listening to an internal loop of the Moody Blues' song 'Melancholy Man' while I do so. With the possible exception of the hilarious 'Travels With my Aunt', the streets of 'Greeneland' are awash with waves of melancholia, and they are seldom more prominent than in 'The Human Factor'.

Greene disperses his melancholia through his observation of the repetitive minutiae of life, and it is rare for any semblance of joy to erupt. This book was first published in 1978 at a time when the British Security Services were still reeling from the embarrassment of the exposure of Anthony Blunt's treachery, and their complicity in covering it up. Predictably it owes far more to the le Carre tradition than that of Ian Fleming, though some of the characters occasionally show a certain wistfulness at the lack of exciting gadgets.

Maurice Castle, an old hand in the Service, is seeking to coast to his retirement working alongside his young colleague Arthur Davis. Seven years previously Castle had been stationed in Pretoria where he had initially recruited as an agent, and then fallen in love with, Sarah, a Bantu woman. At the height of the apartheid period this endangered both of them, and Castle had had to leave, having also made arrangements for Sarah's escape from the clutches of the terrifying Bureau of State Security (BOSS) led by Cornelius Muller. With the help of an underground network Sarah managed to escape too, and met Castle in Lorenco Marques (in Mozambique).

Seven years later they are married and living in Berkhamsted (Greene's birthplace) with Sarah's son Sam. Castle has become another commuter, cycling to the station then catching the same train every day into the capital and then reversing his journey in the evening with comforting (or stultifying) regularity. Life seems placid until an apparent leak is traced to Castle's section, and both he and Davis find themselves being investigated by Daintry from the internal review division. Daintry is an essentially fair man, and both Castle and Davis find themselves getting on fairly well with him. They are less comfortable with the sinister Dr Percival, one of the more senior figures within the Service, though they are not alone in this. Daintry finds himself equally ill at ease with Percival, whom he suspects of being over anxious to take drastic action to plug the leak before their American counterparts become aware of its existence.

I worry about what Greene's personal life must have been like as he never bestows anything approaching bliss, or even vague contentment, upon his characters. Castle seems to trudge between home and the office, with an occasional foray to his favourite bookshop run by the lugubrious Mr Halliday, whose son runs a less salubrious 'bookshop' across the road. Castle claims, and we have no reason to doubt him, that he is happy only when he is with Sarah and Sam, yet there is no outward sign that any of the three of them elicit any joy from the company of the others. Yet, despite this lack of outward emotion, Greene does stir the reader's empathy for Castle. He is clearly a good man, who acts for the best in a far from ideal world. There is very little action, and none of the excitement of a James Bond story, but the plot does move quickly, and the reader is wholly sucked in to it.

One attribute that can also be guaranteed in Greene's work is plausibility. He may come down over heavily on the melancholic - he is, after all, one for whom I imagine the glass (or in his case perhaps, more appropriately, the chalice) was at best half-empty, but his plots are grounded in the way people genuinely behave. Perhaps their uber-realism and fundamental lack of hope is why we find them so melancholic.

Some novelists find it difficult to end their novels, but Greene excelled himself here. Earlier this year I read Emily St John Mandel's excellent 'Last Night in Montreal', and felt moved to re-read the final two or three pages which reached out to the reader with an extraordinary power. Greene achieved something similar with the burst of sadness in the final paragraph of this book which, even against the context of a broadly melancholic novel, left me feeling I had been punched in the face, but perhaps in a good way!

Edited to rectify some egregious typos.

Great review of The Human Factor and Greene in general. I haven't gotten to any more by Greene yet, but I loved The End of the Affair and I'm excited to read more by him.

The language in The End of the Affair is just so gorgeous--it's the only of Graham Greene's that I've read, though. What would you suggest for a second?

I think I would particularly recommend 'Our Man in Havana', 'The Quiet American' and 'Travels With My Aunt' among his novels. He also wrote various autobiographical works including 'A Sort of Life' and 'Ways of Escape' which are fascinating and very readable

Many thanks. Adding them to the list!

65. Tightrope by Simon Mawer.

At the end of Simon Mawer's last novel, the spellbinding 'The Girl Who Fell From the Sky', Marian Sutro was seized by the Gestapo, and whisked off to what we were left to presume would be a pretty ghastly fate. Marian had been an English agent in the Special Operations Executive in occupied France, acting as a courier conveying escapees to hidden airfields from which they would be flown to the relative safety of Blighty.

'Tightrope' brings us up to date with Marian's story, starting with her repatriation to Britain following the end of the war. While Mawer doesn't dwell unnecessarily on the darker aspects of her incarceration and torture, we learn enough to understand what an extraordinary character Marian is (though this could scarcely have been in doubt for anyone who read the earlier volume). Acclimatisation to 'normality' is understandably difficult, and after such an adrenaline fuelled existence it is difficult for her to decompress. Her parents, who had been adviused two years previously that she was missing, presumed dead, are naturally overjoyed to have her back, though she finds their concern cloying and claustrophobic. She does fare better with her brother, Edward (known as Ned), though he has his own demons to contend with.

After a formal debriefing, Marian starts working for the Anglo-French Peace Union, a left of centre organisation committed to campaigning to prevent any future war. There is a marvellous scene in which Marian secures the participation of Bertrand Russell at a debate sponsored by the Peace Union, but then finds herself taking issue with his assessment of the world situation.

Having once been in the world of espionage it is difficult wholly to relinquish its grasp, and Marian finds herself being sucked back into a worlds steered by her past. There are beguiling references to historic cases, such as the conviction of Klaus Fuchs, and the defections of Burgess and Maclean.

Mawer always writes well. Indeed, having now read a few of his novels I can't understand why he doesn't enjoy a higher profile - 'The Fall', The Glass Room' and 'The Girl Who Fell From the Sky' are all among my favourite books, and all display Mawer's mastery of plotting and characterisation.

That was also so nearly true of this book, too. My one qualm is about the ending. Not so much the basics of what actually happened but merely the speed with which it was wrapped up. I wondered if he was fighting a losing battle against an immovable deadline - it all seemed to end unexpectedly quickly.

This sounds like a good one, Ian; have put it on my wishlist. At the risk of nitpicking, Churchill was 77 when he became PM again, not 75. Sorry!

66. Othello, The Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare.

I don't think there is any point writing a formal review of Othello - there is nothing that a simple country boy such as myself can say that will add in any useful manner to the vast corpus of more worthy comment.

It is, of course, marvellous, yet simultaneously repulsive. The manipulation of Othello by the scheming of Iago is dreadful to see. Othello contributes to, indeed almost collaborates in, his own downfall, while Desdemona is left prey to malign forces entirely beyond her control, or even her understanding.

Quite frankly, I think I find it too dark and oppressive. There seems no let up, not even much in the way of Shakespeare's excruciating 'comic' roles. Iago may be my namesake (more or less) but, on balance, I think that when it comes to scheming, Machiavellian figures I prefer Bosola, Richard III or even Lorenzo from 'The Spanish Tragedy.

67. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

I first read this novel about ten years ago, shortly after it was published, and was entranced by it then. Re-reading it now, knowing what happens and how the novel works, I found it just as extraordinary.

I have been trying to work out how to describe it, but although I have now read it four or five times I still feel stumped. Essentially the book consists of six separate though complementary stories, arranged in a concentric structure, that leaves the reader unsure as to what is meant to be real and what was in the imagination of the characters. But even that doesn't really do justice to the complexity of the plot. There are tales within tales, and numerous passing references that will resonate again and again throughout the book.

I know that if I were to read that second paragraph, I would probably be rolling my eyes and writing the book off as a sort of stunt, and perhaps a pitiful triumph of style over substance or form over content. Mitchell is, however, far too good a writer to fall for that mistake.

First attempt …

I could, for example, summarise it as follows: Timothy Cavendish, a vanity publisher, has to leave London in a hurry and, by chance, takes with him a copy of the first half of a manuscript recently submitted to him by an aspiring author. This manuscript revolves around an investigation by journalist Luisa Rey, into the development of a new nuclear power station in California in the 1970s. Her research was prompted by a chance meeting with Nobel Laureate, Rufus Sixsmith, who had chaired a commission considering the safety of the power station. Alone among the commission members, Sixsmith had voiced concerns, provoking the ire of the multinational company building the power plant. We learn that in his youth, as an undergraduate at Cambridge in the 1930s, Sixsmith had loved Robert Frobisher, a dissolute character with ambitions to be a composer, but who had fled from Britain to avoid the more enterprising of his creditors, finding lodgings near Bruges in the household of Vivien Ayrs, an eccentric and renowned English composer who had succumbed to the musician's equivalent of writer's block. While in Ayrs's home, Frobisher had become engrossed in a nineteenth century manuscript that he had discovered. Cavendish is beset with strife (which he characterises as his 'ghastly ordeal'), and in the future a film will be made cataloguing his adventures (or misadventures). In the twenty-second century, in a dystopian society in Korea, that film inspires an uprising of 'fabricants', (essentially clones) that rocks civilisation to its core, leading to a split between primitive tribes, struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world in which technology has been lost, and so-called 'Prescients' who observe the lives of the tribes from the safety of their high tech world, but do not generally intervene, though one of their number is convinced that some deep secret, fundamental to man's history, is awaiting her discovery in what we assume is meant to be Hawaii.

That may all sound rather involved, but it is in fact an egregious oversimplification, so I shall try again …

The first story, recounted in chapters on and eleven, takes the form of a journal composed by Adam Ewing, an American lawyer travelling back from Polynesia to San Francisco. Ewing is a Christian and appalled at the godless behaviour of the ship's crew and officers, and has been more or less ostracised, finding relief only in the company of his friend Dr Goose. Before setting sail he goes exploring Chatham island and sees a Moriori slave being lashed by a Maori. Their eyes meet briefly, and the slave recognises pity for him and disgust at the spectacle in Ewing's eyes. After the homeward voyage begins, it transpires that the Moriori slave has escaped and stowed away in Ewing's cabin, throwing himself on the latter's mercy. Ewing gradually succumbs to an ailment, manifested through dizziness and fainting, which Goose diagnoses as the consequence of a virulent parasite, and which he starts to treat with a potion of his own devising. Ewing seems to suffer increasingly worse attacks as the voyage continues.

This section ends in mid-sentence.

The second story, taking chapters two and ten, is told through the medium of a series of letters sent in 1931 by Robert Frobisher, a prodigal, indigent young musician who aspires to be a great composer, to Rufus Sixsmith, his former gay lover. Cut off by his affluent and aristocratic family, and sent down from his Cambridge college, he flees his creditors to Belgium where he manages to inveigle his way into the household of ageing and ailing English composer Vyvyan Ayrs who lives with his ennobled Belgian wife Jocasta, taking up the role of amanuensis to the older man. Frobisher starts to work on a piece that he calls the Cloud Atlas Sextet, in which he tries to capture an air that he seems to have heard before, though he can't tell when. Oddly, Ayrs also seems to know the piece. In between his work on the music Frobisher peruses the library in the house where he finds, and becomes captivated by, a copy of Adam Ewing's journal.

The third story (covering chapters three and nine) then kicks in, taking the form of a crime novel set in California in 1975 and featuring Luisa Rey, an investigative journalist who is looking into the furore surrounding the impending launch of a nuclear power station constructed by Seaboard. Local environmentalists are protesting against the power plant and claim that critical reports have been suppressed. By chance Luisa has met Rufus Sixsmith when the lift that they were sharing ground to a halt during a power cut. Sixsmith had recently completed a report which identified a number of flaws with the power plant, but has not yet been able to publish it, and fears that Seaboard will attempt either to suppress the report or discredit him. Sixsmith is found dead in his hotel room where Luisa finds a bundle of Frobisher's letters which Sixsmith has treasures for the last forty years. While driving across a causeway from the power plant another car forces Luisa's VW Beetle off the road and into the sea.

The novel then moves to the fourth story (in chapters four and eight) which takes the form of a memoir by Timothy Cavendish, a literary agent. Having spent most of his career avoiding any semblance of success he suddenly finds himself making a mint from Knuckle Sandwich, the ghost-written biography of an East London criminal. Unfortunately, this success brings its own difficulties and Cavendish has to flee London to escape the criminal's family who are anxious for their own cut of the profits. Among the random papers that he takes with him is the manuscript of the novel Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, which he finds entertaining and contemplates publishing when things calm down. Through a series of comic misunderstandings Cavendish ends up an inmate of a brutal retirement home near Hull.

We then move to the fifth story (chapters five and seven), set in the 22nd century in a dystopian society. This story is presented in the form of a lengthy interview by an official archivist of Somni-451, a "fabricant" (i.e. clone) who had been instrumental in sparking off a revolution against the totalitarian consumerist society in which she lives. At one stage Somni 451 describes how her happiest hour had been when she had watched the opening half of an antique film called The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.

The sixth story, called Sloosha's Crossin' and Ev'rythin' After, which forms the central section of the novel. This is set in a post-apocalyptic future and is recounted by Zachry, a tribesman from what the reader gradually infers is Hawaii. His community scratches out a living through simple agriculture and hunting, but is troubled by attacks from violent neighbouring people called the Kona. Twice a year they are visited by the Prescients, members of a more advanced race who have retained their knowledge of science and technology. Zachry and his tribe have a simple faith which features a goddess-like figures called Somni, though little is known about her deeds or past.

As I said earlier, the novel has a 'concentric' structure, rather like literary matryoshka or a model of the Ptolemaic cosmology. I would stress, though, that while the novel has this complex form, David Mitchell weaves the connections and echoes between the six stories very deftly, creating a very rich tapestry, and the overall effect is astounding. The format is unusual, but this does not interfere with the reader's enjoyment of, or immersion in, the story. It is like reading six novels at the same time, with a wealthy seam of cross-reference enhancing the reader's enjoyment.

My only slight cavil is that the sections dealing with Somni-451 and Zachry's story are slightly longer than necessary, but the depth of the story ensures that the reader's attention doesn't flag.

Over the last thirty-five years (since I started to list them) I have read well over four thousand books, and this is certainly in my top ten.

Enjoyed your review of Cloud Atlas, though it's not a book I intend to read at this point. Maybe someday (trying to avoid reading novels I don't really think I'll enjoy, other than book club picks).

>116 Eyejaybee: You've managed a better description than I did. I thought it was fabulous and have it on the list to re-read. I suspect it can cope with being revisited, I think it would allow you to see a little bit more each time.

In fact, I think it benefits from being re-read. There are all sorts of little references and resonances that you don't notice the first time around.

68. Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene.

Graham Greene will never be remembered as a great comic novelist. He was certainly adept at creating potentially humorous situations. In 'Our Man in Havana', for example, Wormald, an impecunious vacuum cleaner salesman is recruited as a low key agent to forward reports to MI6 about life in Castro's Cuba. Realising that he might be able to generate a decent income from this, Wormald pretends to have recruited his own sub-network of agents and submits fictitious reports, only to be appalled to find that the events he has imagined began really to happen.

In 'Travels With My Aunt' Greene comes closest to achieving genuine humour. The novel opens with the funeral of Angelica Pulling who has died aged eighty-seven. The principal mourner is her son, Henry, who has recently retired from his post as manager of a provincial branch of a bank. Henry's has not been an eventful life, as evinced by his ambitions to pass his retirement rearing dahlias. He is not the sole mourner, though. Among the small group of friends and neighbours and those assorted waifs and strays that crop up at funerals is Augusta, Angelica's younger sister and Henry's aunt. Hitherto unaware even of her existence, Henry is gradually dragged into Augusta's inchoate life which is peopled by a heady melange of shady characters.

Henry finds himself going through some belated rites of passage, meeting a selection of his aunt's friends and acquaintances (though perhaps accomplices might be a more appropriate term for some of them). After an initial overnight jaunt to Brighton, where Henry has his fortune read in tea leaves by a former associate of his aunt, they then venture further afield, taking the Orient Express to Istanbul. While he may not have been the deftest of comic novelists, travel writing was a filed in which Greene did excel, and he imbues the story with glorious local colour.

Greene does succeed in setting up some comic scenarios, though somehow he never quite pulls them off. This is not particularly surprising - the principal attribute of most of Green's works is barely suppressed melancholia, with characters often oppressed by the burden of the aimless tedium of their existence. There are, after all, very few buskers or streets performers roaming the byways of Greeneland. The melancholia is at least held at bay here - the humour may not be of a kind to induce rampant guffawing, but some of the customary clouds have dispersed. Within Greene's own parameters, formed perhaps in a more austere tradition than pertains now, 'Travels With My Aunt' might almost constitute pure farce. Wodehouse might have rendered sheer comedy gold out of the set pieces that Greene constructs, but he would not have managed, nor even attempted, to plumb the depths of his characters in the way that Greene manages so effortlessly.

69. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

I first read this novel immediately after its publication, about eighteen months ago. I don't normally re-read books quite so quickly, but first time around I thought this was pretty special, and I was intrigued to see whether it had retained its appeal.

There have certainly been very few novels in recent years whose publication was met with so much media attention. 'The Goldfinch' was Donna Tartt's first novel in ten years and only her third in a span of twenty years.

I felt a certain trepidation when it was published as I remembered similar hype when its predecessor, "The Little Friend" had been published ten years previously. I duly went out within days of the initial publication date and bought it in hardback, agog to read it, only to find myself awash with disappointment. After the mastery of her debut, "The Secret History", the second book struck me as simply dire, and I struggled even to finish it.

Still, I have never been very good at learning from past experience, and once again, within days (possibly even hours) of the publication date I had downloaded it on to my Kindle, and started fretting to finish the books I was already reading, eager to savour whatever "The Goldfinch" had to offer.

