From Russia With Love - a real cliff hanger!

I think this might be my favourite James Bond book to date. This may come as a bit of a surprise, particularly because our hero doesn't really make an appearance in From Russia With Love until about a quarter of the way through! Instead, in the opening chapters of this fifth outing for Bond, we follow the fortunes of Red Grant, a man who discovers that not only is he good at killing people, but he positively revels in it. The only place where he can find as much of this work as he can get is with SMERSH - the Russian organisation that is out to kill all foreign spies. Determined to cut the British Secret Service down to size, SMERSH get their best people to come up with a plan to rid them of their best and most famous spy (yes, Mr Bond) in the most public and embarrassing manner they can come up with. Enter a chess master who comes up with the plan, and the gloriously disgusting Rosa Klebb to implement it using Red Grant as her assassin of choice. So then, what could possibly be the best way to entice Bond into a compromising position ... well, a beautiful girl (Tatiana) bearing gifts (a Spektor cypher machine) who claims that she wishes to defect. Finally, Bond enters the action, happy to have something to do. Off to Turkey we go for the rendezvous and it is from this point on that the pace really picks up and we get to see Bond in all his glory. The characterisations in this book are great, both heroes and villains, and there are some thrilling action sequences, especially on the Orient Express. Will Bond get the girl? Will he get the cypher machine? And will he escape from the evil clutches of SMERSH? Ian Fleming produced a great book that is tense, excellently paced and ends on a complete cliff hanger ... if you only ever read one Bond book, this is the one! I can highly recommend the audio version narrated by Toby Stephens who does a fabulous job ... is he the only actor to have played a Bond villain (on film) as well as Bond himself?

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 384 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.92.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Life: Keith Richards - not as exciting as you might think!

I had heard really good reviews about the autobiography of Keith Richards, so I took the plunge and bought it on audio format as part of a buy one, get one for free deal. It started well, dealing with Keith's childhood and how tough things were growing up in post-war Britain. There are great passages about his parents, his schooldays and the music that influenced him back then, and which still does today. Also, the birth of the Rolling Stones and their very early days is a great read too. However, I found myself becoming completely bored by the endless sections about Keith's drug taking ... as well as the conveyor belt of "chicks" that he, and the rest of the band indulged in while on the road. I know that these things are very "rock and roll" and Keith has a well-deserved reputation for the former, but I found them to be the least interesting thing about him! Luckily these passages are interspersed with titbits about how various songs and albums came into being, and the tricks of the trade he learnt from others about playing the guitar the way he does. The process that Keith and Mick Jagger went through to produce such amazing songs as Jumping Jack Flash, Angie, etc, is fascinating. I wanted more of that and less of the rock and roll lifestyle which started to feel empty and soulless for all those involved or affected by it. One good thing about these sections are that Keith doesn't hold back on listing the casualties of this lifestyle as he goes along, nor about how grim it often is. Keith does quit the drugs (hoorah), but not the epic drinking (boo!), and works hard at his marriage and fatherhood and also trying to keep the Stone's together through some sticky years when the relationship between Mick and the rest of the band were incredibly strained. So then, Life, by Keith Richards, is a no-nonsense, warts and all autobiography in which I think you can really hear the author's voice ... and nowhere is this more true than in the last section of the audio edition where Keith takes over from Johnny Depp to narrate his own story.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 640 print pages.
Price I paid: £3.99.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

The Innocent - post-war Berlin

Leonard Marnham (The Innocent) is an employee of the Post Office who is shipped out to West Berlin shortly after the second world war. He is excited to be away from his hum drum existence back in Britain and finds his new surroundings strangely exciting, despite the bomb damage. He is put to work on a joint US/British task force to tap a specific Soviet communication line. His guide to the work and to Berlin is Bob Glass, an American extrovert who is hot on security, but also likes to have a good time. When Leonard falls in love with an attractive German girl, he thinks that life can't get any better ... but of course, things don't last. There are too many recent wounds and people cannot let them go. This is part spy story and part love story. The reader is taken on a journey with Leonard as his innocence is slowly but surely stripped away, and you are never sure whether he will ever recover this. It took me quite a while to get into this book, but I'm not sure why. It is well written and feels well researched. The writing is tight and some of the descriptions, particularly of the state of the apartments, really evokes the sense of time and place. I think I just didn't connect with the main character for some reason, but I'm sure that that is just me. Ian McEwan rarely lets the reader down, and this is no exception, and this novel left me joining in Leonard's feelings of  bewilderment and unease and there are parts that seem to be staying with me, which is usually a good sign! Not always a comfortable read, it is still worth the effort.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 245 print pages.
Price I paid: £1 from second hand shop.
Formats: print; unabridged audio cassette; unabridged audio download; ebook.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy - a great companion piece

As brilliant as The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was ... and let me assure you that it was ... it did leave some unanswered questions. Queenie Hennessy was the object of the pilgrimage, but who exactly was she, what made her tick, and if Harold had been so important to her, why had she not contacted him for twenty years? In The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, by the ridiculously talented Rachel Joyce, the full story finally emerges. Queenie is in a hospice in Northumberland when she writes to Harold to tell him that she is dying and to thank him for his friendship all those years ago. He decides that he will come to see her, and sets out on foot ... from Devon. As Queenie waits for him to arrive, she tries to write everything down that she's ever wanted to say to Harold. Slowly, but surely, the story of her life is revealed - before, during and after her time working with Harold. There is joy, there is pain, there are laughs and there are tears along the way. She wants to tell the truth, the whole truth, no matter how ugly it may be, and this might be her only chance. Everyone at the hospice is given a boost by tracking Harold's progress through his regular postcards and then the local news bulletins. The residents get so swept up that they agree that no one should die until Harold gets there. The nuns caring for them all bring different things to the hospice, sometimes comfort, sometimes fun, whatever someone needs. There is very much a sense that this is a place to live. Yes, there is the inevitable sorrow as one by one the people Queenie has met there depart this life. You might think that, as Queenie waits for the inevitable, a depressing ending is all that awaits the reader. Do not fear. As she unburdens herself of 20 years of guilt and starts to remember all the good things from her life, she finds her own peace and tranquillity. I highly recommend this book which is about real feelings and real fears, but is not sentimental or cloying. It's like Queenie has written a letter for all of us to learn from, and I for one am grateful it's been shared with the world.

