Friday Finds

This is the post where you display your week’s wares – that is, what books have arrived in your household in the last week, by whatever means. This week it’s been one of these weeks where I’m convinced my postman hates me, as lots of exciting proofs arrived, many for future blog tours.

This is the latest Arnaldur Indridason, who is a favourite ScandiNoir author of mine. Now that leads us very nicely onto Quentin Bates who is, right now at least, best known in the UK as the translator of Ragnar Jonasson’s Dark Iceland series. However, his novel, Thin Ice, is out now, and I’ll be participating in a Blog Tour for it, as I suspect some of you reading may also be doing. I haven’t started it yet, but I’m dying to get into it. The third book above is the third in the Malmo series by Torquil MacLeod, the first two being Meet Me In Malmo and Murder In Malmo. Murder In Malmo was so good this is another I’ll also be looking forward to!

Now spy novels have long been a real pleasure of mine, partly from being brought up on a diet of James Bond movies, and also from listening to my father talk about the Fleming family, whose shooting lodge was close to the farm we had previously, and who he knew well. Back then Peter Fleming was regarded as the real writer in the family, and he was also married to Celia Johnson, the film star probably best known for Brief Encounter. Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels were regarded as pretty much pulp by the literary establishment, until Sean Connery was cast as 007, and the films became a huge success. Anyway, I heard fantastic things about Adam Brookes’ debut, Night Heron, which I bought, and I’ll be taking part in the Spy Games Blog Tour with pleasure. The British Lion is a book I saw a review of in a blog – I’m sorry, the name escapes me but I’ll do my best to find it so I can credit you – and I thought that sounded like it was just my thing – more skullduggery! On request, the publisher, William Morrow, were generous enough to send me a copy. It’s the second in a series, following on from The Darkest Hour. The third book above comes courtesy of LoveReading, and is first in a series about The Blitz Detective. I’ve read a few utterly superb books about the Blitz recently (Cathi Unsworth’s wonderful Without The Moon, My Book Of The Year for 2015; Lissa Evans’ excellent Crooked Heart – both which I will review!) so I felt I’d carry on and read more about that horrendous period in London’s history. If anyone can recommend a good non-fiction book, I’d be really grateful.

On a lighter note, David F. Ross follows on from The Last Days Of Disco with The Rise And Fall Of The Marvellous Vespas. This should provide a much-needed lighter note than the books pictured above! And there’s even a 7″ single to accompany it, which I will sample next time I’m at my parents.

So, any thoughts? Is there anything here to tickle your fancy? As always, all comments are most welcome – I love hearing from my fellow bookworms. It reminds you that you’re not the only one sitting there with a book for company until all hours!