And, even the second time around, it has a lot to offer. It is a very long book (Tartt doesn't seem to do short) but utterly engrossing, even when you know what the outcome is going to be. It is narrated by Theodore (Theo) Decker whom we first encounter in a state of feverish misery in a freezing hotel in Amsterdam over the Christmas period. It is clear that something pretty drastic has happened, though it will take a further seven hundred pages for us to understand what that might be.

Theo starts recounting his life, starting at the age of thirteen and an outing he took with his mother from their New York apartment moving uptown to wander around a museum which includes Carel Fabritius's "The Goldfinch", a haunting painting, one of very few to survive the explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine in October 1654, which killed the artist and destroyed most of his works. On that particular morning Decker accompanies his mother to the museum slightly reluctantly: he had been suspended from school on the previous day, and his mother's museum visit was primarily a means of passing some time before she went to a meeting with Theo's headteacher. While they are in the Museum, however, as Theo gazes at "The Goldfinch" a terrorist bomb explodes. Theo's mother is killed and, in the mayhem following the carnage, Theo makes a decision that will reverberate throughout the rest of his life.

Tartt treats us to insights into life among the wealthiest level of New York society, contrasting it sharply with life in the hinterland of Las Vegas where Theo's morally and socially inadequate father winds up. While in Vegas Theo meets Boris, a schoolmate whose father is a Russian oil engineer, flitting all over the globe and barely staying anywhere for more than a few months at a time. He and Theo become firm friends, finding mutual support against the vicissitudes of life in Las Vegas.

Later on, Theo comes back to New York where he lives and later works with Hobie, an expert furniture restorer but lamentable businessman. As he grows older Theo comes to take over the business side, turning things around though occasionally straying from a path of unassailable rectitude, and establishing the business on a very sound financial footing. But all this time he has a secret ...

Tartt maintains the tension and holds the reader's attention throughout. Theo is not an empathetic character. Indeed, even though some pretty dreadful things happen to him, the reader never really warms to him. This is, of course, entirely irrelevant as a guide to the quality of the book, and despite his many unpalatable traits the reader stays with him, right to the end. I'm not sure if this is quite up to the same standard as "The Secret History" but it comes very, very close.

70. Perfidia by James Ellroy.

I am in my early fifties now so I have to expect I will probably be dead in about twenty years. That isn't a problem but it does mean that I simply don't have time to waste on books that are deliberately impenetrable.

I know from previous experience that James Ellroy can produce some engrossing stories with elaborate plots that clearly rest upon extensive historical research. Sadly, however, his recent books seems to have been increasingly labyrinthine to the extent that I simply lack the strength of spirit to give a toss.

I'm sure that a lot of people will find his latest offering marvellous and will rave about his consummate attention to detail and his limitless facility to evoke a time and place. It just didn't work with me - I just found it too relentless a paean to squalor, rage and despair, and I experience enough of all that each day at work.

71. Sicken and so Die by Simon Brett.

Simon Brett's series of novels featuring down at heel actor Charles Paris have all been entertaining, and this is perhaps the best of them all. I have read it a copuple of times previously, but wanted something to cleanse my palate after grappling with the distasteful 'Perfidia' by James Ellroy.

As the novel opens things seem to be going well for Charles Paris. Not only has he landed the desirable role of Sir Toby Belch in a new production of "Twelfth Night" but he seems well on the way towards a rapprochement with his former wife Frances from whom he had been separated for several years, principally as a consequence of his drinking and philandering. Always a committed fan of Shakespeare's work, Charles has longed to play the part of Toby Belch, and is looking forward to delivering a traditional performance straight out of the old school.

Obviously this is all too good to last, and things start to go awry almost immediately when Gavin Scholes, the benign but almost totally unimaginative director is taken ill, and is replaced with the radical, Romanian "enfant terrible" Alexandru Radulescu. Radulescu is no respecter of theatrical sacred cows, and sets about transforming the production into an avantgarde extravaganza, much to Charles's disgust. However, even Charles has grudgingly to concede that some of Radulescu's ideas, bizarre as they seem, do produce startling effects. But then more mishaps start to happen, culminating in the sudden death of one of the cast.

Brett has sustained a highly successful career as a novelist and writer of comedy series for both television and radio, and this novel shows him at his best. The wry humour never detracts from a tightly constructed plot, and his depiction of the thespian peccadilloes of the cast amuse the reader but never reduce the story to farce.. He clearly knows his Shakespeare, too, and the novel offers intriguing insights into the various relationships between characters in the play.

Highly entertaining and informative.

72. Blowback by Peter May.

Having generally enjoyed the four previous instalments of Peter May's series of novels featuring half-Italian, half-Scottish forensic scientist Enzo Macloed, I feel that I, and indeed Enzo too, may have embarked on a volume too far.

Enzo Macleod has undertaken to unravel seven infamous and hitherto unsolved murders that had baffled the French police force. This latest story focuses on Enzo's investigation into the death a few years previously of Marc Fraysse, one of France's most celebrated chefs and holder of the cachet of three Michelin stars. Everyone who knew him declares that he was without an enemy in the world. He had, however, been shot not far from the site of his renowned restaurant high up in the Massif Central.

Though this novel was a fair bit shorter than the previous books in the series, I felt that it dragged. Perhaps I simply lack the rarefied tastes properly to enjoy this book. As a teetotaller with a brutally simple palate, the seemingly endless descriptions of the meals served up in the restaurant merely bored me, and left me feeling that May had succumbed to cliché.

Enzo is a very plausible character, but this was not an engaging adventure for him, and I imagine it may now be quite a while before I try out another book by Peter May.

73. The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas.

Scarlett Thomas's previous novel, 'Our Tragic Universe' is one of my favourite books. I have already read it three or four times and I am confident that I will read it again before very long.

I was, therefore, eagerly awaiting the publication of her latest novel, 'The Seed Collectors', though I was trying not to let my anticipation run too wild as I was also conscious of a series of recent disappointments where long-awaited books were concerned (with particular regard to David Mitchell's 'The Bone Clocks' and Kate Atkinson's 'A God in Ruins'). Sadly, that precaution proved justified.

Far from matching up to 'Our Tragic Universe' or 'The End of My Y', both of which featured strong, intelligent and appealing protagonists engaging with complex ideas (which they managed to explain with great dexterity and clarity), this latest book seemed reminiscent of the sordid musings of an adolescent boy.

74. The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons.

Max Wolfe embodies a range of personas - gritty, courageous front line policeman, intuitive investigator, adoring single parent - and showed he was capable of fulfilling each role fairly comprehensively in Tony Parsons's previous novel, 'The Murder Bag'. He makes a welcome return in 'The Slaughter Man'.

Parsons may have a loose grasp on police procedure at times, but he does deliver a gripping, if gruesome, plot. He throws in plenty of accurate local colour along the way, with detailed descriptions of Highgate, ranging from the exclusive, gated estates, the normally closed and desperately overgrown western half of the famous cemetery and abandoned properties on 'Billionaires' Row'.

Wolfe is called to attend the after math of the horrific murder on New Year's Eve of a wealthy family who lived in a gated estate known as 'The Garden' in the heart of Highgate. The victims are the Woods, an extremely wealthy family who had, hitherto enjoyed a fairly idyllic life. Already appalled by the extreme violence of the crime scene, Wolfe is further horrified when it becomes apparent that the family's youngest member, four year old Bradley, isn't there. In addition to the hunt for the killers, the police now face the even greater urgency of trying to recover the missing boy. The cause of death proves unexpected, too, and adds a further sense of the bizarre to an already mystifying murder.

Parsons takes us through a succession of deftly managed set pieces, including a couple of police raids on a travellers' encampment, and various other fraught encounters between the cops and the bad guys. Wolfe and his colleagues are constantly in the wars, and almost every three of four chapters one of them seems to be attacked with exceptional ferocity.

Not the most plausible novel I have read this year, but certainly a gripping one. Wolfe may somehow be rather too good to be true, but he is likeable, the Parsons does keep the story fizzing along.

75. The Ancient Paths by Graham Robb.*

The general perception of the Celts has been as a fairly chaotic and peripatetic people, renowned for their hedonism rather than their inclination towards developing any lasting infrastructure. In this book Graham Robb strives to overthrow that view. It is not an easy book to read, and I was tempted to jump ship at various points, but I am glad that I persisted.

The opening section focuses on the Heraklean Way, an ancient, dead straight route that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Spain, through the Pyrenees and on towards the Alps. This route follows, exactly, the bearing of the rising sun as seen on the summer solstice. Equally significantly, it is also the route followed by Hannibal in his attempt to invade Rome, complete with elephants.

As Robb explores this route he makes a series of assertions, including that the Celts (or Gauls as he calls them) were expert surveyors, capable of designing and building arrow-straight roads under the influence of their astronomical observations.. He further asserts that most of the roads now ascribed to the Romans were actually originally created by the Gauls.

He makes a number of these assertions, frequently with relatively little hard, supporting evidence. I found it all fascinating, but I did feel that there was a lot of hypothesising disguised as accepted fact. I remember, as a teenager, reading some of Erich von Daniken's books ('The Chariots of the Gods' and its fellow volumes, all now roundly discredited). There were times while I was reading this book when I wondered if Graham Robb might be the thinking man's Erich von Daniken. Overall, I think that is probably unfair - this book is, after all, very much better written that von Daniken ever managed - but it did try my patience.

Eyejaybee thanks for the heads up on the new Scarlett Thomas, hope I enjoy it more than you did !

Hi Bryan. following a series of conversations with some friends and colleagues I reread it and completely revised my view about it. I still have a couple of misgivings about certain aspects but was won over by it. I will post revised review very shortly.

I hope you do enjoy it.

73. (Revisited) The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas.

Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ offers cautionary advice about the risk of succumbing to first impressions. Indeed, that was the original name that Austen applied to her classic novel. I should have paid more heed to the lessons learned by Lizzie Bennett and Darcy.

I have been a fan of Scarlett Thomas ever since reading her ‘The End of Mr Y’ and that novel’s successor, ‘Our Tragic Universe’ ranks very highly on my list of all-time favourites. I had, therefore, been looking forward very keenly to reading this, her latest book. My initial response was, however, one of great disappointment, and I felt that she had fallen woefully short of the high standards she set for herself with her previous books.
There seemed to me to be an over-dependence upon simple crudity at the expense of genuine humour.

Having pondered over this, and heeding the advice of friends who had read ‘The Seed Collectors’ and felt very differently, I read it again within a couple of weeks, and found myself completely won over.
The context is simple but engaging, and deals with the various branches of the Gardener family. By long-standing tradition, most members of the family are given botanical forenames, and the novel focuses on three cousins, Fleur, Clem (short for Clematis) and Bryony, the latter of whom has two children Holly and Ash. The cousins are, however, all very different and beset with their own respective burdens.
Clem is an established film director and academic who had received the accolade of an Oscar nomination for her ground-breaking study of ‘the walking palm’. Bryony is a successful estate agent who is also pursuing a university degree as a mature student. Her tutor is the irascible Ollie (who happens to be married to Clem though their relationship has clearly degenerated to a fairly fragile state) who intermittently offers up hilarious, blissfully politically incorrect invective about all and sundry. Fleur is a masseuse and general therapist who works in a hippyish retreat centre that was run by Oleander, a woman of mage-like status, and which had famously been visited by The Beatles and other luminaries during the 1960’s and 1970s.

As the novel opens, Oleander has recently died, and we gradually learn that she had been instrumental in causing the demise of the three cousins’ mothers. All competent botanists themselves, the three mothers had participated in an expedition in the 1970s which sought to find botanical specimens alleged to have almost magical powers.

Thomas portrays her characters with great skill, capturing their different traits with immense plausibility. She also manages to send up certain types. For instance, Bryony’s husband James, columnist for what is clearly meant to be The Guardian/Observer, seems to be a domestic saint, undertaking all the family’s cooking, housework and childcare , while Bryony sinks deeper and deeper into alcoholism and rampant consumerism. Her retail therapy involves extreme expenditure, often with little interest in the particular commodity being purchased. The sum paid renders its own balm!

I still feel that this wasn’t as successful as ‘Our Tragic Universe’, but I am glad that I read it again so quickly and was able to rectify my first impressions of it.

76. The Falls by Ian Rankin.

The Falls represents both Ian Rankin and John Rebus on mid-season form. We get to see all sides of Rebus - as a near-alcoholic seemingly stumbling from one crisis to another, a respectful and considerate lover, an obdurate, 'thrawn' colleague revelling in being a round peg in a square hole and, as always, a fine, incisive detective. Once again, the city of Edinburgh itself, and some of the grimmer episodes from its dark history, comes through as a principal character in the story, a beautiful yet also foreboding presence against which the action is played out.

Philippa Balfour, daughter of the wealthy owner of the exclusive private bank Balfour and Co, has gone missing. She had been studying the History of Art at Edinburgh University and had arranged to meet a group of friends. Shortly before the meeting she texts her friends to say that she has just had yet another big row with her boyfriend. Philippa is never seen again. Because of the prominence of her father the police are treating her disappearance as a priority.

The police remove her computer to search it for any possible clues to her disappearance, and Siobhan Clarke, Rebus's long-suffering sidekick, discovers that Philippa had been engaged in a role-playing game solving clues set by someone known simply as The Quizmaster. Clarke is sucked into undertaking the game herself, in the hope that it might shed some light on what befell the missing girl. She finds herself grappling with a series of increasingly more difficult cryptic clues.

Meanwhile, a model coffin turns up at The Falls, the Balfour family home. This has sinister echoes of a series of such coffins, now in the Museum of Scotland, that had been found on Arthur's Seat shortly after the Burke and hare murders. This gives Rankin the opportunity to deliver an enticing history lesson about the so-called Resurrectionists. This may sound contrived but Rankin handles it seamlessly.

I think that this might be the strongest of the series of Rebus novels.

77. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I seem to be going through a phase of re-reading books, and this is certainly one of my favourites - indeed, probably my favourite "classic".

First published in 1868, it is certainly notable for its innovative approach to story telling. Nowadays we are familiar with novels written from more than one character's perspective, but I imagine that such an approach was probably very daring back in the 1860s. Collins handles this device, which could so easily have backfired, with great deftness, and the reader gleans a deep insight into the various characters as the successive narratives unfold.

The "Moonstone" of the title is a diamond stolen from the head of a revered statue in a Hindu temple by John Herncastle, a British Officer serving in India. Over the following years stories about the lost jewel abounded, along with a growing belief that the stone might be cursed. Having subsided into illness Herncastle bequeathed the jewel to his niece Rachel Verinder, to be given to her on her eighteenth birthday.

The Moonstone is to be delivered to Rachel by her cousin Franklin Blake, formerly a great favourite of the Verinder family, who has been travelling the world for the last few years. He arranges to visit the Verinder household in Yorkshire, arriving a few days ahead of Rachel's birthday. On the day that he is expected three itinerant Indian "jugglers" turn up and perform some odd tricks in the neighbourhood, and seem to be "casing" the Verinder house. Franklin Blake arrives a little earlier and, after consulting with Betteredge (the butler and wryly sage narrator of the opening section of the story), departs to the nearby town in order to lodge the jewel in its strongroom. Before he goes he bumps in to Rosanna Spearman, one of the domestic servants in the Verinder household. We subsequently learn that she had previously been in prison after having turned to crime to escape a life of deep deprivation down in London. Mr Verinder, aware of this background but also swayed by good reports of Rosanna's reform, had employed her some months previously. In that chance encounter with Franklin Blake Rosanna immediately falls madly in love with him.

The day of the birthday arrives, and various other friends and relatives attend a special dinner. Rachel, who had known nothing about the Moonstone, is delighted by her special birthday present, and cannot be dissuaded from wearing it at the dinner table. Almost inevitably, the jewel is stolen from Rachel's room that night. Rachel herself is clearly disturbed by its loss and starts to behave in an uncharacteristically aggressive and bad-tempered manner. It soon becomes evident that she is particularly angry towards Franklin Blake.

The local Superintendent of police is called in but achieves little. Meanwhile, Franklin Blake has communicated by telegraph with his father, an MP in London, who commissions the lugubrious Sergeant Cuff to travel up to take over the investigation. Cuff is generally credited as the first great detective in English literature and he certainly comes across as an awesome character. Like so many of his modern day successors, he has his oddities and his querulous side. In Cuff's case it is gardening, and particularly the rearing of roses, that dominates his thoughts away from his job.

Cuff becomes convinced that Rachel Verinder herself is involved in the loss of the diamond, and speculates that she might somehow have incurred extensive debts, and then recruited Rosanna to help conceal the diamond and then smuggle it out of the house and down to London where it could be pawned or otherwise converted into much needed cash.

Various other misadventures befall the characters, and one year on the mystery has not yet been resolved. It is at this point that, in what was to became a tradition in whodunnit stories, the scene is recreated, and a startling yet also convincing denouement is achieved.

Collins was a close friend of Charles Dickens, and they collaborated on various publications. In The Moonstone, however, Collins displayed a fluidity and clarity of prose that Dickens never achieves. His satirical touch is light but more telling because of that. Nearly one hundred and fifty years on this novel remains fresh, accessible and immensely enjoyable.

78. The Girl On The train by Paula Hawkins.

Some books are very easy to review, and this is one of them. 'The Girl on The Train' is simply excellent. Immediately engaging and gripping, with a carefully constructed plot and readily believable (and even recognisable) characters.

I had actually been a little reluctant to read this book following the immense hype that has surrounded its huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, and because a lot of people had compared it to Gillian Flynn's 'Gone Girl', which I had not liked at all. In the end, I relented simply because I was on holiday and saw it on offer at a very cheap price and decided to give it a go. That was certainly a fortuitous decision.

