What I Am Reading?

I have vowed to read all the books stored on my kindle. This could take several years.

I was tempted by a review of Val McDermid’s ‘A Place of Execution’ which said that it was a new angle on crime fiction. I felt a real sense of place and rural claustrophobia as it is set in the Peak District of Derbyshire. The novel is written from the point of view of a retired detective looking back on his first memorable murder case in the 1960s. At that time the moors murders were being investigated and police worked without the benefit of DNA testing.

I have completed a writing course led by Denetta Copeland of D3creation. The group looked at the Black Lives Matter movement. ‘White Fragility - why it’s so hard for while people to talk about racism’ by Robin Diangel was a powerful non-fiction read. As a result, I drafted an article on responses to the BLM movement.

I’ve enjoyed Helen Dunmore in the past, so I carried on to read her novel, ‘Birdcage Walk’. Set in the eighteenth century it is true to the era. A sense of menace builds in the relationship between the heroine and her husband. A parallel thread sees English characters respond to news from the French Revolution according to their individual political views.

Finally, I read ‘Disobedience’ by Naomi Alderman. Set in London in an orthodox Jewish household, our heroine returns on the death of her father. She revisits old friendships but as an outsider she struggles with the Jewish establishment. I learnt a lot about Jewish culture and traditions.


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