Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders"

Osman, Richard "We Solve Murders" - 2024

I absolutely loved Richard Osman's first books because I do love him as a person and also got to love him as an author, So, I was quite happy, when my son gave me this for Christmas.

If this was a movie, this would be an action thriller rather than a murder mystery. I love watching murder mysteries (though I don't read them much) but I really don't like action movies. Far too loud for me.

I must say, this was almost the same with this book. I heard people complain about his first books that there were too many characters and that you did confused. Well, if you got confused with the first lot, this one will certainly not do for you. It took me quite a while to even understand who was who and what they were up to. My book has 464 pages and I think I got into the story at around page 200. Far too late and I would have given up if it weren't for the author.

There is some humour in this book but not the humour I am used to from Richard Osman. Such a pity.

From the back cover:

"Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?"

Tartt, Donna "The Secret History"

Tartt, Donna "The Secret History" - 1992

"The Secret History" has been on my wishlist ever since I read "The Goldfinch". And this year, I finally got to it. 

And a very impressive story it is. But it's difficult to get into details without giving out spoilers. Just this much. A group of students does something really bad and can only get out of it by doing something even worse. The characters are not really likeable but they get under your skin. You can't follow their actions but somehow you can.

A challenging book that will probably stay with me forever.

Quotes

on migraines:
"Henry, flat on his back in a dark room, ice packs on his head and a handkerchief tied over his eyes.

'I don't get them so often as I once did. When I was thirteen or fourteen I had them all the time. But not it seems that when tey do come - sometimes only once a year - they're much worse. ...'"

on death:
"Is death really so terrible a thing? It seems terrible to you, because you are young, ... It does not do to be frightened of things you know nothing ..."

From the back cover:

"Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever."

Tokarczuk, Olga "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" - 2009

Tokarczuk, Olga "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" (Polish: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych) - 2009

I have read one book by Olga Tokarczuk (Primeval and Other Times) when she received her Nobel Prize for Literature. And I wanted to read more by her since then. A bookclub member lent me one now and I read it in more or less one go, it is so exciting. Janina Duszejko is such an interesting character. And the story is starting so quietly, you don't even notice at the beginning that it is a crime story which are not my favourites.

Even though she is the protagonist of the novel, you don't see her as such at the beginning. Janina is a middle-aged, slightly weird woman living in the middle of nowhere in the mountains at the Polish-Czech border where she looks after the summer houses of some rich people. She works with astrology and translates poems by William Blake. She loves animals and she is a conservationist. A remarquable woman.

Where this story leads to, I don't know. But I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in great literature.

From the back cover:

"One of Poland's most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights."

And why the German translation is called "Der Gesang der Fledermäuse" (The Song of the Bats) is still a mystery to me.

Olka Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 "for her narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" - 1938

Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" - 1938

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Besides "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" from Anna Karenina and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." from "A Tale of Two Cities" probably one of the best known first lines of any novel. Even people who never read the books have heard them.

I have wanted to read this novel for a long, long time. I don't know why it took me so long to start it but I am glad I finally did. What a story! Definitely one of my favourites of all time.

I remember watching the film at least forty years ago, I have never forgotten it. Sometimes you don't want to spoil a book by watching the movie, sometimes it is the other way around.

This has not disappointed me. On the contrary. I am glad I watched the film first because I might have not liked it as much. But his way it was good.

The writing of this book is just superb. Whether it's a conversation or the description of a situation or a landscape, it couldn't have been done any better.

The description of the book says it all, I don't want to add more to spoil it for those who have not read it.

Just one last question: Any ideas on the name of the narrator. My thought was Kirstin or Kristin or Christine or Kerstin or whatever variations of that name, I've seen so many of them. However, I guess there is a reason why the author decided not to give her a name, it goes well with her status in the book, with her self-confidence - or lack of it.

From the back cover:

"'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.'

So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past the beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant - the sinister Mrs. Danvers - still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of the evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley."

Christie, Agatha "Murder on the Orient Express"

Christie, Agatha "Murder on the Orient Express" (Hercule Poirot #10) - 1934

Who hasn't watched "Murder on the Orient Express"? I know I have watched it about a hundred times. First with Albert Finney as Monsieur Poirot, then Alfred Molina, then THE Hercule Poirot, David Suchet, and last but definitely not least, the great Kenneth Branagh.

So, I thought it was about time that I read the book. All those films I watched are all slightly different and I always wondered which one was closest to the book. Well, they all left something out or changed who said what or even who was who. But they are all close to the book. Agatha Christie had a huge imagination and this novel shows us again how wonderful her stories are.