The book takes the form of alternating narratives from Rachel, an alcoholic divorcee who regularly commutes from Hertfordshire into London on a route that passes the house where she previously li9ved with her ex-husband. She becomes intrigued by the house just four along from her old home, which she comes to observe on a regular basis as her train is invariably brought to a halt at the foot of its garden. Seeing the occupants (who had arrived since she lived in that street) she starts to imagine their life, even assigning them names and speculating about their respective jobs. Rachel is not a happy person, and as her narrative proceeds we gain an alarming insight into her lifestyle which is not as it initially seems.

Interspersed with Rachel's story we are offered Megan's narrative, which starts about a year earlier than Rachel's. Megan lives in the house that Rachel observes almost every day, but the story that she unwinds reveals a very different life from that which Rachel had imagined for her.

The portrayal of a personality unwinding, and the events that unfold as a consequence is fascinating. Hawkins combines very sharp observation with immense suspense, producing a heady and addictive brew. Having started the book I found it very difficult to put it down.

79. The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson.*

I have never been a big fan of Boris Johnson. I find his carefully constructed air of buffoonery particularly irritating - whatever his other shortcomings might be, he is very far from a buffoon - and I find his relentless self-regard irksome in the extreme. He is, however, a fine writer, and his analysis of Churchill's success as a politician is both informative and immensely entertaining.

I was lamentably ignorant about the life of Churchill before reading this book. Obviously I knew of his steadfast leadership of Britain through the Second World War, and his powerful rhetoric and oratory, but I was unaware of the extent of his personal heroism throughout his own military career, or of his huge literary output. As Johnson makes clear, not only did his published writings exceed the total output of either Dickens or Shakespeare, they exceed the aggregate of both Dickens AND Shakespeare. Where did he find the time, with all his other responsibilities (which clearly weren't shirked).

This isn't an exhaustive biography. Johnson chooses instead to focus on a series of aspects of the great man's life, and illuminates them with his own coruscating prose. It is clear that Churchill is one of Johnson's heroes, though this book avoids falling into the trap of blind hagiography. Johnson concedes that Churchill had his faults, and he addresses them fairly, offering some mitigation where appropriate, but clearly acknowledging them.

For most of the book, which seemed to have been very deeply researched (prompting me to wonder where Johnson himself found the time among his other responsibilities), Johnson's prose was sharp, concise and clear. I felt that in the latter chapters, where he recapitulates his analysis of Churchill's successes, he slipped into a more jokey approach (that inescapable patina of buffoonery, again) which simply didn't strike the right note. A fine work overall, with just a few avoidable weaknesses.

80. Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell.

This book brings Anthony Powell's majestic twelve volume sequence, 'A Dance to the Music of Time' to a triumphant close.

The sequence is clearly largely autobiographical, with narrator Nick Jenkins's life closely mirroring Powell's own, though, once again, despite the first person narration we learn precious little about the writer. His observations of his friends and acquaintances remain as acute and diverting as ever, though Jenkins himself remains an enigma.

Kenneth (now Lord) Widmerpool is as odious as ever, though his immersion within a pseudo-religious cult definitely comes as a surprise. Newly introduced in this volume is the sinister Scorpio Murtlock who has an unbridled capacity to wreak havoc wherever he goes, and who is determined to become acquainted with Widmerpool for his own nefarious purposes.

All the old favourites are here: J G Quiggin, Mark Members, Matilda Donners, Norman Chandler and even, fleetingly, Bithel, who had featured so humorously in "The Valley of Bones".

This is not the strongest novel in the sequence, though that still leaves considerable scope for it to be a fine novel. It must, anyway, be difficult to bring such a magnum opus to a satisfying conclusion. Powell maintains his mastery of the plot, tying up a huge selection of long-running loose ends. I enjoyed re-reading this novel, and indeed the whole sequence, for the umpteenth time, though, as always, I felt saddened to have completed it.

81. The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt.

This is a very clever book, but one that left me utterly cold., The basic premise was enticing: a widowed female artist, unable to secure any recognition for her work in a largely male-dominated market conceals her identity and passes her own work off as that of three male artists, thereby demonstrating the extreme sexism of the New York art world.

I found the approach attractive too. The story is made up of a series of separate narratives, some of them drawn from a series of journals compiled by the artist (Harriet Burden) herself, while others purport to be personal memoirs from her friends and associates. Sadly, however, I found that the novel never quite sparked to life for me. All very clever, but I felt that Hustvedt almost became a victim of his own ingenuity and the succession of different narratives simply became burdensome.

Rather too much emphasis on style at the expense of substance.

82. The Cinderella Killer by Simon Brett.

Throughout the seventeen or eighteen previous novels in this series, Charles Paris's acting career has been as diverse as it has been unsuccessful. Alongside a raft of different theatrical roles (including Shakespearean tragedy and comedy), he has featured in television sitcoms, vintage murder mystery series, corporate PR videos and game shows. He even sank to the nadir of representing a missing businessman in a 'Crimewatch'-type reconstruction in 'A Reconstructed Corpse'.

One of the few genres that hadn't featured in the series so far was pantomime, but, as is evident from the title, its turn has come (Oh, no, it hasn't!). Charles finds himself as one of the Broker's Men in the production being mounted at Eastbourne. The star of the production is Kenny Polizzi, an American actor who had played the lead role in an immensely successful comedy programme that had run for sixteen seasons and been syndicated all around the world. Kenny has a reputation for having been a hellraiser in his youth, with rampant rumours of alcoholism and substance abuse. He is also going through a particularly vitriolic divorce from Lilith, his third wife who is also an established star across the Atlantic, and has welcomed the opportunity to escape some of the celebrity limelight by spending a couple of months working in Britain. He will be playing Baron Hardup.

Other cast members include the current star of a major UK soap opera as Cinderella, and an actor from a long running television drama (branded as 'TV's Mr Sex' by the tabloids) as Buttons. Right from the start these two have been griping about which of them should have second billing, and their animosity is starting to pollute the rest of the company.

This is all vintage Simon Brett territory, and he handles the plot as expertly as usual. He has that happy skill of being able to weave together a light-hearted context with a soundly constructed plot, and this book shows him in mid-season form, driving the ball firmly to the boundary with every shot. Very entertaining, engaging and amusing.

83. Paradise City by Elizabeth Day.

Paradise City

What a superb book! I have had a few disappointments this year, with books that I had eagerly awaited turning out to be far less enjoyable than I had hoped. This, however, represented the other side of the coin. I hadn't come across Elizabeth Day before, but took a punt on the basis of a favourable review in The Guardian, and found myself smitten by one of the most engaging books I have read for a long time. I found 'Paradise City' reminiscent of John Lanchester's marvellous 'Capital' (one of my all-time favourites) and Sebastian Faulks's 'A Week in December', though Ms Day brings her one twist to the interlaced narrative format.

The book takes the form of four separate narratives, each focusing on a separate character. It is readily apparent how three of them relate to each other, though the fourth appears wholly discrete from the others. Sir Howard Pink is a self-made millionaire who appears to have everything, though his life has been blighted ever sine, eleven years ago, his nineteen year old daughter disappeared. As the novel opens he is checking in to a luxurious Mayfair hotel as part of a recurring ritual in which he briefly withdraws from his hectic life to ponder over his loss. During this retreat he has a dramatic encounter with Beatrice, the focal character of one of the other narratives.

Beatrice is a political refugee, seeking sanctuary from her former life in Uganda where, for reasons that gradually emerge, her life is endangered. As the book starts she is bemoaning the poverty of her life in London which is exacerbated by her work as a chambermaid in the luxurious but curiously impersonal hotel. She is lumbered with unsociable hours and frequently demeaning work, and is scarcely ever noticed by the hotel's guests as she scurries from room to room fulfilling her role. Sir Howard does notice her, however, and their encounter will come to be a pivotal moment in her life.

Esme is a journalist, working on the scurrilous Sunday Tribune, and has just penned a story about business tycoons, including Sir Howard. Though grateful for the free publicity that her article offers, Sir Howard was upset by the paper's use of an old photograph of him. Esme is despatched to take him for an expensive lunch at another top hotel by way of apology, and scents the possibility of a future article. Still relatively new to London, she is plagued by her constant sense of having fallen woefully short of her mother's high expectations for her.

The fourth prop of the story is Carol, a recently-widowed woman in her sixties who lives in a flat in West London. Still slightly shell-shocked as a consequence of her bereavement, Carol is frequently slightly disengaged from the world around her. The reader is beguiled, trying to work out how she will fit into the plot.

Elizabeth Day captures the tone of her four principal protagonists with great precision. All of them are beautifully drawn. Sir Howard is at times a perfectly dreadful man, who behaves abominably, yet it is difficult not to feel sorry for him. Indeed, I found it difficult to suppress the odd inappropriate snigger at some of his more appalling political rants! I know that Day is herself a journalist, and her portrayal of Esme's daily grind at the Sunday Tribune resonates with plausibility.

The storylines are well-defined and cohere seamlessly, resulting in a very enjoyable and rewarding book.

84. Dune by Frank Herbert.

I first read 'Dune' in the late 1970s by which time it was already well known, if not yet established as a classic. It is now fifty years since it was first published and it has stood the passage of time well.

I remember being enthralled by 'Dune' as a teenager, captivated by the descriptions of the bleak, desert planet and the hardy Fremen who inhabited it. Its scope (even within this first volume) is immense, resembling an old fashioned family saga.

There are, of course, some significant incongruities. Set some twenty thousand years in the future, there are no computers, and although mankind has spread across thousands of planets throughout the universe, technology seems oddly sparse. Imperial dictat was the reason for the lack of computers, though many of their functions are undertaken by specially trained humans, known as 'Mentats'. There are special technically accomplished weapons (known as 'lasguns'),and special shields have been designed that can counter their impact. Most people still rely on swords and knives, and poison seems to be the weapon of choice for Imperial assassination.

Duke Leto Atriedes is despatched under Imperial command to take over the governing of Arrakis, a desert planet also known as 'Dune'. This was previously the fiefdom of the Harkonnen family, sworn enemy of the Atriedes. Arrakis is bleak, with most of its surface covered by fierce desert which is patrolled by vicious monstrous worms. The indigenous population, known as the Fremen, have adapted to life with a minimum of surface water available to them, and wear special suits which capture and recycle their sweat. The importance of Arrakis lies in 'melange' a spice that is only found there, and which is treasured for its mind-bending powers. Indeed, melange forms part of a vital recipe used by the mysterious Space Guild who have learned to bend space to enable travel between planets.

Frank Herbert weaves an intricate web of Imperial politics and religious fanaticism, with odd throwbacks to classical Greece (the original Atriedes being Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus). The principal character is Paul Atriedes, son of Duke Leto and his concubine, Jessica. We learn that Jessica is a priestess of a mysterious sect known as the Bene Gesserit which has been monitoring ducal bloodlines. Prophecies abound, especially among the Fremen, of a messianic figure who will come to Dune to lead them. Jessica wonders whether her son might be the one.

A well-constructed novel that works on many levels. The absence of any lengthy, context-setting introduction actually helps the reader to become engaged. We are thrown right in, with the Atreides household preparing for their encounter with Arrakis, and all the mysteries it holds.

85. Something to Hide by Deborah Moggach.

Deborah Moggach’s latest novel takes the form of intertwined separate narratives, one of which is told in the first person by Petra, a divorcee in her late fifties or early sixties, while the others are third person accounts of events affecting Lorrie, the self-consciously overweight American wife of a soldier currently serving in Iraq, and Li-Jing, the wife of a successful businessman from Beijing who is struggling to come to terms with her inability to conceive.

As the novel opens it is difficult to imagine how these separate storylines, unwinding on different continents, might coalesce. Moggach does, however, unravel the disparate plotlines very deftly, and their nexus proves to be on a fourth continent, in a fictional state in West Africa.

The story touches on a wide range of emotions – bitterness, resentfulness, jealousy, love and fear of loneliness – though is never bogged down in undue sentiment. None of the characters are particularly likeable though she sparks our interest in all of their plights. I am not wholly convinced of the plausibility of the story line, but I was able to suspend my disbelief while reading the book.

This was not the best of her books that I have read, but was still very enjoyable despite that.

86. Midnight in Malmo by Torquil MacLeod.

Inspector Anita Sundstrom from the Homicide Department in Malmo is back, though as the novel opens she is enjoying a fortnight's well earned leave. Back in Malmo a young woman has been killed while running through one of the city parks. The police are baffled as to the motive for, or perpetrator of the attack, and struggle to identify the victim.

Meanwhile Sundstrom is enjoying her holiday in an island resort not far from Stockholm. One of the neighbouring chalets is occupied by a retired diplomat who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is eagerly striving to get his memoirs in order, drawing on the help of a local journalist. Sadly he succumbs before he can complete more than a small portion of his autobiography. Based upon the little insight he has had, the journalist is, however, convinced that his demise was not down to natural causes.

Eager though she is to enjoy her deserved break from the office, Sundstrom is unable to resist being drawn in to the investigation, especially after she learns that the diplomat's father had played a vital role in events that would change the history of the whole world.

MacLeod writes simply and directly. He doesn't become sidetracked in deep characterisation, and leaves everything down to the plot. I have struggled to enjoy the recent wave of Scandinavian crime novels and prefer to take Macleod's ersatz British version. In fact, he is probably my favourite novelist called 'Torquil'!

87. The Vanishing Game by William Boyd.

I have always been a great fan of William Boyd's writing but was a little wary of this novella which had been commissioned by Jaguar Land Rover.

Of course, I needn't have worried at all. Boyd is far too good a writer to compromise his reputation and talent with a tawdry commercial endorsement. The Land Rover certainly features prominently in this short novel, but never in an obtrusive manner. I doubt whether any reader who had previously been unaware that it was a commissioned work would guess the truth from reading it. Perhaps Jaguar Land Rover wasted their money (unless I am sinking, unawares, into a long term subliminal yearning to own a Land Rover, though any such urge is yet to manifest itself), but the story is very entertaining and diverting.

Basically Alec Dunbar, an aspiring actor with a string of minor roles to his name, finds himself called to an audition by mistake, but assuages his disappointment after a chance encounter leads to the opportunity to earn some quick money fulfilling what seems to be a simple courier job, delivering something to a church on the west coast of Scotland.

All of Boyd's marvellous descriptive skills are on show as he recounts Dunbar's journey up the motorway and then, later in the wilds of Mallaig. As the readers expects from the start, the task is nowhere near as straightforward as the gullible Dunbar believes, and he finds himself living on his wits in open country.

The whole scenario may seem rather implausible but Boyd's power as a writer succeeds in making the reader completely suspend their disbelief, and become immersed in the swiftly moving plot. Anyone concerned about the idea of commercially commissioned literature can be reassured that Boyd employs far more resources describing the scenery (and he really brings the locale to life) than he does on the Land Rover.

88. Death Is A Welcome Guest by Louise Welsh.

One of my favourite books from earlier in the year was Louise Welsh's 'A Lovely Way to Burn', the first volume of her planned 'Plague Times' trilogy. This second instalment is more of a companion volume than a sequel, featuring on a new set of characters and giving a different and intriguing perspective of the descent into dystopia.

The principal character is Magnus McFall, a stand up comedian from the Orkneys who is on the cusp of breaking through into the big time. As the novel opens he is travelling by Tube to London's O2 stadium where he will be performing as warm up artist for a more established star. The news is already full of stories about a strange disease which is starting to take hold across the capital. Known as 'The Sweats', it manifests itself as a form of severe flu, and has been spreading through the city and beyond with great pace. McFall notices some likely sufferers on the Tube, and feels vague alarm at the prospect of being stuck underground with so many other people.

The show passes off fairly well but, following a bizarre yet utterly plausible series of circumstances, McFall finds himself out on the streets of Greenwich in the early hours of the morning, very drunk and without any money or his mobile phone. Drifting in and out of consciousness he suddenly finds himself witness to an attempted rape of a young woman. He intervenes and beats up the attacker, butis discovered with the unconscious and wounded woman and is mistaken for the attacker himself.

He is arrested, remanded and consigned to the 'vulnerable prisoners' wing of Pentonville Prison where he is paired with the mysterious and imposing Jeb Soames. Meanwhile the Sweats continue to wreak havoc, including within the prison where inmates and guards fall prey to its relentless grasp. Magnus and Jeb decide they have to escape, though that will be more easily said than done.

Welsh captures the horror of being trapped by the invisible but omnipresent disease excellently, as she did in the previous book. The disintegration of society is complete and precipitate, and Magnus and Jeb experience a succession of horrors as they venture abroad. She also manages to blend a variety of different literary genres - a prison story, a murder mystery and the overarching theme of the breakdown of society and the frail threads by which our humanity is retained.

I didn't feel quite as strongly bound to this novel as I did to 'A Lovely Way to Burn', but it was still very gripping and entertaining.

89. The Budapest Protocol by Adam LeBor.

This was one of those serendipitous discoveries. I had never heard of this novel, or its author Adam LeBor, and came across it entirely by chance, spotting it in the middle of a list of recommendations thrown up by Amazon. Being a reckless sort of chap at heart I threw caution to the wind and stumped up the necessary 99 pence with scarcely a moment's hesitation, and found myself reaping heavy dividends.

The encomia cited in the publisher's blurb compared it to le Carre at his finest. I am not sure that is really true. That is not a judgement on its quality but it operates in a wholly different milieu to le Carre. To my mind it was more like Charles Cumming or with shades of upper-end Alistair MacLean thrown in.

Alex Farkas is a British journalist living in Budapest, where his family had originally come from, and working on an English language weekly newspaper. As the novel opens Budapest is the scene of the first stage of campaigning for elections for the European Presidency, and the two leading candidates are in Hungary to outline their respective manifestos. One of the candidates is an Austrian academic, known for his right wings views and in particular some injudicious comments about the numbers of immigrants seeking entry into the European Union, and dismissive remarks about the Gypsy and Roma communities located around the eastern fringes of the EU.

