Summer Reading (By Ear)

 

I've been writing very few book reviews so far this year, and none at all over summer. That does not mean I've not been reading - but since my macular degeneration problem (diagnosed back in the autumn), I'm now reading (and re-reading) even more books "by ear" (i.e. listening to them as audio books) - and I do usually find it harder to write reviews from just listening.

In March/April, I listened (again) to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, all three books. 

My old paperback box of LOTR (from 1977)

In March, I also started re-reading (now as audio books) Elly Griffith's series (15 books) about Ruth Galloway, archeologist, and DI Harry Nelson and his team, investigating crimes in one way or another related to archaeology - set in Norfolk, England. Most of them I previously read on Kindle, and I think I've reviewed all of them on this blog in the past. As this is a series I do find worth reading more than once, I decided to now get them all as audio books as well. (Most of them I was able to get at reduced price.)  So between the beginning of March and the end of July, I re-read/listened to that whole series - with one or two exceptions, in the order that they were written. I enjoyed that, and I'm sure I'll do it again. Some of the individual mysteries I remembered better than others - some I found I had forgotten almost completely. But there is also an ongoing story in the background stretching through all of them, involving the main characters with families and friends.

 

* Ruth’s First Christmas Tree is a short story set between the fourth and fifth books

In between those, I also read/listened to a couple of new additions to two other "cosy crime" series that I've also been following for years by now. With both those series, too, I always enjoy getting back together with the main characters/detectives. Both also have the customer-friendly advantage of offering Kindle+Audible version at reduced price (and have stuck to that throughout).

The Canal Murders by J.R. Ellis
(Yorkshire Murder Mysteries, Book 10)
Narrated by: Michael Page

An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
(A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 11)
Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

In August, I've also listened to the latest (4th) book in Elly Griffith's series involving detective Harbinder Kaur: The Last Word. (Narrated by: Nina Wadia)  

(Personally, I do prefer the set of characters in the Ruth Galloway series, though.)

Publisher's summary

A cosy, twisty mystery that reintroduces the glorious characters we met in the bestselling The Postscript Murders - shortlisted for the Gold Dagger.

Natalka from Ukraine has quit her job as a carer and joined up with retiree, Edwin, to run a detective agency on England's south coast. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy investigation such as murder to come the agency's way. She is now living with dreamer, Benedict, who continues to run his coffee shack. Life gets complicated when her Ukrainian mother, Viktoria, joins them from her war-torn country - three's a crowd. Viktoria invades the tiny flat, cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean. To add to Natalka's irritation, Benedict and Viktoria get on brilliantly.

Edwin is a big reader of obituaries, so when a local obit writer, Dan Haynes, dies, Edwin decides to look further, only to discover a series of unexpected deaths. Are the clues in the obits themselves? Edwin decides to write an obit to see what clues it throws up. Then he disappears.

The chase to find him takes the team to London and back to the south coast, where the solution lies remarkably close to home. 

After that one, I've also listened to three books by a Swedish author, but as her books don't seem to have been translated to English, no use giving details here.

And I've started a few others that I feel I'd better start over, as I kept nodding off too often... (Whether because of the book, the narrator or just myself being tired is not always easy to sort out!)