Books read in 2025

1. The Dutch House, Ann Patchett (Book Club Secret Santa from Kate)

I enjoyed this far more than I feared I might. It tells the story of Danny and his elder sister Maeve from childhood into adulthood,with the Dutch House playing a role in the story as much as the love between the siblings. Beginning in the 50s, it's set in Philidelphia and New York and so has that extra resonance for me. Excellent story telling. Ann Patchett moves from present day back to different moments in history, focusing on differnet people as needed. Really good.

2. Annihilation, Michel Houellebecq

I bought this on my first visit to the Topping's shop in Ely. It looked like an intriguing French thriller and I was looking forward to reading it. Well, it was French. The narrative focuses on the life of a senior French civil servant who, yes, is tangentially involved in a terror plot but that's a tiny part of the story. Long, slow.

3. Guilty By Definition, Susie Dent

The former Oxford English Dictionary lexicologist turns her hand to delivering a mystery centred on the lexicologists of the Oxford English Dictionary. Naturally, Susie Dent makes great use of her extensive knowledge of historial words. It's a very enjoyable read with the feel of a Miss Marple mystery or Midsommer Murders story as the disappearance of the primary character's sister more than a decade ago is gradually explained. There's also a strong and welcome thread of dealing with sexism.

4. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiel Hammett (book club, me)

This was one of the Folio society books that I inherited from Maz. I took the opportunity to suggest this as a book club choice to prompt me to read it.

As King George III supposedly said of Hamlet: "too many quotations!" Well, not so much quotations as stereotypes of the hard-nosed private detective who uses various illegal and barley-legal means to achieve the right thing in the end, mistreating women at every turn. Except that this is one of the books that defined the genre. It's a century old now and the attitudes to women are particularly unpleasant. Apart from that, the various players all seeking a supposedly valuable statuette (of a falcon) are all as bad as each other and Sam Spade gets the better of all of them. What I hadn't known was that at the beginning of the book, Spade has a partner called Miles Archer. He doesn't last long but his brother, Phil, appears once in a while. Who knew!

5. Patriot, Alexei Navalny

Birthday present from D.

Navalny was a man of extraordinary bravery, driven by a deep love of his country and a desire for all Russians to thrive. Rather than accept the corruption and criminality of the gang that runs the Kremlin, he chose to fight it by exposing what Putin and his cronies were up to with incontrovertible evidence and good humour, qualities that gained him widespread support. Putin killed him for it.

When I hear Putin aplogists saying that somehow the war in Ukraine is the fault of Ukraine itself, or NATO, The West, Zelenskiyy or whoever else they pick on at random, I think of Sarah Rainsford reporting on the war crimes committed in Bucha and Mariupol and of being thrown out of Russia, of Bill Browder fighting Putin's corruption, of Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh's experience in prison and of Navalny's bravery and inspiring patriotism.

6. Dirty Money, Charlotte Philby

Philby's new detective is a privileged woman whose brother becomes Home Secretary. She's also friends with a recovering drug addict who used to be a journalist and who is constantly in mortal danger having exposed a drug lord. Of course our detective is unorthodox and has a poor relationship with her boss but always gets results.

The setting is London and there are any number of journeys across town and references to parts of the city that of course I have no idea where they are other than being somewhere within the M25, so that's all a bit lost on me (and a tad irritating tbh). In a fictional setting, the author will take the trouble to describe where places are, at least in relation to each other. Like all Londoners, Charlotte Philby assumes everyone knows where Pimlico is in relation to Knightsrbidge.

I'm being way too negative. I enjoyed this a lot and raced through it.The plot was original (within the genre), the characters likeable and relatable, the story-telling excellent as always. I'm delighted that I'll have a chance to meet Charlotte Philby at an event at Hull Library in a couple of months' time.

7. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley

Ooh this was a good 'un. I enjoyed the Mars House last year and am now booked to go to see Natasha Pulley at two events in the space of a week shortly. I'd signed up for an event with Topping's in Ely, including paying for the new book, and then saw that she's doing an event at Waterstone's in Chelmsford two days before with Claire North. Gotta go to that one. I'd feel bad if I cancelled the Ely one so... I'll go to both.

Ahead of meeting Natasha Pulley and hearing about her new book, I wanted to read this, her first novel. It's absolutely terrific. And it even has some timey-wimeyness that is reminiscent of Claire North's Harry August. Keito Mori is a Japanese Baron who makes exceptional clockwork objects. Thaniel Steepleton is a seemingly bland character who works as a telgraphist at the Home Office (to start with). They form an unlikely friendship in the midsts of an Irish terrorist campaign. Grace Carrow, a scientist fighting the ridiculous patriarchy and mysogeny of the day completes the set of primary characters.