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 384 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from library as an ebook.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

The Enemy - How does Reacher get away with it?

I am a bit of a fan of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, and have come to expect a bit of violence in these books. However, I have to say that I found some aspects of The Enemy quite shocking. In this, the eighth outing for Reacher, we go back in time to when Reacher is still a Military Policeman in the US army. It is New Year's Day, 1990. The Berlin Wall has just come down, and the old enemy is tucked up in bed, which means that things will need to change in the army, and not everyone is happy about this. Reacher has suddenly and surprisingly been posted to a new base, and the very next day, a two-star general is found dead in a sleazy motel nearby, apparently of a heart attack. Embarrassing for the military, particularly when the general's briefcase appears to be missing. Reacher heads off to inform the widow, only to find that she has been murdered in her own home. A coincidence? When another soldier is brutally murdered on the base, and Reacher's new boss orders him to put it down as a training accident, all his alarm bells start to ring, and, of course, he ignores those orders. The reader now follows our hero as he sets out to find out what is going on, but does the military really want him to succeed? At the same time, he finds out that his mother is dying and he tries to fit in visits to her in Paris in between his search for the truth. There is intrigue and plenty of action, and while I've got used to the Reacher "moral compass", one particular act by him was almost unbelievable and I am not entirely sure he could have got away with it, or indeed, should have. That said, there is much to admire in this book. The writing is sharp and lean, a bit like Reacher himself. You may not like everything you come across between the covers, but, somehow, you cannot help but keep on reading. The tension keeps on building throughout and when you come to the final page, you may feel a little disappointed. Not by the story itself, but because it's over! But there's always a new adventure for Reacher, with plenty more books in the series to be enjoyed.

STAR RATING: FOUR.

Length: 560 print pages.
Price I paid: Free, borrowed from library as an ebook.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

On the Edge - you will be!

2016 has got off to a cracking start with On the Edge, by Michael Ridpath. The author has categorised this book as one of his "financial thrillers" and it certainly requires a bit of brain power on the part of the reader. It opens with our hero, Alex Calder, on a training exercise in his fighter jet. But things do not go according to plan and he is forced to eject seconds before a crash, injuring his back in the process. Once out of the RAF, Calder becomes a trader in the City and gets his adrenalin shots by gambling with vast sums of money. He earns big both for himself and the firm he works for. But the world of finance is full of men with enormous egos and no social graces. When colleague Jennifer Tan suffers one innuendo too many, she decides to pursue a case of sexual harassment against one such man, and is treated appallingly. When Jen commits suicide, Calder resigns in disgust. One year on, Calder is running a flying school when one of his former colleagues turns up to talk to him about "something big" but then backs off, leaving Calder with hints and inferences but no real detail. Within a week, this man has vanished on a business trip to see the boss of a huge, and controversial, investment fund. With suspicions now raised, Calder heads back into the world of finance to find out what really happened ... You have to keep your wits about you in this book which immerses the reader into the world of global finance and how easy it seems to be to bring a country to it's knees. Do not be put off by this, however, as On the Edge is a real page turner and keeps you guessing and wondering how Calder might, finally, come out on top. The one weakness, from my perspective, was that the female characters were not quite as rounded as the male ones. There was a great opportunity for two of them to have real gumption, but in the end, they were a bit on the fluffy side. Hey ho! I read the audio edition and thoroughly enjoyed the narration by the glorious Sean Barrett (he's one of my favourite narrators and I suspect that this was one of the reasons I bought this book).

STAR RATING: FOUR.

Length: 432 print pages.
Price I paid: £5.99.
Formats available: print (it's out of print but you should be able to get it second hand); unabridged audio download; ebook.

Welcome to 2016

Happy New Year to you all.

I have spent a bit of time thinking about what the theme of this blog will be for 2016. I mulled over a range of options, such as Booker Prize Winners or books translated into English, but then I took a good look at the various shelves, tables and even under the bed, and realised that I STILL have a massive backlog of unread books patiently waiting to be read. I managed to get through a few during 2015, but nowhere near enough. So, this is the year of the BIG CLEAR OUT ... no, wait, that sounds a bit medical ... let's rethink that title ... okay, how about TALES FROM THE NOOKS AND CRANNIES? Yes, that's it. I'm going to read the books that I already have that have been sitting around gathering dust, or using up memory on my kindle or ipod. To give you some kind of an idea, I've got over 60 print books alone that fall into this category ... and don't even ask how many I've got on my kindle! I will not give houseroom to anything else UNLESS one of the dusty tomes is a book that is part of a series and I haven't read the preceding one. First in the pile is The Enemy by Lee Child on my kindle, and On the Edge by Michael Ridpath on my ipod. So here's to 2016, a year when all those books will finally get the opportunity to tell their tales!