Again, this has me torn between praise and criticism.

You can’t fault Kate Atkinson’s ability to reveal a story in brilliant detail, the opening chapter which deals with a pretty brutal attack highlights this and is in fairly stark contrast with the vast majority of the rest of the book.

While I actually really enjoyed the novel, and found myself thinking “just one more chapter” far too late at night on more than one occassion, I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed when I’d finished.  The narrative tends to ramble on a bit too much with Atkinson going to great lengths to describe not very much.  In fact at the end I found myself wondering how this story could have possibly been stretched out to a book of this size, as in all fairness not a lot happens!

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

I love these Spook books, and wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone and everyone.  This latest instalment sees young Tom back with his original tutor, but with evil things afoot in his mother’s homeland we see the story mainly set outwith the County, and indeed the country,  which adds another dimension to the series.

Without dwelling too much on what actually happens, it’s nice to see how the relationships between the various recurring characters are developing, and to also learn a bit more about the background of Tom’s family.

I need to get back on track with this - not really the reading, it’s not too far behind, but with the writing about the reading!

Christopher Brookmyre is a frustrating author - by that I mean that several of his books are really good, and yet others fail to live up to these high expectations.

This book lies somewhere in between - I want to say I love it, yet I also want to say I hate it!  The problem, for me, lies in that in some books (and in some parts of this book) his narrative style heads off on a bit of a rant about something or other.  Normally it’s about the state the world is in currently and while that’s fair enough it does tend to drag on a bit.

This is book 13 of a supposed 30 I am going to read this year, and the next 17 are going to have a heck of a job if they are to be better than this.

By far, my favourite book of the year so far - and that’s saying something as I’ve enjoyed a lot of the books along the way.

It’s hard to pinpoint just what it is about Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry that made it so brilliant. Perhaps it was that I read it in just two sittings, mainly outside in the sunshine which helped but then again the nature of the story and relentless pace of the story surely made it anything but a chore to do so.

I tend to read quite a few books in the summer as it helps pass the time on a nice sunny day lazing about outside, so that’s when I tend to end up being lured into taking up special offers in bookshops!

Last summer I bought a book called Ratcatcher by James McGee. I’d never heard of the author to be honest, but the blurb on the back coupled with the intriguing cover art made it look interesting enough to take a chance on.

I’m glad I did as it was a cracking read, and was quickly followed by the second in the series, Resurrectionist.