The Castlemaine Murders (Kerry Greenwood)

I listened to The Castlemaine Murders as an audiobook, and while it took me a little while to get used to the very English narrator (Phryne didn't really sound as I expected her to sound), it didn't detract from my enjoyment of yet another light hearted mystery from Greenwood. As usual, the mystery was not terribly mysterious, but Phryne was deliciously fabulous, and I love all the scenes in her household. When will I be rich enough to have a butler to mix me drinks?

End in Tears (Ruth Rendell)

End in Tears is Ruth Rendell's latest Inspector Wexford novel, and while I found the plot rather contrived, Rendell's skill with characterisation still makes this book very readable indeed. A teenage mother is found murdered, and shortly afterwards one of her friends disappears. Wexford spends the novel seeking the link between thes two girls, and dealing with his own family problems as his wife is furious with their daughter for deciding to have another child. As usual, it is the character of Wexford that carries the story - his frustration with the world he finds himself in, and his determination to find the answers.

One Good Turn (Kate Atkinson)

I was really looking forward reading to One Good Turn. I've enjoyed all of Kate Atkinson's other books, to varying degrees, and I loved Case Histories, which shares characters with One Good Turn. However, unfortunately I wasn't too enthralled.

I found One Good Turn to be enormously complicated. So many characters, so many plots (which all tied together in so many ways) - and I realise that's Atkinson's trademark, in a way. But I just wasn't able to keep track of it this time, or at least not in a way that kept me involved with the characters. I'll definitely re-read One Good Turn sometime in the future, and hope that I enjoy it more the second time.

The Basic Eight (Daniel Handler)

I've read The Basic Eight before, and remember really enjoying it. This time around, this satire of American teenagers, pop culture and high school didn't grab me as much, I think because I was reading it with the end twist in mind.

Basic plot outline - Flan and her seven friends (the titular basic eight) deal with their complex love lives, high school classes and creepy biology teachers. Flan, the narrator, makes it clear that the whole narrative is leading up to the tragedy that occurred on Halloween and its a very effective - creepy, engaging, and all that. Great the first time, not so fabulous for a re-read.

The Art of Detection (Laurie R King)

I obviously wasn't paying a great deal of attention when I picked this book up at the library, because I was expecting another installment in King's series of Sherlock Holmes novels. The Art of Detection is more properly described as a Kate Martinelli novel - another one of King's serial characters, a San Francisco detective - although it involves the discovery of an unpublished Conan Doyle story narrated by Sherlock Holmes, thereby loosely linking King's two popular mystery series.

I'm not sure if the linking together really worked. The short story is narrated out within the pages of this book, and I became quite distracted with it, which reduced my interest in the resolution of the "real" mystery that Kate was trying to solve. There were almost too many threads to this - Kate's family life, characters from previous Kate novels, the murder (or is it a murder?) that Kate's trying to solve, and then the story-within-a-story. At times, I thought it moved rather slowly.

However, King's skill draws everything together at the end - a satisfactorily tense resolution to Kate's case - and the murdered character whose life is revealed slowly through the book is quite fascinating. It's not one of King's best books - I'm really more a fan of her Sherlock novels - but still an enjoyable read, if you persevere through the occasional slow patches.

Tree of Hands (Ruth Rendell)

I enjoy Ruth Rendell's work a lot, but I do tend to read her books for relaxation, rather than because I'm utterly absorbed in the story. No, I take that back - I become very absorbed in her books, but they don't tend to stay with me - when they finish, they drop out of my mind, which is why I consider them light reading, despite their regularly depressing content.

Tree of Hands is the story of Benet, her son James, and her mother Mopsa, and another family, Carol, Barry and Carol's three children, some of whom are in care. Mopsa, who has always been somewhat mentally disturbed, is the connection who brings these families together in an unexpected way. Events tumble onward through the novel, bring disaster after disaster to its characters - even Benet's gradual reawakening is shadowed by the reader's foreboding of eventual disaster.

