I’ve really gotten back into reading fiction lately - I’ve recently discovered that fiction for me is really the equivalent of “filling my well” when it comes to my writing. That, and watching movies. Both of which for the longest time I tried to avoid because they take up so much time.

Reading novels can actually be quite hazardous around here. One thing I’ve been keeping my eye on is not starting a book late in the day. When I do that, chances are good that I won’t get into bed until 3 a.m., which doesn’t work for me that well anymore.

This week has been a really good week for crime thrillers. I started the week off with Caro Ramsay’s Absolution, which is set in Glasgow, Scotland. This is Ramsay’s first novel, and I will definitely be keeping my eye out for more of her writing. Having said that, though, I enjoyed Absolution more for the writing - Ramsay writes in the literary crime tradition of PD James, Elizabeth George and Reginald Hill - than I did for the actual plot and characters. First of all - and this doesn’t happen to me very often - I knew who the murderer was from the moment he was introduced. In fact, I kept reading thinking it couldn’t possibly be this person, because it was just so obvious, so there must be some sort of tricky splendid twist waiting to surprise me at the end … only there wasn’t. I also didn’t like the main character at all. But the writing made up for these two negatives for me, so Ramsay is definitely a writer I will be keeping on my to-read list.

I moved from Absolution to another Scottish writer, Ian Rankin. The Naming of the Dead is the first Inspector Rebus novel I’ve read, and I found myself wondering why it took me so long to pick up a Rankin book. The Naming of the Dead is a thick twist-filled, suspenseful crime thriller of the type I particularly enjoy reading, and I liked both Rebus and his sidekick Siobhan Clarke very much. Which is nice, because there’s a long list of Rankin/Rebus books for me to catch-up on.

My final read this past week was Kathy Reichs’ Bones to Ashes. The plot, as is usual in a Reichs book, is wonderfully twisty and filled with surprises. I’m not as fond of the writing style, though. I find the “if only I had known” endings to the chapters just a little too old-style gothic heroine for my taste, and I don’t really like stories where the protaganist is threatened by the murderer, which is something that seems to happen a lot to Temperance Brennan.

This coming week? I’m juggling quite a few deadlines, so I probably won’t get as much reading done as I’d like. But I’m prepping for NaNoWriMo, and now that I’ve discovered that I get inspired to write after I read, I’m definitely going to keep hitting those books!

Tags: book reviews, crime thriller novels, NaNoWriMo, Reading, Writing