Bookclub

BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling), ISBN 9781408704035 (Little Brown). BD7.900 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in the highly-acclaimed series by JK Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant Robin Ellacott.

Having been planned as a series of seven novels, starting with The Cuckoo’s Calling, I was interested to see how the characters would develop and it has to be said that they are gaining weight and insight in this second book which somehow seems a ‘smoother read’ than book one and I am now looking forward to the next in the series.

Below is a summary of the plot for this, the second detective mystery (but do read The Cuckoo’s Calling first):
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days – as he has done before – and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.

If the novel were published it would ruin lives – so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

And, when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before.

* Read it now in paperback
Wrongful Death, Lynda La Plante, ISBN 9781471125843 (Simon & Schuster) BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members.

Duty to the job, or personal ambition? That’s the choice facing Anna Travis. Six months ago, London nightclub owner Josh Reynolds was found dead from a single gunshot wound to the head, the gun held in his right hand. His death was quickly determined to be a suicide, the investigation was closed ... a case done and dusted.

Then an informer states that Reynolds was murdered, and as the competence of the original investigation team is questioned, Anna has to decide if she can leave the crime to her team and take up her place for training at the FBI Academy or is the situation too important for her to leave behind.

Another excellent fast-paced crime thriller from Lynda la Plante, with a good storyline and sitting high in the best-selling charts.

* My favourite read-of-the-week
A Perfect Heritage, Penny Vincenzi, Hodder, 9780755377589 BD8.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members.

A Perfect Heritage is, as almost all Penny Vincenzi’s books are, an epic saga containing family secrets, romance and seriously strong women. This one concerns an aristocratic family, headed up by doyenne Athina Farrell, who owns a once-fabulous beauty brand, The Cream, which has started to fall into decline as customers are tempted away by more fashionable brands.

Enter one glamorous businesswoman, Bianca Bailey, a formidable mother-of-three, and someone who always gets her way. Athina and Bianca lock horns over the future of the House of Farrell but it is the past that tells its devastating tale of ambition and ego, passion and wonder.

“I like using strong women because I envy them a lot,” says Vincenzi. “I could never dominate a boardroom or anything like that.”

An interesting quote from a writer of more than 17 novels and sales of more than seven million books!