I’m rounding off July’s blogposts with what were two very quick reads. The first one is The Perfect Murder by Peter James and it was one of the books chosen to be given away on World Book Night 2014. It’s one of those books which is actually titled Quick Reads, I think they are supposed to encourage non-readers to take up reading, which is I suppose a good idea.
I hadn’t read anything by Peter James before although I believe he is very popular. The Perfect Murder subtitled Marriage Can Be Murder seemed like an apt read for me at he moment as we will be celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary on Sunday!
Anyway, to the book – Victor Smiley and his wife Joan have been married for nearly 20 years. It’s fair to say that they’re driving each other mad. Joan wakes up every night with Victor seemingly in training to be the world’s loudest snorer, he argues with everyone and embarrasses Joan all the time. He has been a disappointment, not even able to father any children.
Victor hates Joan and spends his time at home watching old Morse and Poirot episodes, in fact any old detective shows, and they give him ideas. Unknown to him Joan also has similar ideas. It’ll end in tears all round, you just know it.
In fact for me The Perfect Murder was just mildly entertaining, an okay-ish read, but if like me you read a lot of crime/detective books then you’ll find it very predictable.
The other quick read was Susan Hill’s The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read. I bought this one at a local library where they were selling off some old books. I didn’t realise when I bought it that it was a collection of short stories and the pages in the front with the vital information had been torn out by the library folks.
So I was a bit perplexed when the first story ended and I went on to what I thought was the next chapter, only to quickly realise it was nothing to do with the first chapter, which must have been a short story. That was disappointing because I thought the first story could have been written up into something much more interesting than it was, as it just ended abruptly on what was a really low note.
But the same could be said for all of the short stories really, especially Father Father, about two young women, still living at home with their parents and when the mother dies the father replaces her very quickly with a new wife barely older than they are. An old story which we’ve probably all witnessed, hopefully at a bit of a distance.
There’s nothing uplifting about most of the stories in this book, if you’re susceptible to depression it could put you on a right downer!
Congratulations. We’ll be celebrating 43 in November! Wish it could be a trip to Scotland and Ireland.
Lorraine,
Thanks. We are wondering how to celebrate the next one, I think we should make it a year long – 40th year celebration, so we can start now! All those years have gone so quickly.
I hope you manage a Scotland/Ireland trip sometime soonish, I would dodge Ireland, but that’s me just being biased!
Why dodge Ireland? It’s absolutely lovely! And the people are wonderful. I loved Ireland – that’ll probably be our next swing by to see the kids, on the way to Belfast.
Happy belated anniversary! We just passed our 20th. The tens demand special recognition, I think!
Pearl,
We did a house swap with friends from Belfast years ago and we hated it, it was the first year they stopped having turnstiles to get into the city and there were no soldiers on the streets, so we thought it would be a good time to visit Northern Ireland. We hated it, unfriendly people who were obviously suspicious of us (not used to tourists I suppose) and very sub-standard scenery compared to what we saw every day when living in the west of Scotland. Kids completely out of control, but we were living in a normal Belfast neighbourhood, not usually frequented by holiday-makers. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to live there, never mind fight over it – but if it’s what you’re used to then I suppose it’s just – home. Our house swap friends thought where we lived was like heaven, and we find the Fife area to be so mundane!
I saw you had just had your 20th, I remember ours like it was yesterday. We’re definitely having a 40th celebration year, to make it last as long as possible. We just have to sort ourselves out and organise some fun!
Granted, my Ireland experience to date has been Dublin to Galway, including the ring roads and it was all quite lovely, staying in B&Bs and small hotels along the way. V. Did all the driving, of course, as she is used to driving wrong-sided after all these years of living in Scotland. đŸ˜‰
Pearl,
From what I’ve seen on TV Ireland is much more scenic than Northern Ireland – which wild horses couldn’t drag me back to. But I’d maybe give Dublin a go sometime. J found driving on the wrong side of the road in Holland fine after a very short time, hitting Amsterdam in the rush hour immediately after getting off the ferry was a bit scary though!