Category: waffle Page 1 of 2

If you look at my list of 52 books that I’ve read this year, you’ll see that I’ve included a book called “For Death Comes Softly” by Hilary Bonner. I thought about it a couple of times before I added it to the list. I hadn’t yet decided if I was going to include books I had read but hated. And yes, this is one of those.

P gave me it and it was second-hand, thank goodness. At least I didn’t waste £5.99 on it. It was the worst murder mystery I’ve read in a while; hackneyed, dull and confusing. For some odd reason, Ms Bonner decided to add two plots together. The main character is a DCI in a child abuse unit and has the distressing case of an abused boy with Down’s Syndrome to figure out. At the same time, she has fallen in love and has acted very unprofessionally with a murder suspect. One or either would have been enough, but mashing the two together has produced an unsatisfying book. One keeps wanting the DCI to get on with the child abuse case, for heavens sake and stop farting around with the bad romance novel hero.

There’s lots of dreadful writer’s mistakes, like over-using reporting instead of actually describing what is happening and what we are supposed to be seeing. Ms Bonner was originally a newspaper reporter and she is obviously far better at that than at writing novels. I read this trash in a couple of hours and was heartily glad to be done with it. I won’t be bothering her section of the shelves in Waterstones at all.

It’s one of those occasions when I want to write something, but can’t think of anything to write about. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? I guess I’ll just waffle on and hope that I find something as I go.

I’ve just finished reading the second book in my 52 books plan. I know, it’s slow going, but I seem to have hit a blank phase. My current obsession is “Morse”, after P and L gave me the boxed set for Christmas. I thought I’d see how different the original books were and bought “The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn”. I found that Lewis is pretty much the same, but Morse is really not so nice in the book version. He’s even more obsessed with being celibate but is pretty nasty to women he fancies. So he’s defeating his chances from the outset. Silly man! He’s also obsessed with his hair, for some odd reason. I think I prefer the TV Morse and the late, cuddly John Thaw. He was a great actor.

I’m currently working through “Tom’s Midnight Garden” by Phillipa Pearce, as I have to read it for the children’s literature course. I didn’t care for it at first: I thought it not half as good as other time-slip, secret garden novels, such as “Moondial”. But now that the boy is no longer interested in the Edwardian boys in the garden and has made friends with orphan Hatty, it’s much more interesting. I’ve read the other books for this section: “Harry Potter” (the first one), “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” and “Swallows and Amazons”. Some good books there.

And see, I managed to find something to write about after all! Off to bed!