This might be the point in my French trip where I blog about the books I’m reading while I’m away. The thing that has really given me a problem is the breakdown of our lovely motorhome. How has that affected my reading? Well, let me explain.
We arrived in France at the end of August. The weather in the Loire was lovely and the only cloud on our horizon was that our favourite gite in France, a lovely villa which we regularly rent, was booked on the exact week we wanted it.
What we tend to do is potter about and explore various places in our motorhome and then spend a week, even a few weeks at the aforementioned villa in the village of Parçay les Pins.
The unexpected booking at the villa meant that after exiting our ferry we headed straight to Parçay les Pins for a week, actually a very hot week, of sun lounging, swimming and reading.
On only our second day there we decided to take a trip out to one of our favourite restaurants, restaurant La Gare. The place is only open at lunchtimes but they have a lovely buffet starter consisting of various meats and patés and a huge selection of salads. Then there is the main course, the fromage course and the final dessert, all served with a basket of fresh bread, chilled water, red wine and cider.
As I’m the nominated driver I always go for the low alcohol cider which is really tasty. After paying the paltry 30 euros for this feast for two it’s back to the villa for a rest in the sun.
On this occasion when we were only perhaps a mile from home our trusty ford transit motorhome conked out. It would not restart but happily, there was breakdown cover attached to the insurance. Within an hour our rescuer arrived, spotted the fault which could only be remedied at the garage so the van was hitched up to the back of his wagon and we were driven back to the gîte.
On the positive side, if the holiday had gone to its original plan and we were touring France, we would have had no where to go as of course we were living in the van itself. As it was the driver dropped us off at our gîte where we had already unloaded a few boxes of wine and plenty of food.
As the day wore on, we discovered various things we could have done with.
I had only one change of clothes although to be fair, in the continuing summer heat all I was wearing was shorts and a t-shirt. We were a little short on water but I had already unpacked the barbecue so at least we could relax and eat. Big problem though was that I had not yet unloaded my collection of books and for a great reader like me, that was a disaster.
As it happens, we have a bag which we call the pool bag which we take out to the pool every day. In the bag we have our sudoku books, reading glasses, notebooks, water, swimming trunks and all sorts of things that we need by the pool. Happily, there was one book which I had already begun to read and that is where we can move on to the book part of this post.
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
This book was on a shelf in my late brother’s lounge and I picked it up when I went to clear his place out after his death. Despite all the praise and good reviews on the back cover, I really found it hard to read. It’s about a group of people who work for the UK intelligence service and all of them are either out of favour with the service or have fouled up in some way. They are all assigned to Slough House instead of the main HQ and they are all a bit fed up and disgruntled.
I found it rather slow reading and I was tempted to abandon it altogether but as one reviewer apparently thought the author was the ‘John le Carré of our generation’ (Le Carré’s books were rather slow moving too) I thought I’d carry on.
Anyway, the plot is about a group of right-wing activists who have kidnapped someone with the intention of chopping his head off on camera. Now it turns out, and I’m not 100% certain I’ve got this right, one of the kidnappers is actually an agent run by Jackson Lamb, the head of Slough House.
Later in the book the action kicks off not only with the kidnapped guy but also with some internal fireworks within the intelligence service.
I managed to get to the end but I found it slow and disjointed and I was forever flipping back because I couldn’t understand which character the author was talking about and who is this and who is that person. Anyway, perhaps I was a little stressed with our van breaking down but I wasn’t impressed although to be fair, everywhere I have looked online the book gets universally good reviews.
After reading that I was a little stuck for reading matter but after a quick sift through the bookcase at the gîte, I came up with this next read.
Predator by Patricia Cornwell
Author Patricia Cornwell first introduced Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta in the book Postmortem originally published in 1990. The character is an Italian American. She is a perfectionist and workaholic and lives in a custom-built home where she cooks many Italian meals while she ponders her cases. She also, and perhaps this is me looking at the character from a UK perspective, seems to be overly obsessed with guns although on one occasion, having a gun under her pillow in the bedroom saves her life. In the first book Scarpetta has to deal with a series of murders and works with Benton Wesley from the FBI to create a profile of the murderer. The book also introduces DNA testing as a new technique and later Scarpetta hatches a plot to flush out the murderer. The murderer however, targets Scarpetta herself but is shot dead by policeman Pete Marino.
The books are fascinating reads and have been said to have influenced TV shows like CSI and other shows that use modern scientific techniques of detection and forensics. The first few editions are excellent reads but the later ones tend to stray into a bit of a fantasy area. Scarpetta has an affair with Benton Wesley who is murdered. In a later book he reappears, it seems he was not killed after all but was placed in a witness protection scheme for some reason. That seemed to me to be a little out of the ordinary but later things get really odd. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy appears in the first book as a ten-year-old but in later editions when she grows up, she becomes a computer wizard, and then joins the FBI where she has difficulties because she is gay. Later she develops an internet search engine and becomes a millionaire and creates her own super-secret investigation company called the Last Precinct. It’s all a little bit fantastic.