While the candidates are pursuing their respective campaigns, the fragile coalition in Hungary teeters beyond sustainability, and a bloodless constitutional coup sees a new, far right government taking over. Meanwhile, Alex and his colleagues hear alarming stories about strange goings-on among Hungary's own Roma community.

LeBor (himself a journalist) manages all the threads of the story adroitly, with fascinating insight into the workings of a foreign news agency. All in all, a very enjoyable and engaging read.

90. The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke.

This is one of Arthur C Clarke's finest novels, up there with 'Rendezvous With Rama' and 'The Ghost From The Grand Banks'. As always his characters are both immensely plausible and utterly empathetic, and his plots are intricately constructed and wholly believable.

The principal protagonist is this novel, set in the mid twenty-second century by which time Earth has already colonised the Moon, Mercury and Mars, is Vannever (Van) Morgan, one of the world's leading civil and structural engineers most renowned for having designed the Gibraltar Bridge. Morgan's current dream is a space elevator, stretching from the isle of Taprobane (a scarcely disguised Sri Lanka) up to the outer reaches of the atmosphere, 25,000 miles in geo-synchronous orbit, using the newly-minted hyper-filament technology.

To achieve this feat he has to overcome opposition in the form of a centuries-old community of Buddhist monks established in a 2000 year old monastery at the faith's most sacred site. Meanwhile Clarke gives us some of the history of the ancient kingdom of Taprobane (incorporating a potted but scintillating history of pre-Medieval Ceylon).

Clarke is not merely a master of the technologies (real and imaginary) with which his characters grapple; he also manages, seemingly effortlessly, to develop flawless plots suffused with totally credible human interests. His work has been one of the most compelling arguments to show that science fiction can also be worthy of the term "literary fiction". An accomplished scientist as well as a masterful writer.

91. Mr Mercedes by Stephen King.

The last book that I read by Stephen King was '22-11-63', and that was the first of his books that I had read for more than twenty years. I had only been rather lukewarm about that one, and embarked upon this one with a certain trepidation.

Such concerns proved totally unfounded. This is a fine crime novel, with no hint of the supernatural. It does, however, feature King's trademark of immediately plausible characters, and his potent ear for realistic dialogue, and the plotting showed the tightness of the best of his earlier works.

Former detective Bill Hodges is a few months into his retirement, and is conscious that he is sinking into a state of torpor regulated by daytime television and junk food. Despite having enjoyed a largely successful career he still broods over a few of the cases that he was not able to resolve, and the perpetrators who escaped. Foremost among these is the 'Mercedes Killer' a maniac who had deliberately driven a stolen SL500 into a queue of people waiting to attend a job fair. Eight had been killed outright and many more had been injured.

However, Hodges is jolted out of his indolence when he receives a letter from someone claiming to have been the driver on that day, taunting the detective and seeming almost to cajole him into committing suicide. Hodges is spurred by this to start reconsidering the investigation into the calamity, and finds himself drawn into a challenging cat and mouse contest against the killer.

King maintains the tension superbly - that has, after all, been the characteristic of all his work, and his ability to persuade the reader to suspend disbelief is as powerful as ever. This was one of the most gripping books I have read this year.

92. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey.*

I should, in the interests of transparency, declare an interest before proceeding to review this wonderful book.

Back in the mists of time, while I was an undergraduate at Leeds University, Professor Tom Shippey was my tutor and had the thankless task of trying to guide me through the beauties and mysteries of Old English and Old Icelandic literature. His lectures were marvellous: engaging, entertaining and highly memorable, and a lot of my friends studying completely different subjects used to file in for his weekly performance.

This book picks up where his lectures left off. Shippey has been a lifelong admirer of J R R Tolkien's work: not just 'The Lord of the Rings' and associated books, but also his researches in the fields of medieval literature and comparative philology. As far as Tolkien was concerned there was no significant gulf between the two spheres. He initially started writing about Middle-Earth to create a world to set the different languages that he had created.

The works were deeply rooted in Tolkien's own background. Though born in South Africa, he passed most of his childhood in Warwickshire, living in the suburbs of Birmingham. This is reflected in the landscape of The Shire. There are, of course, some startling, but deliberate, anachronisms. While Middle-Earth equates to a late middle ages, the hobbits love tobacco, and while lost in the wilderness Sam Gamgee tries to convince Smeagol/Gollum about the wonders of the potato, or 'taters' as he puts it. Tolkien himself, like Sam and Pippin, was known to be partial to a few pints of strong beer while he sucked away at his pipe.

Professor Shippey takes the reader in fascinating, though never overpowering, detail to show how Tolkien applied his wealth of learning to endow his novels with layer after layer of historical references, all of which add to the verisimilitude. Each of the different races encountered in 'The Lord of the Rings' have distinct but linguistically plausible languages which offer hints to a prior history. Their names resonate with philological clues. For instance, the language and history of the people of Rohan are modelled on those of the Anglo Saxons, while the dwarves' language shows deep traces of Old Norse.

Professor Shippey also offers a fascinating comparison between Denethor, Steward of Gondor, and Theoden, King of Rohan. The former appears the more imposing of the two, though he is merely holding the throne in trust against the return of the king. Theoden, while initially seen as frail and in thrall to his fay counsellor Grima, is the genuine article: a king in his own right and scion of a noble house, and he dies heroically, slain in battle surrounded by his men. Denethor, on the other hand, all but surrenders and chooses self-immolation rather than seeing the conflict through to its conclusion.

Perhaps this work is more particularly aimed at students of medieval literature rather than the mainstream Tolkien fans, but it is utterly enthralling.

But you make it sound so wonderful that even those of us who are just mainstream Tolkein fans want to read it!

You're very kind.

Professor Shippey was a class act. Steeped in erudition and capable of conveying very complex ideas in an immediately accessible and entertaining way without ever making his audience feel patronised.

Yes, Ian, it does sound interesting and I am only a very mainstream Tolkien reader.

I think you might particularly appreciate some of the linguistic analysis, John.

93. Guns, Germs and Steel: The fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.*

Jared Diamond has pulled off a startling amalgamation of Bill Bryson's 'Short History of Nearly Everything' and Jacob Bronowski's 'The Ascent of Man'. He writes with great clarity and illuminates a number of turning points while seeking to explain why some societies around the world achieved ascendancy over others.

Diamond's principal hypothesis is that until around 11,000 BC all of the fledgling societies scattered around the globe were on a roughly equal footing, struggling to get by as hunter-gatherers. From that time onwards, different groups started to move towards a more structured mode of agriculture featuring the domestication of livestock and the ability to regulate arable crops. Throughout the book he stops to ask why it was that the European nations colonised Afria, Asia and the Americas, rather than the other way around. Why were those European states able to establish their supremacy?

The dreadful impact of diseases prevalent among Europeans upon the new societies that they encountered throughout the New World and Australasia is well documented. Diamond asserts that some of that contagion was initially contracted from the livestock that formed the basis of their sustaining agriculture. Diamond explores these issues with a mixture of history, archaeology and anthropology, drawing evidence from all around the world.

These are not areas that I know much, if anything, about, and I found Diamond's book completely engrossing. I might question some of his conclusions, but they are all soundly constructed, and liable to provoke lively debate.

94. In Your Face by Scarlett Thomas.

I understand that Scarlett Thomas has more or less disowned her first three novels which feature the investigations undertaken by Lily Pascale, plucky and engaging lecturer in crime fiction. I can't think why. I would have thought that anyone would be very proud to have written this book and its predecessor, 'Dead Clever'.

'In Your face' is certainly very different from her more recent novels such as 'Our Tragic Universe', 'The Seed Collectors' and 'The End of Mr Y', and does not quite match up to their pitch of excellence. There is, however, ample scope for a novel to be less marvellous that 'Our Tragic Universe' yet still be very good, and this novel easily manages that.

Ms Thomas seems to excel in creating marvellous female protagonists (and her Meg Carpenter is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time), and Lily Pascale is worthy of their company. In her previous outing she solved the murder of a student whose bodyt was found on the campus of the university at which lily lectures. As this novel opens, she is still being feted for that success, for which she has just received a reward of £20,000 which will have major implications for her lifestyle, supporting her imminent purchase of a more reliable car and her move to new accommodation.

Out of the blue she receives a phone call from Jess, someone whom she knew as an undergraduate but with whom she has no contact since. Jess is an aspiring freelance journalist, and she is terrified because the three women whose experiences of stalking she cited in a magazine feature have all been killed on the same day (which was, indeed, the day on which her article was published). She persuades Lily to help her and they agree to meet in a couple of days. When lily goes to Jess's house, she has disappeared, and the police are searching for her as a possible suspect in the three murders.

Lily Pascale is resourceful and perceptive, and Thomas keeps the actions m oving swiftly along, without ever compromising plausibility. Great plotting and characterisation help, and Lily emerges once again as an exceptionally likeable and believable character. I wish Ms Thomas would change her mind about these great books - I would love to know what Lily Pascale is like as she nears middle age.

95. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James.

Every now and again the leading literary critics seem to get together to consider whether they can pull off another emperor's new clothes scam on the reading public. The cover of this book is adorned with numerous plaudits, including one proudly attesting that the book was included on '23 best books of the year' lists. I wonder if they had been reading the same impenetrable text that I found.

In a recent review of James Ellroy's 'Perfidia' I remarked that, as I will probably be dead in twenty years' time, I simply don't have time to waste on books that are deliberately impenetrable abstruse. This novel was an even more blatant offender. Still, I won in the end - I simply left it in the underground train when I alighted, feeling suddenly free of a pernicious burden.

96. NYPD Red by James Patterson.

I have read well over four thousand books since I began listing them, so it is fair to say that I have probably several that are worse than this one, though none leap to mind just at the moment.

I know that James Patterson has been immensely prolific and commercially successful, selling millions of books around the world. Indeed, 'James Patterson' is now really a brand, and he tends to work with collaborators, producing a synopsis of a storyline which a co-writer will then flesh out into a complete novel. I am therefore unsure whether it it Patterson or Marshal Karp who is more to blame for this miserable excrescence of a novel.

The characters are barely even two dimensional and the plots shows absolutely no shame, with no police story cliché knowingly overlooked. I am glad I read this on my Kindle as it would be an outrage for decent trees to have been sacrificed for such unrelenting pap.

I'm not the biggest Tolkien fan, though The Hobbit was the first novel I read as a child that made me feel it was worthwhile to keep reading novels. I read Tolkien and the Great War earlier this year and the sections about his language making were truly fascinating. He was certainly an incredible person.

>154 Eyejaybee: That's a great benefit of paper books, being able to physically leave them behind somewhere, vs just deleting them from a device.

97. Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach.

I had high hopes for this novel, having read a few books by Deborah Moggach, but was disappointed. Ms Moggach had clearly undertaken a huge amount of research about seventeenth century Amsterdam. Sadly, I was left wishing that she had devoted a similar amount of effort to constructing a gripping story. The tulip mania of the title is merely obliquely hinted at throughout the first half of the novel, and by the time it started to feature in the plot I imagine most readers would have subsided into catatonia.

The plot, such as it it, revolves around Cornelis, a prosperous elderly merchant and his beautiful young wife Sophia. Cornelis commissions Jan, an aspiring artist, to paint their portrait with all too predictable consequences. There are glimpses of why I have enjoyed some of her other books, with an interesting sub-plot involving Sophia and her maid Maria, but it was rather too flimsy to rescue the novel.

A poor man's 'Girl with the Pearl Earring'.

98. A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd.

What a brilliant novel! I first read it in the early 1980s, perhaps not long after it was first published, and thought it was marvellous. Thirty years later it still seems just as entertaining, with a dazzling mix of humour and tragedy, with a healthy dose of parody of the overwhelming self-satisfaction and unassailable rectitude of European diplomats in post-colonial West Africa.

Morgan Leafy, the central figure, is a brilliant creation. Dissolute, lazy and prey to rampant frustration, he spends most of his days struggling to get by doing as little as he can get away with. (I wonder why I identify with him so well!) He is, however, a decent man at heart, though for most of the book he finds little opportunity to demonstrate his inner qualities.

Life has not gone to plan for Morgan. As the novel opens he is in his third year in Nkongsamba , a quiet region in the hinterland of Kinjanja, an independent West African state that until recently had been under British suzerainty. He works for the odious Arthur Fanshawe who represents all the hidebound attitudes and prejudices that proliferated in the 1970s. Morgan is sinking into ever deeper despair: he is being blackmailed by an ambitious and relentlessly corrupt local politician, the woman whom he had had visions of marrying has just announced her engagement to his younger, better looking junior colleague, and he has contracted gonorrhoea. And then things start to get worse …

Boyd relates the story with his customary pellucid, gripping prose. This was his first novel but he seemed to hit mid-season form almost immediately. Morgan Leafy is not a particularly nice man, but Boyd conjures huge empathy for him as everything seems to go wrong. Corruption abounds. The High Commission is far from blameless in its interventions in local elections, but then most (though not all) of the local politicians are equally opportunistic with an eye on their financial gains rather than the interests of their long suffering electorate. .Overall the novel is exceptionally funny though there are also moments of great poignancy and sensitivity, and even Morgan manages to rise to some occasions and act for the greater good.

This was a fine start to what has proved to be an illustrious writing career.

99. Seaside by Scarlett Thomas.

I remember that the old New Musical Express used to have a regular feature highlighting dreadful lyrics from rock songs. I remember that virtually every week the list would include 'Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby ….' quoted from a different song by The Cult each time. More relevantly, one that I recall as being particularly bizarre was from Thin Lizzy's song 'Suicide' on the 'Live and Dangerous' album:
The papers called it suicide,
A bullet from a forty-five,
Nobody cared, nobody cried,
Don't that make you want to boogie …'

The triumphant third outing for Lily Pascale features another unusual twist on suicide. As the novel opens the body of a beautiful girl is found with her wrists slashed. Police initially consider it as a suicide as there is a note signed by Laura Carter. The only problem is that the dead girl was one of identical twins (and they were exceptionally similar in appearance, capable of fooling close acquaintances and even each other's boyfriends), and the surviving girl is adamant that she is actually Laura.
Fresh for solving her previous two cases, Lily Pascale is commissioned to investigate this mystery, and to determine which of the girls is actually dead.

Like all of Scarlett Thomas's female protagonists, Lily is a fascinating and appealing character, eminently plausible and empathetic. Smart and witty, she has her flaws, but they merely bolster her verisimilitude. The plot is beguiling but watertight, and it holds the reader's attention effortlessly. All in all, a very entertaining book. I think it is a shame that Ms Thomas seems to have disowned this trilogy of novels. While they may not be on a par with her excellent later works, they bring her nothing but credit.

100. Sweet Caress by William Boyd.

This was the hundredth book I have read this year, and probably the finest book I have read so far this century. All too often recently I have looked forward to the latest book from a favourite author, only to be woefully disappointed when it finally arrives. I even felt a little trepidation after buying this book last week, though I really should have known better. William Boyd delivers in spades, as he always does.

Over the years Boyd has shown great skill at creating fictional memoirs that read as convincingly as the genuine article. His two previous novels in that mode, the awesome 'Any Human Heart' and the sadly underrated 'The New Confessions', chronicled the lives of a failed novelist and a First World War veteran turned film director. Both were so finely crafted, featuring utterly plausible encounters with finely drawn historical figures, that it was difficult at times not to believe that they were genuine memoirs. Indeed, 'Any Human Heart' even included numerous footnotes (though never with the clumsiness that so often characterises Paul Auster's novels) and an index. I could all too readily believe in Logan Mounstuart, and I would have enjoyed reading his collected works.

In 'Sweet Caress' Boyd has eclipsed even these two masterpieces. Amory Clay is born in 1908, the eldest daughter of Beverley Clay, another failed novelist (though without Logan Mountstuart's brio, self delusion or zest for life), and brought up in moderate affluence in a large house in Sussex. From an early age, guided by her uncle, she showed an interest, bordering on a passion, in photography. Photographs from different stages of her life adorn the book, further adding to the autobiographical verisimilitude. Her father has a difficult war, returning with what would nowadays readily be diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder; back then he was initially just left to get on with life as best he could.

Boyd delivers the novel in what has almost become his trademark, with lengthy stretches of narrative covering the actions of the past, interspersed with reflections by the character as they look back on the various chapters of their life. This worked well in both 'Any Human Heart' and 'Restless', his slick redefinition of the spy novel, and suits this work admirably.

Amory Clay faces a vast array of travails as she struggles to establish herself as a photographer, struggling to escape beyond the cloying world of popular magazines and photographs of socialites attending balls. The clarity with which she recalls her early difficulties are reminiscent of Eva's story in 'Restless'. We are taken to Berlin during the Weimar period, followed by a return to Britain during the late 19309s when she encounters the abortive rise of Oswald Mosley's Union of British Fascists, before she moves to America where she is still living when the Second World War breaks out. Partially to resolve an increasingly difficult personal life she returns to Europe to run a press agency for American magazines before succeeding in becoming accredited as a war photographer.

Boyd writes beautifully. There is nothing flashy about his prose but he sucks the reader in, and before you know it you have got through sixty pages and don't want to put the book down even for a moment. The plausibility of all of his characters is flawless, and the story never loosens its grip on the reader. I found myself facing the eternal quandary set by a great book - my desperation to find out how the story ends was matched only by my disappointment at having now finished it, though I am pretty confident that I will be reading it again very soon.

The final few pages, one of Amory Clay's reflective passages written in her cottage on a Scottish island, are among the most powerful I have ever read: chilling, tragic and painful, yet also tinged with hope. They reminded me of the last pages of Emily St John Mandel's 'Last Night in Montreal', though even more moving.

Congratulations on reaching 100!

Thank you. It has been a good year for books: a few blips and poor choices along the way but overall a very enjoyable collection of books. It was nice to bring up the hundred with such a marvellous book.

Definitely great to have the 100th be such a great read. I wasn't familiar with Boyd, but he's definitely on my list now.

