So, i'm recently been heavily distracted by a new game...


( First Impressions: Borderlands )

I actually finished over a week ago; however we got ambushed by real life a little. So, late, here it.


( Book Review: Every Dead Thing )


Next up: We reach the end of the list with a book plucked from Bestseller Lists - Steig Laarson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

So, here we are again.


( Book Review: Deja Dead )


Next up: a bit of Southern Gothic, with John Connolly's Every Dead Thing

i think as a culture, or maybe a species as a whole, that we are programmed to beleive in narrative. That we think that the world works a certain way, because we are taught it, mostly by fiction, sure, but its strong. Ultimately, we believe things must work a certain way, deep down, regardless of the facts of the situation.

When tragedy strikes suddenly, like it did to our family nearly a year ago now, this isn't a problem. In between the shock, and pain, and the grief, the unexpected leaves no dissonance, because the treacherous part of you that beleives in happy endings has no time to stir, and there is only a reality with which you have to deal.

My own brush with drawn out suffering ended well, after a time. A narrative that worked.

And somehow, despite the facts, and worry, and the intellectual knowledge, deep down, in some way, i think i beleived in happy endings. That despite the odds, things have to work out. Because they're supposed to.

Only they don't.

And today i feel empty, and old, and tired and my thoughts are far from here.

Right, slight delay caused by my reading of White Jazz and a couple of other loose ends, before comming back to the detectives proper...


( Book Review: Body of Evidence )


Next up, more forensics excitement with Kathy Reichs, and Deja Dead

So, back on the crime fiction, and back in the US for our last detour to Noir territory...


( Book Review: LA Confidential )


Next up: I'm going to finish the LA Quartet is White Jazz and then head onwards towards modern detectoring with Patricia Cornwell's Body of Evidence.

So finally we reach a book that feels properly modern..


( Book Review: Knots and Crosses )


Next up: i'm way ahead of schedule on this, so i'm taking July off to read Anthony Beevor's D-Day and Carlos Ruis Zafon's The Angels Game....then back to the US for LA Confidential.

So, to the real joker in the pack - the only non-contempory detective in the list...


( Book Review: One Corpse Too Many )


Next up: Into the 1980s with Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses

Yes, i know his first name is some secret, but it's hardly a plot point...


( Book Review: Last Seen Wearing )


Next up: we travel back in time to AD 1138, and our only historical Detective, Brother Cadfael, in One Corpse Too Many.

( Book Review: A Mind to Murder )


Next up: As soon as i get paid and get get to amazon.co.uk, it's time for Morse, in Last Seen Wearing, by Colin Dexter.

I cracked through this over the weekend...a really fast read.


( Book Review: The Moving Finger )


Next Up: We leap forward a couple of decades to meet a more modern detective, in P D James' A Mind to Murder

Back to the Great Detectives, and a return to Raymond Chandler, whom i "discovered" last year on the Great American Novel reads. I really enjoyed it, and so Marlowe became a shoe-in for one of this years Detectives. So, without further ado...


( Book Review: Farewell, My Lovely )


Next up: Back to Agatha Christie, this time for Jane Marple, in The Moving Finger.

i really need to get around to a catch-up on our recent DVD views. But i'm not. Instead, i shall nerd-out over this weekends trip to the flicks.


( Movie Review: Star Trek )

So, whilst on holiday i did get to catch up on a bit of (non-detective) reading...


( Book Review: Iron Council )

As previously mentioned, we played a lot of new games this weekend. So, in broadly the order i played them, some thoughts...


( Game Reviews Ahoy! )

...and thats about it...

My freind paced the drawing room pensively. "There is a pattern here, Watson. Something familiar, but i cannot place it. Something in the style of the crime, and the strange commonilty of it's participants"...


( Book Review: The Case of the Late Pig )


Next up: I'm taking a break to read China Mieville's Iron Council, before we're back with more Agatha Christie...

Settling into the "Golden Age" now, we have another of the Gentleman Detectives....


( Book Review: The Nursing Home Murder )


Next up: yet another gentleman detective from a female writer! This time Margaret Allingham's Campion in The Case of the Late Pig

And so, we come to Agatha Christie....warning: Spoilers!


( Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express )


So that is. I should next be reading Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh but it appears to be out of print, or at least amazon couldn't get me a copy. So i've swapped it out for the same authors' The Nursing Home Murder