Special Houses

The Curator by M W Craven

This is the third book in Mike Craven’s Washington Poe series. In this book there are a series of brutal murders, with fingers cut from the victims and left in various places.

Poe and Tilly have to find and identify the victims, and then find the murderer – with Poe fighting against a clever murderer, as well as the Cumbrian winter weather.

The plot is complex and clever, but there is always something to make you laugh out loud mixed in with the gore. Its fast paced and its the type of book you can’t put down.

I was lucky enough to speak to Mike Craven on Radio Cumbria. I asked him about his ideas – particularly some of the complicated and technical elements that happen and whether he discovered them by accident and wrote them down in order to use them, or if he researched to solve a particular problem in the plot. His response – a bit of both!

If you can find a book, especially a crime book, that is set in your home town I highly recommend it. Its fun – if a little scary – to read about familiar places.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but this is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen. Its stunning. The contents were pretty good to.

Danny and his sister live with their father in the Dutch House. Its just the three of them after their mother left them. Life is good until their father marries another mother, Andrea. Andrea never really warms to her step-children and when their father dies she makes sure the children have no access to the house of their father’s fortune. The only thing they have is a trust fund for their education – so Danny’s sister insists he goes to medical school – which he does even though he doesn’t want to be a doctor. Danny, and especially his sister, are obsessed with the Dutch House and it almost ruins their lives.

I really enjoyed this book, its well written and the characters are well developed.