101. The Geneva Option by Adam LeBor.

This was almost a very good book, on a par with Lebor's previous novel, 'The Budapest Protocol' (to which this occasionally makes oblique reference). Its protagonist, Yael Azoulay, is a heady mixture of Madeleine Albright and Wonder Woman with a pinch of Mata Hari thrown in for good measure. Unfortuantely the resultant melange in not as alluring as it should be one might expect, and the initial appeal soon starts to wear off. The roving deal-broker, working directly at the behest of the Secretary General, is transformed into house-breaker, would-be escort and ninja assassin.

Having started well, with early chapters illuminating possible scandal with the higher reaches of the United nation (sadly, all too plausible), it veered off into all too fanciful lines. I am generally happy to collude with the writer and suspend my disbelief, but there are limits, and this book transgressed them.

I understand that this is the first of a series but, although I enjoyed this sufficiently to complete the book, I don't think I will be bothering with any of its successors.

102. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth.*

This book demonstrates that Frederick Forsyth is, undoubtedly a very clever man who has had an interesting and exciting life, though there was something oddly stilted and almost antiseptic about it. Although he describes some intriguing events, the whole delivery is entirely lacking in any emotional engagement.

I have never quite known what to make of Forsyth's novels. I enjoyed his early work, though I found that the further he moved from stories with a strong basis in fact, the weaker his novels became. His first book, which made his name and sealed his fortune, was 'The Day of the Jackal', a barely fictionalised account of an attempt to assassinate President De Gaulle in the early 1960s. That book was immensely successful, and held the reader's attention in a vice-like grasp as it detailed, step by step, how the assassin secured a false passport, smuggled rifles across closely guarded borders and changed his appearance. 'The Dogs of War', his third novel, was essentially a manual on how to conduct a coup in a central African state during the 1970s. In both books, Forsyth relied upon information he had gained during his extensive career as a journalist to generate a taut plot which he followed without any diversion to develop his characters' personality. The focus was on action and planning, and in both cases the approach worked well.

He did, however, move away from fictionalising real events, and that was when his inability to create compelling and empathetic characters (or even entirely plausible ones) began to emerge. One might have thought, therefore, that when he moved to describing the real events of his own life, he would be back in mid-season form, securing the breathless engagement of 'The Day of The Jackal.' With so much exciting material at his disposal one might reasonably have expected to be rapt, reluctant to put the book down. Sadly, it never came close.

As I have said, Forsyth was clearly very clever, excelling at school and especially gifted at learning languages. From the age of five he had a clear idea that he wanted to become a fighter pilot, and to pursue this dream he even turned his back on the offer of a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge. Following his departure from the RAF he became a journalist, working firstly in East Anglia and then securing a posting with Reuters that was to enable him to travel widely throughout the world, and offer him the inspiration for some of his earlier work. The places that he visited, the conflicts that he witnessed and the people whom he met should have made this account engrossing but, owing to the peculiarities of his prose style it came across as if he was listing some mundane activities that had been recounted to him by someone he met on a bus.

103. Glide Path by Arthur C. Clarke.

This is one of Arthur C Clarke's earliest novels, and his only one that isn't science fiction. It draws heavily on Clarke's own experiences in the R.A.F during the Second World War. From his teenage years he had been obsessed with radio transmission and he was able to put this to good use in his role as Scientific Officer at a number of airbases supporting the maintenance and operation of their radar installations.

Even this early in his career, Clarke is already showing signs of his facility as a storyteller. His protagonist, Alan Bishop, finds himself transferred to an airbase in Cornwall where he encounters the ultra-secret Ground Controlled Descent system, a development from the early radar machines which would enable ground-based staff to 'talk down' pilots returning from missions in poor weather of limited visibility. Clarke captures the life of the airbase vividly - Bishop's war is not one fraught with excitement. Instead, he finds himself working hard, with limited opportunity to relax.

There are, though, some humorous vignettes. Bishop finds himself on the fringes of a pale imitation of a house of ill repute just as it is being raided by the police, though they are actually there to investigate allegations of hoarding of rationed food (a cardinal sin during Britain's darkest war privations).

While not a work of science fiction, there is a fair amount of science hovering in the background, but as ever Clarke is careful not to frighten the layman. This is not the most memorable of his books, and it does now seem rather dated, but it still offers a very enjoyable read.

104. Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood.

Christopher Isherwood is now best remembered for his stories set in Berlin during the demise of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis. This book, the novella 'Sally Bowles' and the collection of stories published as 'Goodbye to Berlin' inspired John van Druten's play, 'I Am a Camera' which in turn inspired the memorable 'Cabaret' which so poignantly captured the simultaneous decadence and political volatility of Berlin in the early 1903s.

The book is narrated by William Bradshaw, a young Cambridge graduate who has moved to Berlin where he survives by teaching English to a succession of pupils. On the train from The Hook of Holland he meets and befriends Arthur Norris, a larger than life opportunist who has been living off his wits in Berlin for some years. Norris is a superb creation, a cheery amalgam of Arthur Daley, Falstaff and Mr Pickwick. At first sight cripplingly effete, he is on occasion prepared to live fairly dangerously, though he also suffers from a crippling squeamishness about some of the bleaker realities of life. Like Pickwick, he is slave to an incurable vanity about his appearance, thinning his eyebrows three times a week and revelling in his selection of wigs. I don't, however, recall Pickwick being addicted to robust flagellation delivered by a red-booted dominatrix (though perhaps it's just that my school favoured a bowdlerised version of Dickens's novel to protect our simple country boy innocence).

The novel is clearly drawn from Isherwood's own experiences, catalogued more factually (though less entertainingly) in his memoirs 'Christopher and His Kind'. Interestingly, while the character remains essentially unchanged, William Bradshaw does indeed become Christopher Isherwood in the subsequent stories.

He pulls off a masterly performance. The story is by turns hilarious, sad and chilling, against the backdrop of bitter streetfights between the Nazis and the Communists, with episodes of ghastly anti-semitism in the background. Bradshaw relates the story in a manner similar to Nick Jenkins in Anthony Powell's saga 'A Dance to the Music of Time'. Although he tells the story, we learn almost nothing about him apart from the odd hint gleaned from other characters' passing comments. Events happena round him rather than to him, but his observation is clear and wry.

Isherwood writes with an attractive simplicity - his prose is clear and engaging, and a joy to read.

105. The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach.

I don't have much to say about this boom. I read von Schirach's previous novel, 'The Collini Case' which started well but subsided into an all too predictable denouement. I found that this one didn't even start very well.

This book was emotionally stark and stylistically bereft, and I am confident that this will be the last of his books I dally with.

106. From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet by Vikram Seth.

Before going on to write 'A Suitable Boy', probably the longest novel in English since Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela', and 'An Equal music' (the finest novel about music that I have read) Vikram Seth had enjoyed a lengthy and cosmopolitan career as a student. After studying in his native India he pursued postgraduate study in England and then California, before moving on to Nanking University in China in 1982.

Having embarked on an officially sponsored tour of some of Western China Seth became obsessed with the possibility of visiting Tibet, and travelling from there to Nepal and then on home to India. Tibet has the status of 'autonomous region ' but travel there required formally endorsed permits. Seth's struggle to obtain the appropriate certification proves almost as difficult as the journey itself.

Seth never quite resolves his doubts about China, and spends much of his journey comparing life there with conditions back in India. Most of his journey is spent in the cramped cabin of a large lorry, except when he is delayed by dreadful floods, or sinking into mud having deviated only slightly from the marked trail.

The writing is sparse (though he was still very young and yet to establish himself as a writer), and Seth never quite manages to stir the reader's fascination

107. One Last Lesson by Iain Cameron.

I suppose I really ought to know better by now. There is generally a reason why Amazon offer some books for just £0.99, and I shouldn't keep falling for them.

This was close to being a decent novel but it just fell short on too many counts: the basic plot was sound but the characterisation was rather hackneyed, and the dialogue was chronically stilted. Apparently this is the first of a series of novels, but I think I shall be steering clear of the rest of them, no matter how cheaply Amazon might offer them.

I've picked up some great books in the Kindle 99p deals, but there is a lot of tat out there too, it must be said. But for me the availability of the former outweighs the risks of the latter.

Congratulations for Surpassing the goal!

Thank you. It has been a pretty good reading year over all, with just s few blips along the way.

108. A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell.

This is the opening volume in Anthony Powell's celebrated twelve novel, largely autobiographical sequence "A Dance to the Music of Time", recounted by Nicholas Jenkins, a barely disguised cipher for Powell himself.

Let me first declare an interest. I have read this sequence many times before, and have been writing (for what seems like several years) a detailed analysis of it and other "romans fleuves" (including Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu", C. P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" and Simon Raven's "Alms for Oblivion"), so I am rather biased.

The first thing to say is that this is not a novel in which much actually happens, though the portrayals of characters and the observations of their interactions are acute and highly entertaining. "A Question of Upbringing" introduces us to Jenkins himself (though one of the most striking aspects of the whole sequence is how relatively little we ever seem to learn about Jenkins/Powell) along with several characters who will feature throughout the rest of the canon.

It opens in the early 1920s with Jenkins attending a school (clearly Eton, though never formally identified as such) where his closest confreres are Charles Stringham and Peter Templer, with whom Jenkins strikes up close bonds. Stringham, who comes from a wealthy but broken home, leaves the school early on in the book, going off to East Africa to spend some time with his estranged father. Jenkins and Templer remain at the school a bit longer until Templer also departs. Other notable characters to whom we are introduced in this section include Le Bas, a querulous yet also long-suffering schoolmaster with aesthetic aspirations, and Widmerpool, a slightly older pupil than Jenkins and his friends, who is notable principally for his lack of conformity.

As the story moves on we join Jenkins on a visit to Templer's home where he is introduced to Jean, Templer's sister, with whom he promptly falls in (unrequited) love and Sunny Farebrother, a seemingly down-at-heel ex-soldier who is trying to carve out a career in The City. After leaving Templer's home Jenkins spends a few weeks in France, ostensibly to learn the language, and re-encounters Widmerpool with whom he develops a stronger acquaintance than had been possible at school. Finally he moves on to Oxford where he studies history. Here we meet Sillery, a politically active don, Mark Members, a self-appointed aesthete, and Quiggin, a "professional" northerner with highy radical views. Stringham reappears, back from his Kenyan sojourn.

The summary above completely fails to do justice to the beauty of the writing (the first four pages are among the most marvellous excerpts of prose I have encountered), the acute observation of the interaction of people of different classes, and the muted humour. This novel also sets the slightly melancholic tone that underpins much of the sequence, though Powell never allows this to become oppressive. A beautiful opening to an engrossing sequence.

109. One River by Wade Davis*.

I am struggling to decide how to summarise this powerful book. At one level it seamlessly combines anthropology, history, geography and ethnobotany, with sprinklings of pharmacology, shamanism and politics thrown in. It is, however, also a powerful personal memoir of Timothy Plowman. a close friend of the author and widely acknowledged giant of the world of ethnobotany.

In the late 1960 and early 1970s Davis was a student of Professor Richard Schultes who was at that time the world's leading authority on the hallucinogens and medicinal plants to be found in the Amazon Basin. In the 1940s he had wandered into the upper reaches of the Amazon and more or less disappeared for about twelve years. During that time he lived with local tribes and experienced numerous shamanistic rites. He returned to his academic life in Harvard twelve years later with a wealth of material and virtually created the discipline of ethnobotany.

Though principally an anthropologist himself, Davis became one of Schultes's inner circle, and consequently became acquainted with Plowman, whom Schultes had earmarked as his successor. Plowman spent most of his time retracing Schultes's footsteps, collecting thousands of specimens of plant life and exploring their hallucinogenic properties. (This was long before Colombia became established as the centre of illegal cocaine farming on the industrial scales of today.) Davis travelled south to join Plowman, and much of the book is devoted to recounting their travels.

Davis writes with great lucidity and has a great facility for conveying complex ideas with an easy clarity than even the most ignorant of laymen (i.e. me) can readily understand. He also adds a lot of historical insight along the way, making this an immensely interesting and informative book.

110. Goodfellowe MP by Michael Dobbs.

Tom Goodfellowe emerges throughout this novel as that rare thing in the public perception, an MP who is driven by his conscience.

We first meet him cycling to The House where he has been summoned on a three line whip to support the Government in a series of parliamentary votes. The majority is slim, and members have been either cajoled or threatened to ensure they turn out. Goodfellowe is now a backbencher but not long before he had been a Minister, and had been tipped for a golden future. Following a combination of personal tragedy and crass misjudgement he had lost his way, his ministerial post and his driving licence.

For various reasons Goodfellowe finds himself missing several of the votes that evening, being summoned on a mission of mercy to help a young Chinese woman, one of his neighbours, who has been arrested as a consequence of a rather farcical series of events. The events following on from Goodfellowe's intervention will prove to be cataclysmic, and Goodfellowe will find his path crossing that of Frederick Corsa, press magnate and would-be power broker.

Dobbs knows his parliamentary turf very well, having been an adviser to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and he portrays the Machiavellian dealings of party whips with the same verve that he brought to his famous 'House of Cards' novels. Although this both was written almost twenty years ago, it has a searing topicality, dealing with issues of press intrusion in private life, MPs' expenses and outside interests and over-zealous lobbying.

Very entertaining!

I will have to look into Wade Davis more at some point. I have a bit of a grudge against him as we were assigned The Serpent and the Rainbow for my last year of high school. It was such a "What the hell is going on!" book for all of us (not to mention the insane movie), and not something that agreed with most of our mental states.

<177. Hi Mabith. I haven't read anything else by him, though I know that one of my work colleagues was very impressed by his biography of Mallory the mountaineer.

111. A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin.

Rebus is back and this time it's personal!

There was a certain poignancy about re-reading this novel which opens with the immediate aftermath of a gunman entering a prestigious private school and killing two pupils and wounding another before turning his weapon on himself as news broke of yet another mass-shooting on an American campus, this time in Roseburg, Oregon. On the other hand, that is now such a frequent occurrence that almost any time I might have revisited this novel would have clashed with such an outrage.

The gunman was identified as Lee Herdman, a readily-recognised figure around South Queensferry where he owned a motor boat and gave water skiing lessons and took tourists for trips around the various islets in the Firth of Forth at breakneck speed. After news of the killings broke it very soon emerged that Herdman was an ex-soldier and had, in fact, been a member of the SAS. Very soon the killings are being described as a combat veteran 'losing his marbles' or 'throwing a maddie'.

It is not Rebus's case but he is pressed to assist the investigation in view of his own experiences in the army, and his (failed) attempt many years before to join the SAS. He is, however, beset with other problems. His hands have been hideously scalded, leaving him virtually helpless and unable to perform even the simplest of manual tasks. Meanwhile, a small-time criminal who had been stalking Rebus's colleague Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke and making her life a misery, is found burnt to death in his own home, having been seen drinking with Rebus earlier that evening. It doesn't take the senior management team at Lothian and Borders Police long to add two and two together, though it is not clear whether they are making four or five. In the meantime, he and Clarke are helping out with the school killing, uncovering a morass of tensions within the school and among the pupils' families.

This novel features all of Rankin's customary skill. The descriptions of Edinburgh are as clear and haunting as ever, and the two glorious bridges seem to loom over South Queensferry in a menacing way. There are several subplots, all of which are dextrously managed, and the characters are as plausible as ever.

112. The Northmen's Fury by Philip Parker.*

This book offers a history of the Viking world, and plots the growth and then diaspora of the various sub-groups encompassed by that term. They certainly made extensive forays, reaching eastwards into Russia, and even reaching Istanbul (known to them as Mikkelgard), while also reaching south to Normandy and Brittany, and southwest to Britain. Their voyages westwards are noiw well documented, though this account places greater emphasis than many on the failed colonisation of Greenland.

Parker has clearly researched his work deeply, and makes extensive use of the wealth of literary sources from Old and Middle English, Old Icelandic and Middle High German.

I felt, however, that his account seemed very dry. Considering the fascinating subject matter, he seemed to wring out any sense of excitement or wonder, and reduced his story to a very flat series of descriptions of rais, casualties and thefts.

113. Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin .

This was Inspector Rebus's second foray into the world of politics following his earlier brush with the corridors of power in 'Let it Bleed'. This time, the political context is the run up to the elections to the new Scottish Parliament, and Rebus finds himself with three mysteries to investigate

As part of the preparations Rebus has been co-opted onto the Police and Parliament Liaison Committee, more as a means of keeping him out of trouble than because of any deep political insight he might bring to the role. During one of the meetings of that Committee the members are shown around Queensberry House which will, when refurbished, house some of the parliamentary proceedings until the new, purpose built home is finished. During their tour of Queensberry House the Committee party discover a corpse hidden in one of the rooms that is undergoing renovation.

Shortly afterwards, a homeless man plummets to his death at Waverley Station. Among his meagre possessions is a building society passbook that shows his account had a balance of over £400,000.

Roddy Grieve, New Labour candidate for one of the Edinburgh constituencies in the first Scottish parliament is fond murdered, not far from the building site at Queensberry House. Grieve is a member of a prominent Scottish family: his elder brother is a Conservative MP at Westminster, his mother is a celebrated artist, and his sister was a leading model in the 1970s and is married to a successful progressive rock star. Their brothjer Alastair went missing some twenty years earlier.

As always, the city of Edinburgh itself looms as a significant character in the story, and Rankin captures the atmosphere perfectly. This time, in addition to his own demons (and there are enough of them to be going on with), Rebus has to contend with Derek Linford, a fast-track wonder boy based at Fettes, headquarters of Lothian and Borders Police, who, as a fellow member of the Liaison Committee, is assigned to the investigation of the murder of Roddy Grieve and, though equal only in rank to Rebus, nominally put in charge.

