A Blog Must Have Three Different Names

  There are times when reality is just too unbelievably awful and you need to get out fast. What could be better than an alternative form of the UK peopled by werewolves and vampires and various other oddities, where humans think they are dominant, but quite obviously aren’t? Let’s move to Helen Harper’s world. I believe she is classified as young adults, but let me tell you, there are days when this ancient adult gets huge satisfaction and amusement from her books. She is a prolific author, thirty-six books to date, eight series and one stand-alone novel, and, of course some are better than others, but all the books of hers that I have read – about two thirds of them – have been literate and well plotted. We are not talking great literature here, we are talking escapist nonsense that pushes the wretchedness of the world that we are living in firmly into the background – imagine a good whisky without the concomitant hangover – but which is also well written, well plotted and ...

                  The Thursday Murder Club   by Richard Osman This is an excellent thriller. Do not be deceived by its gentle tone. Its plotting and characterisation are a lot more subtle than they might at first seem. It is full of shrewd and sharp observation and exposes a lot of the uneasiness and distress of growing old with an understated humour that doesn’t undermine its celebration of old people. The Thursday Murder Club was set up by Elizabeth and Penny in their upmarket retirement village. Penny is a retired Detective Inspector and Elizabeth was something very shadowy which has given her a lot of experience in . . . . well, most things. Not a lot thwarts Elizabeth. Ibrahim, a meticulous retired psychiatrist, and Ron Ritchie, Red Ron, a former Union firebrand are co-opted to the club. When the story starts Penny is in a coma in the village's nursing home following a stroke and Joyce, a retired nurse has joined the club. A...