Rendell is known for delving into the darker parts of the human psyche, and she does it immensely well - you sympathise with her most unsympathetic characters because you recognise parts of yourself in their desperate greed and meanness. I imagine if you're a fan of psychological thrillers, then Tree of Hands will linger in your thoughts longer than it did in mine - it is an excellent book, afterall.

The Full Cupboard of Life (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Full Cupboard of Life is another lovely book in McCall Smith's series about private detective Precious Ramotswe. While these stories are technically mysteries, these really take a back seat to McCall Smith's beautifully simply writing, Botswana and Precious herself.

I found myself smiling often while reading this book - it evokes a sense of sweet contentment, and the ending is really beautiful. I loved it - I must read more of these, as I don't think I've read them all.

Murder in the Dark (Kerry Greenwood)

Ah, the latest Phryne Fisher mystery - the perfect book to read, snuggled down on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate. Murder in the Dark has all the familiar elements of Greenwood's Phryne Fisher books - beautiful descriptions of costumes, an enjoyable mystery, and the delightful Phryne being gorgeous. Lovely. Such a fun book.

Case Histories (Kate Atkinson)

I've read all of Kate Atkinson's other books, and I was looking forward to this one, with its reputation as the best of the lot. And it does live up to it.

It's one of the multi-strand stories that Atkinson seems to enjoy writing, and this one works particularly well. It begins by introducing three incidents in different times - a small girl who disappears, a young woman who's murdered, and woman who kills her husband with an axe. We are then introduced to Jackson Brodie, a private detective and ex-policeman, who slowly draws all these disparate threads together.

As usual, with Atkinson, this is a novel that thrives on its detail and deliciously three dimensional characters, which in a way are almost more exciting than the mysteries involved (although I was anxious to see those solved as well). I particularly enjoyed the father/daughter storyline, as I really identify with loving a parent enormously, yet secretly thinking of them as a bit silly, and how cruel that is.

This is a wonderful, five star novel - something to force your family and friends to read.

The Minotaur (Barbara Vine)

I enjoy Barbara Vine (also known as Ruth Rendell). While as Rendell, the author concentrates on crime, Vine writes psychological mysteries/crime/thrillers. And while I'm not an great aficionado of crimes and mysteries, I like them as books I can race through in one or two sittings.

The Minotaur is a gripping story. Kerstin, a Swedish nurse, is employed by a very strange English family to take care of a schizophrenic son in his thirties. The character of Kerstin is a wonderful narrator, and this story is almost claustrophic in its tension. The inevitable ending spirals tighter and closer throughout the novel so that when you finally put it down, it's almost a relief to be finished.

So, while I'm not passionately attached to stories like this - I don't feel the urge to race out and buy it so that I can read it again whenever I like - they're still great reads. A 4/5 book.

Locked Rooms (Laurie R King)

This novel is the latest from Laurie R King, and continues her series revolving around her Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mary Russell.

The reason I like these books is King's Sherlock Holmes. I wouldn't call myself a mad fan of Arthur Conan Doyle, but I did read all his Sherlock Holmes stories when I was younger, and I think King captures Holmes perfectly, and also makes him a far more interesting and sympathetic character than Doyle ever did.

Mary, though, is what makes the books. Mary is a wonderful character. I like her enormously, and her relationship with the prickly Holmes is fantastic.

The mysteries - for these novels are all mysteries - are secondary, to me. I enjoy the characters, first and foremost. The mystery in Locked Rooms is rather disappointing. While it delves a great deal into Mary's history, which is interesting, the villian revealed at the end was a bit of a let down. The motivation was rather unrealistic.

Despite that, I enjoyed this - King alternates Mary's first person with a third person narration, and I really liked that. You get to know Holmes' better, I think, rather than purely through Mary's eyes. The let-down of the mystery doesn't ruin the book, but it's a little disappointing to imagine what it might have been. Oh, and it's not really worth reading as a stand alone novel - you need to start at the beginning, with The Beekeeper's Apprentice.