nocto

My local library's crime section has tons of books by Patricia Hall and I keep passing them up. Last time I was in there I picked one up and it sounded ok, so I brought it home. This is from the middle of a long running series set in "Bradfield", a poorish city a short hop from Leeds - that's a very thinly disguised Bradford then. It's a male cop and girl reporter setup but so are some of my favourite crime series.

In the beginning I wasn't very into it, but it grew on me. There are some good in depth characters, some rather stereotyped ones, but no really cardboardy ones. The plot worked out ok - lots of race relations, worries about terrorism and failing textile mills - it rang pretty true to me.

A quick read, nothing very special but I'll probably pick another in the series up another time.

Borrowed.

John Sharpe is driving round the ring round; and getting steadily loopier as time goes on. Very little time passes in the course of the book. A whole heap of reflections by an unreliable narrator. Great stuff! There's an underlying semi-pseudo-plot about genetic modification, but it's not how I thought it would be when I read the teasers.

I definitely need to read Pears' other books.

Borrowed.