Tag: Death
The Surgeon of Crowthorne
by Gareth on Jul.08, 2009, under Reviews
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Based very firmly on a true story, the Surgeon of Crowthorne concerns the inestimable assistance one Dr W.C. Minor gave in assembling the first concise Oxford English Dictionary.
He was deeply interested in language as well as being a keen painter and a man of science.
Oh, and he was a paranoid, delusional, sex-obsessed, xenophobic murderer as well.
The sorrows of an American
by Gareth on Jun.04, 2009, under Reviews
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Erik Davidsen is, in no particular order, divorced, a psychiatrist, Norwegian American, childless and a very lonely man. (continue reading…)
The Lace reader
by Gareth on May.14, 2009, under Reviews
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Set in the infamous Salem, The Lace Reader concerns an admittedly insane protagonist and her return to her childhood home.
Amidst a tale of death, magic, lies and, for some reason, lace, she tells the reader about her past and why she’s been damaged so badly. (continue reading…)
An unsuitable job for a woman
by Gareth on Feb.06, 2009, under Reviews
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Unless you count the Anita Blake Series (and I wouldn’t), this is only the third detective fiction novel that I can remember reading. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and ‘The hound of the Baskervilles’ are certainly more famous than this novel and often held up as exemplars of the genre. Perhaps this led me to expect a little more from this book than was delivered. (continue reading…)
Blood River
by Gareth on Nov.06, 2008, under Reviews
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If I had to list places I would not like to visit, I think ‘Anywhere in Africa’ would be pretty damn high on that list.
Not so for Tim Butcher, and I can’t decide if I should applaud his courage or bemoan his (in my mind) pointless bravado. (continue reading…)
In the crowd
by Gareth on Jul.11, 2008, under Reviews
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I don’t like football.
There, I’ve admitted it. I tend to be the person looking around confused in a pub after a team scores. It has, unfortunately, separated me slightly from some of my football loving friends. Given all that, I don’t really read football literature.
The good thing about this book, for me anyway, is that football, whilst instigating events and being vitally important to some characters, is not what it’s really about. The meat of the book is in human interaction and in coping with a tragedy.
(continue reading…)
