A couple of books I've read recently are S is for Silence by Sue Grafton (booksale) and Driftnet by Lin Anderson (recommended via a blog but unfortunately cannot remember which). Both novels feature ghosts from the past. Although they are both a reasonably pleasant way to while away the train journey, I can't recommend that you drop everything and rush out to the bookshop in order to read them. My review follows on the continuation sheet.
I've been reading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series since a friend at work lent me "B is for Burglar" and another colleague "A is for Alibi". (We swapped when we'd each finished). Since then, I've read the books in strict alphabetical order -- that must mean I've been reading them for 18 years! (As I read the first two in the same year.) In the books, however, time passes much more slowly than it does in the parallel real-life, so email and the internet do not feature, giving the stories a rather curious ambiance.
Kinsey Millhone is a divorced private eye who lives in the converted garage of a house owned by the octogenarian retired baker Henry in Santa Teresa (a thinly disguised Santa Barbara -- which from these books seems like a great place to live, though I find Kinsey's cabin a bit tiresome). In the first books, she works for a law firm as their investigator, but for some time now she's been independent. During the course of the alphabet, readers learn more about her personal life and history, and about Henry's -- but not in all of the books. In S is for Silence, Kinsey is asked to solve a 20-year-old mystery by the grown-up daughter of a rather feckless woman called Violet. Violet disappeared: did she run off with someone or did she suffer a gruesome fate? The book alternates between the present and the past, as Kinsey talks to people about their memories and tries to untangle the truth from the lies. The book is strongest in the retrospective chapters, though some of the present-day character vignettes are telling. S is for Silence is well up to standard: I think stronger for sparing us from Henry's love-life and family; but weaker for keeping Kinsey as a plot device rather than progressing the story of her convoluted family relationships or (other than as a slight nod) her own personal life. I wouldn't recommend starting the alphabet series with this book, but if you've read any of the previous novels, you will know what to expect and won't be disappointed.
The publisher of Driftnet does the author, Lin Anderson, no favours by putting a Scotsman quote on the cover "A new rival for old Rebus", as there is no contest -- yes, both books are set in Scotland, but there the comparison ends. Driftnet is short, readable and promising, but there are too many holes in the plot and too many times when characters disappear and reappear for no clear reason. The path lab and the police station feature briefly but the characters who inhabit those worlds don't seem to be able to use the knowledge they must have to put two and two together, or move the plot forwards. The denouement, in particular, seems superfluous. I don't mean to be down on the book -- one of the central themes, that of what happened to the child that the main character gave up for adoption, is well-handled. But I'm not that interested in seeking out more in the series on the evidence of this book.
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