The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

Police procedural taking place in LA – Very good.

Harry Bosch is a police officer working in LA who gets involved in a murder inquiry which turns sour in many ways. There’s a bit of a body count and also flashbacks to the war in Vietnam. It’s an interesting and engaging story with many good characters. I have read it before but didn’t remember a lot of it. It’s fairly typical of, what I call, American pulp thrillers with my usual pet hate : do we need to know all the street directions that these people drive down?
Spoiler alert: it’s also typical of other pulp writers such as James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell in that it deals with corrupt / bad law enforcement officers – are there really so many?

War and Peace by Leon Tolstoy

A challenge that i gave myself – quite good but ever so long!

Tolstoy deals here with the Napoleonic wars, in particular how they affect Russia and, more precisely, several main families and characters whose story dominate parts of this very long novel. Tolstoy also expounds on how history is made and recorded, whether it be by the winners or the losers. The novel can be hard work at times and I read it in sections, interspersing my reading with other novels for the sake of variety. This is why it took me three months to complete!

The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness, #3) by Joe Abercrombie

Excellent last part of this fantasy trilogy – well worth it.

This last book deals mainly with revolution (evidently modelled on the failures of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Maoist and so on) resulting in a bloodbath. There’s a lot of death, political maneuvering, betrayal and lies. However depressing parts of the plot are, the standout success of the book are the characters. They are fascinating and at the heart of the novel. The whole experience is very satisfying, engaging and enjoyable. Obviously it’s worth reading the first two volumes first but the trilogy is well worth the effort.

Mrs. Jeffries Takes Stock by Emily Brightwell

Cosy crime set in the Victorian era. Good enough.

Mrs Jeffries is the housekeeper for a police inspector and helps to solve a murder mystery when a man is killed who has possibly swindled some investors. All the domestic staff are involved in searching for the truth and this takes place without the inspector’s knowledge. It’s all quite fun as well as being a bit hard to believe. This is the first of these that I’ve read and it should be reasonably entertaining to work my way through the others.

In the Caves of Exile by Ru Emerson

Second novel in this fantasy series – better than the first but…

I enjoyed this novel more than the first in the series as it takes Ylia further along her route as future Queen on Nedao and especially concentrates on the establishment of the new colony where she sets up camp with her followers. New characters are introduced and there’s plenty of action as well, mainly against the Matthkra. It’s quite entertaining but I don’t think that I’m enthralled enough to seek out the third in the series. Who knows?