Lioren prematurely deploys a cure for a pandemic which is slowly depleting the intelligent population on Cromsag so they face extinction, only to find that the cure allows the side effects of the disease to flourish to the point where they wipe out the Cromsaggars remaining on the planet. Denied the death penalty for the crime of genocide, how can he learn to live with himself?

Not as episodic as earlier entries in the series and stronger for it.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/24/more-than-a-third-of-uk-ad...

After successfully treating an alien whose aircraft had crashed on her planet, warrior surgeon Cha Thrat is invited to join Sector General - a space hospital treating scores of intelligent species with wildly differing physiologies and environmental requirements.

I always enjoy these novels, though I still think they read more like linked short stories rather than novels, and this one is interesting having an alien as the POV character.

#coffeeandabook

Helena and Daniel Fleming's 10 yo autistic son Christopher finds their neighbour's nanny hanging in the barn and it obviously wasn't suicide.

Lots of ongoing story lines wrapped up in this, the last in the series, some of them in a perfunctory way in the last few pages. I will miss Jimmy, Willow, and Sandy but I appreciate the author's point that she couldn't have kept going for much longer without Shetland having a ridiculously high murder rate.

The body of a woman is found in the aftermath of a landslide but nobody seems to know who she is.

I know the possible romance between Jimmy and Willow is the main event but having read so many of these books together the character I want to see more of is Sandy Wilson. Leaving that aside I found the solution to the murder mystery unsatisfying.

PI Jackson Brodie is looking into 3 cold cases: an abducted 8 year-old, the unsolved murder of a teen, a girl who was adopted as a baby.

Enjoyable mystery though the author's habit of building up to a revelation which is then delayed by a 20-page switch as we follow another character got annoying. There were some very funny scenes but some of the humour was rather cruel. I will carry on with the series but not just yet.

Thea, a Jewish slave, falls in love with a gladiator, Arius, but is then sold. She later catches the eye of the emperor Domitian.

The author appreciates the complexities of Domitian's character so he is not just a cardboard villain. The central romance between Arius and Thea was fun, watching to see how they would get re-united. The only thing that I wondered about was whether Christianity was quite so developed by then as is made out.

#breakfastandabook

An English TV producer in Unst to celebrate a friend's marriage and scout out the possibilities of making a documentary about a local ghost is found dead in marshy ground the morning after a party. Willow Reeves and Jimmy Perez investigate.

Jimmy seems to be back on form but is Willow getting smitten?

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#coffeeandabook

A Shetland journalist who has been working in London returns to the islands only to turn up dead in the Fiscal's yoal. Jimmy Perez, still traumatised by the events of the last book, reluctantly helps with the investigation.

An absorbing read that left me disorientated whenever I had to resurface to deal with real life.

#coffeeandabook

Difficult to follow in places as the author assumes more background knowledge than I have, but basically what it says on the tin.

#coffeeandabook

Children enjoying our Roman-themed play area

Tagged book was the best of these

#coffeeandabook

An antiquities dealer visits Emerson requesting compensation for a forged scarab allegedly sold by David from his grandfather's collection, which never existed. Discreet enquiries reveal that the impersonator has sold fake antiquities to other dealers. Who is trying to vilify David and why?

I haven't read any of the Amelia Peabody books for a couple of years and I'd forgotten how funny Amelia's narrative “voice“ is.

#ClassicLSFBC
@RamsFan1963

I read the Powell and Donovan stories:
Runaround
Reason
Catch That Rabbit

Not as impressed by these stories as I was as a teenager, but still entertaining.

After an attempt to kidnap a student at Miles Flint's daughter's school, the principal asks him to find out who the would-be kidnappers were and to beef up the security system at the school.

For a novella, this story keeps the reader on their toes with shifting sympathies all the way through.

#coffeeandabook

"What is it you find so amusing, my dear?” I inquired.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

@ShyBookOwl
#FirstLineFridays

#lunchandabook

After an accident reduces his ability to play, world-class pianist Aiden returns to the small town where he grew up and rekindles his high school romance with Dean, now the local handyman.

Quick, easy read, though I thought it ended a bit abruptly. The two main characters agonised over the big decision for so long, yet we didn't really see how it was resolved, it just suddenly was and the book was over.

#coffeeandabook
#inmemoriam

At the ritual to welcome the troops back from Tizoc's coronation war a warrior collapses and dies. More and more people start dying, but is it a natural epidemic sent by Tlaloc, the Storm Lord, or the result of magic and a curse? Acatl must investigate and try to maintain the boundaries between the Fifth World and the supernatural realms.

The best of the trilogy, partly because I felt I had a much better grasp of what was going on.

#coffeeandabook

The Emperor/Revered Speaker Axayacatl has died. A member of the council to appoint his successor has been found ripped apart by a star-demon, but who summoned it and why?

I had problems following this one, trying to keep track of the different factions and what plots the main players were trying to forward. All very confusing, but I will persevere with the final episode.

Have read “Robbie“ from this collection as part of the #ClassicLSFBC group read of “I, Robot“.

It's an unfortunate fact of life that to tell a story you need people acting in a society, because Asimov isn't interested in that, he's interested in the technology and puzzles. Accept that that's what's on offer and sit back and enjoy it because he's very good at what he does.

@RamsFan1963

#coffeeandabook

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

The priestess Huei has gone missing and Acatl's brother Nuetomoc is found in her room covered in her blood, so as high priest of Mictlantecuhli, the god of the Underworld, Acatl must investigate. But is it a sordid tale of lust and murder, or part of the machinations of court politics as the Emperor is dying, or something more cosmic as deities vie for supremacy? ⬇

#lunchandabook

The hot dog calls itself Mexican sausage and naturally I also had chocolatl 😉

#coffeeandabook

A knight on a secret mission, his dog, and a convicted felon all lie dead in the woods. But a lot of people seem to have been passing through the woods that night. So who killed whom?

Even with the list of dramatis personae at the front, it took me a while to get straight in my mind who all the minor characters were but it was an enjoyable read.

#JulyReadingPlans

Honourable mention to “Belladonna at Belstone“ by Michael Jecks

#coffeeandabook

When a novice nun dies and the prioress is accused of her murder by the nunnery's treasurer in a letter to the suffragan bishop, he asks Keeper of the Peace Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Warden Simon Puttock to investigate discreetly. But why, when the nunnery does not fall in either of them's jurisdiction?

A good fun easy read. So glad I live in an age of anaesthetics and antibiotics.

Naturally

#coffeeandabook

She was lucky not to have died.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#wondrouswednesday
@Eggs

In 2126 Edric Montague takes his tutor Dr Entwerfen to Egypt to test his galvanic battery by attempting to resuscitate the mummy of Cheops. Back in England, the country is gearing up to elect a new Queen, and elsewhere in Europe the new King of Ireland is invading Spain to restore the monarchy there.

I found it rather heavy going and overlong. The speculations from 1826 about life in 2126 were much more fun than the romantic melodramas.

Effects of atmospheric pollution on the pyramids forecast in 1826