There was life before arcs??

Reading the new arcs for Laurie King, Garment of Shadows. Chasing Magic by Stacia Kane (I liked the cover) and The Key, Simon Toyne's follow up to Sanctus. I am also reading Drift by Rachel Maddow. I don't watch her show, but she was interviewed by Jon Stewart and the first chapter had me laughing and cringing in equal measure.

On the ms front the tightening is complete, I just have to solve Rollover's my coat squared equation and print out the sixty pages and that's another step climbed. By the end of today I should be able to see my desk again.

Thoughts on Luther, The Calling

I'll say it now, when I see the words TV tie in it makes my heart sink into my boots because with only a few rare exceptions (one of them being the Nikki Heat books by "Richard Castle") they are written more as a marketing tool, the characters are 2D at best.

I am pleased to say that Neil Cross's Luther prequel also falls into the rare exceptions category. Cross created the TV series so he knows the characters inside and out. And he answers a question which I asked when Luther first appeared on screen, dangling a man over the side of a building to get information and then sending him to meet his maker. What had the man done to warrant such a reaction? Cross gives us a story that answers that question, explains Luther's marriage woes and his penchant for throwing away the rule book to get a result and takes us right to the grab-you-by-the-throat opening of the BBC America series. Full review when Luther, The Calling is published in September.

Thoughts on The Yard

In this era of forensic this and CSI that it would be easy to believe that the police have always had this crime solving toolkit. Not so and that's just one of things I liked about The Yard, not only is it set in a time when the police were ridiculed for their spectacular failure to catch Jack the Ripper but unless someone saw a murder take place they had no way of knowing who the killer was. Enter Dr Bernard Kingsley, pathologist but interested in concepts such as fingerprints, and traces of fibres on a dead man's clothing. The idea of bobbies travelling in pairs, the concept of informants all carefully woven into a cat and mouse game between a killer and Inspector Walter Day.

One more thing Alex Grecian doesn't come from England yet he conjures up the Victorian monster that was London in all its filthy glory.. Full review in June.

Sacrilege, S.J. Parris

Renegade philosopher monk Giordano Bruno (Heresy, Prophecy) returns for a third outing. A hooded figure is following Bruno around London and when he confronts this stalker he is pleasantly shocked to find that it is Sophia Underhill-the disgraced daughter of an Oxford fellow.

Sophia is accused of murder in Canterbury and Bruno-who still carries a torch for her-agrees to help clear her name. On his arrival he discovers that the Queen’s enemies are well entrenched here and Sophia’s husband may have been involved in a cult that reveres the bones of St Thomas a Beckett. Soon Bruno is fighting for his life, and he can’t put his faith in anything especially the English justice system.

Last Will, Liza Marklund

Annika Bengtzon just got the newspaper scoop of the century but she can’t write a word about it. Key witness to a murder at the prestigious Nobel prize ceremony because the killer stood on her foot, Annika can only watch as terrorism is blamed and arrests made. She feels that the assassin known as the Kitten didn't miss her target and the answer lies in the life of the dead woman and the world renowned Karolinska Institute. Too blinkered to register a friendship turning toxic and with her personal life collapsing around her, Annika pursues the story to the exclusion of all else, including her marriage.

Vanishers, Heidi Julavits

Julia Severn is ill, she works in a run-down carpet store in New York and takes so many pills that if you shook her she’d rattle. Her doctors can’t find anything wrong with her. The last time she was healthy was over a year ago when she was stenographer to the famed physic Madame Ackermann, Julia wasn’t such a slouch in the physic department herself and while the illness and the medications may have blunted her gift her sense of humour remains more-or-less intact. To get better Julia must become one of the ‘vanished’-people who have chosen to absent themselves from their own lives. But whilst recovering she comes across a wayward heiress, a conniving widow and a noted academic all involved in the hunt for a controversial French filmmaker who has some surprising links to Julia’s own mother Elizabeth. ‘Vanishers’ is a paranormal dramedy with surprising depth.

New For April

March was busy, April hopefully not so much. Here are a few new releases. Enjoy. Comments at the bookstore or via e-mail.

Currently reading The Yard by Alex Grecian a first novel set in London around the end of the reign of Jack The Ripper when Scotland Yard's murder squad was only twelve officers strong. Full of historical detail this moves at a pretty fast clip.

Two books I bought pretty much sight unseen are AngelMaker by Nick Harkaway and How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci by Michael Gelb. We have a short break coming up but after that my act will be well and truly gotten together.