Review – Home Sick Pilots, vol 1

Posted March 29, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Home Sick Pilots: Teenage Haunts

by Dan Watters, Caspar Wijngaard, Aditya Bidikar, Tom Muller

Genres: Graphic Novels, Horror
Pages: 144
Series: Home Sick Pilots #1
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In the summer of 1994, a haunted house walks across California. Inside is Ami, lead singer of a high school punk band—who’s been missing for weeks. How did she get there? What do these ghosts want? And does this mean the band has to break up?Expect three-chord songs and big bloody action as Power Rangers meets The Shining (yes really), and as writer DAN WATTERS (Lucifer, COFFIN BOUND) and artist CASPAR WIJNGAARD (LIMBO, Star Wars, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt) delve into the horrors of misspent youth.

I’d never heard of Dan Watters’ Home Sick Pilots before, but I decided to give volume 1 a try because it was on Comics Plus (and it filled a reading bingo square, ahaha). I ended up really enjoying it: it’s a bit gory, but I liked the character designs and action scenes quite a bit, and the way the story opened up from being a simple story about a girl getting caught up in a haunting to something bigger.

Certain aspects didn’t turn out the way I was expecting, either — I don’t want to say too much, because it’s probably worth finding out what happens to all the characters yourself, but at the end of the first volume they weren’t all where I expected them to be, let’s say.

I’d definitely like to read more, if it gets added to Comics Plus; I might even grab the next volume on Kobo or something, if they have it… and yep, it’s on Kobo Plus! So I’ll try to get to that soon and finish up the story. It’s not one of my comfy genres, but I’m really curious about where it’ll go.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: Aditya Bidikar, book reviews, books, Casper Wijngaard, Dan Watters, graphic novels, horror, Tom Muller

Review – A History of England in 25 Poems

Posted March 29, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

A History of England in 25 Poems

by Catherine Clarke

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Poetry
Pages: 400
Rating: five-stars

Synopsis:
This is the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the nation’s past, and the experiences, emotions and imaginations of those who lived it.

These poems open windows onto wildly different worlds – from the public to the intimate, from the witty to the savage, from the playful to the wistful. They take us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, down coal mines and below stairs in great houses. Their creators, witnesses to events from the Great Fire of London to the Miners’ Strike, range from the famous to the forgotten, yet each invites us into an immersive encounter with their own time.

A History of England in 25 Poems is a portal to the past; a constant companion, filled with vivid voices and surprising stories alongside familiar landmarks, and language that speaks in new ways on each reading. Catherine Clarke’s knowledge and passion take us inside the words and the moments they capture, with thoughtful insights, humour and new perspectives on how the nation has dreamed itself into existence – and who gets to tell England’s story.

Picking up Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems, I was interested but wary. I do love this kind of format for histories, because I think things like poems or fashions or household items and so on can all tell us an astonishing amount about the moments they were made and read, used, etc. But at the same time, “England” and “Englishness” is a bit of a tense concept: witness the English flags being tied to lamp posts and the varied reactions to them, the tensions around how to define Englishness and who belongs in England and — of course, inescapably for me — the tensions between England and other countries it’s ruled, subjugated, etc.

And Clarke handles this well, I think! She explicitly states that it is not a history of Britain, and occasionally calls out the tendency to conflate England with Britain as a geographical or political entity. She discusses the tensions between the Irish/Welsh/Scottish and England, and discusses that in terms of colonialism, because those countries were England’s first colonies. It’s surprisingly rare for someone to recognise that, especially for someone to recognise not just Ireland and Scotland’s issues with England but also the issues for Wales, and I appreciated it a lot. The book feels a bit less strong on the issues between England and the wider world, though it does discuss immigration, Windrush and the Partition of British India towards the end of the book.

The choices of poem are good: not just the canon (though at times it is, or canon-adjacent), and not just higher class voices or male voices. I learned about Mary Leapor, for example, a servant who wrote poetry that was essentially a parody of higher class “country house” poetry, in the same style but about life below-stairs. The poems aren’t all selected for artistic beauty or anything, which is important to know, and it isn’t a history of English poetry (some of the poets aren’t English) — it is a history (non-exhaustive) among many possible histories.

