by Georges Simenon
Maigret is fed up with a change in the judicial organisation which has seen the examining magistrate getting more involved and controlling, so while supposedly investigating some jewellery heists Maigret gets sidetracked by a murder of a burglar he has known for thirty years. 8/10
by Janwillem van de Wetering
Seventh novel in a series I probably started twenty years ago. The main characters are two zany Amsterdam cops called Grijpstra and deGier who are very different but look out for each other and occasionally play music together.
This one involved a murder with no corpse and a corpse with no murder and a tenuous link between the two cases. Very enjoyable 8/10
by Ali Smith
A companion to Gliff which was published last year this book doesn't follow on but playfully references the previous book along the way.
It was an amusing read playing with language and perspectives throughout while still managing to make sensible comments on subjects like war and education.
I didn't really get the ending but rated the book and would probably read again. 8/10
by Rene Karabash
Written by a Bulgarian woman this is an absorbing tale about Bekija(or Matija) who becomes a sworn virgin hours before she was due to be married. This whole set up is alien and governed by the laws of the Kanun.
The voices are all mixed together which can be confusing at times but this adds to the tension as we gradually discover what actually happened on that night in the dairy. I really enjoyed this. 9/10
by Lina Munar Guevara
Set in Columbia, this is a tale narrated by 18 year old Melissa as she looks to graduate and deal with the demons from her adolescent years. Her mother has come to visit her but this is far from straightforward! An interesting book but not altogether my cup of tea. 7/10
by Ford Madox Ford
I am not sure how I came across this book but I am glad that I did.
It tells us the story of Christopher Tietjens and his life before,during and after the first world war. It is also the story of his wife Sylvia who is so obnoxious at times to verge on the unbelievable with out quite falling over. At times the language and classical references left me totally baffled but the style of writing kept me hanging on. Definitely a good read to start the year. 9/10
by Georges Simenon
A retired diplomat is found dead in his apartment and suspicion falls on various old friends, lovers and his housekeeper-the relations between whom are unusual. Maigret gets rather frustrated dealing with them but it was an enjoyable tale and not least because I solved it before Maigret! 8/10
by Colm Toibin
A novella first published in a collection called Mothers and Sons in 2006(?) this is set in the Pyrenees as winter starts to set in. A family that for historic reasons is disliked by the rest of the small isolated village has to come to terms with the mother going missing in a snow storm as she walks out one day having argued with her husband and son regarding her drinking. Sombre and bleak it was a good read which I undertook as storm Goretti battered the south west of England. Very appropriate! 8/10
by Charles Dickens
My Christmas book for this year. Every time I reread a Dickens I enjoy it more I think.
This one was no different as Arthur Clennam returns from China after his father's death, to be confronted with his cold domineering mother and a whole host of intertwined mysteries. One of these, of course, involves our eponymous heroine and her father who is imprisoned in the Marshalsea-a debtors prison.
Full of humour and biting satire this is a long but enjoyable feel good read. 9/10
So, I started the year with a Dickens and as I write this I am reading another one both of which are good festive reads.
The rest of the year has included twelve Maigret's -he is still drinking a lot and still enjoyable.
The Booker list was ok this year with my favourites being The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny and from the longlist Endling. I also enjoyed Seascraper.
Elsewhere I read Midnight's Children which I enjoyed and the Magic Mountain followed by the Empusium which was inspired by it.
In terms of my favourite book this year it would have to be shared between The Magic Mountain, Going to the Dogs and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.
by Roger Martin du Gard
Not a well known author in the UK but winner of the nobel prize for literature in 1937. This book was written in 1910-1913 and is part novel and part musings on the battle between scientific reasoning and religion, in particular the Catholic Church.
It gets a bit bogged down at times but I enjoyed it and could recognise similar battles in myself over the years. The end is left beautifully questioning the reader as to where Jean Barois ended up in his thought process and which side he fell on. 8/10
by Georges Simenon
Maigret is working on a bank hold-up but the story reflects on an earlier case of murder which has now reached court. A husband has to face the truth about his wife as his life unravels in the witness stand. 8/10
by John Banville
Still mulling this one over.
From the outset we know this will not end well as our narrator tells us he is writing to try and explain what happened during his honeymoon in Venice. The author paints an eerie Venice with the accommodation much as I remember a hotel I stayed at on my first visit.
The characters too are constantly shifting so that nobody can be trusted or taken as they first appear. There was so much to love about this book and yet I was not quite sure the ending was right. I can't put my finger on what perplexed me about it. Still an enjoyable read. 8/10
by Salman Rushdie
The novel that probably established, and keeps, Rushdie amongst the list of great living authors.
Saleem is born with one thousand and one others at midnight on Indian independence day. Those that survive all have some unusual power and the book is Saleem's sort of autobiography as well as a potted history of India and Pakistan since independence. It is very absorbing and in places very funny; for me it is the closest I have come to a twentieth century Dickens. The book had me regularly reaching for Wikipedia to check out people and events from history. It is not an easy read but definitely worth keeping going through the 650 pages that make it up. 8/10
by Simone Buchholz
Good to see Chastity Riley again but this book was not great. A serial killer targeting dancers in a nightclub. As you would expect it raced along but didn't really take me along with it 5/10
by Desmond Seward
A life of the last empress of France by a not totally unbiased biographer. He clearly is a fan and has a remote family connection back to the second empire.
That aside, I enjoyed this book and it gives a good introduction to the workings of the second empire and the contradictions it contained. She is painted as a formidable woman but with a love for France that was never wholly accepted by its citizens. The book discusses but reaches no clear conclusion on the thing that drove her. Was she swayed more by her desire to see her son as emperor or by her love for France? 8/10
by Georges Simenon
This story starts brilliantly with a rice pudding being enjoyed by Maigret while dining with his wife at their friend's house. After dinner Maigret starts to reminisce on a previous case which was taken out of his hands by the examining magistrate but about which Maigret always had doubts. A man was accused of killing his wife but he maintains his innocence even as evidence mounts against him. 9/10
by Kuchenga Shenje
A mystery set at the turn of the nineteenth century involving a young woman who is an expert book restorer. As we start the novel she has been thrown out of her home by her father for some unseemly goings on with a young anarchist friend of hers and the rest of the story is about how she makes her way,
Full of twists and turns, highlighting the precarious position of a woman alone at this time, it is a real page turner to the end. I found the writing style a bit laboured at times but enjoyed the tale itself. 7/10
by Katie Kitamura
This novel felt like a product of a creative writing class with a technically clever twist half way through but did not work for me. The narrator is a middle-aged actress, who at the start of the novel is rehearsing for a new play which in the second part is up and running very successfully, but the story is about her personla life with husband and family.
There is a reference in the first half to a phone app which seems incongruous given the timeframe referred to and this may have put me off early on, but while I enjoyed some of the style I did not enjoy this book. 6/10
by Kiran Desai
Slow moving but wonderfully told tale of two young Indians at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, initially living in the US and whom there grandparents and parents try to arrange a marriage for. They both reject this but do eventually meet after 250 pages. The characters are well drawn and the story unfolds. Sonia's early abusive lover-an artist-is the only character it is hard to come into land with but this was a novel that was like a lovely cushion you could relax into 9/10