From the back cover:

"Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers is the murderer.

Isolated by the storm and with a killer in their midst detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man's enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again …"

Highsmith, Patricia "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

Highsmith, Patricia "The Talented Mr. Ripley" - 1955

This is my seventh Classic Spin and we were given #12.

I found this book on a swap shelf, otherwise I probably wouldn't have even looked at it, I'm not much into crime stories. I had heard of Mr. Ripley through the film of the same name with Matt Damon and Jude Law but never watched it, for the same reason as I normally wouldn't have read this book.

However, Patricia Highsmith is an author with a high reputation and I thought I ought to read at least one of her books. And I'm glad I did. Not because I really enjoyed the story all that much but because she was a talented author.

The characters reminded me a little of "The Great Gatsby", those young people living without any aim or task, only thinking about themselves.

I know there are a lot more books about Tom Ripley but I doubt I'll read any of them, even though the story was well written, this is not my kind of thing.

From the back cover:

"Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking."

Christie, Agatha "Hercule Poirot"

Christie, Agatha "Hercule Poirot. The Complete Short Stories" - 1923-61

Hercule Poirot. As soon as you hear that name you think, moustache, French accent, hat. I am not a huge fan of crime stories. Or short stories. But I love to watch Agatha Christie's stories on TV. For "the Monsieur Poirot", I liked the old ones with Sir Peter Ustinov, even any of the others with Albert Finney and Alfred Molina (who I really, really like) or the new one with Sir Kenneth Brannagh. But my favourite, sorry to all the others, is, of course, Sir David Suchet. He is the epitome of Hercule Poirot as Agatha Christie described him. I'm sure she would have loved him.

So, when I saw this book, I thought, why not? Give Agatha a try and read some of her stories. You can always stop halfway if you're bored since they are all short stories. Guess what? I read them all.

Not only are the stories funny which was to be expected from the films, her writing is just great. Her stories are easy reads and even someone who doesn't guess right away who the killer was (like me) finds fun in trying to guess whodunnit.

Of course, the book is not like the films. Some stories were thrown together to make one film, others were just merely mentioned in the series. That was also fun, trying to think in which episode had I seen that.

If you like crime stories and/or Agatha Christie, this is an absolutely great collection.

From the back cover:

"More than 50 Poirot short stories, including one unique to this volume!

Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head and immaculate black moustache, has a passion for order, rational thought, and an overwhelming confidence in his deductive genius. He is, after all, the most famous detective in the world!

There is a spectacular diversity in the plots and themes of these cases. Violent murders, poisonings, kidnappings and thefts, all are solved or thwarted with Poirot's usual panache - and the characteristic application of his 'little grey cells'.

Includes Poirot And The Regatta Mystery, An early short story not published since 1936!"

These are the stories in the book:

Introduction: Enter Hercule Poirot

The Affair at the Victory Ball
The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan
The King of Clubs
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
The Plymouth Express
The Adventure of "The Western Star"
The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
The Kidnapped Prime Minister
The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge
The Chocolate Box
The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb
The Veiled Lady
The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
The Market Basing Mystery
The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman
The Case of the Missing Will
The Incredible Theft
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
The Lost Mine
The Cornish Mystery
The Double Clue
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
The Lemesurier Inheritance
The Under Dog
Double Sin
Wasps' Nest
The Third-Floor Flat
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
Dead Man's Mirror
How Does Your Garden Grow?
Problem at Sea
Triangle at Rhodes
Murder in the Mews
Yellow Iris
The Dream
Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
The Labours Of Hercules - Foreword
The Nemean Lion
The Learnean Hydra
The Arcadian Deer
The Erymanthian Boar
The Augean Stables
The Stymphalean Birds
The Cretan Bull
The Horses of Diomedes
The Girdle of Hyppolita
The Flock of Geryon
The Apples of the Hesperides
The Capture of Cerberus
Poirot and the Regatta Mystery

If you cannot find this edition, you can find the different stories in these books:

POIROT INVESTIGATES
The Adventure of "The Western Star"
The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge
The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb
The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan
The Kidnapped Prime Minister
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman
The Case of the Missing Will
The Veiled Lady
The Lost Mine
The Chocolate Box

DEAD MAN'S MIRROR
(Goodreads)
Dead Man's Mirror
The Incredible Theft
Murder in the Mews
Triangle at Rhodes

