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The Best of April’s Reading

April was a quiet reading month but May promises to be much busier with Crimefest taking place in two weeks time. It’s always a IMG_1012great opportunity to catch up with writers, reviewers, bloggers and readers and there will be plenty of updates on this blog.

My book of the month for April is a surprise. I was looking forward to reading Fred Vargas’s Dog Will Have His Day but, while I found it an enjoyable read, it wasn’t one of her best. Instead, a book by an’new to me’ writer, Massimo Carlotto, was by far my favourite read this month. At the End of a Dull Day has sly humour and dark violence in equal measure and it was good to be taken out of my comfort zone.

The four books I read for Crimepieces were:

The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths

At the End of a Dull Day by Massimo Carlotto

The Ghost Runner by Parker Bilal

Dog Will Have His Day by Fred Vargas

 

Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise is bringing together other bloggers’ recommendations from their April reading. Do head over there to see what everyone else has been reading.

 

 

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The Best of February’s Reading

Only four books reviewed in February but I do have a backlog of reviews to write, including one of an outstanding book that’s shaping up to be my read of the year.

1962665_10151925829526625_408074059_nMy highlight of February was the meeting of the judging panel for the Petrona Award for translated Scandinavian Crime Fiction. The shortlist will be announced this week on the 6th March. There was a lively discussion and some interesting themes emerging from the books we read. More of this on the 6th but, in the meantime, the picture on the right shows the judges as we concluded our long judging session. From left: Karen Meek, Kat Hall, Barry Forshaw and me.

My book of the month was easy to choose: David Mark’s third novel in his Hull based series, Sorrow Bound. It’s getting lots of rave reviews already and rightly so.

The four books I reviewed for Crimepieces were:

1. The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson

2. The Front Seat Passenger by Pascal Garnier

3. Cairo by Chris Womersley

4. Sorrow Bound by David Mark