I am amazed to see that I have finished only one book this week! Well, I am 3/4 of the way through a second one, but that is not at all like my usual reading rate. I think I have been too caught up with a range of issues, political and others, and have been flitting from site to site reading up on those instead. I have also been very ill again and this tends to have an effect on my book-reading concentration levels.

X by Sue Grafton

Anyway, I did finish X by Sue Grafton. I will copy here what I wrote in my review of the book on the Goodreads website:

Oh dear, this did need editing down and a proper central plot. Not three different storylines taking their turn with a huge amount of trivial detail. I have really loved books in this series and Kinsey Millhone is a wonderful character, but I don’t need repetitive details of every shower she takes or every route she drives. Not a bad book, but not great either. Sad, really.

As you can see, I was pretty disappointed with this book, #24 in the Kinsey Millhone series. I felt that it only deserved three out of five stars for its wandering plot lines and far too much detail about trivia, such as water-saving devices in 1980s drought ridden California. I will read other books in the series, but may try to seek out earlier ones that I have not already read as I think those books may have been better written. This seems to happen with many long book series – they start off well, get better as the author hones their craft, then deteriorate as eager readers beg the writer to speed up publication of new episodes. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books have gone the same way, in my opinion. Surely it would be better to have a shorter series and leave readers wanting more rather than allow your famous and favourite characters to deteriorate and your books to lose the high esteem that they once had? Ah well, I am not a writer so what would I know 🙁.

Good Girls Don’t Die by Isabelle Grey

The book that I am on the way to finishing is Isabelle Grey’s Good Girls Don’t Die, the first in her D.I. Grace Fisher series. I have already read the second book, Shot Through the Heart, and enjoyed that, so I think that this one will turn out well. I will write about it next week.

Sorry to give such a short Reading Roundup this week! I had better visit the library to stock up on more for next week.

Best wishes,

💜💚💛💙❤️