My copy is a special first edition. Number 63 of 300 with a printed cover, not a dust cover, and a circle cut in the front to reveal a watch underneath. An object of pleasure in itself. I ummed abd ahhed about asking Natasha to sign it personally but when it came to it (17 April 2025), I did. Having noticed that it was a special first edition, she asked me very directly "are you sure?" Having thought about it I said "it will reduce the value but it will mean more to me".

8. Death at the White Hart, Chris Chibnall

I enjoyed going to the Topping & Co event with Chris Chibnall. Event organiser, Emma, said she read this book in four hours. That was probably not much less than the cumulative time I spent reading this too. It's an enjoyable if rather sterotypical police procedural in rural England. The characters are, for the main part, all drawn to type and the plot is interesting enough to keep you engaged and guessing, sure, but it's not the most challenging of whodunnits. The only unusual thing that I could see was that the young detective (known as Westlife because of his boyish good looks) was not a bumbling idiot as a foil to DS Nicola bridge's brilliance.

Unsurprisingly given the author, the TV adaptation is in hand and the second book is nearing completion. My question to Chris Chibnall was something like "you said you're the one doing the screen adaptation? Despite your track record, surely the last person who should be doing that is you?" He said it was being done by a team, not just him. When I saw Claire North and Natasha Pulley in conversation (15 April 2025) in Chelmsford, they brought up the issue of screen adaptations of their work and said, as I had thought, that authors should never adapt their own work. I was able to relay the exchange I'd had with Chibnall.

9. Idolfire, Grace Curtis

I very rarely go anywhere near fantasy. Magic potions, dragons and quests leave me cold for the most part. But this one I very much enjoyed, despite one of the protagonists being a princess with some magical powers on a quest that will decide whether or not she takes the throne hooking up with a peasant girl who's jolly handy when it comes to hunting, lighting fires and generally surviving off the land.

IIRC I picked up Grace Curtis's first novel, Frontier when browsing in a London Waterstone's. Having enjoyed that, I eagerly bought her second, Floating Hotel and now this, her third. Interleaved with the questing and fighting off brutal would-be warlords in strange lands with alternating impenetrable forests, wide open plains and storm-raged seas is the evolving and complex relationship between Aleya and Kirby. I raced through this is little more than a week and look forward to her next, even if it is another fantasy.

My copy is personally signed although I have yet to meet Grace Curtis. I ordered it online from Topping's. By default, online orders go to the Edinburgh branch where she was due to do an event. Hence the remotely-arranged personal signature.

10. The Death Of Us, Abigail Dean

Another superb book from Abigain Dean. It has her trademark theme of how loving relationships evolve and cope with long-term trauma. In this case the trauma is caused by an "Invader" who targets well-off couples and families, raping the wife while the husband is immobilised through threat and the fear of worse should he resist. It completely dominates the rest of the lives of Isabel and Edward, pushing and pulling them in every direction. It took me a little while to work out that the Isabel chapters were her writing to the Invader, Nigel Wood, while the Edward chapters were third person narration of "now". That made for brilliant story-telling.

Very much a "couldn't put it down" book. Abigail Dean signed it at Golsboro Books on 10 April. I finished it ten days later, Easter Sunday.

11. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Book club, Kate)

Mixed feelings on this one. The set up is that there is a parallel world, built of an infinite series of halls with statues. Sea fills the lower halls, clouds the upper ones. Piranesi lives in the middle layer, surviving on fish. And yet he can read and write, and there is one other person who he sees twice a week and who apparently can provide new shoes, blank journals, pens and other things not of this world. So there's something not right about any of this. Gradually we discover the truth of who Piranesi really is, which he has completely forgotten, and how he got there. The relevant episode of Radio 4's book club is helpful.

12. A Trial in Three Acts, Guy Morpuss

I can't remember where I bought this but it was on a general browse, probably Waterstone's. The central event takes place during a play when a murder scene that has been performed many times actually does result in the murder of the actor. Around that we have the murder trial and the back story of how the characters all ended up where they were with the relevant loves, hates and betrayals. No spoilers but the murderer, as always, almost got away with it. Great story telling with laughs throughout. The only slight negative I'd say was that what I thought was a red herring turned out to be a series of massive clues to the real murderer's identity. In other words, the real culprit was signalled a long way before the end. But overall, good fun.

13. The Cure, Eve Smith