The political context is important, and Rankin plays it well, with Rebus frequently thinking back to the referendum in March 1979, which saw the onset of the fatal cracks in his marriage to Rhona, who had been a passionate advocate of independence.

Longer than its predecessors in the series, for me this book marked Rankin's progression to a writer of serious novels that happened to be about crime, rather than a mere crime novelist.

114. Any Human Heart by William Boyd.

William Boyd's fictional account of the life and times of Logan Mountstuart, man of letters, is fascinating and utterly enthralling. Boyd lays out the story in the form of Mountstuart's journals, completed intermittently throughout his life, and presented with editorial annotations and footnotes.

Mountstuart is born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1906, where his father manages a meat processing firm that produces huge amounts of corned beef of the European market. The family returns to Britain while Logan is still a boy, and Logan is packed off to public school. It is here that the journal opens, shortly after the end of the First World War, with Logan and his classmates and fellow aesthetes Peter Scabius and Ben Leeming set each other challenges to combat the ennui that awaits them during their final year at school.

I detected strong resonances here with the experiences of Charles Stringham, Peter Templer and Nick Jenkins in the opening chapter of Anthony Powell's mammoth and glorious twelve volume sequence, 'A Dance to the Music of Time', and indeed Anthony Powell makes a couple of cameo appearances throughout the novel. There is the same obsession with girls (so rarely encountered in the boys' daily life), and the three boys differing doubts, hopes and aspirations about what the future might hold. It Is fair to say, however, learn a lot more about Mountstuart as narrator of 'Any Human Heart' than we ever do about Nick Jenkins.

The detailed fictional biography is Boyd's metier - a furrow that he had previously ploughed so memorably with 'The New Confessions' (which never really received the recognition it so clearly merits), and yet again with his latest book, 'Sweet Caress'. With 'Any Human Heart' he takes the genre to a new pitch, strewing the work with footnotes and even providing a detailed index: I can readily imagine some readers being convinced that Mountstuart had been a real person.

Mountstuart does get to move in some exalted circles. While a student, in addition to Anthony Powell, he meets Evelyn Waugh, W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood, and collides, petulantly, with Virginia Woolf and her circle. While less assiduous in his history studies than moight have been hoped, Mountstuart find s the time to write a biography of Shelley while still a student, and this is published shortly after his graduation. Shortly thereafter he decamps to Paris where, among other pastimes, he becomes a regular client of an Russian émigrée turned prostitute. These visits will form the basis of his first novel, 'The Girl Factory' which became a runaway success.

Though he will never recapture the commercial success of that novel, Mountstuart finds himself a recognised figure in the wider literary world, and is able to secure numerous journalistic commissions which see him travelling around Europe, and building a name for himself as an art critic. His family life is not without complications but by his late twenties he finds himself married to Lottie, daughter of the Earl of Edgefield and, shortly thereafter, he becomes a father. Domesticity is not easy for Mountstuart, and he finds himself reporting on the Spanish Civil War, drinking with Hemingway and mixing with a variety of roguish figures.

He continues to meet the great and the good including Ian Fleming, with whom he works in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War. He had also, earlier, run across the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and this encounter will have resonances throughout the rest of the novel.

After a chaotic war, Mountstuart subsequently finds himself living in New York and managing an art gallery, then lecturing in English literature in a Nigerian university, before returning to poverty-stricken life in London in the 1970s.

Mountstuart's life has some glorious peaks, yet also features some troughs of utter tragedy, all of which Boyd captures with great plausibility, all helped by the close attention to detail in his historical researches which ensure that the context is always just right.

Enchanting, beguiling and always engrossing.

115. Station Eleven (re-read) by Emily St. John Mandel.

It isn't often that I re-read a book within a few months, but I was very willing to make an exception for this one. I found it marvellous when I read it back in February, and it seemed even better this time around.

I can scarcely remember my first encounter with the post-apocalyptic road story genre. Perhaps it was the BBC television series 'Survivors' which initially enthralled before merely irritating viewers during the late 1970s. Shortly afterwards there was Stephen King's 'The Stand', which lowered the bar a bit further. Cormac McCarthy restored some class to the genre with 'The Road', but it has been to Emily St John Mandel to bring it to its apotheosis with the awesome 'Station Eleven'.

The basic scenario is simple, but chilling. As the novel opens, feted actor Arthur Leander is performing in the title role of 'King Lear' in the Elgin Theatre, Toronto, when he suddenly collapses and, despite the sustained efforts of Jeevan, who yearns to become a paramedic, dies on stage. Arthur is not the only person dying unexpectedly in Toronto that evening. Earlier in the day a plane had landed from Eastern Europe with a number of passengers unaware that they were carrying Georgian Flu. As snow starts to fall, the emergency rooms at the city's hospitals are already filling up with patients in the deeper throes of desperate illness, and the epidemic has already taken hold. The spread and impact of the disease is unstoppable, and within days millions of people around the world are dead, and the fragile foundations of the infrastructure of cohesive civilisation are crumbling.

The action then moves on twenty years and focuses on Kirsten Raymonde who is part of a band of survivors who move around the Great lakes area of North America. There is no society left. All that remains are scattered gatherings of survivors. There is no electricity, and what fuel that remains has gone stale and cannot be used. There is certainly no imposed authority - each settlement has established its own laws and focuses on its own survival. Some of these communities are worse than others, but there are some common factors throughout: outsiders are unwelcome and viewed with suspicion.

Much of the above must sound like fairly customary post-apocalyptic fodder. Where Mandel makes such a difference is in her decision to make Kirsten's band of survivors so different. The group is known as 'The Travelling Symphony' and comprises a selection of musicians and actors who have taken to performing some of the more popular works of classical music and performing Shakespeare's plays. Their motto, taken from an episode of 'Star Trek: Voyager' is 'Mere survival is insufficient'. We subsequently learn that Kirsten had been one of a group of young girls who had actually been in the production of 'King Lear' featuring Arthur Leander.

In fact, in many ways Arthur Leander is the hub around which the whole novel revolves. Although he dies within the first few pages, Mandel fills in much of his life as remembered by other key characters. The story flashes back at various stages to illuminate the earlier life of some of the characters, and Mandel interlaces the story with terrific dexterity. Her language is amazing, too. She manages to combine a ferocious clarity with moments of poetic beauty. The title of the novel is a reference to a comic series featured in two books that are among Kirsten's most prized possessions from before the demise. There is a complex and moving back story involving these comics which lend a spellbinding further dimension to the novel.

When I reviewed this novel earlier in the year I bemoaned the fact that it was unlikely that I would read anything else quite so good throughout the rest of the year. I have indeed been fortunate enough to read some excellent books since then, but I think this si still my book of the year so far.

116. The Buddha of Brewer Street by Michael Dobbs.

I was very disappointed by this second volume in the chronicles of Thomas Goodfellowe MP. Its predecessor, simply called 'Goodfellowe MP' was very entertaining and offered a salacious insight into the life of a former minister, now consigned to the back benches and struggling to adjust to his reduced status.

This volume was far less assured and revolved around a rather poorly framed, and basically distasteful, plot involving the death of the Dalai Lama. There were some enjoyable scenes in and around the Westminster village, but it was difficult to avoid the feeling that Michael Dobbs had rushed this out at great speed in between writing proper books.

117. Going To Sea In a Sieve by Danny Baker.*

About twenty years ago I used to enjoy Danny Baker's early morning show on BBC Radio 5. He had an entertaining sense of humour and dispersed his autodidactic wisdom with great élan.

I was, therefore, looking forward to this volume of autobiography, though it never quite managed to deliver. There were certainly a lot of amusing stories, and I particularly enjoyed reading about his time working at the famous One Stop record shop in Soho which yielded amusing accounts of meeting Marc Bolan and Queen.

The prose is hurried and seems unfinished. The strongest impression that I received was that Baker had hurriedly jotted down some anecdotes, probably with a view to polishing them for publication later on. It seems, however, that he never got around to doing the polishing and allowed the book out in a decidedly slipshod state.

Certainly very amusing, but not the book it might have been.

118. 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro.*

Nine years ago James Shapiro won the Samuel Johnson Prize for '1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare', and enthralling account of a hectic year for The Bard during which, astoundingly, he wrote 'Julius Caesar', 'Henry V', 'As You Like It' and, as if those three weren't enough to be going on with, 'Hamlet'.

This latest book takes a similar approach with 1606, giving a detailed account of the events of the year and detailing what is known of Shakespeare's contributions to them, and his unflagging output. 1606 would see him writing both 'King Lear' and 'Macbeth'.

The previous year had, of course, been one of major upset, culminating in the Gunpowder Plot and the narrowly averted conspiracy to kill the King and destroy Parliament. Indeed, if the thirty six barrels of gunpowder had exploded the likely death toll would have reached into the thousands. Against that context Shakespeare (who had family connections that reached close to the Gunpowder plot conspirators though his roots in Warwickshire) had to demonstrate mastery of nuance when writing about the assassination of another Scottish King in 'Macbeth'.

Another divisive issue, with strong resonances for the present day, was the question of the Union between England and Scotland. King James was monarch of both (and also claimed both Ireland and France within his demesne) and felt considerable pressure to formalise the union between the two nations. The terms 'United Kingdom' and 'Great Britain' are first recoded during the early years of James's reign, and the Union Flag made its first appearance in 1605.

This was the context against which Shakespeare has the ageing Lear embarking upon the division of his kingdom, with such disastrous consequences. There are oblique references to James's dilemma. Goneril's husband, who eventually (belatedly?) comes good is the Duke of Albany, which was then a frequent cognomen for Scotland. After being rejected by her father, Cordelia marries the King of France, another character who rejects the evil that pervades the whole play.

Shapiro has, for a second time, pulled off the rare feat of producing a work of deep scholarship that is not merely accessible but engrossing for the lay reader. I am already wondering which year he will choose next.

<183 and 186. I hadn't appreciated unti9l I read James Shapiro's 1606 that King Lear was written during an outbreak of the plague. That seems to give an additional synchronicity to the fact that Arthur Leander is starring in Lear when the Georgian flu hits town. I would be interested to know if that was mere coincidence or whether Ms Mandel knew about it.

119. A Decent Interval by Simon Brett.

This book marked the return of Charles Paris after a break of several years during which Simon Brett concentrated on his Fethering series of novels (with alliterative titles such as "The Body on the Beach" and "Murder in the Museum"), Despite the passage of years, Charles Paris remains instantly recognisable as the down-at-heel and rather mediocre journeyman actor (and he hasn't really aged being still in his mid to late fifties) who is, to my mind, Brett's finest creation.

In this outing Charles lands a part (well, two parts, actually) in a production of Hamlet which is scheduled for a tour of provincial theatres around England before a hopefully triumphant run in London's West End. Charles is gratified to have the roles of The Ghost and the First Gravedigger, and is looking forward to an enjoyable spell of work. The title role is, however, to be taken by Jared Root, recent winner of a reality TV singing competition (clearly modelled on the X Factor) while Ophelia is to be played by Katrina Selsy who had landed the part as her prize for winning a similar television competition.

It soon becomes clear that Jared Root can't act at all, while Katrina Selsey has delusions of stardom way beyond her as yet untested talent. Just before the opening night in Marlborough, first stop on the provincial run of the production, part of the stage set falls down, seriously wounding Root. And then Katrina Selsey dies under strange circumstances. Charles decides to investigate.

The Charles Paris novels are always amusing, filled with Brett's insight into the trials and tribulations of an actor's life (exacerbated by Charles's relentless drinking). This latest in the series is well up to standard, and proved most enjoyable.

120. The Martian by Andy Weir.

This is a marvellous novel - science fiction at its finest: imaginative, engaging and at times both hilarious and almost heartbreaking.

Mark Watney is a member of the Ares 3 manned mission to Mars, for which he is both mechanical engineer and botanist. Following a freak storm, Watney is separated from his colleagues, and felled by a spar ripped by the wind from the side of their base. This is propelled at great velocity and hits Watney, knocking him out and, critically, piercing his space suit.

Alerted by their interactive life support systems that Watney's suit has been compromised his colleagues undertake a brief search for him, but can't locate his body. As the storm intensifies they are ordered to evacuate the base and planet by Mission Control back on Earth. Predictably, of course, shortly after their departure Watney comes round and, owing to a slice of immense good fortune, finds that his suit was not compromised after all, and he is able to return to the temporary safety of the base. His position is, however, rather unequivocal, especially as the storm completely nullified the base's communications facilities. As he puts it in the opening line, 'I am pretty much fucked'.

Having taken time to recover form the initial shock and coming to terms with his situation, Watney decides that, while the outlook is certainly bleak, he is not yet defeated. He reviews the supply of food in the base and uncovers twelve potatoes that had been included in the supplies to enable the astronauts to celebrate Thanksgiving in style shortly after their landing. As a supreme botanist, Watney decides to experiment with planting the potatoes in a makeshift garden he rigs up in the base.

He then turns to considering the water supply, in which he is assisted by the ultra high tech specifications of the base. Watney launches into a series of exercises to try to create a further water supply. I am lamentably ignorant of chemistry, but I presume that the various experiments he tries are viable.

The novel is reminiscent of 'Robinson Crusoe' in which Daniel Defoe considered the scientific approach to labour. Here Watney keeps himself busy striving to increase his supply of food and marshalling his water, with a view to trying to survive until the Ares 4 mission might arrive.

This was the first new science fiction novel that I have read for a long time, and it reminded me why I used to enjoy the genre so much.

The Martian was definitely the perfect science fiction novel for my tastes. Good hard science that I could understand pretty easily and realistic space travel (vs life on another planet or aliens).

121. Gorsky by Vesna Goldsworthy.

When I read Emily St John Mandel's 'Station Eleven' early on in the year (I think it may have been back in February), I was worried that the rest of the year might be a literary anticlimax, and that I wouldn't encounter anything else anywhere near as good. Of course, at that point I hadn't read Mandel's own 'Last Night in Montreal' or William Boyd's 'Sweet Caress', and now Vesna Goldsworthy's 'Gorsky' has added some autumnal glory to the year's reading.

While a marvellous novel in its own right, 'Gorsky' is also a glittering homage to 'The Great Gatsby'. Goldsworthy might not quite ascend to Fitzgerald's effortlessly poetic narrative well, who could? I first read 'The Great Gatsby' as part of my A Level English course and even as am emotionally callow Leicestershire lad it was immediately apparent that Fitzgerald's prose was infinitely more poetic than even the best of D H Lawrence's verse, which formed another part of the syllabus but she does often come close. A laudable achievement for any writer, this is altogether more remarkable for Ms Goldsworthy as English is, I believe, her third language.

Gatsby's 1920s dazzling New York and New Jersey is replaced by a twenty first century London peopled by east European émigrés, ranging from Russian multi-millionaires left feeling humble alongside their neighbouring billionaires, Bulgarian former Olympic gymnastics medallists and impoverished Serbians. Nick Carraway has morphed into Nikola "Nick" Kimovic, a Serbian who escaped the troubles of his homeland in the 1990s and wound up in London, working for a pittance in Fynch's antiquarian bookshop in the back streets of Chelsea. Here he first encounters the dazzlingly beautiful Natalia Summerscale who comes in looking for works on Russian art.

Shortly afterwards Ramon Borisovich Gorsky comes into Fynch's and deposits a huge cheque with a request that the shop track down remarkable books to populate the library he is including in the new mansion he is having built in Chelsea, Gorsky is the richest of the superrich Russians who have made London their playground, and Nick gradually fills us in about some of his exotic history. Like Gatsby, no-one really knows where Gorsky came from. He was suddenly there, with his billions behind him, owning properties all around the world and throwing the most amazing parties, attended by society magazine 'A listers' from all over the world (though not always by Gorsky himself).

Like Jay Gatsby, Gorsky is a driven man, one who has achieved limitless commercial success of dubious moral provenance, but one for whom something remains missing, seemingly unattainable despite the wealth and power at his behest. He is in love, and desperate for fulfilment.

Goldsworthy's plotting is immaculate, and the books fairly fizzes along, supported by beautiful descriptions of London: the city is almost a character in its own right (even though it is a London with which I am wholly unfamiliar myself!). She seamlessly mingles a little bit of everything: politics, murder, love, art and social observation, though the melange is managed impeccably.

122. Arcadia by Iain Pears.

Iain Pears wrote two of my favourite novels, 'The Dream of Scipio' and 'Stone's Fall', both of which have historical themes and feature split narratives unfolding at different times. They both worked very well, yielding intriguing and engrossing stories, and I was, therefore, eagerly awaiting this novel.

With 'Arcadia', however, I fear he has overreached himself. There are ten separate stories in the novel, all woven together in an ambitious embroidery. Sadly, for me the experiment failed to work and rather than an intricate and satisfying pattern, I found myself contemplating an inchoate slop of contrived plots.

In many ways 'Arcadia' reminded me of David Mitchell's 'The Bone Clocks' another book to which I had looked forward for a long time only to be disappointed when I finally came to read it. The publishers have even created a mobile phone app to enable readers to keep track of the different threads of the story, which suggests to me that it must be unnecessarily (and unsustainably) complicated. I am all in favour of writers experimenting with form, but they sometimes seem to overlook the basic integrity of their storIy.

123. A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell.

The second volume of Powell's epic roman fleuve opens with the narrator, Nick Jenkins presumably in middle age or beyond, looking through the wares on offer at a downmarket auction and recognising four paintings by E Bosworth Deacon. Jenkins then recollects his earliest encounters with Mr Deacon, who had been a friend of his parents, which in turn lead him to recall one of Deacon's paintings, "The Boyhood of Cyrus", which had ung in the hall of a house where he had attended dances. This brings us back to "real time" in the novel sequence. Jenkins is now in his early twenties (probably around 1926/27) and is living in a shabby set of rooms in Shepherd Market, a slightly run-down area of London close to the smart neighbourhood of Mayfair. He mentions, more or less in passing, that he is working for a firm that publishes art books ... and that is about all we find out about his day to day life.

