I love November. I love seeing the bare branches with just a few brightly coloured leaves still clinging to them. I love that you can see the cardinals flitting around in the bare bushes. I love the crispness of the air and the way this always makes me feel invigorated. I love that we change the clocks back to regular time so the mornings are brighter. I love that there are often days in November when the weather is perfect for reading.
Alas, I did not have time to read this past week, as I was hosting a Scholastic Book Fair in my library and had two Family Night events, as well as a Friends Book Club meeting on Monday. I look forward to this coming week, when things will hopefully get a bit more back to normal.
I thought I would quickly talk about Tana French, as I am re-listening to one of her books, The Trespasser, as an audiobook. I love her books in the “Dublin Murder Squad” series, as well as her standalone novel, The Witch Elm. Her “Murder Squad” books take place in, you guessed it, Dublin! where an elite squad of detectives try to solve complex murders. These psychological murder mysteries are interesting because they don’t feature the same cast of characters in each book, such as the “Detective Alan Banks” series by Peter Robinson. Rather, in the first book, In the woods, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox pair up to solve a murder that may be connected to a cold case. The next book features Cassie and veteran detective Frank Mackey. The following book focuses on Frank Mackey and follows what I assume is the pattern by introducing another detective with whom Mackey works that will then be the main detective in the next book, and so on and so on. I find this “chain” pattern to be more interesting than just having the same main character leading the team of police to solve the mysteries, since just as much of the novels I’ve read so far have been taken up with the development of characters and relationships as with the actual criminal investigations. Her books have won many awards, and I can completely understand why. They are very complex and “meaty” (to use a non-vegetarian term), so while I have the second book in the series on my shelf upstairs, one I haven’t read yet, I am putting off reading it until I have a good solid chunk of time to really sit and read and appreciate the character development, the psychological aspects of the book, the relationships between characters, and the absorbing writing style. I would recommend these books to anyone who enjoys gritty British mysteries (even though these are Irish) or psychological thrillers.
That’s all for today. Stay warm and keep reading!
Bye for now…Julie
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