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 …

The Defector by Daniel Silva

Having got totally hooked on the Gabriel Allon series, I am rattling through Mr. Silva’s books way too fast for comfort. But they are so addictive, and the stories are so compulsive, that one really doesn’t have that much choice. “The Defector” is the 9th in the series, and it …

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 …