He is, however, in love (or at least he thinks he may be ... ) with Barbara Goring, a slightly noisy, hyperactive girl who plays a prominent part in the world of society dances and balls. Jenkins participates in the fringes of this world where he encouters Widmerpool, last seen four or five years ago in France where he and Jenkins sent a summer at La Grenadiere where they were trying, with limited success, to learn French. Widmerpool is now moving forward, establishing himself as a solicitor but with designs to enter into the world of business.

After an eventful evening at a society ball Widmerpool and Jenkins find themselves walking through the back streets of Piccadilly when they literally bump into Mr Deacon who, with his gamine companion Gypsy Jones, has been selling pacifist newspapers at Victoria Station. What seems a mere chance encounter sets of reverberations that will resound through the remaining volumes of this immense, elaborate and enchanting saga. We are also treated to the welcome reappearance of some characters from the previous volume (including Uncle Giles, who has always been one of my favourites!)

Powell's style is always understated, and it is, perhaps, only on a re-reading that the true intricacy of the sequence becomes evident. The books are not full of incident but they are richly stowed with acute observation and a laconic, sardonic encapsulation of the hopes and fears of the decades between the wars. The humour is exquisite, but there remains an undercurrent of melancholia.

124. Last Night In Montreal by Emily St John Mandel.

I first read this book a few months ago as a consequence of having been amazed by Emily St John Mandel's 'Station Eleven', which I heartily expected would romp home for the title of finest book that I would read during 2015. Marvellous though 'Station Eleven' was, however (and I recently re-read it, too, and found it even more enjoyable second time around), I think that 'Last Night in Montreal' eclipses it.

Right from the first page, when Lilia leaves the Brooklyn apartment that she shares with mature PhD student Eli, I was captivated by this hypnotic story. Lilia is beautiful, speaks four languages and can't stop travelling. She also has a complicated past.

As the novel opens she is in her early twenties and has been travelling through America, moving from city to city and never staying for long in any one place. We soon learn that this has been the story of her life, as far as she can remember. She was born in Montreal, though her parents separated shortly afterwards. Denied access for years, her father abducted her one evening and, having hastily driven south across the border into America, they just kept on moving.

Mandel drip feeds us little gobbets of information about the principal characters, moving around in time and place. Her father had taken on various careers after leaving Lilia's mother, from one of which he derived a sizeable fortune which would subsequently fund their chaotic odyssey throughout mainland America. Eli has been studying dying languages, and enchants Lilia with some of his descriptions of metaphors and similes in remote dialects that completely defy translation. Christopher is a private investigator hired to try to find and retrieve the abducted Lilia, though he gradually succumbs to a protective obsession with his quarry, to the extent that he neglects Michaela, his own young daughter back in Montreal. Michaela just wants to run away with the circus.

From these seemingly inchoate characters Mandel weaves a beautiful tapestry that manages to combine a road story with a lucid dissection of love, longing, loss, obsession and hope, with a gentle sprinkling of philology thrown in. What is more, she encompasses all this in just 250 pages that, once begun, are difficult to put down. The story is beautifully written, and the final chapter contains some of the most beguiling pages I have ever read.

125. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell.

This was my third assault on The Bone Clocks, and I am still trying to decide what I think about it. Much of it - indeed, most of it - was marvellously entertaining, written with Mitchell's customary verve. I did, however, struggle to enjoy the rest of it, and as that might be said to be the crucial part , I suppose that it just didn't work for me.

Like the marvellous Cloud Atlas, this book features several different narratives delivered in the first person by a selection of different characters. The first is recounted by Holly Sykes, who leaves her home in Gravesend in 1984, aged 15, following a cataclysmic argument with her mother. The succeeding chapters are related by different characters who encounter Holly over the course of the next fifty or so years.

Most of these succeeding chapters are good, and some are excellent. My favourite section of Cloud Atlas, which had an almost concentric chapter structure, was 'The Ghastly Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish' which recounted the travails visited upon an opportunist but seldom successful publishers. I found that 'Crispin Hershey's Lonely Planet' formed a close counterpart to this in the new novel, and I especially enjoyed the literary poisoned darts that Hershey/Mitchell throw out at some readily identifiable literary sacred cows of the present day.

There was, however, a more troubling side to the book. Throughout the novel there are reference to a struggle between The Horology and The Anchorites, two warring bands of people with their own respective brands of superpowers. The members of the Horology move from one carrier body to another, repeatedly inhabiting new forms and extending their lives over centuries or even, in the case of Esther Little, over millennia. The Anchorites also have paranormal abilities but their particular twist is to aspire towards eternal youth. These two groups are in perpetual combat, and episodes of their combat intrude into the otherwise 'normal' activities captured in the novel.

I am willing to accept the charge of being a hidebound traditionalist but I found this exceptionally annoying, and it detracted significantly from my enjoyment of the book. If I had wanted to read a story of that type I would have bought an 'honest' science fiction book, and if I had struggled to suspend my disbelief sufficiently, I would at least have had some idea of what I was letting myself in for. I felt that the good bits of 'The Bone Clocks' were exceptionally good, but the overall work just could have been so much better.

126. The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin.

This was the ninth novel featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus, and the reader finds him caught in the middle of a gang war in Edinburgh between the established forces of Maurice Gerald Cafferty ("Big Ger"), Rebus's long-standing foe, recently arrived upstart, Tommy Telford.

Rebus is not too concerned by the prospect of the gangsters killing each other off, though it is only a matter of time before innocent bystanders are caught in the crossfire. Besides, he has other matters demanding his attention. An eminent professor at the city's university has been accused of being a war criminal, complicit in the massacre of the civilian population of a small village in France in the tail end of the Second World War. Rebus has been assigned to investigate whether there is a case to answer. In the meantime, personal tragedy intervenes, and Rebus is left wondering whether an apparent accident that befalls his daughter might actually have been something more sinister. It looks like he has chosen the wrong time to try to give up alcohol, especially as he is carrying a half-bottle of whisky around with him, just in case!

Like its predecessor in the series, this showed Rankin and Rebus moving into another gear.. There are several parallel plots, all with their own intricacies and inherent plausibility. The relationships between Rebus and both Cafferty and Siobhan Clarke, his often reluctant protégée, continue to develop, assuming Byzantine intricacies and twists of their own.

127. Even Dogs In the Wild by Ian Rankin.

Some fictional coppers seem to have Peter Pan qualities, continually investigating and solving serious crimes without ever getting older. Chief Inspector Wexford and Superintendent Dalziel emerged fully formed from their creators' brows and made their first appearance already adorned with high rank.

When creating his thrawn protagonist, Ian Rankin chose a more realistic approach, and we have seen John Rebus age in real time, becoming increasingly cantankerous and inimical to his superiors' authority. As this twentieth Rebus novel opens he has finally finished work and left the police force. Even his cold case work, which had offered a slight reprieve from the looming threat of being left entirely to his own devices, has now dried up, and he is, officially, retired.

Crime, of course, continues in Edinburgh unabated, and as the novel opens Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke, for so long Rebus's protégée (whether she liked it or not) is part of the team investigating the murder in his own house of David Minton. This is a high profile case drawing attention from the local and national press as well as politicians, senior officers and the judiciary because David Minton was also know as Lord Minton, former Lord Advocate of Scotland and one of the most senior prosecutors of his generation.

The attack on Lord Minton had been brutal and protracted, leading investigators to consider whether the murder represented revenge for the outcome of one of his cases. However, shortly afterwards a local retired businessman is shot at, also in his own home. Always interested whenever firearms are concerned, the police's attention is additionally piqued because the retired businessman in question is one Morris Gerald Cafferty, who as 'Big Ger', has dominated organised crime in the capital for the last few decades. Having been alerted to the gunshot by a neighbour, the police find that Cafferty won't allow them into his house, and he will only agree to talk to John Rebus, his long time adversary.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox, formerly of 'the Complaints' (the internal investigation department) but now returned to mainstream policing, has been asked to act as liaison with a special surveillance team over in Edinburgh from Glasgow. They are watching a Glasgow gang boss who they suspect is wanting to establish a toe-hold in the capital.

Rankin's principal characters are now well-established, developed over they years and resonant with authenticity and credibility. There is, as with many of Rankin's books, a strong undercurrent of melancholy. Different characters make bleak jokes throughout the book, though there is never any hint that any of them might be taking much pleasure in life. Clarke now seems slightly world-weary, and after years of disapproving of Rebus's prodigious alcohol intake, might now be drinking rather too much herself. Fox is slightly lost, struggling to work his way back into the police fold after his years in the leper colony of Complaints. Rebus, like Sir Bedivere at the end of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King' sees the days darken around him, and the years ...

Rankin manages the separate plot strands as capably as ever. The story rattles along and even twenty pages from the end there is little indication of how the various subplots will be resolved, and as always, the city of Edinburgh looms throughout the story, like a character in its own right. A very worthy addition to the Rebus canon.

128. Numero Zero by Umberto Eco.

I love a good, complex conspiracy theory. I seldom believe them, but I love exploring them and speculating about Machiavellian schemes. So does Umberto Eco. His primary career is as Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna, and there is clearly an osmosis between that and his work as a novelist. He has already deconstructed the conspiracy theory with great verve in 'Foucault's Pendulum', a sprawling essay in lateral thinking that both predated and outperformed Dan Brown' 'The Da Vinci Code'. He revisits the genre again, more concisely and prosaically, in his latest novel, 'Numero Zero'. Set in 1992 the book represents the recollections of Colonna, a cynical hack journalist, who is offered a post to help in the preparations of a dummy newspaper for a successful businessman who is considering entering into that field.

Colonna, having nothing better on the horizon, recruits a group of colleagues to help prepare their pseudo stories. This gives Eco the opportunity to parody some hardy perennials in the newspaper publishing world. One of the journalists recruited by Colonna, is Braggadocio, an investigative report who is himself a bit of an addict of the conspiracy theory. Having given an impassioned analysis of the proliferation of faux Masonic fraternities operating in Milan over the last century, Braggadocio turns to a more current investigation, and tries to convince Colonna of his potentially explosive theories about the conclusion of the Second World War, and a conspiracy permeating every level of Italian society.

More accessible than many of his novels, this is a relatively easy read, and utterly gripping. My knowledge of post-war Italian history is non-existent, but Eco has made me want to look into it in detail, if only to appreciate the twists and turns in this novel even more fully.

I hadn't heard of that one but now I want to read it. Thanks!

I think it has only just been published. I happened to drop into Foyles in London just as they were stacking shelves with it, and although I hadn't heard anything about it I fell prey to an impulse buy, which proved to be a good one.

For some reason I thought Eco was a good bit older. I'll keep that one in mind if I ever feel like I *have* to read something of his.

I've never been able to get on with Eco, apart from Name of the Rose. I have tried three or four others, but given them up part way through due to their lack of coherence.

129. A Very British Ending by Edward Wilson.

Another excellent conspiracy theory novel, this time set against the backdrop of post-war Britain, as the country struggles to re-establish itself as a major economic and military power. William Catesby, who featured in Wilson's earlier novels 'The Envoy' and 'The Darkling Spy', is a mid-ranking officer in MI6, haunted with his own secrets and also frustrated at the prejudices he encounters in his service and its counterpart, MI5. Edward Wilson deftly mixes fact and fiction, using his character Catesby as a powerful lens on the political machinations that bedevilled British governments in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, regardless of their political complexion.

Catesby had himself stood as a Labour candidate in the 1945 general election but, despite the huge landslide victory for his party he had, himself, been defeated. He had, however, had the opportunity to meet Harold Wilson who had gone on to experience a meteoric rise, attaining a Cabinet post as President of the Board of Trade. In this capacity he was responsible for signing off an agreement to sell Rolls Royce aero engines to the USSR (though the deal had been arranged and all but completed by his predecessors in office). This deal provoked the ire of the American administration because the Soviets were able to 'reverse engineer' the workings of the engines and use them in their own jet fighters which were in turn deployed against the Americans in Korea. This transaction was to lead to Wilson being targeted by the CIA as a likely Soviet sympathiser, and possibly even a mole reporting back to the Kremlin.

As the novel develops Catesby is embroiled in a series of operations all over Europe, but he becomes increasingly concerned at how both MI5 and MI6 are being manoeuvred by their American counterparts into undermining both Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. This has, of course, been the subject of numerous claims and corresponding official repudiations, and it is unlikely that the question of whether such plots really took place will ever be satisfactorily resolved. Certainly this fictional account is engrossing and all too plausible. The detailed insight into historic events gives a convincing patina of verisimilitude to the story, and I was definitelky hooked.

In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter whether or not the plots actually existed. The mere fact that we are prepared to believe that they might have done is sufficient measure of our cynicism about both our governments and the organisations that are supposed to support them.

130. The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid.

I remember reading and enjoying this book when it was first published twenty years ago, but I had forgotten quite how good it was. I would, however, probably not have thought to re-read it if I had not had a recent exchange on Twitter with Val Mcdermid herself.

This is the first instalment of the series featuring Inspector Carol Jordan and Dr Tony Hill that now extends to several volumes and spawned the television series 'Wire in the Blood'. As is so often the case, the television version sells the books rather short, with a prurient emphasis on the sordid and sensational aspects to the detriment of the well-crafted plots and finely-drawn characters.

This book opens with the police in Bradfield struggling to find new leads in their investigation of some particularly vicious murders in which the victims had not merely been killed but appeared to have been tortured at length beforehand. Opinion within the police is divided as to whether the murders are the work of one serial killer or separate, unrelated perpetrators. Detective Inspector Carol Jordan is convinced that there is a serial killer at work, but has hitherto been unable to convince her boss, Superintendent Cross who is a traditional old school copper. It is also clear that Cross feels that, as the victims have been known participants in Bradfield's vibrant gay scene, they have been more or less asking for it, and he barely avoids using the term 'contributory negligence'. Fortunately, Assistant Chief Constable Brandon is more modern in his approach, and he invites Dr Tony Hill, a practising psychiatrist who has been working with the Home Office to develop a national profiling task force, to help the investigation.

Tony Hill is not without his own demons, but he quickly establishes his bone fides with Carol Jordan and the rest of her team with some astute observations about the murders. In the meantime, the police stage an undercover operation with various officers staking out some of the clubs around Bradfield in the hope of flushing out the killer. One of the police officers is attacked, and then another body is found …

Val Mcdermid manages the plot brilliantly, allowing the tension to mount quickly without compromising the plausibility of the story. The relationships between Hill and Jordan and the different strands of opinion within the police are all eminently credible.

131. The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell.

This is the third volume in Powell's immense roman fleuve,"A Dance to The Music of Time" and we have moved on to the early 1930s. (Though never explicitly stated, I assume that this volume is set around 1932 or 1933, based upon the oblique references to Mussolini and the hunger marches to London.) As always with "A Dance to the Music of Time" there is relatively little action but through Powell's customary delicate admixture, a few social set pieces are worked up to a potent melange of wry observation, outright humour and the odd undercurrent of melancholia.

The book opens with Nicholas Jenkins (about whom we learn as little in this book as we have managed to eke from the previous two volumes) visiting the Ufford Hotel in Bayswater for tea with his Uncle Giles, always rather a lost soul meandering through life with no aim or hope. As they finish their tea they are joined by one of Giles's fellow guests at the hotel, the esoteric-looking Myra Erdleigh. She is certainly more flamboyant that most of Uncle Giles's acquaintances, and Jenkins is initially drawn to her. It turns out that she has rather a reputation as a fortune teller, and is persuaded to "put out the cards" for both Nick and his uncle. She seems to divine some aspects of Jenkins's life including the fact that he had recently had a novel published. This is news to the reader - although the novel is often described as an autobiographical sequence, and is narrated by the character of Jenkins, we learn next to nothing about him. Mrs Erdleigh mentions a woman with whom Jenkins will become close, and also refers to a struggle involving one old man and two younger ones which will cause Jenkins himself considerable angst. This sets the scene for much of what will follow throughout the rest of the book.

We are then treated to description of a dinner at the Ritz, a weekend away in the country and then an Old Etonians' reunion dinner, also at the Ritz. At the latter event we are treated to the re-emergence of both Widmerpool, absent for the rest of the book, and Charles Stringham.

Widmerpool may have been absent for the greater part of the book but he makes up for this when he does finally appear. His intervention in the final chapter is characteristically bizarre, and provokes considerable mirth among many of his fellow guests, but the thirst for power and advancement is still as pressing as ever.

"Wryly observed and beautifully written" is starting to sound like a bit of a mantra when it comes to Powell, but the reason phrases become clichés is because they are true.

132. What a Carve Up by Jonathan Coe.

I think that this may well prove to be Jonathan Coe's masterpiece. Through the device of describing the ignominious behaviour in different fields of various members of the ghastly Winshaw family, Coe paints a frighteningly acute picture of the downside of the latter third of the post-war years in general, and the 1980s in particular. The spectre of the 'First' Gulf War hangs over the whole book.

The Winshaws certainly extended their fingers into a number of diverse pies, with family members prominent in the fields of politics, merchant banking, journalism and broadcasting. There are, however, some vitriolic internal rifts, too.

Tabitha Winshaw has been immured in a succession of mental hospitals after she became convinced that her eldest brother Laurence had been responsible for the death of their brother Godfrey. Such was the depth of her conviction of Laurence's guilt that she had tried to kill him in turn. Godfrey Winshaw, had, in fact, been shot down while serving as a pilot in the RAF, so most of the family had dismissed Tabitha's claims without further consideration. As the rest of the family thrive during the 1960s. 1970s and 1980s, Tabitha spends long periods in seclusion in a series of institutions before being allowed to return to the family home following Laurence's eventual death (from natural causes).
Tabitha retains access to her sizeable portion of the seemingly inexhaustible family fortune, and commissions a vanity publishing house to hire an author to write a history of the Winshaw family. The publisher selects Michael Owen. Early in his career he had published a couple of well received novels but had sunk into prolong accidie. Now in his thirties the commission for the history of the Winshaws is almost his sole source of income apart from the occasional vindictive review.

