Gabriel was a child abandoned by his ' mummy ' and lived the next 30 years into adulthood despising his father and meeting his unexpected half-siblings.

His father ( the wonderful, horrible Ozzie ) bequeaths Gabriel a box , which Gabriel can't bear to open until he is in another place . And that place and the people in it help him to be himself ( a personality which is resolutely unrecognized in the text). If it wasn't for 'them' his life would have been wasted.

Or would it ? Is Gabriel the sap that he seems or are his coping mechanisms pretty strong ?

Gabriel leads an authentic waster's life as a drudge and shop-assistant and his life is pain, but it's a patient heart-warming pain...and as he is obviously a bright boy, it teaches him a lot.

We end up reconsidering Ozzie's relationship to his son, and Gabriel's relationship to his mother... and everything around him...

He was bibbling along on the bottom and then he had to start again...

And again...

Fabulous book !

One of the great things about holidays is the chance to catch up on your reading.

I had been looking forward to reading this book for a while and it didn't let me down, despite the sleeve note calling it a Russian JK Rowling. Harry Potter this isn't - its adult. Anton is a low grade magician in the Night Watch, a band of Others (witches, shape shifters and vampires) on the side of light, pitted against the Day Watch (the same but acting on behalf of darkness) In the book Anton falls in love, gets partnered with witch in the body of a snowy owl, changes sex, hunts a rogue vampire killer while under suspicion of the same crimes and discovers a plot to change the world order.

The action is fast paced and well imagined as are the various different agents of light and dark, especially the leader of the Day Watch the fabulous Zabulon.

Cook recommends.

Quentin Clarke, a young Baltimore lawyer, witnesses the pauper's funeral of Edgar Allan Poe, a writer he has become obsessed with.

Before long he is embroiled in trying to determine the poet's last hours and the strange circumstances of his death. So much so that he travels to Paris to find the investigator upon whom Poe based the character of Auguste Dupin, the detective who solved the mystery of the Murders in the Rue Morgue. Aside from finding an investigator called Duponte, the case also attracts the Baron Dupin, a flamboyant lawyer being hunted by creditors.

Needless to say it all goes wrong when both investigators cross the Atlantic and Dupin gets murdered by agents of the Emperor Napoleon III thinking he is Duponte, Clarke gets the blame and ends up in the jug, gets sprung out only to find he is no longer a suspect and then has to stop his Aunt from having him put away as a nutter. Along the way there are two romantic interests a pointless (but right on) sub plot involving a slave trader and a couple of explanations of Poe's death.

All very well but I found this book difficult to get into as the author has taken what could have been a great hack story idea and over intellectualised the plot and at times when Clarke was agonising over different choices I found I was just getting bored. Fair enough its very well researched and crammed with period detail but it just didn't do it for me.

A Quiet Belief in Angels By R J Ellory

Amazing.

Below I have added the blurb from the back of the book so that you can have a rough idea of what the book's about before I ramble on about it.

1939, in the small, rural community of Augusta Falls, twelve-year old Joseph Vaughan hears of the brutal assault and murder of a young girl, the first in a series of killings that will blight the community over the next decade. Joseph and his friends are determined to protect Augusta Falls against the evil in their midst and form The Guardians. But the murderer evades them and they watch helplessly as one child after another is taken.

Even when the killings cease, a shadow of fear follows Joseph for the rest of his life. The past won't stay buried and, fifty years later, Joseph must confront the nightmare that has overshadowed his entire life...

So there it is. A rough outline of the novel. This novel is so deep and is spread over such a long period of time that the blurb only provides a mere snippet of the entirety of the novel.

Along with the main character, Joseph, the characters of the book are complex, ranging from the Sheriff Haynes Dearing to the German Gunther Kruger.

The genre of this book is hard to pinpoint, as it can be argued as being crime, murder mystery, drama and to a certain extent, even a horror.

There have been mixed reviews on A Quiet Belief of Angels, for example, it has been nominated by Richard and Judy for the British Book Awards 2008.

The Guardian said,

"This is compelling, unputdownable thriller writing of the very highest order."

On the other hand, people have said that the ending was too predictable, there is no flow, and that the novel is disjointed.

In my personal opinion the ending wasn't predictable at all, and the book didn't give too much away until the last couple of pages.

I understand that some people may regard the novel as having no flow, and I don't necessarily agree. However, the novel is set over around fifty years, and this could make it seem as if it isn't flowing.

I think that A Quiet Belief in Angels is a sophisticated read with vast descriptive use and a wide ranging use of vocabulary. For the more experienced reader this book is a delight, however the use of word may be lost on anyone below a high standard.

This isn't the kind of book you would read if you like happy stories with a happy ending. But, I'm not saying this book will make you really depressed either. It touches on some deep and serious issues, and has a gripping storyline.

You will find yourself feeling close to the main character, Joseph, and will remain by his side until the very end. The novel is in first person, which reinforces the closeness with Joseph.

Whatever your genre taste, this novel is undeniably, a fantastic and captivating read, and I hope I have inspired someone out there to give this book a go!

This was the last of a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches written by Andrews for Breese Books (a small imprint that specialises in Sherlock Holmes stories), shortly before his death.

This one is a bit unusual in that instead of the familiar territory of the late 19th or early 20th century, we are taken back to 50s London where an American writer fleeing the McCarthy witch hunts takes the lease on 221B Baker Street only to discover that its already home to the great detectve's ghost.

Needless to say they are soon involved in a mystery when the TV producer working upon said writer's debut TV series is arrested on suspicion of the murder of one of McCarthy's aides in London. Also in the frame, thanks to the paranoid American "reds under the beds" investigator are a number of actors and actresses including Orson Welles and the writer himself.

The problem is that the investigation relies a bit too much on coincidences and Holmes' ghostly ability to be wherever he wants rather than deductive reasoning and the final denouement owes more to an Agatha Christie style "its the person you expect to be the killer least" moment at the conclusion. I found that in itself a little odd as during the narrative Holmes rubbishes this kind of plot device and it also left the killer with a very feeble motive.

However, while he may not be a great writer, Andrews is very good on the period detail and he certainly knew the period well when London became home to so many of Hollywood's political dissidents blacklisted by McCarthy, having had a ringside seat workng in the entertainment industry. It is this detail that prevents the story being just another piece of hack writing.