well, blimey. it feels like a fair bit of time, look you see, since i gone done a post on some reading what i have done. november, i believe, was the last instance. hey ho, here we are now, so off we go.
as (at least was) usual, then, i have not finished reading just one, or as many as three or even four novels since the last such post of this nature, but two. yes, i have taken unusually longer than normal; i have been busy with a few matters.
to stick with the tradition of such things (if i may call it such), a glance at the covers of what i read, followed by a quick, as spoiler free as possible overview. indeed, if this was such a tradition or set thing, then no, probably, i would have no need to write this each time. oh.
right, starting where i did (and from left to right), The Pretender's Gold is (yet) another Ben Hope adventure thing off of Scott Mariani. what number? up in the late teens, i believe. as for how it performs, not one of the greatest adventures, but certainly above average. quite a fun read. moving on and The Other People is the third novel off of CJ Tudor, and thus the 3rd of hers what i have read, and to be honest was excellent but also very f*****g scary and disturbing. not a novel for all eyes.
ok, the above should be of some (if only marginal) use to those of you what are in a rush, and/or prefer to avoid spoilers (as careful as i try to tread with such). which can only mean that what follows is a look at each in some more detail, and depending on your sensitivity levels it might be of benefit to you to consider a *** SPOILER WARNING *** as being in place.
provenance of my copy? well, in truth, it was a father's day gift. it seems the Scott Mariani business model revolves around two being published a year, one in time for father's day gifts and then one in time for "oh that will do for dad" Christmas shopping. generally, the one off of father's day i hold off on reading until late autumn or early winter descends, as that just feels like the right time of year to read them. oh, yes, i do have the one published after this sat here, a Christmas gift. but indeed this shall be have been off of Tesco, for £3 or £3.50.
but what of the plot? does this novel, by any chance, find frequent protagonist Ben Hope by chance in a preposterous set of improbable circumstances, where his amazing skills are what allow him to triumph against all possible odds? yes, absolutely. which is smart, as that is what makes it all so much fun. especially how he smokes so much as he does so.
in this instance, or episode (or adventure) the backdrop is kind of (in a quasi sense of way) that rather sensitive and delicate subject of Scottish nationalism. which is highly right wing in nature, and yet thanks to some inspired marketing gets passed off as being very left wing. but, anyway, this is just a backing track to a tale of greed, circulating on a mythical, legendary treasure which was attributed to Bonnie Prince Charlie, that turns up, and of course people want it and will kill for it. an old friend of Ben Hope (for a lonely man he sure has a lot of friends) gets inadvertently tangled up in it, which of course upsets Ben a great deal, and so off he goes (or here he comes) to rescue and twat away.
enormous fun, it all is then. yes, sure, one could get picky and say all these stories are formulaic or some other term intended to be diplomatically unkind, but that's just for them what like to take absolutely everything seriously. people like being entertained, you know, and giving them what they like again and again in a slightly different way tends to do this. to this end, consider James Bond, and how virtually every decent Star Wars thing has essentially just jiggled the same plot a bit. sure, it is so that one or two Ben Hope books have been exceptionally stupid (the one where someone was going to cut the planet in half with a laser), but this is one that is "implausible, a trifle predictable but generally good fun reading". hesitate not in giving it a go.
i picked up The Other People mostly as it will have been (note please, provenance fans) one of them Tesco "book of the week" things, being at the time £3 or £3.50. they now appear to have shoved it up to £4 for such, but will know to drop it when they observe they don't get so many coins off of me. another motivation, however, will have been how excellent CJ Tudor's first novel, Chalk Man, was. i can barely recall the name of her second, but for some reason seemed to think it was good, even though i cannot recall much of the plot, either.
anyway, this one. it's a right belter of a cracker, too. you had a spoiler warning, but to be safe or to be sure, you may wish to just cease reading here and go get the book. unless you have already, which would make it feel rather strange that you are reading this anyhow.
there is a chap who(m) has had great tragedy befall, in the form of his wife and child being brutally, and senselessly, murdered. except a chance sighting suggests to, or tells, him that somehow his daughter is alive, inexplicably "kidnapped". few who know him will believe him, and his past sins play a part in such. strangers, one in particular, seem to believe him with no question. as he searches, relentlessly, for his daughter, the phrase 'the other people' keeps recurring in what he finds......
more i could say, but i am very reluctant to. for some reason i tend to find that the better i find a novel then the less i have to say of it, except to repeat how excellent it was. what more can i say that this was genuinely engaging, often tense, quite spooky and frightening in places and, well, very good indeed.
well, that's about that, then. yes, i would have every intention of reading more novels and of course, in an almost obligatory way, making notes here. but, for the moment, i am on a brief hiatus off of reading. oh, i have plenty of novels, believe you me, say here, i am just temporarily busy with other stuffs of things.
once more, as usual, if any of this has been of remote interest to anyone, nice one. many thanks indeed for stopping by and reading!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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