An old love… A mysterious death… A search for answers as rare as hen’s teeth… Glasgow therapist Dr Kellen Stewart has put the past behind her: relationship, medical career, life on a farm in the country. Then the phone rings as midnight and Bridget is dead – the only lover who ever counted. The local doctor says it’s a heart attack, the police think it’s suicide. Kellen knows that it’s neither but is she willing to rake up the past to prove it? Dragged into a world of rogue doctors, bent genetic engineers and killers who gut their victims as a warning, Kellen must face her own past as much as the very real terrors of the present to stop the killing – or she’ll be next.

Oh the joy of really decent writing, what a treat! Superbly crafted suspense writing, with breath-stopping violence, real intelligence and fine psychological insight. Oh, yes and a great flavour of Scotland. Frankly, thriller writing doesn’t get much better than this! This is my second copy having managed to loose, the first I wanted to offer up as a book ring I just had to buy this to offer up instead!

To celebrate; mystery thrillers; Scottish writing and; my Dad who died last month, he loved thrillers; I’m starting this book travelling – the book-ring will remain *open*
If interested PM me. Also tell me your mailing preferences = International or if UK only. Cheers!

Book-ring: Guidelines
1. If you wish to join, please PM me with your interest,
2. Please journal when you receive the book - so eager readers can track progress,
3. Enjoy but post on as quickly as you can - the book-ring is for fun, it’s not a frantic race
4. Please journal after you read the book - so others can see your comments,
5. PM the next on the list for their address *&* post the book. (If you are last on the list, the book comes back to me) :-D

bookfrogster - Edinburgh, Scot, UK. <23 May 05
WormyOne - Brighton & Hove, Eng, UK. <12 Jun 05
Aubriel - Sheffield, Engl, UK. <28 Jun 05
tehuti - Nottingham, Eng, UK. <12 Aug 05
Mastulela - Nuneaton, Eng, UK. <8 Oct 05
Bechan - Auckland, NZ. <27 Nov 05
Otakuu - Waimate, Sth Canterbury, NZ. ***10 Jan 06*** [Book-ring faltered here]
Boreal - Dunedin, Otago, NZ. < asked to be skipped - Jan 2012
Moondreamer - Sandhurst, Eng, UK.
Mellowdaisy - Walton-on-Thames, Eng, UK.
sunflowergirl - Plocklington, England, UK.
Amanida - Chertsy, Eng, UK.
tutleymutley - Newton Abbot, England, UK.

Passed to me by rainbow3. Will read and send on as soon as possible.

I did quite enjoy this tale. Like many crime first novels it suffered in places from the author trying to be a wee bit too clever, when simplicity would have been more effective. However, it was a good mystery and I didn't guess who the murderer was.
On it's way to wormyone as soon as I get an address.

RELEASE NOTES:

On it's way to WormyOne. Happy reading!

To be fair, detective fiction isn’t a genre to which I'm much drawn so maybe it's not surprising that I didn’t like this at all.

The narrator REALLY got on my nerves. From the moment (on the second page) when she blocks the path of a vehicle displaying an emergency flashing light for a completely pointless conversation and acts as though this is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate action, I found her arrogant, domineering and wrong-headed. Apart from anything else, it was never entirely clear to me why the protagonists didn’t simply share all their information with the police and let those paid to do this stuff get on with their jobs.

I thought the writing style was poor too. Substituting the phrase “set about increasing Telecom’s profits for the day by a significant margin” for “made a series of phone calls” isn’t clever; it’s just irritating. The book was full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and repetitive imagery and phraseology.

In addition, the history of the relationships between the protagonists is thrown into the mix. I spent the whole book thinking that this would be developed and that I would learn properly what had happened between them and how they had reached their current states. Vain hope. I was left frustrated by brief references to a past that was never explained, let alone analysed.

