Reviews

‘My favourite type of mystery, suspenseful, and where everyone is not what they appear . . . Christine is great at creating atmosphere . . . she evokes the magic of the stage, and her characters [have] a past to be uncovered before the mystery is solved.’ [Stage Fright]

- Lizzie Hayes, MYSTERY WOMEN

It’s over!

In my Christmas Eve daze – up to my elbows in red cabbage and stuffing – I must have forgotten to press ‘publish’ after I wrote this post. It was actually written on the 24th December! ‘Today my book-buying moratorium is over. It’s been three months – and I have pretty much stuck with it. I […]

The Japanese have a word for it . . .

Posted on Dec 31, 2015 in Ella Frances Sanders | No Comments

Tsundoku means ‘leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up with other unread books.’ I don’t know how I have done without this word. I discovered it in Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from around the World by Ella Frances Sanders. I got this book for Christmas and there are […]

Another birthday! It’s criminal …

My book-buying moratorium has only five days to go. It’s my birthday this week and that has made the wait  easier. My daughter gave me Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards, which I had been longing for. And what a splendid collection it is, well worth the wait. Of course there are a […]

I bought a book!

Visiting Cambridge on Friday to do some research for a story, I realise that I should have made an further exemption from my book-buying moratorium: because I can’t be in Cambridge without going to Heffers Bookshop – and I can’t go to Heffers without buying a book. It is one of my favourite book shops, […]

Christie’s Death Comes as the End

After I’d seen the splendid Egypt: Faith after the Pharaohs at the British Museum, I went to the London Library and got out Agatha Christie’s Come Tell Me How You Live. She published it in 1945 under her married name of Agatha Christie Mallowan, and it is an account of the trips to the Syria that […]

Crime Drama Clichés 3

Posted on Dec 4, 2015 in The Bridge | 4 Comments

I’ve been enjoying the excellent 3rd series of The Bridge, though I do miss Martin, who is now banged up in prison. However, original though the series is, it is not quite a cliché-free zone. Here’s one I spotted: someone lets themselves into their car and you know, just know, that a sinister figure is going to […]