BANGKOK DAYS by LAWRENCE OSBORNE

Reading “Bangkok Days” whilst on holiday in Bangkok was a wonderful, border-line surreal experience, since it made me simultaneously embarrassed at how little I know the city, whilst also inspiring me to try and follow in Mr. Osborne’s steps. Not with the drinking nor the dentistry (the original reason the …

Inspector Singh Investigates : A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint

No sooner had I finished the first Inspector Singh novel, than I started on the second – and books 3-6 are already stacked up and waiting on my Kindle – so addicted have I become to these murder mysteries set in SE Asia, and starring the wonderful overweight, chain-smoking, wheezy, …

Inspector Singh Investigates : A most peculiar Malaysian murder

Oh, the joy of discovering a wonderful new series of whodunnits. After reading just this first book in the Inspector Singh series, I am already a loyal fan. Inspector Singh is going to be a great character, and a hugely likeable one at that. I just know it. A middle aged, overweight …

THREE SECONDS by ROSLUND & HELLSTROM

Clichés like “a page turner” and “unputdownable” are unavoidable in a review of this extraordinary, gripping, dark novel which is – yes, here goes –  a page turner and is absolutely unputdownable. This hefty novel (beautifully translated from the original Swedish) grips you from the very first page, and keeps you …

The Hundred-year-Old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

What a charming, feel-good read this novel is. It is humorous and quirky and – without in the least spoiling the plot – it has a happy ending. Delightful, in a word. Allan Karlsson is 100 years old, and well and truly fed up of the old people’s home where …

The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life by William Nicholson

To describe this touching, well-written novel as an Aga saga is to demean it somewhat. True it does chronicle the quintessential Aga-esque life of middle-class English people in a pretty village, where only one villager is actually a working farmer and everyone else is living the countryside dream. But there …