Anyway, getting on to Predator itself, this is the 14th book in the series and the name Predator is an acronym for a project which former FBI man Benton Wesley is running, in which he examines serial killers to try and find out why they kill. Former officer Marino is now an investigator for the organisation I mentioned above created by Scarpetta’s niece Lucy. Marino has now become some kind of biker wearing the sort of clothes I would associate with Hells’ Angel types. Despite him not being an actual police officer, he seems to throw his weight around a lot with actual police officers which I’m sure that in real life they would just not stand for. Anyway, the tension builds up nicely as the usual cast of characters close in on the murderers. Despite the book being rather gruesome in parts, the author brings the various story elements together really well. The end is rather odd though especially when Scarpetta is assaulted by one of murderers Benton is interviewing and the scene then cuts to Benton and Scarpetta driving away, the attack being sorted we are later told by the intervention of the security guards. The conclusion comes quickly afterwards almost as if the author had something better to do and wanted to quickly wrap up the book. Sadly this wasn’t one of Cornwell’s best.
Interestingly, both these book series (yes there are more books about Slough House) have both been made into TV series that belong to TV channels that I don’t have access to. Scarpetta is on Amazon and Slow Horses on Apple TV. There was a time when exciting new TV shows would have a run on some exclusive channel and then later finally end up on terrestrial TV.
Pity that doesn’t happen anymore.
I know I’ve written about this first book already but as it’s part of this month’s holiday read, I feel I have to talk about it once again. As I mentioned in a 
I sought this book out on the internet after reading Bennett’s The Lady in the Van which was a very enjoyable although short book. This volume is a collection of various essays and diaries by the author and it begins with the title essay, Untold Stories which is a series of observations mostly about his mother and father. He describes the life of his family in Yorkshire as he saw it evolve. It is perhaps a very ordinary story of a working class family and their fairly uneventful journey through life. It is very sharply observed and the author takes us through the lives of not only his parents but also of his two aunts as well as other family members. I found this section hugely interesting and with many parallels to my own life, especially when Bennett deals with his aging parents and he has to take them to numerous hospital appointments. His mother suffered with depression and was even hospitalised on a couple of occasions. Later in life she begins to suffer with dementia.
I picked this book up in a sale ages ago, in fact actually a few years ago. I think it was one of those offers like ‘buy two and get one free’. This was my free choice and as such it’s been lying around waiting to be read. It’s a collection from the author’s radio series ‘Letters from America’ which used to be broadcast many years ago on BBC Radio 4. I can’t say I’ve ever listened to the broadcast but I do remember watching a quite exceptional TV documentary series called ‘Alistair Cooke’s America’ which detailed the history of the USA.
This is not one of Forsyth’s thrillers but an autobiography and it was a really interesting read. Forsyth spoke many languages and he puts this down to learning them with local people. He studied French and German at school of course but then spent the summer holidays in France learning from a French family and then later did the same with a German family and even later with a family in Spain. His observations in France were really interesting. The French welcomed Forsyth as an English hitchhiker with the union flag on his backpack but later when travelling in what had been Vichy, France, he felt the English were not as popular.
In March I was getting a little stuck for ideas and I had to recycle an old post, 
I’ve written many posts about books and a regular series is one in which I compare books to their filmed counterparts. In August I added a post about one of my favourite book/film series, 
Just now we have finished our touring part of the holiday and we have come to our rented gîte where we have parked the van and are spending time in this wonderful house that we regularly rent just outside the small village of Parçay-les-Pins.
I saw the film version of this a few years ago which was pretty good, if a little odd. It was presented in a very peculiar way in that the author, Alan Bennett, is portrayed as two people, one as himself as he appears in the story and two, as himself as he writes the story. That oddity aside it was really a rather good and original film. When I heard there was a book version I quickly went to one my usual internet book stores and promptly bought it.
Liz and I always visit a village fête at the weekend, usually those with a vide grenier or brocante attached. A vide grenier is just a car boot sale which we both love. I usually pick up connecting leads for my laptop or iPad, after all, you can never have enough electrical leads. Brocantes are more like flea markets or antique fairs. Just the kind of place to pick up those old telephones that I still love, especially those Bakelite ones.
I picked this book up ages ago and thought it would be a good holiday read. I’ve always liked Roger Moore even though I absolutely hate his James Bond films. I love Moore’s self-deprecating humour, plenty of which is evident in this book. The first part of the book was really interesting and entertaining but like a lot of celebrity autobiographies, this one just gets a little tedious when Roger just seems to list the films and locations and other celebrities he seems to know. On the back of the book was a review claiming this to be the best film autobiography since David Niven’s 
Forsyth did his national service in the RAF and was commissioned as an Acting Pilot Officer in 1956. After leaving the RAF he became a journalist working for the news agency Reuters and later he joined the BBC. He was the perfect choice for a foreign correspondent as he spoke numerous languages including French, German and Russian. In 1967 he was reporting on the war between Biafra and Nigeria when the BBC decided they were no longer interested in that particular war. Forsyth resigned from the BBC and continued to report on the war as a freelance. He even admitted later that this was when he was recruited by MI6 as an informant.
