summer reading 2012

I have been on a real crime and thriller kick this summer, with the Amazon daily deal for Kindle aiding and abetting my addiction.  Well, at 99p a book, it would be rude not to.  Since the beginning of June I've read 26 books; some good, some fair and some frankly hardly worth the space they took up.  As I don't want to lose your friendship, I've selected highlights to share rather than all of them :-)

June and July were taken over by chain-reading five Jo Nesbo books.  I read the first one - "The Redbreast" while I was in Oslo and was completely gripped.  The hero Harry Hole is flawed, to say the least, but nonetheless he's compelling. It's the third Harry Hole book, but the first to be available in English (although the first in the series, "The Bat", was published in English this week).  Even when I was back in London, I couldn't get enough of Harry and read "The Devil's Star", "The Redeemer", "Nemesis", and "The Snowman" in quick succession.

While in Italy last month I swapped one flawed hero for another, albeit slightly less flawed: Lee Child's Jack Reacher. Slightly more restrained, I have only read three of the series so far :-) "The Killing Floor", "Die Trying" and "Tripwire".

I did manage to read some non-crime books too, my favourite of which was "600 Hours of Edward".  This was brilliant: funny, moving, entralling.  Edward is in his late 30s, has Asperger's, obsessively records data and is slightly fixated on the old TV show "Dragnet".  His days follow a pattern until new neighbours move in across the road - I won't say any more in case you want to read it (and you should!).  And finally, "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.  I'm not usually a big reader of vampire / werewolf / Twilight-type but I read about this book on a books blog I follow and it sounded intruiging.  It's about a 200-year-old werewolf, the last of his kind.  He's tired of life and is welcoming death until something remarkable happens and everything changes.  Again, no spoilers in case you want to read it (and again, you should!)