The Burning Wire - Jeffery Deaver

An unhappy man is using electricity to kill. He know exactly how to use it with horrific results. It's up to Lincoln and Sachs to find this man before more innocent people are killed. Meanwhile the Watchmaker is on the move and Lincoln is trying to help the Mexican police capture him. Lincoln is determined that this time he won't get away.

This is the ninth Lincoln Rhyme book and the latest which means I have caught up. At this point though I am definitely getting bored of the Lincoln Rhyme character. I find that a lot of his issues these day come into the story for no real reason and I'm finding it a little boring. Mainly because it's the same issue in every book. This time though Sach's desperate need to have children is left alone which made for a nice change. It's the repetitiveness of these issues that gets to me really. Finally though there may be light at the end of the tunnel for some of them (you'll have to read for yourself to find out what). I think that and the fact that I am growing to like the character Kathryn Dance more meant that I wasn't that excited about reading this book (she also makes an appearance of sorts in this book).

The story itself I felt wasn't quite up to the usual standard. Maybe Deaver himself has moved away from this character (a Kathryn Dance title has been announced for 2013 but none for Rhyme). It could have been interesting and certainly the premise of using electricity could have been a good one. It just seemed to lack something. I was extremely disappointed with the way things ended with the Watchmaker. I was hoping for a really good book where Rhyme and Sachs try to track him down. Unfortunately that just didn't happen.

I still liked it, just not as much as the others. I would still read another Rhyme book in the hopes that it would pick up again but I seriously think Deaver has got everything he can out of this one character.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading!

This is a book meme by Sheila from Book Journey. A fun way of sharing our reading week.

This week I read;
The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller. Fantastic historical fiction and a good mystery.

The Killing Kind by John Connolly. Third book in the Charlie Parker series. Managed to give me a fear of spiders.

Yes Sister, No Sister by Jennifer Craig. Interesting but not the best autobiography or non fiction book I've ever read.

Just now I am reading;
The Burning Wire by Jefferey Deaver. This is the ninth Lincoln Rhyme book. It's okay so far. Starting to go off Rhyme a little.

Next I plan to read;
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. This will be a re-read for me. I read it about six years ago and I loved it. Bought book 2 and it got lost amongst my large tbr pile. Book two is on next months list of books I should have read by now challenge. It's been so long ago I need to read the first one again. Looking forward to it though.

What has your reading week been like?

Yes Sister, No Sister - Jennifer Craig

Jennifer Craig trained as a nurse in Leeds during the 1950s. She went there virtually from school and was unprepared for the regimented way nurses were then trained. In her memoir she writes about her thoughts and feelings from the time of her training and then into her first few years as a nurse. Back then Britain was still recovering from the war and this could still be seen in the way that Jennifer was trained.

I have to confess that out of all the nursing memoir books I have read of late this is not my favourite. I was a little bored by it at first. It was brave of the author to mention her naivety at the time but it actually grated on my nerves a little. As did her hero worship of her friend Judith who didn't seem to return her friendship in quite the same way.

Once she moved to the wards it did begin to get interesting. I could understand her initial fear. Who wouldn't be nervous at first. Plus she seemed very open about her feelings when a patient died on her. Her time spent on the Surgical ward and then in casualty were the most interesting to me. I could have read more about those times if I was honest.

Once she graduates the author then rushes through the next few years. She uses letters she has written to friends and family to help speed her way through them which I also found to be irritating. At one point she is training again. This time she is taking a midwifery course and she doesn't take the time to talk about it other than to say that she hated the hospital.

Eventually she goes back to the hospital she was originally trained and is first a night sister and then a ward sister. There were some interesting points here. I liked the fact that she wanted to use her ward to teach fellow nurses as well as to treat patients. Again though she began to rush through her time there with more family letters.

An interesting read but a little frustrating at times. This is the last of the books that I got in on nursing. As I said it wasn't the my favourite. I think Hospital Babylon was probably the funniest although from the point of view of a Doctor. Nurse Nurse by Jimmy Frazer was the most helpful and Bedpans and Bobby Socks was the most fun. I will probably leave it here now as I think this genre could easily become boring.