THE REGATTA MYSTERY
(Goodreads)
The Mystery of the Bagdad Chest or The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
How Does Your Garden Grow?
Yellow Iris
The Dream
Problem at Sea

THE LABOURS OF HERCULES
(Goodreads)
The Nemean Lion
The Learnean Hydra
The Arcadian Deer
The Erymanthian Boar
The Augean Stables
The Stymphalean Birds
The Cretan Bull
The Horses of Diomedes
The Girdle of Hyppolita
The Flock of Geryon
The Apples of the Hesperides
The Capture of Cerberus

From THREE BLIND MICE
(Goodreads)
The Third-Floor Flat
The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds

From THE UNDER DOG
(Goodreads)
The Under Dog
The Plymouth Express
The Affair at the Victory Ball
The Market Basing Mystery
The Lemesurier Inheritance
The Cornish Mystery
The King of Clubs
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook

From DOUBLE SIN
(Goodreads)
Double Sin
Wasps' Nest
The Theft of the Royal Ruby or The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
The Double Clue

Christie, Agatha "And then there were none"

Christie, Agatha "And then there were none" (formerly: Ten Little Niggers) - 1939

I love Agatha Christie. But I usually just watch her on the television as I don't read many crime stories.

This one was different. Our online book club decided to postpone the chosen books and read some instead that are available on the internet. So, one of the choices was "And then there were none". I remember watching it in a local theatre where I knew half of the amateur actors personally. I remember it was great but I didn't remember the ending. Weird, because that happens to me very rarely. However, it was also reported by others that they had forgotten, maybe another great twist by the author?

Anyway, as with the tv adaptations, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. There was a lot of suspense in it, the characters were well written and you started to really like them. I couldn't imagine any of them being the "bad guy" (or girl), they all seemed so nice and had a good reason for the deed they were accused of. Yes, all of them supposedly had killed someone and therefore were lured onto the island in order to be killed.

I think we all know the nursery rhyme after which the book was named at first (there even was a German version and probably more in other languages, sometimes with a different title/different characters):

"Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Soldier Boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Soldier Boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none."

Apparently, at first the soldier boys were not soldier boys (check here) but I think it is a good idea to have changed that. A lot of translations still use the old title which I think is totally unacceptable, especially in this day and age. (Should have been back then but we know how things were. Unfortunately.)

It was quite nice to read this story. As usual with Agatha Christie's books, the ending is totally surprising. There are crime stories where you can try to guess who the criminal is. Hardly ever with Agatha. I have always been annoyed when some detail turns up in the end that changes the whole story. One cannot possibly know that.

However, I have watched all the Miss Marple and Monsieur Poirot (and some other) stories on TV in the meantime and probably should read a few of her books. At least this one was very good. Great mystery.

In the discussion, the plot was talked about and all the ways how the reader was being read into the story, characters and their crimes, motivations, archetypes. There seem to be also quite a few movies and series adaptations of the story, the new BBC one apparently being very much harsher and cruel. I will have to check into that.

We discussed this in our international online book club in May 2020.

From the back cover:

"Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island, an isolated rock off the Devon coast. Cut off from the mainland, with their generous host mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime.
Then one of the party dies suddenly, and they realise there may be a murderer in their midst who might strike again…and again…

And all the time, copies of a macabre nursery rhyme hang in each room, a nursery rhyme with an omen of death for all ten of them."

Eschbach, Andreas "One Trillion Dollars"

Eschbach, Andreas "One Trillion Dollars" (German: Eine Billion Dollar) - 2001

This was another book from my TBR pile that had been suggested for our book club ages ago.

The story makes you think about what you could do if you had all the money in the world. What would you do to save the world? It's a tough question and if there is an answer, this book shows how hard it is to find an answer.

While I like the idea of the book and the story as such, I didn't really enjoy the novel very much. There were no likeable characters and the writing itself was not my cup of tea. And I can't even blame a translator because I read it in the original German.

Anyway, not uninteresting but it doesn't entice me to read more books by this author.

From the back cover:

"Yesterday John Fontanelli was just a pizza delivery guy in New York City. One day later he's the richest man in the world. One trillion dollars - one million times one million - $1,000,000,000,000: more money than anyone could imagine. For generations the Vacchis, an old Italian family of lawyers and asset managers, had supervised the fortune as it grew over five hundred years, until one particular date that the benefactor had stipulated in his will. The youngest male descendant would be fated to oversee the fortune for the good of humanity. John relishes his new life of luxury, rubbing elbows with royalty, buying up corporations, fielding a flood of beautiful women - until one day the phone rings, and a mysterious stranger tells the trillionaire that he knows what dirty secrets lie behind the fortune..."

