Thrillers
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Last week I miscalculated with how much I would read on the train. I knew I only had 40 pages of Globalization and its Discontents to go and I was half way through Beginnings, Middles and Ends, and I thought that would be enough for the commute. Only it wasn’t. I finished them both on…
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Gridlinked by Neal Asher is essentially James Bond in a space opera setting. Ian Cormac has been an agent for Earth Central Services for thirty years and has been linked to the AIs that govern the Polity for all of that time. His latest mission involves coming off the grid and learning to problem solve like…
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I bought Free Fall by Robert Crais in a book buying addiction frenzy in Asda. They were selling a ton of books for a pound each. How am I supposed to not buy books if they do that?? Anyway, I was in the mood for easy-going fluff, and I have a book target to meet,…
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I was looking forward to reading Edge by Thomas Blackthorne. I liked the blurb (which you can see in the picture). It sounded like it was going to be an ultra-violent Running Man fun type of silliness. Predators in book form. But that’s not what it was. Bad Angry Robot. That’s the second time I’ve…
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Book club is off with a bang this year. January’s choice was Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada (trans: Micheal Hofmann) and I loved it from the from start to finish. Otto, an ordinary German living in a shabby apartment block, tries to stay out of trouble under Nazi rule. But when he discovers his only…
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Plot. I have issues with plot. I have a mental block when it comes to getting my characters from one big event to another via smaller events. Perhaps it’s just a confusion, a lack of being able to see the big picture, and the plot really is there and I just can’t see it. If…
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I bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson on the strength of the marketing, the fact that I saw everyone reading it and loads of people said it was good. Normally, I ignore that sort of mass trend but something about this book made me buy it despite its popularity. It was…
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Target by Simon Kernick is an easy read. It’s a fast-paced thriller and is fairly typical of the genre. There were a few noteworthy things about it. Firstly, loads of people died. I know it was a thriller about a psychotic hitman, but still. It did feel like there was a bit of red-shirt syndrome…
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Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons was my second pull from the book drop at the office. There was no non-fiction interlude between this and City of Beasts as I wasn’t organised enough. The book drop doesn’t contain vast amounts of books that I would jump at reading, so I just went for something lightweight and…
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It’s been a while, but mainly because I’ve been writing a short story, so no apologies. Since I’ve been away I’ve cracked through lots of books and thus here comes a huge post. Following on from the epic Martin Chuzzlewit I finished off Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler…
Boudica Marginalia 