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24th April 2022 - Reading ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Written while listening to Shut Up You Freak on aNONradio. So far this year I have finished a few books although not quite as many as I would like. I find I go through lulls of not reading. Not sure why but life can be funny like that. The first book was The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo. It is a 1930s Japanese who dunnit. I discovered it after reading a Guardian article on Japanese crime thrillers. Crime thrillers can be a useful tool to explore different cultures and their values. Well... my experience so far has found them useful for that. I enjoyed the setting and mystery part but found the prose difficult. It has a formal edge which just didn't make it fun to read. I also found the ending one of those where you just go 'urgghhh' thanks to some daft coincidences. It was an interesting experience but I do not think I am likely to rush back to Yokomizo's work. Second was Laidlaw by William McIllvanney. Another crime thriller but this time written in 70s Glasgow and set in the same place. We meet a maveric detective via a young detective who has drawn the short straw. They are called out for a murder of a teenage girl and without realising it, racing to find the murderer before members of Glasgow's criminal community. The prose is good and the story interesting. There are some great characterisations who certainly evoke a time and place. I have bought the next in the series. This is another I discovered by reading an article although I think it was from the BBC website this time. McIlvanney is often credited as starting the wave of 'tartan noir' which can still be seen in Ian Rankin's work. I enjoyed this and bought the next in the series. Hmmm I have a type it seems... The third book is The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson. It is of course Icelandic noir and set in modern day Iceland. I have some experience with Icelandic noir thanks to the works of Arnaldur Indridason, author of Jar City. Go read Jar City. It is well worth it. One of the issues with Icelandic noir is how people are accepted as disappearing. It seems to be a common thing for people to disappear and not be found. Something to do with walking off cliffs or falling down holes or simply dying of exposure. Anyhow, The Darkness has several threads which are all linked and yet not. We follow a dective who is a lot closer to retirement than she realised and so finds herself with 2 weeks to resolve a cold case. She picks one concerning a Russian asylum seeker who was found washed up on a beach. The detective is well fleshed out and we get a lot of her thought processes, hopes, dreams and nightmares. I picked this up thanks to Amazon's 99p ebooks and I am glad I gave it a punt. It was an easy but interesting read. My current book is Killing Eve, Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings. This is not a crime thriller but it is a thriller. It is the first in the series of novels which inspired the rather good TV series called Killing Eve. I have just finished series 4 and realised it was a series of books. It is pretty good so far and a fun read. It is nice hearing Villanelle's thoughts considering this is a character who is not naturally given to expressing her feelings. It is good enough to get half way through this morning. I suspect I will end up buying more. If you have not seen the TV series, go watch! The first series is a fantastic splash of style, acting and beautiful shots. The other series are good but lost some of the shine from the first. The future list is a bit more varied with finishing off some histories, some William Gibson, more of the Thrawn series of Star Wars books and Berlin travelogues I dip in and out of. Time to finish off some more of Codename Villanelle while listening to djRobyn's show.