Oates, Joyce Carol "Jack of Spades"

Oates, Joyce Carol "Jack of Spades. A Tale of Suspense" - 2015

Joyce Carol Oates is definitely one of my favourite authors. Her novels are always full of suspense, full of psychological meanings, full of interpersonal relationships. This is all of that and still quite different from her other novels. I doubt I would have read this kind of book had it been by any other author, I doubt I would have been drawn to it.

This novel is clever as always. It seems kind of short and I'm not usually a fan of short stories but this one was just the right size. The story is twisted and you can't wait for it to come all together, can't wait for the end.

I really did enjoy it, Joyce Carol Oates is just a fantastic writer. As mentioned in a New York Times Book Review on another of her novels: "After all these years, JCO can still give me the creeps." Well said.

From the back cover:

"From one of the most highly regarded writers working today, Jack of Spades is an exquisite, psychologically complex thriller about the opposing forces within the mind of one ambitious writer, and the delicate line between genius and madness.

Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: he has a top agent and publisher in New York, and his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies around the world. He also has a loving wife and three grown children and is highly respected as a philanthropist in his small New Jersey town. Only Stephen King, one of the few mystery writers whose fame exceeds his own, is capable of inspiring a twinge of envy in Rush.

But unbeknownst to anyone, even in his own family, Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym 'Jack of Spades', he pens another string of novels - dark potboilers that are violent, lurid, even masochistic. These are novels that the refined, upstanding Andrew Rush wouldn’t be caught reading, let alone writing. When his daughter comes across a Jack of Spades novel he has carelessly left out, she insists on reading it and begins to ask questions. Meanwhile, Rush receives a court summons in the mail explaining that a local woman has accused him of plagiarizing her own self-published fiction. Before long, Rush’s reputation, career, and family life all come under threat - and in his mind he begins to hear the taunting voice of Jack of Spades.

Tunneling into the most fraught corners of an immensely creative mind, Jack of Spades is a startling, fascinating novel by a masterly writer."

Bollen, Christopher "The Destroyers"

Bollen, Christopher "The Destroyers" - 2017

Our latest book club read. I had never heard of this author and I'm not totally surprised. "Mystery" and "thriller" usually doesn't come up in my books.

I only had a couple of days to read this book because it arrived very late from the library. But I think that was a good thing, this is probably not the kind of story you want to spread out.

Not a bad novel, the characters are pretty well drawn, you can imagine they actually exist. The story itself, well, I've never been rich but I can imagine it hits you harder when you don't have any money all of a sudden than when you never had it. People make different decisions in such a situation.

I don't completely agree with the title, the game the "Destroyers" the boys used to play as children, contributed nothing to the story in my opinion.

However, it was an interesting book.

From the back cover:

"Arriving on the Greek island of Patmos broke and humiliated, Ian Bledsoe is fleeing the emotional and financial fallout from his father’s death. His childhood friend Charlie - rich, exuberant, and basking in the success of his new venture on the island - could be his last hope.

At first Patmos appears to be a dream -long sun-soaked days on Charlie’s yacht and the reappearance of a girlfriend from Ian’s past - and Charlie readily offers Ian the lifeline he so desperately needs. But, like Charlie himself, this beautiful island conceals a darkness beneath, and it isn’t long before the dream begins to fragment. When Charlie suddenly vanishes, Ian finds himself caught up in deception after deception. As he grapples with the turmoil left in his friend’s wake, he is reminded of an imaginary game called Destroyers they played as children - a game, he now realizes, they may have never stopped playing.

An enthralling odyssey and a gripping, expansive drama, The Destroyers is a vivid and suspenseful story of identity, power and fate, fathers and sons, and self-invention and self-deception, from a writer at the very height of his powers."

We discussed this in our book club in April 2018.

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Labyrinth of the Spirits"

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Labyrinth of the Spirits" (Spanish: El laberinto de los espíritus) - 2016 
(El cementerio de los libros olvidados #4)

It was a lucky day in 2001 when I first stumbled upon my first book by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Finally the fourth book in the series of the Cemetery of Forgotten books has been published and was available as a paperback in translation. You can't imagine how I have waited for this.

And I was not disappointed. The fourth novel was just as exciting as the first three that had originally been called a trilogy but - luckily - the author decided to turn it into a tetralogy. Maybe he'll even write a fifth one? No matter what, if he is writing another book, I am going to read it.

