This week’s books were a mixed bag. I finished the excellent When Will There Be Good News, a Christmas present, polished off a mediocre audio book, From Dead to Worse, and had a couple of books from the library – the terrible Hold Tight, and the decent Origin in Death.
Hold Tight is the first Harlan Coben I’ve read, and I definitely won’t be heading back for more – terribly wooden writing and similarly inanimate characters. The paragraph below is how Coben handles the dramatic “reveal” moment towards the end of the book – Hester is a lawyer, LeCrue and Duncan are cops.
“The room pretty much exploded then. There were tears, of course. Hugs. Apologies. Wounds were ripped open and closed. Hester worked it. She grabbed LeCrue and Duncan. They all saw what happened here. No one wanted to prosecute the Bayes.”
Wounds ripped open and closed? What the hell?
When I moved onto JD Robb’s Origin in Death, which I’d previously thought of as crack in the form of a book, I was a little surprised to realise that Robb was a far superior writer to Coben – crisp writing and vivid characters, and this book also features clones. I love clones. Robb’s books may be crack, but they’re healthy well-balanced crack.
From Dead To Worse hardly bears mentioning – it’s the eighth (and at this point in time, the last) book in a series that I can’t stop myself reading, and am mostly reading in any case because of the fantastic TV series based on the books, True Blood.
I love Kate Atkinson’s books – When Will There Be Good News is the third of her books featuring Jackson Brodie, private detective, and as usual features several connected storylines which gradually draw together over the course of the book.
Coolest book link of the week? The Guardian’s series of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read, selected in themes over seven days (love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel). Some great selections and I’ve got a couple of books out of the library based on the recommendations – Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
o frabjous day! 
I haven’t read “Hold Tight” but I have enjoyed several of Harlan Coben’s books especially those involving Myron Bolitar and his eccentric and extremely wealthy friend Win. I would describe his style of writing as ‘spare’ rather than ‘wooden’ with some very witty humour included in unexpected situations. Don’t give up on Harlan Coben just yet, your Aunt Catherine enjoys him too!