London’s No.1 Dog-Walking Agency
I received the paperback copy of this delightful book from my daughter at Christmastime. It’s by KATE MACDOUGALL whose career at Sotheby’s was unfuflilling and came to an end after ‘the incident’ of the decapitated china pigeons. It’s a London book and I’m very fond of London books. I wouldn’t like to live there, although I have for very short periods, but I enjoy visiting and I very much enjoy learning about how it grew, developed, retreated, expanded. I’ve read many works about particular parts of London history and some about its contemporary vibe. (Try Sandi Toksvig’s No 12 bus – which I’ve now travelled on!) The dog- walking is more or less contemporary.
It tells of the joys, highs, lows and disappoitnments of setting up a small business. The stars are undoubtedly the dogs but their walkers and owners do not disappoint. The owner of a dog-walking business sees into every corner of the client’s life – but sometimes, that client might bite back. Full of wonderful caricature (at least I hope it was caricature), passing reference to interior decor and the seismic shift of moving from town to a country village, it’s a really engaging read.
The Case of the Undiscovered Corpse
Who killed the man, Drayton, whose body turned up after sixty years of concealment in a chest returned to Jonty Stewart’s ancestral home from the Great Exhibition? Furthermore why did the then Coroner and the then Chief Constable conspire to prevent any serious investigation of the death?
As the murder in this story took place in 1851 but was being investigated over a hundred years later, there was very little of a forensic nature. There were no follow-on murders. There was no-one acting against the investigators in the present day (ie of the investigation). So what there was, was a great deal of discussion and paper trail following. It was all surprisingly absorbing. I don’t pretend that I was always on top of the reasoning but I enjoyed the pursuit of the truth a lot. Charlie Cochrane merges two sets of her investigators in this volume and that did occasionally threaten to overwhelm this reader. Names, names, names.
The Rake’s Challenge by Beth Elliot
Having downloaded this book from my own publisher, Lume Books, in December last year, I was saving it for a trip away and it did not disappoint. Were I permitted to leave reviews on Amazon (apparently I don’t spend enough!) I would award it four stars.
Annabelle Lawrence is running away to find adventure and avoid an arranged marriage with a boring cousin. Giles has many adventures in the shape of duels and a demanding mistress but he, too, is running from an arranged marriage. Throw in some political intrigue, a pug and Anna’s radiant beauty and the stage is set.
I very much enjoyed having the canvas of Regency England opened out to encompass the political upheavals elsewhere in Europe. However, I struggled with the, slightly, underdeveloped characters of the Contessa and her cousin. He was certainly evil and a catalyst for the dramatic finale. She could have been rolled up with her mother whose characterisation and place in the story was easier to read.
No such issues blighted Anna and Giles who were delightfully star-crossed throughout.
Anne
I’m very often late to the party when there’s a blockbuster in town. Why? Built in cussedness? Fear of bandwagons? Laziness – I’ll catch that later? Disbelief – It cannot be that good?
Whatever it is, I sometimes regret waiting as long as I have to read the block-busting book in question. And so it has proved with the two books I’m engaged on at the moment. (One for daytime moments and one for bedtime.)
Last night I finished reading Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and very good it was, too. I do enjoy cozy crime because I am much more into the problem solving than understanding the mind of a psychopath. I liked his group of disparate characters who each had their own foibles, traits, prejudices and an endearing self-belief. And while Osman isn’t one to linger on deep psychological insight, he does paint a convincing narrative with deceptively light strokes.
It is available just about everywhere. I bought mine from the stack of second hand books helping to fund activities in the Carrickvale Community Centre. Sorry, Richard, and Penguin. It’s one of my ambitions to find one of my own titles in a second hand book shop.
Sigh!
Anne
Novels Now 