We have learned a lot about the family Sempere and the authors they read, their friends and their lives, esp. the lives of the people in Catalonia during the Franco regime. It must have been horrible. But the author manages to describe all the incidents meticulously, with so much detail that you can imagine having been there yourself.

In this novel, he gets behind the scenes of a minister and his evil deeds. The Sempere family is involved again and we also hear about some of the characters from the previous episodes. Apparently, you can read the series in whatever order you want, there is always some information from the other books. I intend to re-read all the other three books soon.

These are the first books in the series:
- "The Shadow of the Wind" (La Sombra del Viento)
- "The Angel’s Game" (El Juego del Ángel)
- "The Prisoner of Heaven" (El Prisionero del Cielo)

From the back cover:

"The internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale - a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark history of Franco’s Spain.

In this unforgettable final volume of Ruiz Zafón’s cycle of novels set in the universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, with the help of the Sempere family, uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history.

Nine-year-old Alicia lost her parents during the Spanish Civil War when the Nacionales (the fascists) savagely bombed Barcelona in 1938. Twenty years later, she still carries the emotional and physical scars of that violent and terrifying time. Weary of her work as investigator for Spain’s secret police in Madrid, a job she has held for more than a decade, the twenty-nine-year old plans to move on. At the insistence of her boss, Leandro Montalvo, she remains to solve one last case: the mysterious disappearance of Spain’s Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.

With her partner, the intimidating policeman Juan Manuel Vargas, Alicia discovers a possible clue - a rare book by the author Victor Mataix hidden in Valls’ office in his Madrid mansion. Valls was the director of the notorious Montjuic Prison in Barcelona during World War II where several writers were imprisoned, including David Martín and Victor Mataix. Traveling to Barcelona on the trail of these writers, Alicia and Vargas meet with several booksellers, including Juan Sempere, who knew her parents.

As Alicia and Vargas come closer to finding Valls, they uncover a tangled web of kidnappings and murders tied to the Franco regime, whose corruption is more widespread and horrifying than anyone imagined. Alicia’s courageous and uncompromising search for the truth puts her life in peril. Only with the help of a circle of devoted friends will she emerge from the dark labyrinths of Barcelona and its history into the light of the future.

In this haunting new novel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón proves yet again that he is a masterful storyteller and pays homage to the world of books, to his ingenious creation of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and to that magical bridge between literature and our lives."

Favourite quotes:
"You drink to remember, you write to forget." David Martín
and
"The Semperes travelled through books, not the map."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Koch, Herman "The Dinner"

Koch, Herman "The Dinner" (Dutch: Het Diner) - 2009

Our latest book club read, a story about two couples going for dinner but everything seems to go wrong.

While this is a good book to discuss, I didn't actually enjoy it a lot. I didn't like any of the characters, well, I felt a little sorry for the wives but no, I really didn't like any of them. They were not just shallow, they were calculating, only out for their own gain. Another member said she got so angry but we did agree that it was a good book to talk about.

I enjoyed the description of the waiter, of the whole "star restaurant". I have been to a few restaurants like that myself where you seem to pay for the whole plate and therefore don't get much on it ... but everything is somehow "special". I rather go to a nice little restaurant that still cooks everything from fresh ingredients but also makes sure their customers don't leave their place with a hollow stomach.

I found the characters racist or fascist or whatever you might call people who just dislike someone for having less money than they do, Just the type of people I would not want to call my friends. Whatever happens, I don't want to spoil it for anyone like this, I would not do "anything" for my children out of love, I would like to keep them out of trouble before something happens.

The question is, do we want to live in a society determined by these kind of people?

The book has been made into a movie. I'm not sure whether I want to watch it.

We discussed this in our book club in November 2017.

From the back cover:

"A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays.

But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened... Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified - by everyone except their parents.

As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love."

Fowler, Christopher "Hell Train"

Fowler, Christopher "Hell Train" - 2011

"Hell Train", a ghost story. Not my usual genre. But a friend asked me to read the German translation and see how it flows.

Well, it flows very well. The story is interesting, even though I wouldn't normally pick one of these. The characters, four people who happen to meet in a train, are well described, each and every one of them comes alive well. The story moves back and forth from real life into the film that is supposedly under construction. Maybe that made the whole story more believable to me even though I think most people who love horror stories could have lived without it. I did like the folk tales people were telling each other about the train, stories they had heard as children and lived with all their lives.

