The Secret Life of Writers

By Guillaume Musso

A very engaging crime mystery set on a French island in the Mediterranean. A woman is found murdered in a remote spot, but all is not what it seems. But more than this the book plays with the reader around areas such as who is writing what and what is real. Great larks 9/10

Shrines of Gaiety

By Kate Atkinson

Set in the 1920's this is the story of a tough woman who ran a string of London nightclubs and of a policeman who tried to bring her down together with a host of other characters.  Not my favourite of her novels but still enjoyable 7/10

Body Kintsugi

By Senka Mariç 

This was a hard read. The story of a woman's experience of breast cancer it was unrelenting in how difficult this is to deal with. Even though it ended positively it left me feeling broken. Strong, powerful writing but not for the faint hearted! 6/10

Of Saints and Miracles

 by Manuel Astur

A book about Marcelino, a lone uneducated man who has killed his brother and has to go on the run. But, it is far more than this. A meditation on rural life, on history in this context and what it means to be human. I felt it lost its way toward the end but an enjoable short read. 7/10

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

 by Shehan Karunatilaka

A book based in Sri Lanka at the time of the civil war. Maali used to be a war photographer but now he is dead. We meet him in the immediate afterlife and he has seven nights to decide whether to go into the light or be condemned to living in the halfway house he finds himself in.
He wants to find out how he died and why, and most importantly, to have his photos found and published. We follow him on this journey. It is both funny and sad and contains some horrifying scenes from the war but I found it gripping and thought provoking and one of three books on the booker shortlist I would like to see win  8/10

Glory

 by NoViolet Bulawayo

A history of modern Zimbabwe where all the characters are animals and apart from Mugabe and the party of Power, only one individual goat is fleshed out in any storyline.

The book is very funny in places and gut wrenching in others. She uses the device of repetition a lot to emphasise a point and overdid it in places in my opinion. I also struggled with the animals a bit. I sort of get Mugabe as a horse and his wife as a donkey but who then are the cows or the ducks or the pigs and goats and why is someone a chicken and not a duck? 

If I was more aware of the history I think I would have got more from the story than I did. 6/10

Murder in the Marais

by Cara Black

 The first novel featuring Aimee Leduc, a private detective in Paris. The good news is the fact that it is set in Paris and has some great descriptions of areas of Paris.
The story is a fast paced thriller about a murder in the Marais that has links back to wartime occupation and a murder that took place then. I had identified the killer fairly early on and some of the scenes were operating in marvel comic territory. There is also one scene near the end that is like a stage direction for a Puccini opera. I may read another one but Maigret still gets my vote when it comes to Paris detectives 6/10

Booth

 by Karen Joy Fowler

A historical novel telling the story of the family of the man who killed Abraham Lincoln.

It is the story of a remarkable family but in the end I found it a bit too long and some of the characters not so interesting. However, the writing was very good and kept me hooked until the end, even though we knew all along what the end was. 7/10

Small Things Like These

By Claire Keegan 

Furlong is a coal merchant in Ireland. He was born out of wedlock in 1946 but his mother was allowed to stay with her employer and he was brought up in the house never knowing his father.

The story is set in 1985 and Furlong is happily married with five daughters. He delivers to a convent which is the site of a Magdalen laundry. The story reflects on Furlong's past and a young woman He comes across at the convent.

It is a short but poignant story, beautifully told. 8/10

Treacle Walker

By Alan Garner

A strange mix of dreamworld, comic caper and philosophical musing  who was Treacle Walker, who was Jo. Not sure I got this at all 5/10

After Sappho

 by Selby Wynn Schwartz

So the first question I have is whether this is a novel. The author of course answers this by referencing Orlando as biography.

It is a fascinating journey through intellectual, artsy lesbianism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, referencing real life people and events. The unnamed narrator seems to be the lesbian corpus looking and cheering on.
It uses this looping device so the characters keep coming around again. This does mean you want to read it quickly or you can lose track easily.
I really enjoyed the book, although i haven't answered my question but it sent me scurrying to discover more about people like Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney and that's got to be a good thing. 8/10

Nightcrawling

 by Leila Mottley

This book is set in Oakland and is a fairly depressing tale of poverty in the US and survival against the odds. Despite the grim story line of a young girl, Keira, getting pulled into prostitution this book has an underlying hope and resilience that keeps you hanging in and desperate to see how it ends. 8/10 

Oh William!

 by Elizabeth Strout

A well told story about William and his ex-wife, Lucy Barton.

William's third wife is leaving him and he has discovered he has a half sister he didn't know existed. This is a third book about Lucy Barton and maybe if I had read the previous two I would have been more engaged but this did not really do much for me 5/10

The Trees

 by Percival Everett

So every so often a book hits the Booker longlist that doesn't feel like it belongs there.
In some ways this is such a book. It is a crime novel and it is very funny in places. It is also a book about racial tensions and hate crimes and the history of black Americans. All in all a strange mix that works and in true Booker style is less unresolved at the end with questions dropped into the readers lap to deal with. A great book but I will be amazed if it makes the shortlist. 9/10

Trust

 by Hernan Diaz

Always difficult to score the first booker book of the year but this novel grew on me and I enjoyed it.
It tells the story of a rich financier and his wife in the inter-war years but uses a great device which undermines the telling of history and biography. The story unfolds in 4 different books written by different people, the last being the diary of the financiers wife which unlocks the truthfulness-or does it- of the previous three. Great storytelling either way. 9/10

Maigret's Dead Man

by Georges Simenon 

I much prefer generally(maybe with the exception of The Yellow Dog) the novels set in Paris. This novel is very much set around the streets of Paris - although the crimes have largely taken place in Normandy.

Maigret is his normal obsessive self, enjoying the Parisian way of life while fighting crime. Marvellous 8/10

Fire in the Thatch

 by E.C.R. Lorac

Subtitled a Devon mystery this crime novel was excellent. Although writing as a man ECR was actually Edith Caroline Rivett and she died a year before I was born. This novel was published in 1946, and concerns a man invalided out of the army who rents a farm cottage and works hard renovating it and the garden with it. When he dies in a fire the mystery begins and many false trails are laid. I will try and find more of her writing 9/10

The Looking Glass War

by John le Carre

I found this a bit predictable. The outcome was obvious from early on which left you cringing at some of the scenes as they played out. The training sections were full of technical detail which was tedious. All in all not my favourite 4/10

The Spy who Came in from the Cold

 by John Le Carre

This book made Le Carre's name and it is easy to understand why. Smiley features in cameo appearances but the central character is Alec Leamas. The book is dark and brooding like the character of Leamas. A great book 8/10

Maigret's holiday

 by George Simenon

The best Maigret for a while where we learn a bit about the man and the fact he trained for 3 years to be a doctor. This was cut short when his father died and therefore funding with it.
His wife is in hospital and he gets caught up investigating some deaths linked to a prominent doctor in the town. 9/10