The Killing Kind - John Connolly

It's been a few years since the events of Dark Hollow and Charlie Parker has been keeping his investigations to White Collar Crime. Now that he and Rachael are in a good place he wants to keep it that way by staying away from the violent crime. Then John Mercier asks him to investigate the death of Gracie, a girl Parker was once close to. He wants to say no but feels he owes it to her somehow. Her death is linked to a private religious sect which disappeared years ago but he's getting nowhere into his investigations. Already he has Pudd, a fairly scary, red headed man, trying to convince him to keep his nose out. A man that even the mafia are terrified of and have reason to be.

I said I wanted light reads this week. Well, it was light but thank you John Connnolly. I now have a new phobia. In the past I was the one to move spiders when they appeared because everyone else is scared of them. Well no more thanks to this book. The first part alone was enough to put me off them for life. The rest of the book just confirmed it. If you have a spider phobia read with caution.

It's a little different from the other books. In the first two we learn who's behind it all as Parker does. With this one though we are ahead of him and it just adds to the suspense. We get to read excerpts of Gracie's thesis through out the book which always puts the reader that one step ahead. Honestly at one point I thought I was going to shout at the book trying to pass on that information to Parker.

I liked the developing relationship between Parker and Rachael although it felt like I was missing something a little. In the last book she was keeping away from Parker after the events of book one. Now their relationship has developed and he's the one stopping it from going that step further. Louis and Angel also made an appearance and I get the impression this will be the case in all the books. Actually I hope it will be. They add to that touch of humour although Parker can be funny on his own. For two characters at odds with the law I have grown to be quite fond of them.

I only have one tiny wee problem with the book and it really is small. Not enough to stop me from enjoying the book but it did niggle. The character Gracie was meant to once have a relationship with Parker. Just a summer fling but I got a feeling it happened during their college years. However, as the book went on the younger Gracie seemed to get. She was studying her PHD (which doesn't really give an indication of age) and her friends seemed to be of college age. It could be just my perception of them but I got the feeling that Parker saw them as just young girls which didn't really fit with the story of how Gracie and himself knew each other.

Otherwise a great instalment in the Parker books. This is definitely one of my favourite series. Connolly definitely has the power to describe horror. Seriously, watch out for those spiders!

Book Blog Hop - Genre's

This is a meme over at Crazy For Books. Each week we answer a new question about books or reading.

This weeks question is - What's the one genre you wish you could get into, but can't?

In all honesty this isn't a problem for me. There are one or two books that I don't like which everyone seems to love. I wish I could see what everyone sees in them. I don't let it bother me too much though. In general there really aren't that many genres that I don't like. Romance is the only one I tend to avoid because it just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. There are lots of genres that I wish I had tried before now and would like to read more of. Crime is one example. I think I have read more of it this year than I have in my entire life. For now I seem to be working my way through a lot of popular crime authors but I would also like to try noire, spy thrillers (thinking of LeCarre here) and of course more Poirot. Dan Brown and similar authors/books are the only part of that genre I'm not interested in. Historical fiction is another genre although I didn't go our of my way not to read it. I just happened to have not read that much of it.

I would also like to read more Scottish authors. I am ashamed to say that I haven't actually read that many which is a shock considering I'm from Glasgow. That's something I am also slowly working on and I am improving. I haven't read as many classics as I would like. The last few years I read very little of them but I am reading more this year. I am attempting to read one a month and have a few aside that I am looking forward to. Although it's an age group and not a genre I have went on a bit of a YA slump. So there have been lots of new releases this year that I would have probably read by now in years past. This one actually doesn't bother me that much. It's the 20 or so YA books sitting in my TBR pile that are taunting me more than anything else.

The Return Of Captain John Emmett - Elizabeth Speller

It's 1920 and Great Britain is still recovering from the effects of the Great War. Laurence Bartram is one of the lucky ones who survived although he lost his wife and child. How he's just trying to pick up his life again. He then gets a letter from the sister of an old school friend, John Emmett. John survived the war too but only long enough to then take his own life. His sister wants to know how he could do that after the loss of so many. Laurence helps by investigating the life of Captain John Emmett during and after the war. What exactly did John feel he had to atone for?