I haven't read the original but I would think that anyone who likes to read these kind of stories will love it.

From the back cover:

"Four passengers meet on a train journey through Eastern Europe during the First World War, and face a mystery that must be solved if they are to survive... Bizarre creatures, satanic rites, terrified passengers and the romance of travelling by train, all feature in this classically styled horror novel. As the ‘Arkangel’ races through the war-torn countryside, the passengers must find out: What is in the casket that everyone is so afraid of? What is the tragic secret of the veiled Red Countess who travels with them? Why is their fellow passenger the army brigadier so feared by his own men? And what exactly is the devilish secret of the 'Arkangel' itself?

 Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio’s peak, which played like a cross between the Dracula and Frankenstein films and Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors..."

Eco, Umberto "The Name of the Rose"

Eco, Umberto "The Name of the Rose" (Italian: Il nome della rosa) - 1980

I think I wanted to read this book ever since I first heard about the movie. And that has been a couple of decades ago. Well, finally I made it. But I still do not know why the title is "The Name of the Rose" but maybe that will forever remain a mystery.

The book certainly is one. A murder mystery. A monastery in the 14th century. One death occurs after the other, some of them seem very suspect, but for most of them it is very clear that another person caused the death. In other words, there is a mass murderer at large. Two visiting monks start to investigate and find a lot of links, some of them correct, others definitely false.

But that is not the most interesting part of the story, at least not for me. I am not the biggest fan of crime stories. But what fascinates me is the library and the labyrinth built around it to prevent people from entering and getting books they shouldn't see. If you are interested in medieval buildings, labyrinths and especially libraries, this is the ideal book. Furthermore, there are a lot of names that seem familiar, a lot of homages paid to real or fictitious persons (Brother William of Baskerville aka Sherlock Holmes, the blind monk Jorge of Burgos pays tribute to Jorge Luis Borges).

There are a lot of allusions to the bible, e.g. the seven trumpets of the biblical apocalypse who proclaim the events of the end of the world are not just used as a scheme of the narration, the novel is also divided into seven days.

I also found the discussions about the Franciscans interesting. Having grown up in a village with a Franciscan monastery and also continued to know Franciscan monks all my life, it was new to me that they had been regarded as heretics at the beginning.

I would have loved to visit this abbey and explore the library as our protagonists do. But since I can't do this, I will have to reread the book again. Which I certainly will do one day.

If you are interested in the middle ages, or in books, or in murder mysteries, or in classics ... you should read it, as well.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Novel by Umberto Eco, published in Italian as Il nome della rosa in 1980. Although the work stands on its own as a murder mystery, it is more accurately seen as a questioning of 'truth' from theological, philosophical, scholarly, and historical perspectives. The story centers on William of Baskerville, a 50-year-old monk who is sent to investigate a death at a Benedictine monastery. During his search, several other monks are killed in a bizarre pattern that reflects the Book of Revelation. Highly rational, Baskerville meets his nemesis in Jorge of Burgos, a doctrinaire blind monk determined to destroy heresy at any cost."

And here is a wonderful part of the book that shows some of the explanations given by the philosophers:

"'An admirable fortress,' he said, 'whose proportions sum up the golden rule that governed the construction of the ark. Divided into three stories, because three is the number of the Trinity, three were the angels who visited Abraham, the days Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish, and the days Jesus and Lazarus passed in the sepulcher; three times Christ asked the Father to let the bitter chalice pass from him, and three times he hid himself to pray with the apostles. Three times Peter denied him, and three times Christ appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection. The theological virtues are three, and three are the holy languages, the parts of the soul, the classes of intellectual creatures, angels, men, and devils; there are three kinds of sound - vox, flatus, pulsus - and three epochs of human history, before, during, and after the law.'

'A wondrous harmony of mystical relations,' William agreed.

'But the square shape also,' the abbot continued, 'is rich in spiritual lessons. The cardinal points are four, and the seasons, the elements, and heat, cold, wet, and dry; birth, growth, maturity, and old age; the species of animals, celestial, terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic; the colors forming the rainbow; and the number of years required to make a leap year.'

'Oh, to be sure,' William said, 'and three plus four is seven, a superlatively mystical number, whereas three multiplied by four makes twelve, like the apostles, and twelve by twelve makes one hundred forty-four, which is the number of the elect.' And to this last display of mystical knowledge of the ideal world of numbers, the abbot had nothing further to add. Thus William could come to the point."