I’ve just finished “The Stolen Sisters” by Louise Jensen. Three sisters are abducted when they are kids, and as the twentieth anniversary approaches their lives start to unravel. A decent enough story, though I’m never a big fan of stuff that jumps between timelines.
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
I swear this was written with a Coen Brothers film in mind. It is full of larger than life characters, such as the sanitation inspector with such an enormous penis that he can never have a sexual encounter because whenever he gets aroused the diversion of blood from his head causes him to lose consciousness!
The book follows the antics of three dirt brothers who in dirt poor Ohio in 1917 embark on a criminal rampage with hilarious ineptness.
It is a book not to be taken seriously. It has pathos and violence but made me laugh a lot. I hope the Coen Borthers do make it into a film - it will surely be a great hit.
I haven’t enjoyed a book this much for ages.
BTW - if you ever see it for sale second hand don’t be misled by the picture - the cover is made to look battered and torn, even on my pristine copy.
I’ve recently finished “Simply Lies” by David Baldacci. A former cop turned financial investigator is conned into first discovering a body, then trying to trace the secret fortune that the body has hidden prior to being murdered. A good story, I always enjoy his stuff.
Agreed - Baldacci is usually a good read.
I’ve just finished “April in Spain” by John Banville. A retired pathologist is on holiday with his wife when he sees a friend of his daughter, this friend had disappeared some years ago presumed dead. He sets out to try to find out whether it’s her, but in phoning his daughter to ask her whether it could be possible, he unwittingly forces the person she disappeared to get away from, to act.
It’s a strange book. The story itself is fine, if a little vague. It’s set in “an earlier time”, where for example the only way the daughter can get a photo to her father to try to confirm the missing girl’s identity is by air mail. I wasn’t expecting that, and I probably wouldn’t have read it if I had. It also uses some terminology that was common in, say, the 1960s that I wouldn’t have expected to see in print without the kind of “certain words and attitudes reflect those of the time” warning that you see when obscure TV channels show seventies sit-coms. The copyright date suggests it’s a very recent book, rather than a very old one that’s been re-printed. The language is very ornate in parts, and there’s the impression that a lot of prose isn’t really necessary. Again, I know books are full of that. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but I won’t be searching for any more.