The Day of the Jackal
The Fourth Protocol
Essentially, John Darwin was facing bankruptcy after getting hugely overreached on a series of buy to let mortgages. He decided that the only way out was to fake his own death and cash in on some life insurance policies. His wife apparently tried to talk him out of the idea but John, a dominating and overpowering personality, went ahead and faked his own death. Amazingly he even went back to live with his wife, sometimes having to retreat to the bedsits next door when any friends or family came to visit. He arranged a false passport using a method explained in the book ‘Day of the Jackal’ by Frederick Forsyth and then the two, Darwin and his wife, planned to buy property in Panama and live a new life. Later, Darwin decided he wanted to return to the UK under his own name by posing as someone who had suffered with amnesia and in fact one day he disposed of his fake passport, walked into a police station and told them ‘I’ve lost my memory!’
For me, who has been interested in the JFK assassination since at least 1968 when his brother, Robert Kennedy was also murdered and I was 12 years old, it’s a fascinating record. Others might think perhaps that the author has spread his research too far, that we are not interested in what the President’s pilot thought or did or how the honour guard prepared for the President’s funeral and how the President’s sister or brother-in-law reacted.
Marlene was one of those people perhaps born at the wrong time. Today might be a better time for her when lifestyles of gay and lesbian people are not so much of an issue.
This is an autobiography by Fenella Fielding, co-written with Simon McKay, and the title comes from her part in Carry On Screaming when she played a seductive character, possibly derived from the Adams Family, Valeria. In one scene Valeria tries to seduce Harry H Corbett standing in for the absent Sid James as a detective. Valeria asks ‘do you mind if I smoke?’ and then rather than smoking a cigarette, a cloud of smoke seems to arise from her body and envelop her. Harry H Corbett adds ‘just when I was trying to give it up’ before embracing her in the smoke.
In Fenella’s book above, she mentions that she hoped her book would not go the way of a lot of other showbiz autobiographies, interesting at first but then dissolving into lists of plays and films and other celebrities. Sadly, that seems to be the way this book does go, even so I enjoyed it.
I do love my showbiz biographies and autobiographies and one I picked up a while back was an autobiography by Dora Bryan. I love Dora from her many appearances in British films but my favourite film is probably 
This final book is the odd one out in this quartet of British comedy stars. It’s a biography rather than an autobiography. I don’t think Tony Hancock ever wrote one.
In my last few posts about books, rather than publish my usual Book Bag posts, I’ve incorporated book reviews into other types of posts; holiday memories and posts about books made into films and so on. During my last few holidays, I always seem to either have a couple of John Grisham books with me or found some in the places, usually rented villas, where we have stayed. I thought it might be an idea to write a John Grisham themed book bag post. Who actually is John Grisham then?
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The Client
The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
The Firm by John Grisham
The Racketeer
The Boys From Biloxi
The Bay of Pigs was a great disaster for Kennedy. He inherited the invasion plans from the Eisenhower administration in which Vice President Nixon was a prime mover. Nixon felt that an invasion would boost his chances in the election contest against Kennedy but the CIA seemed to be relying on the assassination of Castro to kick off the invasion but that planned murder, for whatever reason, never happened.
Ten Days to Destiny by John Costello
This book was the sequel to another book about Bill Clinton. The first one dealt with Clinton’s early life and his election to the presidency; this one takes us through his first four years as president. The author takes us through the years of the Clinton White House and documents the issues like Troopergate; when the former Governor Clinton’s State Troopers revealed the comings and goings of Bill’s various mistresses, as well as the disaster of his healthcare reform work which he entrusted to his wife Hillary. The public clearly weren’t keen on Clinton’s ‘co-president’ – his wife, and their healthcare proposals were rejected by Congress. The mid term elections were another disaster for Clinton and the Democrats and the book goes on to show how Clinton turned the final two years of his first term presidency around and was able to win a second term.
Encore Provence by Peter Mayle
Many have speculated about his true sexuality but it’s clear that Larry enjoyed being labelled as camp rather than gay. The main relationship in his life was with his sister who became a mother figure to him when his adoptive mother died. The two lived next door to each other for many years in later life.
Yardley sponsored the BRM team and John Player Tobacco sponsored the Lotus cars, even to the extent of naming the cars the John Player Specials. I also started to learn more about the history of the sport. Who was Juan Manuel Fangio, the guy who had won an incredible 5 world championships? Well he was an Argentinian driver who once drove for Mercedes in the 1950’s. His team mate back then was an Englishman named Stirling Moss. What had happened to him I wondered?
Moss had moments of lucidity but didn’t fully wake up for 38 days. In the excellent biography by Robert Edwards, the author describes Moss’s presence at the hospital in Colchester as ‘something of a sensation’. The switchboard was jammed with callers enquiring after Moss. Even Frank Sinatra called for information. The accident occurred on the 23rd April, 1962. Moss would not leave hospital until July that year.
He was by then divorced from his second wife and he was still a celebrity so he settled down at his 
