The latest gathering of The Book Circle was held on Wednesday, 8 April and a variety of books were shared.

The next Book Circle meeting will be in July.

Fiction

The Night Fire - Michael Connelly

Bosch attends the funeral of his old mentor.

Afterwards the wife gives Bosch a murder book that her husband had kept for a number of years.

The Murder Book is the bible for investigating Homicide detectives to follow, and contains every step the detectives have taken.

This makes it easier for them to be up to speed quickly.

Bosch reads The Murder Book and discovers that his old friend has redacted a lot of evidence and may have kept the book to protect himself or his family.

Bosch teams up with LAPD Cold case boss, Detective Renee Ballard, and they find a link between The Murder Book and another case that is 10 years old.

They begin the investigations, and in typical fashion take risks and use unconventional tactics as the twists and turns bring them closer to the truth.

Typical Connelly, as the reader is glued to each page.

A must read.

Woman’s Work - Victoria Purman

It’s the 1950s and everyone is looking forward to the Olympic Games being held in Melbourne.

Kath O’Grady now married and a devoted mother of five young children struggles through each day with sleepless nights and household chores.

Her husband Pete, a motor mechanic, earns an adequate wage but offers no assistance.

Ivy Quin a single mother of a son works as a receptionist at a doctor’s clinic.

Their lives are indicative of this post war period where men dominated the workforce and a women’s place was at home.

Women were expected to leave their jobs once married; single working mothers were frowned upon.

Not wanting a sixth child Kathleen investigates the options of birth control and eventually returning to work.

Ivy faces the demons of her past and with the assistance of a new doctor at the clinic vows to help other women.

Both women seek an escape and enter a cooking contest in the Australian Women’s Weekly, hoping the substantial prizemoney could change their lives and give them some independence and confidence for a better future.

The Long Night - Christian White

This is a fast-paced thriller taking place over one night, following two women—Em and Jodie—connected by a dark kidnapping plot.

Em is abducted by a masked man, while her mother, Jodie, is dragged back into a violent past to save her daughter.

It features intense, twisty, and character-driven suspense centred on trauma and family secrecy.

Christian White is the master of twists that generally come in the last paragraph but start in the first chapter.

Once again, I missed the subtle twist that led me to incorrect assumptions that included who actually is murdered and by whom.

White is also an Australian author and his books are based on various areas in Australia, mainly Victoria.

In his 2019 novel, Wild Place, the setting is suburban Victoria, out on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula.

In The Ledge, it is set in regional Victoria.

In this book the setting is a fictional town near Healesville Victoria.

If you like fast moving thrillers, this is well worth a read even just for the twist at the end.

Do not read at home of a night when you are the only one at home.

The Bookbinder of Jericho - Pip Williams

A novel by the author of The Dictionary of Lost Words.

It centres on the long-hidden history of female bookbinders.

The book is set in 1914 and uncovers the long-hidden history of female bookbinders, whose work went largely unacknowledged for many years.

It tells the story of two female bookbinders at Oxford University Press.

A Tangled Web - Tea Cooper

A suspense story set in Australia in the 1890s.

Violet Oswald investigates her stepfather’s suspicious experiments on children.

He is a prominent Sydney surgeon, and following her haemophiliac brother’s death Violet suspects he is using sick children to experiment with blood transfusions to boost his reputation.

Disguising herself as a boy, Violet joins a group of homeless youths in Brisbane, gaining a unique perspective on the era’s severe poverty.

She soon uncovers a complex web of lies, deceit and medical corruption in NSW at that time.

The book has been praised for its portrayal of 1890s Sydney, strong female characters and high-stakes suspense.

The book starts at the time of PNG gaining independence, introducing a cast of ex-pat Australians an their Papuan contemporaries.

This is a big and ambitious novel, with much to admire, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award in 2013.

The Cyclist - Tim Sullivan

An autistic detective, DS Cross, has no social graces and infuriates many of his colleagues, but has the knack of solving seemingly insoluble crimes.

His female colleague makes valiant attempts to get him to appear more friendly, by telling him what to say in particular circumstances, for example ‘Sorry for your loss’, ‘Thankyou’, and ‘Goodbye’, which he then rehearses and says rather stiltedly when he thinks it might be appropriate.

Recommended.

Non-fiction

History’s Strangest Deaths - Riley Knight

An entertaining look at very unusual deaths - a philosopher in Ancient Greece killed by a falling tortoise; medieval noblemen falling into a cesspit when the floor they were standing on collapsed; a poodle falling from a skyscraper, killing one woman, then someone in the gathered crowd hit by a bus, and another bystander having a fatal heart attack.

A very entertaining compilation.

Colditz - Ben McIntyre

The incredible true story of daring attempts at escape from the Nazis’ most infamous prison.

In a series of spellbinding anecdotes, we meet the real men behind the legends, including Douglas Bader and many others.