What Are You Currently Reading

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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby Grahame » Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:03 am

The Creeping Spleen wrote:Kindle - "The Crossing Places" by Elly Griffiths.

First in the Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries.

I liked the first few books of that series, they have a similar kind of vibe to Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins books, but I feel that the series has lost its way. Griffiths seems unable to bring any sort of resolution to the whole Ruth/Harry relationship, and I lost interest at book 9.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby Henrysix » Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:20 am

Spleen you have us hooked now, next summary please as soon as you are able to!
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:47 pm

"The Titanic Secret" by Clive Cussler and Jack du Brul.

Book 11 in the "Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency" series of techno thrillers set in the early years of the 20th century.


When Dirk Pitt raised the Titanic in search of a rare and valuable element, he never learned the disturbing true story of its origins.

But upon receiving secret testimony from private detective Isaac Bell, he's taken back to the year 1911 and a tragedy at Colorado's Little Angel Mine.

There, Isaac Bell is tasked with explaining the deaths of nine miners. But all is not as it seems and soon Bell finds himself on his way to Europe hunting for clues concerning a rare element of incalculable value.

All while being pursued by dangerous men.

Men who will do anything to get their hands on it . . .

Isaac Bell must decide how far he'll go to stop them, it's a journey that can only end with the fateful first and final voyage of the Titanic itself.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:12 am

"Xavier: A British Secret Agent with the French Resistance" by Richard Heslop.

Colonel Richard Heslop, alias Xavier, was one of Britain's Greatest Special Operations agents in France. Ingeniously orchestrating resistance groups and ruthlessly sabotaging German operations, Xavier played a crucial role in Allied espionage during the war, from late 1942 right through to D-Day. Sent to France in the middle of the conflict, he delicately balanced clandestine missions and dangerous wartime operations on a daily basis, yet his name barely gets a mention in the accounts of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), making this insight all the more fascinating. It is clear that Xavier's role was like no other. it was a job that involved frequent encounters with the terrifying possibilities of capture, torture and death; it was a job where a careless whisper could deliver a man into the hands of the Gestapo; and it was a job that involved acts of sabotage, espionage, theft, and sometimes even murder... Xavier is a dramatic and compelling account of courage and endurance in the face of a merciless enemy - the true story of one of Britain's greatest secret agents.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:58 am

"The Saboteurs" by Clive Cussler and Jack du Brul.

Book 12 in the "Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency" series of techno thrillers set in the early years of the 20th century.


Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man.

This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda - one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal.

While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see its completion.

With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents - or whoever is funding them - before they can attack again.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:49 am

"Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens" by Eddie Izzard.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby Henrysix » Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:45 am

The Day the Laughter Stopped - Roscoe Arbuckle scandal
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Mon Aug 30, 2021 8:13 am

"Marauder" by Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison.

Book 15 in the "Oregon Files" series of Mission: Impossible-esque techno thrillers.


Answering a research ship's distress call in the Timor Sea, Juan Cabrillo's Oregon finds the crew unable to move or speak - victims of an unknown toxin. After a second attack leaves many more paralysed, Juan races not only to find an antidote - but also discover who is behind these crimes and what they want.

His search for answers leads to a 2000-year-old Roman mystery and a plan to bring down a nation by a ruthless enemy acting from beyond the grave.

It will take all of Juan's legendary wits, wiles and weaponry to keep millions of innocent lives out of the firing line...
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:46 pm

"Instrument of Slaughter" by Edward Marston.

Book 2 in the "Home Front Detective" series of murder mysteries set in London during the First World War.


January 1916. Britain is on the brink of enforcing conscription. Eligible young men who have not yet signed up to fight are despised as 'conchies' and 'shirkers', subjected to hatred and verbal abuse. Cyril Ablatt, leader of Shoreditch's group of conscientious objectors, makes a rousing speech at a meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship, refusing to be 'an instrument of slaughter in a khaki uniform'.

