Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 10

“Longhand” by Andy Hamilton (2020)

“My darling Bess…”

Despite this week going to the cinema to see the sixth part of the Jurassic Park franchise (excellent, by the way, well worth a watch), I’m always really looking for something new that I’ve not seen before. A novel written entirely by hand fits that criteria perfectly.

Malcolm Galbraith is being forced to leave the woman he loves. Before he does, however, he’s going to write her a note to say goodbye and explain why. Well, it’s not so much a note, more a 350-page novel. Becaus...

“The Moving Finger” by Agatha Christie (1942)

“When at last I was taken out of the plaster, and the doctors had pulled me about to their hearts’ content, and nurses had wheedled me into cautiously using my limbs, and I had been nauseated by their practically using baby talk to me, Marcus Kent told me I was to go and live in the country.”

I’m returning to a Miss Marple mystery, but this one takes us to a village other than St Mary Mead and, actually, almost entirely does away with the little old lady entirely.

Jerry Burton, on the orders of ...

“The Last Thing He Told Me” by Laura Dave (2021)

“Owen used to like to tease me about how I lose everything, about how, in my own way, I have raised losing things to an art form.”

I don’t often read out-and-out thrillers, but sometimes I dive in and lose myself in the formula for a while.

The day started out like any other, but everything changed for Hannah when a schoolgirl arrives on her doorstep with a note from Owen, Hannah’s husband. It simply says, “Protect her”. Hannah knows who the note is about – her teenage stepdaughter Bailey, with ...

“Death And The Penguin” by Andrey Kurkov (1996)

“First, a stone landed a metre from Viktor’s foot.”

Travelling in time and space for this week’s book, and landing in Ukraine in the 1990s. With a penguin by my side. Because why wouldn’t you?

Viktor aspires to be a writer and would love to be penning short stories and making a fortune doing so, but instead he has to make a living composing obituaries for the newspaper. He dreams of seeing his work in print, but the subjects of his obituaries stubbornly cling to life. He has a quiet life, just h...

“Boy Meets Boy” by David Levithan (2003)

“9.00pm on a November Saturday.”

I know it’s not fashionable for the bookish people to have favourite books. We’re supposed to think of them all as our precious and we couldn’t possibly rank them. It’s not true, though. While I don’t think I could decide on an absolute favourite, I do have a vague top ten, and Boy Meets Boy is always in it.

Teenager Paul has always known he’s gay and has been lucky enough to grow up in a town where none of that matters, and everyone is accepting of everyone else...

“We Are Animals” by Tim Ewins (2021)

“The man looked to his right.”

The last two years has really limited how far we can travel in real life. So let’s bounce around the world via literature once more.

Jan sits on a beach in Goa, looking out to sea and thinking of the girl who stole his heart – and passport – forty-six years ago. Once upon a time, fate kept making sure they met, but it seems to have given up lately. Jan, therefore, has decided to stay on this Goan beach and wait for her to arrive.

While he waits, he is joined by an ...

“The Two Lives Of Louis & Louise” by Julie Cohen (2019)

“Louise Dawn Alder was born on the 8th of September 1978 to Peggy and Irving Alder of Casablanca, Maine.”

Gender seems a hot topic these days. I’m a cis man, but I have friends and acquaintances across the gender spectrum, and I find it an interesting subject. I’m a big believer in letting people live their happiest life, as long as they aren’t actively harming others, so how people identify doesn’t bother me, and I don’t see why it should bother anyone else. In this novel, we see how a single l...

“The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break” by Steven Sherrill (2000)

“The Minotaur sits on an empty pickle bucket blowing smoke through bullish nostrils.”

What is it that sends books about loneliness to be in a near-constant steady trickle? Here we go again.

It’s been five thousand years since the Minotaur – now known as M – left the Cretan Labyrinth and since then the immortal beast has had to find ways to make a living. He’s currently working as a line chef at Grub’s Rib in Carolina, where his colleagues – mostly – respect and like him, and are used to his limi...

“Anthracite” by Matt Thomas (2021)

“The sound of samba drifting up from Aberdare’s Latin Quarter filled the bar with its contagious rhythm.”

The trick sometimes to getting a new book out there is to spot a gap in the market. For example, until now, much of the literati have been talking of little else than the fact there’s practically no Welsh-based comedy cyberpunk novels. Matt Thomas has got there first.

Kevin Jones is wasting his life, spending his days writing a graphic novel about a farting ninja and watching films with his ...

“Falling Dark” by Tom Lloyd (2021)

“A level tone lost in the dark.”

There’s no telling what we’ll find out in the darkest corners of the universe when (or if) humanity ever gets there. Tom Lloyd, however, has an idea, and it’s not necessarily as comforting as others might like.

In a distance future where humanity is a multi-planetary species, Captain Song leads her crew on a mission which becomes interrupted by a find unlike any other. Hanging just above the atmosphere of a distant planet is an enormous spaceship, inert and unlik...