Books Read in 2017

January 2017

Julian Treuherz & Peter de Figueiredo – 111 Places in Liverpool not to be Missed (NF)

Lorena McCourtney – In Plain Sight (Ivy Malone mystery no 2)

Lorena McCourtney – On the Run (Ivy Malone mystery no 3)

Lorena McCourtney – Stranded (Ivy Malone mystery no 4)

Ken Pye – Liverpool Pubs (NF)

Claire Douiglas – Local Girl Missing

Daniel K Longman – Liverpool in the Headlines (NF)

Dave Joy – Liverpool Cowkeepers (NF) [A fascinating account of city dairies by a former colleague of mine]

Jed Rudenfeld – The Interpretation of Murder [Historical crime based on Freud’s visit to the USA IN 1909]

Cyril Hare – An English Murder (for the second time)

Cyril Hare – An Untimely Death (Inspector Mallett and Francis Pettigrew)

Philippa Gregory – The King’s Curse [Henry VII / Henry VIII from Margaret of York’s perspective]

Philippa Gregory – The White Queen

February 2017

Philippa Gregory – The Red Queen

Philippa Gregory – The Lady of the Rivers

Philippa Gregory –  The White Princess

Philippa Gregory –  The Constant Princess

Philippa Gregory –  The Other Boleyn Girl

Philippa Gregory –   The Boleyn Inheritance

March 2017

Philippa Gregory – The Taming of the Queen

Philippa Gregory –  The Queen’s Fool

Philippa Gregory –  Three Sisters, Three Queens

Philippa Gregory – The Kingmaker’s Daughter

Nicci French [A pseudonym used by Sean French and Nicci Gerrard] – Secret Smile       

April 2017

Mervyn Benford – Milestones (NF)

Rebecca Tope – The Troutbeck Testimony

Robert Low – The Whale Road (The Oathsworn Bk 1)

Robert Low – Wolf Sea  (The Oathsworn Bk 2)

Giles Kristian – Blood Eye (Raven 1)

Giles Kristian – Sons of Thunder (Raven 2)

Giles Kristian – Odin’s Wolves (Raven 3)

Robin Paige – Death at Bishop’s Keep (Victorian Mystery 1)

Robin Paige – Death at Gallows Green (Victorian Mystery 2)

Robin Paige – Death at Devil’s Bridge (Victorian Mystery 3)

May 2017

Robin Paige – Death at Rottingdean  (Victorian Mystery 4)

Robin Paige – Death at Whitechapel (Victorian Mystery 5)

Robin Paige – Death at Epsom (Victorian Mystery 6)

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and he Reek of Red Herrings

Catriona McPherson – After the Armistice Ball

Catriona McPherson – The Burry Man’s Day

Catriona McPherson – Bury her Deep

Catriona McPherson – The Winter Ground

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom

Ian Sansom – The Bad Book Affair (Hilarious story of Israel Armstrong, a mobile librarian in Ireland)

Ian Sansom – The Case of the Missing Books

Ian Sansom – Mr Dixon Disappears

June 2017

Ian Sansom – The Delegates’ Choice

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses

Catriona McPherson – Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit

Andrew Pepper – The Last Days of Newgate (First Pyke mystery)

Nina George – The Little Paris Bookshop  [An excellent, eminently quotable book]

Benedicte Newland & Pascale Smers – and God Created the Au Pair.

Sara George – The Journal of Mrs Pepys; Portrait of a Marriage

Sarah Waters – Fingersmith (Deservedly shortlisted for the Booker and Orange prizes)

David Lewis – The Illustrated History of Liverpool’s Suburbs (NF)

July 2017

Sarah Waters – Tupping the Velvet

August 2017

Geraldine McCaughrean – Where the World Ends (Exxcellent fact based fiction about a fowling party stranded on a St Kilda stac in 1727)

Charles Maclean – Island on the Edge of the World – the strory of St Kilda (NF)

Anita Brookner – Fraud

Veronica Henry – How to Find Love in a Bookshop

Sarah Waters – The Paying Guest

Sarah Waters – Affinity

September 2017

Sarah Waters – The Night Watch

Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger

Bernard Cornwell – Flame Bearer

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – The Legacy (Children's House no 1)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – The Undesired

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – The Last Rituals (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir no 1)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – My Soul to Take (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir no 2)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – Ashes to Dust (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir no 3)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – The Day is Dark {Thóra Gudmundsdóttir no 4)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – Someone to Watch Over Me {Thóra Gudmundsdóttir no 5)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – I remember You

October 2017

Anthony Rolls – Family Matters (British Library Crime Classics 1933)

Emma Healey – Elizabeth is Missing (Excellent look at senility through a mystery. In this darkly riveting debut novel - a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also an heartbreakingly honest examination of memory, identity, and aging - an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find her best friend. Her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences. )

Susie Steiner – Missing Presumed (Manon Bradshaw bk 1)

John Burningham (Ed.) – When we were young (NF)

Kathryn Hughes – The Letter (One of my top books of 2017 - Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it - a decision that will alter the course of her life for ever...)

Charlie Croker – Lost in Translation (NF)

Arnaldur Indridason – Strange Shores

Arnaldur Indridason – Jar City

Barney Norris – Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain  (My Book of the Year.  One quiet evening in Salisbury, the peace is shattered by a serious car crash. At that moment, five lives collide - a flower seller, a schoolboy, an army wife, a security guard, a widower - all facing their own personal disasters.)

P.D. James – Death in Holy Orders (an Adam Dalgleish novel)

November 2017

P.D. James – Cover her Face (Adam Dalgleish bk 1)

Philip Hensher – King of the Badgers

Peter James – Denial

Susie Steiner – Persons Unknown (Manon Bradshaw bk 2)

Stella Duffy – The Room of Lost Things

Nikki French – The Memory Game (for the second time)

Amy Tan – Saving Fish from Drowning

December 2017

Carol Smith – Grandmother’s Footsteps

Val McDermid – The Distant Echo (for the second time)

Val McDermid – Out of Bounds

P.D. James – Death comes to Pemberley (Murder mystery as a follow-up to Pride and Prejudice – a must for Jane Austen fans)