All the Colours of Darkness

by Peter Robinson
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Inspector Alan Banks is in love and spends all his free time in London with Sophia. He is very reluctant to give up any of their time together.

Annie Cabbot is equally reluctant to disturb him when he is with his new girlfriend. But when an apparent suicide leads to the discovery of a murder in the residential area of the rich and influential she is ordered to call him back to Eastvale.

At first Banks is annoyed at having to give up his vacation and considers the case an open and shut, but he is soon drawn into the investigation. He suspects that there is more to the case than meets the eye and can't stop pursuing the truth. The question is what his inability to let go of the case will cost him.

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Peter Robinson's books are always well written and constructed. I am attached to Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot and am following their development with great interest.

Robinson never repeats himself when it comes to the intrigues of his books, and this too is ingeniously plotted even if it has certain elements that I personally am not so fond of.

And maybe it is his focus on these types of elements that causes this book not to end up on my Top Robinson Books-list. I recommend this book to everyone who like me is a faithful Robinson-reader, but for someone who has yet to read anything by Peter Robinson I would rather recommend for example In a Dry Season.

Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death

US title: Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder
by Gyles Brandreth
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In 1892 Oscar Wilde is at the top of his fame, his play Lady Windermere's Fan is a success and he is celebrated wherever he goes. Wilde regularly gathers what he calls the Socrates' club at Cadogan Hotel in London. This the evening of May 1st the company consists of Oscar himself and six of his friends. His friend has each in turn invited one person putting the total of the company to 14 persons. Several of the celebrities of this time can be found within this group.

At this meeting Oscar initiates a game he calls Murder. Each one in the party has to anonymously write down the name of someone they would like to murder if there were no risk of getting caught on a piece of paper. The task of the group is then to find out who put which name and why. As the names from the notes are read out and the names of some of the members in the group are listed the game does not seem so much fun anymore. The party breaks up with the participants all trying to convince it other that it was - after all - only a game.

But already the next day the person whose name was first listed dies suddenly. When more people on the list die Oscar Wilde has to apply his sharp mind to finding out who has turned his game into a sinister reality.

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I noticed this book in a bookstore in Copenhagen thanks to its beautiful cover. When I realised it was a crime novel with Oscar Wilde as the lead character it became irressistable.

And this is an amazing book that cleverly mixes real people with ficticious characters, real time events with ficticious events - everything located in Wilde's London. Many of the famous quotations of Oscar Wilde's find a natural place in the text as well as statements by other famous people from the time. The book is also written in a lovely language.

Wilde is also very well suited as a crime investigator. He was friends with Arthur Conan Doyle - who also has a role in this book - and many claims he was the model for Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft. He is observant, has an eye for details, imaginative but also logical and analytical.

I believe you can take a lot of pleasure from this book without knowing too much about Oscar Wilde and his friends, but some statements and passages takes on a deeper meaning and are more fun if you do. Among other things Wilde mentions regarding someone who has been buried at the Père-Lachaise cemetery how "that's not much of an achievement, they will accept anyone there". It is in Père-Lachaise you can since 1908 find Wilde's own grave.

The cast of characters is fascinating; I know a little about some and want to know more about them all;

• Arthur Conan Doyle;
  doctor, writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes
• Willie Hornung;
  writer and creator of the gentleman thief Raffles
• Bram Stoker;
  writer and creator of Dracula
• Walter Sickert;
  famous painter and among those suspected of being Jack the Ripper

This would go on far too long if I were to list all the people I became intrested in finding out more about so I will limit myself to these and instead recommend people to read the book.

Bad Things

by Michael Marshall
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Bad things don't just happen to other people...

John Henderson used to live with his wife and two sons at Murdo Pond in Black Ridge, Washington State. A beautiful summer afternoon his four year old son Scott had found his way out on the jetty and John ran as fast as he could to prevent him from falling into the lake. Despite making it out on the jetty before Scott can fall into the lake, he is still unable to save his life. Scott had looked at his father as if he couldn't recognise him and with an expression of tremendous fear he just fell down dead. The physicians were unable to explain why it had happened.

Three years later John has a different life. He has left Black Ridge and now lives alone leading a fairly anonymous existence. He has limited contact with his ex-wife and youngest son. Until he receives an e-mail from someone claiming to be able to explain what happened to Scott.

He returns to Black Ridge and finds himself caught in a chain of events that inevitably seem to lead to unhappiness for a lot of people, among others himself, his wife and son. He is desperately trying to figure out what is happening and find a way to save his family.

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Another well written and extremely scary thriller by Michael Marshall. This is the kind of book I like against my own better judgement; I am immediately drawn into it and can hardly put the book down - depsite being scared out of my wits I just have to understand what is going on and find out how it will all end.

This book to is centered around the idea of there being more between heaven and earth than what is obvious. And it is so cleverly constructed that it is hard for me not to start believing that this might very well be the case.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who gets nightmares from scary stories or branches scraping against the window, but to everyone else who wants to find a thrilling book that is difficult to put down.

The Intruders

by Michael Marshall
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Jack Whalen and his wife Amy have left Los Angeles and moved north to the small town of Birch Crossing. Amy is going to keep working for an ad agency, now as a traveling problem solver reporting to the head offices in Seattle. Jack has left his work with the police and will be working from home writing a book.

One day an old school friend of Jack's, Gary Fisher, gets in touch. Fisher is working as a lawyer in Chicago but he wants Jack's help finding a person from Seattle. Bill Andersson's wife and son have been murdered and Bill is missing, suspected of the killings. Gary has his own reasons for believing Bill is innocent and wants Jack to help him prove it as well as find Bill. Jack however believes the police are right and turns Fisher down.

But then Amy fails to come home from a business trip to Seattle and Jack goes there to try to find her. What he finds out makes him wonder if it is Amy who is in danger or his marriage. This is when Fisher contacts him again with information that suggests a possible connection between Amy and Bill Andersson.

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It is difficult to relate the content of this book in a way that does the book justice while at the same time avoiding revealing too much. This is not a common thriller focusing on solving disappearances and murders even though that is part of the story, here you will find more complicated, not to say mystical elements. Think Harlan Coben meets Stephen King and the X-files.

The mystical elements are uncovered gradually through the connection of several different plot lines. This slow introduction makes them feel scarily credible. The book is not without violence but above all it is frighteningly exciting and you struggle understand the context and find a rational explanation.

I recommend this book to those who wishes to read a really exciting thriller and who likes or at least can tolerate supernatural segments.

Martin Misunderstood

by Karin Slaughter
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Martin Reed is at the bottom of the pecking order, even his own mother keeps pointing out his flaws and short-comings. Those who bullied him at school are now his colleagues and still bullying him.

Martin has resigned to his situation and is finding comfort in books, especially in crime fiction. Then unexpectedly one day he finds himself accused of not one, but two murders. Suddenly everyone is regarding him with a new respect and he gets to know the female detective Anther Albada who he falls hopelessly in love with.

The only question is whether Martin is guilty or just misunderstood.

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This is a novella written by Karin Slaughter for the celebration of The Month of the Thriller in the Netherlands. It has been made into an audiobook with Wayne Knight (Newman in Seinfeld) as the reader.

It's a pretty big step away from her other writing which is often dark and visceral. This is a light and humoristic story. It is also packed with references to other crime fiction writers and their books and characters.

I prefer Karin Slaughter's other books but I still enjoyed this one as well. And I am a little curious to hear the audiobook - I suspect it might be very funny.