Review: Murder at the Wild Haggis Bookshop

Murder at the Wild Haggis Bookshop by Jackie Baldwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A caveat on this review: I have been told that the copy of the book I read had received no editing or proofreading. I do hope that this is the case, and that the published version does not contain so many sentences of over 30 words without any punctuation whatsoever (one sentence has more than 50 words and no punctuation). For readers like me, this makes the text very difficult to process. A friend of mine, who is a teacher and has dyslexia, would struggle to read it at all. Hopefully, this problem, as well as the plethora of incorrect words, will have been fixed by the time you read it.
Caveat over...

Apart from the above, I did really like the characters. I don't usually manage to figure out "who dunnit", but I did in this one. In some ways it was quite nice to have worked out who the culprit was. I would certainly give another book by this author a go, but if the grammar and punctuation proved to be as bad as in this book, I think it might be the last.

Review: The Burning Stones

The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having read other books by this author, I was really looking forward to an amusing conundrum. I'm afraid that it didn't really do it for me. The character of the main police officer was rather cliched. Whilst overall the read was quite enjoyable and the scenery interesting, I realised that by about halfway through the book, I didn't really care about who had done it. None of the characters really came alive enough for me, apart maybe the lead one - Anni - and I knew that she hadn't done it, anyway.

View all my reviews

Review: The Trials of Arthur Whitty

The Trials of Arthur Whitty by Tim Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A pleasant story which indirectly compares and contrasts dementia, with a man's fantasy world approach to making his way through life's challenges.

I particularly like the way the relationship between Arthur and his wife is handled. The way that it shows the tightrope walked by family members when dealing with someone who is developing dementia, with mollycoddling on one side and allowing them to continue an autonomous life on the other.

Review: Kill Them with Kindness

Kill Them with Kindness by Will Carver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can't really tell you precisely what this book is about, but that may well be due to me trying too hard to find a single subject to hang on to it. Near the beginning I thought it was about possible theories as to how the Covid outbreak may have started, but it wasn't that. Later I wondered whether it was intended to poke fun at one of our previous UK Prime Ministers. It certainly did a lot of this, but I'm sure that wasn't its primary aim. One theme that came through quite strongly, to me at least, is the problem of unintended consequences. In the same way that the American laws on child seats in cars may have affected if/when families may have a third child, the good that was attempted in this book may not have manifested itself in the way the initiator had expected. Most of the narrative focuses on a scientist who releases a virus which makes people nicer and more compassionate. But the ultimate horrific deed actually had little to do with this aspect of the story. Unusually for one of Will's books, there are a few plot holes. It is in this parallel, slightly related, story that the plot holes exist. All through the book I was very hooked. I was just a bit disappointed in what felt like a rather slapdash and contrived denouement.

View all my reviews