Some Books I Read in 2025

It strikes me that I seem to have written very few book reviews this year. I think it's primarily to do with the fact that most of my reading has been "by ear" (Audible) - and also that the majority of my reading this whole year has been re-reading/listening to books I've read before...

On average I've probably as usual listened to one book per week or so, but that includes a lot of re-reading - for example all six major novels by Jane Austen, the Harry Potter series (for the umpteenth time), Mary Stewart's Arthurian Saga, and Jaqueline Winspears whole series about private investigator Maise Dobbs (16 novels, most of which I've probably reviewed separately before). 

More recently (during the autumn) I have listened to two new releases in J.R. Ellis' Yorkshire Mysteries series (which I have been following since the beginning): The Otley Murders (No 11) and Murder in York (No 12). I enjoyed them both but didn't get round to writiting reviews. Here's the publisher's blurb for the York one, which also has a Christmas setting:

In the ancient city of York, winter brings Christmas markets, cold weather…and murder.

Snow dusts the cobbled streets of York as tourists flock to its famous Christmas markets. But for DCI Oldroyd, what starts as a peaceful evening on a ghost tour quickly turns deadly.

The tour guide’s grim discovery is no theatrical performance—he finds the body of Henry Marlow, a notorious local landlord, in the doorway of a derelict building. Oldroyd soon has no shortage of suspects: a resentful ex-wife, angry tenants, and even the guide who knows every secret passage of the old city.

As festive lights sparkle above the narrow passageways of York, darkness gathers below when a second body is found in the shadow of the ancient cathedral. Can Oldroyd untangle the web of secrets and lies before anyone else dies? As the holiday season approaches, it seems the killer is planning on making this a Christmas to remember—for all the wrong reasons…

 

 

This month, I was also pleasantly surprised to come across a new crime novel by Ann Cleeves:  The Killing Stones - subtitled "The Return of Jimmy Perez", the dectective from her "Shetland" series, which was also turned into a successful TV series which continued to live its own life even after Perez himself had left it.

In this new book, we find Perez having...

"... traded the stark beauty of Shetland for the wild isolation of Orkney, but the darkness of human nature follows him everywhere.

When a ferocious storm rages across the islands, it leaves behind more than just damage: it uncovers the body of Archie Stout, a popular, larger-than-life member of the community.

The murder weapon? A Neolithic stone, bearing cryptic, ancient inscriptions.

Now living in Orkney with his partner, Willow, and their young son, Perez is drawn into a case that is chillingly personal—Archie was a friend from his own childhood. And the island is full of familiar faces, all of whom are potential suspects in the killing.

Perez must immerse himself in the lives of the islanders, separating truth from local legend before a desperate killer can strike again. . . and threaten the new life he's desperately trying to build. "

By placing Perez in the Orkneys the author has managed to keep the atmosphere from the Shetland series, while at the same time giving Perez a "fresh start", so to say. I enjoyed listening to this book, narrated by Kenny Blyth (in Scottish dialect). There was one chapter that the first time round made no sense to me at all though (especially since I often tend to do some of my listening half asleep in the middle of the night!). I had to go back later in a more conscious state of mind and do some googling... It turned out to involve a strange island custom that I'd never heard of before - a kind of medeival football game known as The Ba' ... So no wonder I suddenly felt "lost" in unknown terminology... ;)