- Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman
I bought this novel a while ago - a Richard & Judy bookclub recommendation, so thought I would probably enjoy it. Usually I like their book choices.
It had all the ingredients of the kind of thriller I like. However, there was just something about it that didn't really work for me. I couldn't get into the story, and found it hard to warm to Brigid Quinn the central character. She is a 59 year old retired FBI Agent who has taken early retirement and is now living quietly with her husband who is a university professor. He knows very little about her background - they have only been married a year.
She was heavily involved in the search for a serial killer known as the Route 66 killer, who targeted young women hitchhiking along that road. Brigid feels she was responsible for the death of a young FBI Agent, her protege, who she encouraged to act as bait for the serial killer, but who was abducted on her and her colleagues' watch. The novel is about the re-investigation of the case, upon the arrest of a man who claims to be the serial killer.
I wanted a thriller that I would get absorbed into and be utterly gripped by - a "page-turner". Whilst some of the story was good - the explanation as to how the FBI agent disappeared and the growing horror that they allowed a killer to do that - the story just didn't seem to work for me. I thought there were too many coincidences, plot holes, and it began to lack credibility. It seemed rather flat and quite disappointing.
- When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
This is the first in Judith Kerr's autobiographical trilogy of novels, written for older children/young adults.
She tells the story of herself, named Anna in the novel, her brother Max, and their parents' escape from Germany just days before Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power.
Judith Kerr's father had been a prominent writer and broadcaster, who was very vocal in his opposition to Hitler's politics. He also happened to be Jewish. This made his and his family's lives doubly perilous. Thanks to a police officer who was sympathetic to his views, he got a tip-off that he was about to be arrested and managed to escape before his passport was confiscated.
Whilst this novel is aimed at a young readership, I really enjoyed it. She portrays the life of a refugee so well, even if she didn't really believe herself to be one. Through a young child's eyes, we see her family's descent from a comfortable life in pre-war Berlin to living in a small hotel in Switzerland and starting to struggle with money worries and lack of work, to seeking a better life in France but still struggling to find work and eventually a move to England where things start to look up when her father's film script is accepted and he is offered work.
- Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
I listened to this on audiobook earlier in the week. Not too sure what to make of it. I liked some of it, but not all. My favourite parts were the biographical bits about Nan Shepherd and others, but did lose interest occasionally in some of it.
Found the word lists almost mesmerising - good narration, but I suspect that, had I been reading it instead, I might have been tempted to skim over them. Will be listening to it again before I rate and review it properly on Goodreads.
Next up, just started reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I like what I've read so far.