When Cyril is brutally bludgeoned to death, Scotland Yard detectives Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy are assigned to the case. As the pair build up a portrait of Cyril, they unearth an intriguing private life behind the man's saintly facade. It soon becomes clear there are plenty of suspicious characters with motives for the killing.

Meanwhile, public sympathy is lukewarm. Some people even claim that a conchie deserves to die if he won't fight for King and Country. And in the wake of the murder, three close friends of Ablatt fear that they may also be under threat. Marmion and Keedy will have to work fast to find the killer before any more deaths occur...
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:24 pm

"A Corruption of Blood" by Ambrose Parry (AKA Christopher Brookmyre and his missus Dr. Marisa Haetzman).

Third book in the "Dr. Will Raven" series of medical murder mysteries set in mid 19 century Edinburgh.


Edinburgh, 1850. This city will bleed you dry.

Dr Will Raven is a man seldom shocked by human remains, but even he is disturbed by the contents of a package washed up at the Port of Leith. Stranger still, a man Raven has long detested is pleading for his help to escape the hangman.

Back in the townhouse of Dr James Simpson, Sarah Fisher has set her sights on learning to practise medicine. Almost everyone seems intent on dissuading her from this ambition, but when word reaches her that a woman has recently obtained a medical degree despite her gender, Sarah decides to seek her out.

Raven’s efforts to prove his former adversary’s innocence are failing and he desperately needs Sarah’s help. Putting their feelings for one another aside, their investigations take them to both extremes of Edinburgh’s social divide, where they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
The Creeping Spleen
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:16 am

"The President's Daughter" by Bill Clinton and James Patterson.

Former U.S. President Matthew Keating is retired in New Hampshire. While Keating's only daughter is out hiking with her boyfriend, she is kidnapped by a terrorist. With the government unwilling to assist, Keating assembles a team of Secret Service agents, Navy SEALs, and a computer genius. With the terrorist torturing the young woman, the team races to save her and the president's honor.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
The Creeping Spleen
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:41 am

"A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Secret Game that Revolutionised the War" by Simon Parkin.

1941. The Battle of the Atlantic is a disaster. Thousands of supply ships ferrying vital food and fuel from North America to Britain are being torpedoed by German U-boats. Britain is only weeks away from starvation - and with that, crushing defeat.

In the first week of 1942 a group of unlikely heroes - a retired naval captain and a clutch of brilliant young women - gather to form a secret strategy unit. On the top floor of a bomb-bruised HQ in Liverpool, the Western Approaches Tactical Unit spends days and nights designing and playing wargames in an effort to crack the U-boat tactics. As the U-boat wolfpacks continue to prey upon the supply ships, the Wrens race against time to save Britain.

With novelistic flair, investigative journalist Simon Parkin shines a light on Operation Raspberry and these unsung heroines in this riveting true story of war at sea.
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
The Creeping Spleen
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby Henrysix » Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:37 pm

My Wicked Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn autobiography
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby The Creeping Spleen » Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:53 pm

"Sharpe's Assassin" by Bernard Cornwell.

The new "Richard Sharpe" novel, 22nd in publication order, 21st chronologically and taking place immediately after the events of "Sharpe's Waterloo".


Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe is a man with a reputation. Born in the gutter, raised a foundling, he joined the army twenty-one years ago, and it’s been his home ever since. He’s a loose cannon, but his unconventional methods make him a valuable weapon.

So when, the dust still settling after the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington needs a favour, he turns to Sharpe. For Wellington knows that the end of one war is only the beginning of another. Napoleon's army may be defeated, but another enemy lies waiting in the shadows – a secretive group of fanatical revolutionaries hell-bent on revenge.

Sharpe is dispatched to a new battleground: the maze of Paris streets where lines blur between friend and foe. And in search of a spy, he will have to defeat a lethal assassin determined to kill his target or die trying...
Another sunrise with my sad captains, with who I choose to lose my mind,
And if it's all we only pass this way but once, what a perfect waste of time.
The Creeping Spleen
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Re: What Are You Currently Reading

Postby Henrysix » Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:01 am

Spleen, tempting me no me to dip back into my box set with Sean Bean in the starring role!
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