Cramlington Book Club

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o

SPOILERS I have to say this is the first crime book I have read where the detective didn't solve the murder. Not only that but in the end it was the rats who did the job. I was interested to read this book having watched the television series a while ago. This was a story not turned into tv (or if it was I missed it) and I loved the food, Zens flu, the wine and the eccentric doctor. It was quite funny in parts. Zen was certainly a strange one, definitely a councelling session or two needed there but the book lost me in parts and I think the title was laboured. Minot's character was particularly good, an excellent murderer but as I said at the start I found it very strange to read a book where the detective doesn't deliver the goods. It was book number 6 in the series and I didn't struggle joining so late in the day however you glimpsed there was content in the earlier books that would have added to Zens character. I won't rush out to buy all previous 5 boo

Another book another film deal making me think immediately of our recently reviewed Nocturnal Animals where a book that has been around for a while and has undergone a few name changes reaches a wider audience as the film hits the big screen. The book had an original topic - England's film industry during World War 2 and I did really enjoy reading about the advertisements, Madam Tussauds and script writing. There were quite a few characters and the book did skip around a bit between them all (a trait I am finding happening more often at the moment). A few of the group struggled with this and I must admit it did take me a while to remember who was who. Evans characters were very likeable, particularly Ambrose however I love Bill Nighy (who plays Ambrose in the film) and I do question whether I liked Ambrose so much because I could envisage Nighy. I found Edith and Arthurs story to be strange, the random proposal and the sudden 'Edie' moment. I also didn't believe