Moriarty, The Versions of Us and Our Endless Numbered Days

Moriarty was not my sort of book. I thought a nice trivial crime thriller would be just right after a few intense novels. I could have picked better. It wasn't as good as the author's House of Silk that we read for book club and that wasn't great.

There are three different versions of the lives of Jim and Eva in this cleverly constructed story about what ifs. The Versions of Us is in some ways comparable to the film Sliding Doors or the books One Day and Life After Life. It delves into the most important thing in our lives, how we choose a partner and why, and how much different our lives would be opting for someone else with whom to share our life.

The most challenging aspect of this book is remembering where we were in each version as a chapter of one follows another. Sometimes there is a hint at the start of a new section of where we were in the previous version, but not always so obvious. A good memory works wonders and I sometimes worry about mine.

Just a note to the author, it's a skiffle group, not a skiffle band. John Lennon's Quarrymen were one of the former. But that's only because this reviewer was there and the writer's editors were not.

There was nothing special about the prizewinning book Our Endless Numbered Days. Another of those stories narrated by a child (eight year old Peggy) about being virtually held prisoner by an adult. OK, this was her father, and he did take her to live away from the world in a European forest, but for me it did smack a little of child abuse. He tells her the biggest of all lies.

The story does have it's interest, particularly about survival in the wilderness and it is pretty well written. Thank goodness there are cuts to nine years on, these are little gems.