Thrillers with a Scottish flavour

I really enjoy a good thriller, but it is even better when the drama is interlaced with the rather cynical, dry humour of Scotland.  A couple of authors to try if this is your bent too, are Stuart MacBride,

 

who writes about crime in the Granite City of Aberdeen, and Val McDermid (creator of criminal profiler Dr Tony Hill, played by Robson Green in the TV series ‘Wire in the blood’). She bases her novels in England, but there is still that sense of Gaelic grittyness in her characters.

Kit

The best of 2007

      As the year is coming to an end there is a proliferation of the ‘best of’ lists, including best reads! Christchurch City Libraries invite readers to submit their pick and you can check out what others have enjoyed reading at

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Guides/GoodReads/2007sbest/

For a list of the New Zealand Listener’s reviewers’ favourites go to

http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Guides/GoodReads/2007sBest/Listener/

The book ‘A thousand splendid suns’ by Khaled Hosseini was voted one of the best publications of 2007 on Amazon.com and both this and Hosseini’s previous book ‘The kite runner’ have been very popular with Hurunui readers.

Other recommended novels are ‘The road home’ by Rose Tremain, ‘Consequences’ by Penelope Lively, ‘Lies’ by Enrique the Heriz and of course ‘Mr. Pip’ by Lloyd Jones.

Also highly rated by many reviewers is ‘A long way home: Memoirs of a boy soldier’ by Ishmael Beah, the account of a boy of 12 who was swept up in the horrors of Sierra Leone’s civil war.

‘The lost: A search for six of six million’ by Daniel Mendelsohn, ‘The sixth man: the extraordinary life of Peter Costello’ by James McNeish, and ‘Globalisation and the wealth of nations’ by Brian Easton are some other titles on the Listener’s favourite list available at the Hurunui libraries.

Not surprisingly the last instalment of Harry Potter rates very high in the children’s books as does ‘The dangerous book for boys’ by Conn Iggulden and ‘The transformation of Minna Hargreaves’ by Fleur Beale.

Check out the ‘New items Hurunui Libraries’ link to see a list of our most recent acquisitions and stock up on some great summer reading!

Sylvia