Gently where the roads go

After a man is brutally murdered by a maniac with a sten gun, Superintendent George Gently is bought in to investigate a murky tale of stolen military supplies, enemy agents and a fair amount of sleaze. Gently also finds himself in danger as the gun man tries to cover his trail by also filling Gently with lead.

This is quite a respectable crime romp by Alan Hunter, though at times the story is a little dense with clues and plot points, some of which seem to be going nowhere fast. It is well written and pretty gritty. The ending is a surprise though, but not completely in a good way. The resolution did surprise me though as i was becoming pretty sure the culprit was one of the characters, but in the end they only had a supporting role.

I have a few other George Gently books in my large to-read pile, and i am looking forward to them.

Sowing some seeds

With the spider plant and some garlic bulbs seemingly taking to the mini-greenhouse, it was time to sow some seeds and try and grow something from scratch. I has sown some daisies, dahlias and poached egg plant seeds in trays. Hopefully i will soon have plenty of flowers which i can pot outside the front of the house to try and brighten it up a bit!

22 Pans

I have a big pending list of fiction books to read so of course the most natural thing is to greatly increase it! I have bought a job lot of 22 Pan paperbacks from the 1960s. They include some authors i am familiar with such as John Creasey though a lot that are new to me. Exploring them will be fun, when i finally get around to them. That may be some time!

A trip to the Severn Valley Railway

At the weekend i headed up to the Severn Valley Railway for their branch line weekend. I usually go the SVR at least once a year (though last year i didn't go due to reasons). The branch line weekend was a great event involving smaller trains running more frequently. I visited Northwood Halt for the first time, this is one of the line's request stops and i need it for one of my future books. A great day, hopefully i will visit again later in the year.

You can see my photos from the SVR here.

The Gondwana Shrine

This Blake & Mortimer volume follows on from the excellent Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent two-parter, although it can't quite be considered "part 3" it does follow up on quite a lot of the plot... though everything is recapped so you can read this on its own and understand whats going on!

At the heart of this story is that staple of books of Blake & Mortimer's ilk : lost civilisations. Though in the case of the Gondwana Shrine, the civilisation is truly very ancient (as in millions of years old) and that does stretch credibility a bit. 

Professor Mortimer takes the lead in this story though of course Blake is never far away and a certain persistent villain also makes a reappearance. To be honest it would be nice for Blake & Mortimer to have some other enemies to face...

As with all Blake & Mortimer books, it has a dense storyline and full of intrigue and adventure, and of course very well drawn. However, as the central concept of the story is a little too far-fetched it did detract from the story a little but it is still well worth your time.

Portrait of a Murderer

"Portrait of a murderer" by Anne Meredith is an excellent Golden Age mystery. A gentleman is murdered on Christmas Eve. One of his six children has killed him. However, this isn't a whodunnit. We witness the murder, then examine each of the children in turn, looking into their backgrounds and lives, creating characters with depth.

Therefore, the story stands out from a lot of it's peers. This is more of a psychological study of murder and motive than the standard detective yarn of the period, and explores how the culprit tries to avoid being discovered. It may lack in suspense but makes it up with good characterisation.

The interesting premise may though be the best part about the story, the initial part especially is a bit of a slog though it does pick up later on.