Although I have read very little historical fiction I am growing to love it. When done properly it can make for a fantastic read and this book was no exception. Actually I think I have been lucky in this respect. I think I could say that about all of the historical fiction I have read

The 1920's is famous for being glamourised but this book ignores that whole side of it. Sure it shows women as being stronger and more independent and a society that is slowly and reluctantly coming round to that. More importantly it focuses on the impact that the war is still having on both men and women alike. For Laurence he is a little lost. He feels guilty at losing his wife and survivors guilt although he doesn't really show it that much. He sees the end of the war as an opportunity to do something he enjoys but is at a loss for what to do. Solving the mystery of what happened to John Emmett gives him time to make these decisions and so he throws himself into it (also helped along by the pretty Mary Emmett).

One of my favourite characters is best friend to Laurence. He shows another facet of the after effects of war. He thrived during it and is now bored. He needs the excitement in his life still and so dives in and helps Laurence with his investigation by using his connections. I liked him because he added a little light heartedness. He has a love of mysteries and compares the investigation to some popular fiction of the time. In fact he makes several comparisons to Agatha Christie's Poirot.

One of the things I liked about the book is that it showed the women's side. Mary was one of thousands of young women who have been left at home wondering and in fear for the loved ones fighting. Whereas Captain John's nurse, Eleanor Bolitho, saw only too well the effects of the war and is living with those effects every day as her husband lost both his legs.

The mystery itself is a good one and very sad. We start off believing that it has something to do with the convalescent home that John is taken to. From there the story takes a whole new spin and I honestly couldn't predict the outcome. I was kept guessing almost right to the end. The investigation brings up the issue of shell shock which comes a big part of the story. It made for a very sad but interesting read since I think it's something that our society struggles to understand even today.

The book I felt was well researched. The author lists at the back a number of books she used to help research the era and the issues she covers. Not once does she give the war that romantic glamour that some books do. Instead she writes about the horrors that everyone faced both on the front and back home.

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Books I Loved As a Teen

This is a book meme over at The Broke and the Bookish.

I realise that the theme this week is actually top ten books that every teen should read. As a tutor though I learned that so long as the teen is reading at all to leave them alone. Don't get me wrong, I am all for encouraging them to broaden their horizons so I'm not completely against the idea. Plus all those books about the right of ascension I usually hated. Instead I thought I would list top ten books that met a lot to me as a teenager.

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I know I hated all the characters and most of them have been listed on one of my top tens in a negative way. I still loved that book. Must have appealed to my dark side as a teen because it was back then that I read it over and over again.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Not the first classic I read but certainly one of the first classics by a woman (if you don't count children's classics). I devoured this book and loved every page. Sadly I haven't read it since. It's overdue a reread.

3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The first Dickens book I read was the Christmas Books. The first one I loved was the next one, David Copperfield. I think this was my real introduction to classics and how wonderful they can be. I loved ever it and loved all the characters. Even the nasty Uriah Heep who still manages to give me the creeps.

4. Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I think this was my first science fiction book which led me to so many more. I loved the entire series plus it was something my mum, dad and I would pass round each other.

5. The Stand by Stephen King. Not the first King book I read but certainly the largest book I had read at that point (it was early in my teens). I was steadily working my way through King books at the time and this one stood out above the rest. They were all about good and evil but there was no getting away from that theme here. It fascinated me at the time.

6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I picked this book for an extended essay and although I must have had to read it about four or five times I never got bored of it. It was my introduction to dystopian novels which was quickly followed by Fahrenheit 451.

7. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. This is a fantastic book. It means more to me than just a fantastic story though. I had loaned it to a friend. When another friend saw her with it and asked if she was reading it she scoffed at the idea (I am sure this other friend couldn't care less). It was then I decided that I wasn't going to be like that. I wouldn't let anyone embarrass me just because I liked to read.

8. To Kill A Mockingbird by Lee Harper. Okay, I am going to eat my own words here and say everyone should read this. It was one that got passed round all my friends and I don't know a single person who has read it and not fallen in love with it.

9. The Diary of Anne Frank. Well, I admit I wasn't a teenager when I first read this. I don't know how many rereads I was onto as a teen. I think though, as I neared the age Anne was I understood the real horror of it.

10. Dracula by Bram Stoker. If you don't count the point horror books I read this was my first real introduction to vampire stories. I compare all vampire books to this one now.

What's your top ten?