reading stuff

hello reader

as has become almost obligatory, then, a comment that i just don't appear to be reading as much as i once did. sure, i no longer have lengthy daily bus journeys for verk, look you see, but even then it feels like my habit of, if (hopefully) not my interest in, reading has dropped away. quite likely due to me being a bit more inexplicably social than i had become used to. 

with such repeated statement out the way, yes, i have indeed read a further two (2) novels since i last gone done a post like this. as has become my way i feel compelled to write of them. not really reviews, i suppose, as that would suggest something practical. 

to continue with the way i have generally done this, coming up is a (VHS mode) image of the covers, then a brief overview, and then you head into the realm of *** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***, so warned, you have been. 

first up then is the 4th novel off of that tall one who used to do Pointless (but still does the celebrity editions) and started off as a backing dancer for Sonia, or if you like Richard Osman. this one is the last Thursday Murder Club story for a bit. it's just as enjoyable and engaging as the others, but features some rather surprisingly predictable "twists". and then it is on to a fairly recent Scott Mariani novel, which yes means another Ben Hope adventure, with this one being The Tudor Deception. inexplicably it's a kind of "prequel" adventure, and would be flattered to be called average. 

provenance of my copy of The Last Devil To Die off of Richard Osman? i am fairly sure it was a Tesco, with their "club card price book of the week" thing likely meaning it cost me £4.50. so far as i am aware it is only people what live in London who go to shops that pay the full price for novels. them and those under the impression that WH Smith is the only place one can purchase books from. 

and the plot? other than a continuance of strands (or stems) from all of the previous ones, a friend of the retired gang who runs an antique store turns up dead. so of course they go and investigate, whilst also being distracted by matters deeply affecting their personal lives.......

overall this is superb. no, really. i (very much) doubt the world requires me to tell anyone how wonderful these novels are, going on the sales figures and the imminent (inevitable) adaptation of it all for the tele and that. the charming, wonderfully engaging writing style draws you in and makes it quite the challenge to put the book down and not read it all in one sitting. but yes, there is something of a but here, as intimated in the quasi introduction thing above. 

whilst i no way, shape or form does it affect the enjoyment of the novel, alas the sort of attempts at things you may call red herrings or macguffins are far too visible if not necessarily overtly obvious. blimey that sounds a bit like the sort of waffle i would hand in as part of essays many years ago. there is very little, if anything, in the way of surprise twists or turns here. not sure that this is down to me being able to "clock" how the author sprinkles clues because i doubt i am that clever. being drawn into this wonderful world of characters makes this kind of not an issue. like other series (i shall decline to name any), the fun has now become not finding out what happens next, but what the characters all do. 

being so engaged with the characters does have a price. there is (and you have had a spoiler warning) in this one the death of an important character, if not one of the main "gang of four". perhaps it is this turn of events which has led the tall one to give both himself and the (extremely large) Thursday Murder Club reading base a bit of a pause. yes, i shall read this new venture, i think it's a "step" or "in law" father daughter detective thing, a go as and when it comes out in paperback. but i am somewhat sad that it's highly likely, should i make it that far, i won't get to read another book in this series for a couple of years. 

such a delay, however, might not be all that bad. the risk of quantity over quality forever exists. and if one wished to see the danger of the former over the latter, one really doesn't need to go all that much further to find it than in the two books a year saga of Ben Hope, as written by Scott Mariani. 

once again (if it matters) the provenance of my copy of The Tudor Deception, which must number in the late 20s or early 30s of this series, was Tesco. i think they do it where if you buy it at the same time as you do a copy of the Daily Mail it works out somewhere south of £4.50 for it, but not by much. unless this is the one what i paid a sort of "full price" for as i could not be bothered looking for a deal on it. 

plot? as mentioned it's a "prequel" i suppose, set in 2005, long before Ben Hope has his school of killing excellence in, of all places, France. for what it's about, well, something something King Richard III, something something "distant heir", something something really valuable property, something something someone close to Ben Hope (of course) gets badly hurt, something something bombs, guns, knives, explosions, mayhem and it all ends with a vague idea of either justice or vengeance. 

one of the biggest issues with this one is, to state the obvious, a complete lack of peril or suspense. generally he survives anyway (that doesn't make sense does it) but in this instance there's never really any tension, for you know the protagonist (Ben Hope) will be OK as quite a few of us have read well over twenty adventures which happened after this. such might not be all that much of an issue if the actual premise or story was interesting, but it really isn't. all of this Richard III and the "killing in the tower" and what have you, as well as "long lost" or distant heirs to the English / British (mindful of the geographical history) has kind of been done. it's nowhere near as brilliant, informative or revelatory as what was probably the finest book Mariani has done in this series, The Forgotten Holocaust.

far, far too much of The Tudor Deception relies on highly convenient, contrived and downright absurd chance encounters. i know these are written purely for the joy and thrill of entertainment, but still, too often it feels like the writer is simply taking the p!ss here, as if he's in some way mocking us what go ahead and read the novels. yes, i have already bought the next one, which as usual with this series prompted me to go and read this at last. still, it doesn't rank as the worst in this series, for that title appears destined to remain with whichever one it was someone tried to cut the planet it half with a laser. saying that this or any novel is better than that one really isn't much in the way of praise. 

my suspicion is that generally anyone interested in reading either (or both) of these will likely have done so long before this post hit the internet. that said, of late i have indeed encountered people what have only just elected (or opted) to read the Richard Osman ones. in the remote and unlikely circumstances any of this has helped you to decide to read a book (or even not to read one), well, so much the better and delighted to gift such to a random internet stranger. 

right, so, anyway, on to the next book. and as it happens the one i wish to read next is a rather long one, being somewhere north of 600 in terms of pages. might well be a bit before i do a post on books, unless it happens to be really good and i go full tilt anti-social to read it as soon as i can. which may very well happen. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!