The dialogue's terrible too. For example, the narrator is a therapist yet, when someone tells her they've permanently lost the full use of a part of their body, she says "Do you mind?" Do you MIND? What kind of a response is that?

This book was nominated for The Orange Prize and it’s not the first Orange Prize nominee that has led me to question the standards of that particular award. It’s a shame, I think. If the judges were more discriminating, it could be a great showcase for the talent of women writers.

Oh well, here’s hoping the rest of the readers on this ring will enjoy it more than I did. This is the first time I've disliked a ring/ray book and I find myself feeling a bit uncomfortable. Sorry Rainbow3. :-(

Hmm, begining to think books are like buses - nothing for ages and then they all come at once. The nice postie knocked on the door with not just one, not two, but three books this morning that included this one!

I enjoyed this and even though I found it more than a little far fetched at times , it was still an interesting approach.

Only three rings at once, aubriel? I've ended up with six, including one I joined over a year ago and one I joined two weeks ago. I've given up trying to control my ring activities, because I always get caught out, LOL! I hope I won't delay this ring too much.

Oh well, despite my best intentions, I did delay the ring somewhat. Apologies! I enjoyed this book. I found the plot confusing at times, but it certainly did not lack tension. There was a slight feeling that the author at times pushed at the limits of reality in order to make the female protagonists stand out even further. Still, it was refreshing to have a cast of female characters with not a husband or baby in sight! I left the book with meddyg while I attended a course for four days and he also read it. I kept getting indignant text messages about medical inaccuracies, especially with respect to stomach contents and temazepam levels. However, his overall reaction, like mine, is that this is a good read, and he also thought that the portrayal of the medical profession was more accurate than usual.

Posting to mastulela today

Arrived safely this morning, thank you.

I really enjoyed the book. A couple of early details nearly put me off e.g. what doctor dresses in a 'sharp suit' when called out in the middle of the night to confirm a death? This and some other minor quibbles out of the way, I thought it was a good read.

Waiting for an address from Bechan to send it on.

Postal release to new Zealand today.

I have to side with WormyOne on this one. Although I enjoyed it well enough as a light read on the train, overall I thought it was an inferior sort of crime novel.

I thought the premise was interesting. Shame it was only shallowly explored. And the whole amateur private eye posse thing was too too unlikely. I felt the author used easy tricks to explain away the more unbelievable plot happenings e.g. explaining Dr Lee's highly unlikely behaviour and "skills" with an "unconventional upbringing". Too easy!

Still - by suspending belief it was fun enough.

Thank you rainbow3 for sharing :o)

I will send on ASAP to Otakuu

This arrived in this mornings post so maybe MtTBI will be left to grow while I read a little!

Given to FutureCat for re-homing


If this is the first BookCrossing book you have ever found, Haere Mai - Welcome.
I hope you join me in this wonderful world

Left over from our BC Feast of the Ass Party last night. Looks like it's part of a bookring, so I'll see if I can get it moving again.

^ ^
00
=+=
v

Left on the table after our impromptu meetup.

Happy bookcrossing to the finder!

^ ^
00
=+=
v

P.S. If you live in the Christchurch area, you might like to join us at our monthly bookcrossing meetups. For details, see the BCNZ Yahoo Group.

Edited to add: Bother, I just realised this was the book that was a bookring - I must have picked it up off the wrong pile when I was getting ready for work this morning! Maybe one of the others at the meetup ended up with it and can send it on to the next bookring participant (I PMed Boreal, by the way, and she asked to be skipped, but I hadn't PMed the next on the list yet). But if not, and it's been wild released, my apologies to all concerned :-(

Looks like a good 'un, thanks.

Good book, great characters.

when I first got this book and saw it was in a bookring I sent PMs to a couple of the names on the list and got no reply.

I passed this book on to someone else in the Darfield Library bookclub.

I got this back from the person I passed it on to. I thought they understood bookcrossing.....anyway....I will PM rainbow3 to ask whether they want the book back.