Stewart, Chris
Driving over lemons: an optimist in Andalucia

Chris and his wife leave England to tough it out in a remote region of southern Spain where the natives – peasant farmers and shepherds – are marked by social oddities. This is a surprisingly funny and entertaining read. Armchair travelling is far from boring.

TRAVEL, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CULTURES

Scottoline, Lisa
Mistaken identity

Criminal attorney Bennie Rosato takes on a brutal murder case. This raises issues surrounding her own identity, as the woman she is defending claims to be her twin. The novel has many twists and turns. If you like John Grisham, this is one for you.

THRILLER, SUSPENSE, MYSTERY, IDENTITY

Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a geisha

A fisherman’s daughter from a remote Japanese village is prepared for her life as a geisha in Kyoto in the 1930s. This is remarkable and compelling novel in the way it describes a very different lifestyle in another era.

CULTURES, WOMEN

James, Donald
Monstrum

A successor to Robert Ludlum, and a writer who does it with much more style and flair. The setting is Russia in 2015 at the end of a very nasty civil war which has left rival factions with the knives out. Inspector Constantin Vadim is assigned to investigate a twisted set of murders.

Highly recommended.

POLITICAL THRILLER

Berendt, John
Midnight in the garden of good and evil

The writer goes to live in Savannah in swampy Georgia, a somewhat isolated city whose residents have unique approaches to dealing with problems and people. We meet the funny, the kinky and the eccentric in  very memorable and enthralling book.

CULTURE, TRAVEL, IDENTITY

Abagnale, Frank
Catch me if you can

Frank embraces the life of con man extraordinaire at the early age of 17, becoming a forger, imposter and escape artist. He masquerades as an airline pilot, a paediatrician, and a college professor in four giddy years, finally ending up in a very unappealing French prison. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Colapinto, Joh
As nature made him: the boy who was raised as a girl

When one of two twin baby boys suffers a botched circumcision, his parents agree to a radical treatment, and he is surgically altered to live as a girl. The case becomes famous, but is a failure from the beginning - and the arrogance of sections of the medical profession is eventually exposed. The story is an interesting addition to the nurture/nature debate, and a really good read to boot.

GENDER, AUTOBIOGRAPHY

James, P.D.
Death in holy orders

Set in the rarefied environment of an Anglican Theological College on a remote and desolate part of the East Anglican coast, this novel presents the reader with a series of seemingly unrelated deaths – to be unravelled by none other than Commander Dalgleish.

MURDER MYSTERY

Cook, Robin
Abduction

When a baffling transmission from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean leads a crew of divers and oceanographers to investigate its origin, they are faced with a phenomenon beyond the wildest dreams of both science and mankind. A really good read.

SCIENCE FICTION, FUTURISTIC FICTION

Kingsolver, Barbara
Animal Dreams

After a fifteen-year absence Codi returns to her hometown in Arizona and to her father suffering from dementia. She makes unexpected discoveries about herself, her sister, her family roots, the wider community and the desert environment. A well-crafted novel which is an interesting read.

IDENTITY, FAMILY

Hurricane : the life of Rubin Cart, fighter

Can an innocent person spend almost 20 years in jail? Unfortunately the answer is Yes. Hurricane tells the story of Rubin 'The Hurricane' Carter, famous boxer, jailed for a triple murder he did not commit. The most frightening part is that he was famous and had famous friends (Mohammad Ali was one) trying to get him released. The book is a fascinating and detailed insight into racial prejudice. It exposes the good and bad in the American legal system. A good read. And - sorry Denzel - better than the movie!

BIOGRAPHY, RACISM, PREJUDICE

Archer, Jeffrey
To cut a long story short

Archer is an effortless read and he knows a good story. Some of these tales are based on real life incidents and are in the ‘urban legend’ category. They certainly indicate that truth is stranger than fiction. Good to dip into into if you don’t want a long sit and too much absorption.

SHORT STORIES,

Drewe, Robert
The shark net

As a young boy, the author ‘migrated’ with his family from Melbourne to Perth where he embarked on an exciting life on the coast and the local streets. Interwoven through this ‘shaped autobiography’ is a series of terrible murders and the terror and mystery that follows in their wake.

This is a subtle and wryly funny book about growing up in the 50s and 60s.

Highly recommended.

AUSTRALIAN, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CHILDHOOD

Herman, Iselin
Special delivery

A torrid little book about the love affair by letter of two unlikely people – a young Danish woman and a middle-aged French artist. When the inevitable meeting is finally arranged, there is quite a twist.

LOVE, LETTERS