The novel takes the form of accounts of he careers of various Winshaws (presumably drawn from Michael's book), interspersed with first person narrative from Michael recounting different periods of his own unorthodox past. One of these memoirs tells of his ninth birthday which involved a family trip to Weston Super Mare where, seeking refuge from dreadful weather, they all went to see the film 'What a Carve Up' starring Kenneth Connor and Shirley Eaton. One scene in particular is etched in the young Michael's mind, not least because, deeming the film unsuitable for a nine year old boy, his mother insists that the family leave immediately. This scene become a major obsession with Michael, and contributes in part to his aimless and listless approach to life as an adult.

The separate accounts of the careers of the individual Winshaws offer Coe an acute prism through which to dissect the paradoxes and shortcomings of modern life. Hilary Winshaw becomes a leading tabloid columnist, distilling hatred and spewing venom like Sybil Fawlty's 'Benzedrine puff adder', never happier than when seemingly contradicting an earlier column with a shameless, opportunistic volte-face. Henry Winshaw is a politician who, having started out as a Labour MP, becomes, upon his departure from The House, an ardent Thatcherite, overseeing the development of her programme of privatisation and with plans to dismantle, or at least privatise, the National Health Service. Thomas Winshaw becomes the director of Stewards merchant bank, benefiting from inside information passed on from Henry. Mark Winshaw, Godfrey's son, becomes an accomplished arms dealer, adept at sidestepping the regulatory obstacles to dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein and other, similar despots. The Winshaws' world is a ghastly place, and Michael becomes increasingly appalled as he learns more about their respective enormities.

133. Dead Beat by Val McDermid.

Val McDermid is probably best known for her gritty, gory novels featuring Detective Inspector Carol Jordan and psychiatrist Dr Tony Hill, televised as 'Wire in the Blood' (taking the name of the second novel in the series). By the time she published the first of those novels, however, she had already written two separate series, each featuring engaging female protagonists. Her first three novels revolved around Lindsay Gordon, lesbian journalist who solved fairly traditional whodunit style mysteries. Then, in 1992 in 'Dead Beat', McDermid introduced her feisty, Manchester-based private investigator, Kate Brannigan.

As the novel opens, Kate is in drawing towards the conclusion of an investigation into traders in counterfeit goods (raging from high end watches to designer leisurewear). She finds herself accompanying Richard, her music journalist boyfriend, to a gig by Jett, a local boy who had made good after having grown up in straitened circumstances in Mossside. At the after-concert part Jett commissions Kate to find Moira, his former partner (both musical and romantic). They had parted several years ago and Jett was conscious that his career had been declining ever since. After leaving Jett, Moira had fallen on very hard times, and subsided into a life fuelled by drug abuse and financed by occasional prostitution. This sort of investigation is not in Kate's normal line of business but, as a special favour to Jett she agrees.

McDermid's great quality is her ability to construct plausible and convincing plots, and this is evident here. Brannigan's investigation into Moira's disappearance is detailed, and gripping, but never stretches the reader's credibility. Her later novels are noted for their grimness, with each new murder seeming to surpass all its predecessors for macabre qualities. This is not evident in the Brannigan novels where the crimes, and the attendant investigations fall within the bounds of familiar experience. They are related in the first person, and Brannigan has a wry, self-deprecating wit that keeps the reader fully engaged. I am surprised that these novels have never made their way onto television.

134. Crooked House by Agatha Christie.

This was Agatha Christie's favourite among her novels, and as a reader it is easy to understand why. Christie is best known for her two sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, though this is a 'stand-alone' offering. The story is narrated by Charles Hayward, son of the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, and himself an ex-copper, or at least a former inspect at the Special Branch.

Towards the end of the Second World War Hayward had been based in Cairo where he had met, and fallen in love with, Sophia Leonides. Once the war is over they return to Britain and plan to be married. In the meantime Sophia returns to her family home in one of London's suburbs. As is so often the case throughout Christie's novels, three generations of the Leonides family live together in the house owned by wealthy patriarch Aristide Leonides. Shortly after her return home, however, Astride is dead, and it soon transpires that he has been murdered. As a consequence of the prominence of the victim, Scotland Yard becomes involved in the investigation and, predictably, Hayward is asked to help out.

When I was about thirteen or fourteen I read dozens of Agatha Christie's novels, one after another, in that slightly obsessive manner that adolescent boys so often have. I enjoyed them but devoured them simply at face value. Re-reading this one nearly forty years later I now recognise that there was a lot of social comment in her depictions of domestic life. There is a wry, understated satire to her works. Her books are, however, redolent of their time. For instance, Christie is perfectly happy to describe Josephine, the younger sister of Sophia, as 'a fantastically ugly child'. I doubt whether any modern novelist would care to be so brutal.

Christie's prose is never glossy but she has an almost journalistic knack of telling the story with the minimum of fuss. Her characterisations may now seem slightly clichéd, but she always maintains a simple verisimilitude. It is, however, with her plotting that she holds the reader's attention. This book is certainly no exception. The plot is tightly constructed, and the denouement comes as rather a shock, though the clues were all there.

I was very glad to have revisited this novel after so long, and I may well try my hand at several more from her prolific output.

135. House of Cards by Michael Dobbs.

This became one of the classic political thrillers and spawned one of the most successful television dramas of the 1990s. Indeed, the television series was so successful that it in turn spawned a new, American version quarter of a century on.

At an unspecified point in the 1990s a post-Thatcher Conservative government has just secured re-election, though with a significantly reduced majority. In the immediate aftermath of the election victory, senior members of the party convene to put the finishing touches to their high level plans for the forthcoming term. Francis Urquhart, the party's insanely ambitious Chief Whip hopes for advancement. He is to be disappointed, however, as Prime Minister Henry Collingridge is reluctant to tamper with his Cabinet. This disappointment proves to be the final straw for Urquhart who, at the age of sixty-two, sees his chances of scaling to the highest reaches of the political world receding fast. He is, however, not a man to cross lightly. As the party's Chief Whip he knows all the vulnerabilities of his fellow MPs, and he has the evidence of all manner of their peccadilloes: financial malfeasance, sexual indiscretions and plenty more besides. He also has a finely tuned Machiavellian mind, and the combination proves lethal. He embarks upon a masterful scheme to advance his fortunes, and his front bench colleagues find themselves beset by all sorts of woes.

Michael Dobbs had been a member of Margaret Thatcher's inner circle, and had subsequently served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative party, so he has ample insight into the seedier wheeling and dealing that accompany high politics. The book is gripping, and Urquhart is an appealing protagonist. Scarcely a hero, but he is surprisingly appealing, despite his ruthlessness and complete absence of remorse. It is tempting to suggest that, enjoyable though the story is, it is too far-fetched to be plausible. However, the capacity for seemingly successful politicians to self-destruct, immolated on the pyre of their boundless vanity and misplaced belief in their unassailable rectitude is inexhaustible. Though now m ore than twenty years old,m the novel has scarcely aged at all, and seemed entirely gripping.

136. Kick Back by Val McDermid.

Now best known for her often gruesome novels featuring Detective Inspector Carol Jordan and Dr Tony Hill, Val McDermid also wrote a very entertaining series of novels following Kate Brannigan, a feisty private investigator based in Manchester.

'Kick Back' is the second in the series and starts on a rather low key note when Kate is commissioned to look into the problems faced by a local building firm that specialises in constructing conservatories. The director has been advised by his bank that the business's credit lines had been suspended pending investigation of problems with a series of mortgage defalcations by his clients. Further confusion arises when Kate discovers that several of the conservatories had subsequently been dismantled and removed without the owners' knowledge.

On the face of it, an investigation into some dodgy re-mortgaging transactions and the theft of a few conservatories does not sound very exciting. McDermid is, however, accomplished at constructing compelling yet believable plot, and this is a gripping story. Kate is an appealing character, capable but never smug. Even though this was only the second volume in the sequence, we are already acquainted with a strong network of Kate's associates and colleagues upon whom she can call for help and guidance. This is refreshingly different from the normal run of private eye novels where the protagonists seem capable of anything, Like the old AA adverts, Kate may not know how to do certain things, but she knows a man or woman who does.

137. At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell.

In this, the fourth volume of "A Dance to the Music of Time" Powell is close to his most magnificent best!

Taken at the most basic level the novel really only recounts three or four set piece occasions (drinks at an aristocratic house in Kensington, a weekend spent in a country cottage within a landed estate, a drinks party to celebrate an engagement and Sunday lunch in a gentlemen's club), but from such relatively modest material Powell weaves a glorious tapestry of social observation, wry humour and political commentary.

I have lost count of the number of times that I have read this novel (and, indeed, the whole sequence) yet still I found new facets to wonder at. As ever, though, one learns next to nothing about the detail of the narrator's life: at one point Jenkins remarks, "I was then at that stage of life when one has published a couple of novels ..." The last that we had heard of this aspect of his life was in the preceding volume ("The Acceptance World") when he was keen to try his hand at writing, but unsure of the best material with which to work.

Jenkins' bête-noire, the loathsome yet beguiling Kenneth Widmerpool, is absent for the greater part of this novel but he does eventually make his customary mark, bursting upon the haut monde scene with the announcement of his engagement to fast-living socialite, the Honourable Mildred Blaides. New territory for our Kenneth, and the reader is intrigued to know how he will take to the domestic lifestyle. Meanwhile Nick Jenkins has his own amatory thunderbolt moment.

Read it and enjoy!

138. The Yellow Diamond by Andrew Martin.

I met Andrew Martin a few years ago when he was pointed out by a mutual friend in The Angel pub in Highgate, North London. Perhaps unwisely, given the amount of beer we had already drunk, I decided to wander over to tell him how much I had enjoyed his novel 'Bilton'. This potentially gratifying moment for him may have lost some of its lustre as I fell lamentably short of coherence as I tried to convey my enjoyment of his efforts, though he remained commendably polite and even thanked me for 'my kind words'.

As it happens, since then I had attempted to read a couple of his subsequent novels but had struggled to finish them, so I am not quite sure what prompted me to buy this, his latest offering. I am glad that I did, though. While he is now best known for his series of novels featuring Jim Stringer, the 'Steam Detective' this new novel is set in contemporary London, and features a cohort of Russian billionaires.

Detective Inspector Blake Reynolds is moved at very short notice to a special operational unit of the Metropolitan Police which is keeping an eye on the super rich. He soon learns that he is to replace Quinn, a maverick detective who had built up a reputation centred on his entirely unconventional approach to investigation. Quinn had been found shot though the head in St James's Park and is now fighting for his life.

In addition to taking on Quinn's caseload, Reynolds also inherits the utterly bizarre Victoria Clifford, Quinn's lugubrious assistant, and she is able to advise him about some of the protocols required for dealing with the super rich. These were new to me, too, though I doubt if I will have much opportunity to test their efficacy. Reynolds, however, does benefit from her guidance as he finds himself attending charitable parties at the London Library, drinks at Claridges and even a private jet sojourn to Monaco, while simultaneously trying to investigate the theft of a valuable diamond and the attack on Quinn. This search bring shim into contact with Russian billionaires and, even more alarmingly, their British fixer.

For most of the book the plot is a slow burner, with Martin capably building the atmosphere. I did struggle over the last couple of chapters, though, and felt that the author lost his way. Indeed, I wondered if he found himself battling against a tight deadline and found himself having to cut corners to sneak over the line in time. Still, over all an enjoyable nbovel, even if it didn't match up to 'Bilton'.

139. Notting Hell by Rachel Johnson.

Rachel Johnson writes as capably as her brother (the irksome Boris of that ilk), and gives a very entertaining account of life in one of the communal garden squares in Notting Hill (which I like to think of as London's other Hill).

The story unfolds in a series of alternating narratives recounted by Clare (immensely wealthy, nearly forty, obsessively tidy and increasingly distraught at her continuing failure to conceive) and Mimi (Clare's slightly younger neighbour, relentlessly untidy, mother of three and in a state of unassailable denial about her family's gradual slide into financial decrepitude).

This is not really a novel in which much happens but the descriptions of the excesses of some of Clare's and Mimi's neighbours, and the insights into the competitive acquisitiveness (generally for its own sake) are hugely entertaining. There are some glorious set pieces, including a professionally catered dinner party at the house of the American bankers who are generally acknowledged as the wealthiest inhabitants of the square, and the summer sports event. In many ways it reminded me of John Lanchester's 'Capital' (the book, not the lamentable television adaptation), though without the seething menace that underpinned life on Pepys Road.

Beautifully observed, and delivered with delicious acidity, this was far more entertaining than I had expected, and I am now keen to read its successor volumes.

140. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie was not merely prolific in her output., She was also constantly trying to innovate, taking the whodunit to new levels. With 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' she had introduced a new twist (seen as cheating by some aficionados of the genre) With this novel (one of a very select group of novels that have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide), she experimented again, with similarly dazzling success.

Eight guests find themselves invited to a house party on Soldier Island, a small islet just off the Cornish Coast, where they are welcomed by Mr and Mrs Rogers, the butler and his wife. As they all start to chat to each other, however, it turns out that none of them are quite sure why they have been invited. They compare their stories and find that most of them seem to have been summoned my a Mr or Mrs U N Owen. Further questioning reveals that Mr and Mrs Rogers had been hired through an agency and had never met the owners, either. After dinner on the first evening, a strange announcement is made, making a series of allegations against everyone in the party. And then they start dying, one by one, in increasingly sinister circumstances.

It is probably about forty years since I first read this novel, and while I could remember quite clearly who the perpetrator was, I was just as spellbound by it. I am fairly sure that I wouldn't have been able to guess who the murderer was, though the clues are certainly all there. As a young boy I read my way through Agatha Christie's works, one after another, taking them all at face value, unaware of any social comment or her lambasting of conventions. The satire is certainly there, though Christie never lets it get in the way of her plots.

>213 Eyejaybee: I just love that title, I'm a sucker for word play. I somehow assumed Boris Johnson was an only child, because surely someone with siblings couldn't be quite that odd (siblings being keen to alter your behavior into something they find satisfactory, generally).

>215 mabith:. I know what you mean. It makes me wonder what Boris might be like if he had been an only child.

and don't forget Boris's brother, Jo Johnson, now the science minister

141. To Play The King by Michael Dobbs.

The second instalment in the story of Francis Urquhart starts with his appointment as Prime Minister, having engineered the downfall of his predecessor, Tory colleague Henry Collingridge. As is so often the case, however, Urquhart finds almost immediately that the long sought after role is not quite what he had hoped or expected.

In addition to the fallout of the political unrest (much of it his own doing as he sought to unsettle Collingridge), he finds himself at odds with the King, who is reluctant to adopt the remote role anticipated by the politicians. This sets the tone for the novel, with Downing Street and Buckingham Palace locked in conflict. Urquhart is a supreme Machiavellian, constantly scheming and at any one time calculating the likely outcome of a range of different scenarios. He does not, however, recognise that other people might also have their own hidden agenda, completely overlook the possibility that anyone else might be just as devious as him.

This was entertaining, but fell short of its predecessor, House of Cards. While the conflict between Urquhart and the King touches on important constitutional issues, just as valid today as they were twenty years ago when the novel was written, their portrayal in the book seems too contrived. There were some lovely vignettes, and the depiction of the outspoken and curmudgeonly Labour backbencher, clearly based on Denis Skinner (still going strong today), was very amusing

142. The Six Days of the Condor by James Grady.

This was one of those rare instances where the cinema adaptation is so much better than the book that inspired it. The film, with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, is an espionage classic, with Redford excelling as the slightly naïve operative who, by dint of being absent on an errand at the critical moment, escapes being murdered when a hit squad storms his office.

In the film, the tension is maintained throughout, and the viewer's attention is held, effortlessly. Sadly, I found that the reverse was the case with the book, and it required a concerted effort to persevere through to the end

143. My History: A Memoir of Growing Up by Antonia Fraser*.

Antonia Fraser is well known as a writer of detailed yet accessible historical studies, and in particular for her biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell. Here she turns to recounting her own story, chronicling her early years, painting a charming picture of her childhood, life as a student in Oxford and the early years of her writing career.

It is a life resonant with enigma. Her father was the unorthodox and frequently outspoken aristocrat and sometime Labour Minister, Lord Longford., and her mother also had celebrated family connections, being the great niece of the nineteenth century Radical, turned imperialist, Joseph Chamberlain, and cousin of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Despite her aristocratic background her family was resolutely socialist, with both her parents fighting several elections as Labour candidate. Antonia inherited her parents' deep interest in politics, and eventually married an MP, Sir Hugh Fraser, though surprisingly, given her socialist pedigree, he was a Conservative. In 1961, her father inherited the title of Earl of Longford following the death of his elder brother. At that point Antonia, as the daughter of an earl, became known as 'Lady Antonia Fraser'.

She gives an enchanting picture of life in Oxford between the World Wars, and her performance at school, but most enthralling for me was her depiction of the brief period during which she lived with her aunt, Lady Violet Powell and her husband, author Anthony Powell. He is perhaps my favourite author and I have read his massive roman fleuve 'A Dance to the Music of Time' more times than I can count. It is fascinating to see Lady Antonia's identification of the originals of some of the characters in the novel sequence. After all, her father has often been seen as the prototype for Erridge, the troubled aristocratic socialist campaigner.

Lady Antonia writes with great clarity, and a fair amount of self-deprecation, and brings the same charm and ability to grip the reader's attention that is characteristic of her historical works.