Brazzaville Beach, The Taxidermist's Daughter and Upstairs at the Party

William Boyd is one of my favourite authors. I enjoyed "Any Human Heart", "Ordinary Thunderstorms", "Restless", "Waiting for Sunrise" and even "Solo" was OK. But his prizewinning "Brazzaville Beach" was nothing special. Hope Clearwater's back story set in England was good, but the African settings (Boyd's familiar territory) were not. There was also too much showing off about advanced mathematics (Hope's brilliant husband).

However within a few pages over halfway through two staggering events save the story. It was as if Boyd knew where he wanted to get to but didn't bother enough about how to get there. I will have to see what other reviewers thought about the ending and what we ultimately made of the heroine.

Taxidermy has never been so thrilling. It's rather ghoulish techniques permeate this amazing thriller by Kate Mosse set in 1912. But it's the atmosphere of the watery estuary that surrounds Fishbourne in East Sussex that elevates this murder mystery to something very special. Thank goodness for the map at the start. Connie is an interesting heroine as she tries to unravel buried memories of her childhood.

The story is intricately plotted and concentration is needed as there are many secrets that have to be discovered. The dramatic revelations include one on page 160 that bowled me over. Maybe a little light on high class prose and the ending takes a standard thriller route. But a very enjoyable read.

The author (one of my favourites)is Adele (the narrator) in a partly autobiographical novel about her time at a Yorkshire university in the early 1970's. A well written and fast moving story which has a tragedy at it's heart. Adele gradually comes to terms with her involvement in later life, and uncovers the secrets that were hidden in the past.

The book feels like we were one of Adele's set and it's hard to make up our minds if we really had wanted to be there. In fact, I didn't. But that is not to say that I wasn't swept along with their youthful discoveries. It's just my youth was so different.