An emotionally charged thriller, No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay is my favourite book of the year. Everyone who reads it will have their own solution as to why Cythia's family disappeared. But the reality is even more complex than you could guess. What keeps you reading is how the tension builds as you speed your way to the conclusion. Terrific.
Bel Canto is an extraordinary book. The setting is an international party at a grand house in a poor Latin American country where a beautiful American soprano has been flown in to sing. A gang of anti government soldiers burst in to capture the President. But he had stayed at home. A hostage drama develops and the story centres on a number of very interesting characters. The author, Ann Patchett, has won many awards and her story of the relationships that grow over the long weeks is heartwarming.
When I found that Ian McEwan had written a spy novel in 1990, it was irresistible. The setting for The Innocent in post war Berlin was equally encouraging. So why was I disappointed? Probably because the story suited a pacy thriller and what we got were passages of McEwan intricate descriptions, when all I wanted was the story to move on. This seemed to happen about a third of the way through. The first part of the book was interesting enough, and the final chapters were almost too painful to read as the action steps up a pace. So almost a great read, but not quite.
No comments:
Post a Comment