Set in the infamous Salem, The Lace Reader concerns an admittedly insane protagonist and her return to her childhood home.
Amidst a tale of death, magic, lies and, for some reason, lace, she tells the reader about her past and why she’s been damaged so badly. continue reading…
Brilliant.
Actually, I’m tempted to just leave it as that. There is a certain elegance in brevity.
I suppose I should probably expand upon that.
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Unless you count the Anita Blake Series (and I wouldn’t), this is only the third detective fiction novel that I can remember reading. ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and ‘The hound of the Baskervilles’ are certainly more famous than this novel and often held up as exemplars of the genre. Perhaps this led me to expect a little more from this book than was delivered.
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What’s the difference between a viola and a trampoline?
You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.
Somehow that joke’s stayed with me for over ten years. I was never one for strings. Give me a brass chorale anyday.
Still, it was nice to delve once more into the world of music – although I can find faults with this book, musical accuracy is not one of them.
If I had to list places I would not like to visit, I think ‘Anywhere in Africa’ would be pretty damn high on that list.
Not so for Tim Butcher, and I can’t decide if I should applaud his courage or bemoan his (in my mind) pointless bravado.
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