All in all, I would’ve preferred numbered footnotes, and perhaps a little more about the issues of England and colonialism, but I thought the 25 poems chosen did look through some interesting windows at snippets of history, some of which I didn’t already know well. I felt like I learned things, and had a good time; certainly I paused several times to write about the book enthusiastically on Litsy, and looked forward to reading more each time I put it down.

Rating: 5/5 (“loved it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Catherine Clarke, history, non-fiction, poetry

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted March 28, 2026 by Nicky in General / 17 Comments

Hello from London! We’ll be driving home today, but we still have the morning here and a late checkout from the hotel…

And of course — as mentioned in my post on Wednesday — I am now once more a graduate, for the fourth time! All went well, and I’m officially The Bibliophibian, BA (Hons), BSc (Hons), MA, MSc, and an alum of Cardiff University, the Open University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine/University of London.

Don’t ask what’s next, because I’m still resting! The MSc was seriously hard work, along with life stuff in the last year or two. But I’m sure I’ll be back to studying sooner or later.

But you’re all here for the books…

Books acquired this week

Hold onto your hats, it’s going to be a wild ride. My wife and I saved up for months so we could go on a book spree to celebrate my graduation, and we certainly managed to do that. I’ll split the new books into at least two posts, maybe three, since it’s nicer to be able to chat about individual books rather than have an overwhelming wall of them, and I won’t be getting othernew books for a bit (except maybe some to review).

For this post at least, since it covers a couple of indie bookshops, I thought it’d be nice to group them by where I picked them up. So let’s start with the first books I got this week, from the Victoria & Albert Museum! Sadly their fashion gallery is closed, just when we’d have loved to take a look at more of these garments for real… but we did get to see some of the kimonos and other Japanese items in the Japanese gallery.

I’m not honestly sure why there was a bunch of Beatrix Potter merchandise and books, but I wasn’t complaining. I love the fact that she was actually a naturalist and a close observer of nature.

On the way back from there, I ducked into an indie bookshop while my wife was getting snacks and bubble tea: South Kensington Books. I didn’t really intend to get anything, but I found there were waaaay too many books jumping out at me to be ignored…

Once I got back to the hotel and could look them up better, I found a couple of these have few or no reviews on StoryGraph, which I actually find fairly exciting. It’s nice to get my hands on something a bit more niche thanks to the curation of indies.

Next up, we have a book from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, which is smallish but crammed full of artifacts. It’s not very heavily curated: there are lots of display shelves and cases packed with finds, which have their labels with them but not a lot of context or sorting. Still, you can find artefacts from Amarna, which is a personal interest, and some fascinating pieces definitely jumped out at me. The display of a beaded dress, some cloth fabric remains and the display of ushabtis are a highlight, along with a pot burial that is a bit macabre.

Meanwhile, the gift shop yielded up treasure for me:

On Thursday we meant to hit quite a few indie bookshops, but the dwindling budget and my aching feet meant we stuck to Waterstones Piccadilly, Forbidden Planet Megastore, and Gay’s the Word. We trekked out to get the books from Waterstones and Forbidden Planet to the car, so I haven’t catalogued them yet… but here are the books from Gay’s the Word, the oldest queer bookshop in the UK. First, some poetry…

But don’t worry, it wasn’t all highbrow!

I had no idea volume seven of Fence was out! As for the others… well, I’m curious to know at least a little about the Heated Rivalry hype, and I’m unlikely to ever get round to watching the series (I barely watch anything unless it’s over dinner, when me and my wife watch Taskmaster or Gladiators at the moment). I’ve been wanting Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die for ages, and Straight Acting was just a random choice.

Posts from this week

I made post drafts ahead so I could keep up with posts as usual while away, so there’s plenty to round up! Reviews first:

Romance manhwa: Tied to You, vol 2, by WHAT & Chelliace (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy: Nightshade & Oak, by Molly O’Neill (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Poetry: Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Classic crime: Sky High, by Michael Gilbert (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: Cat Tales: A History, by Jerry D. Moore (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Fantasy/horror graphic novel: Carmilla: The First Vampire, by Amy Chu & Soo Lee (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Fantasy romance: Twig’s Traveling Tomes, by Gryffin Murphy (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Poetry: Black Cat Bone, by John Burnside (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)

As ever, don’t forget many of these reviews are from weeks ago, since I hold ’em back to try to create a diverse mix of genres in my reviews. The books I’ve been reading this week are discussed in the next section below! ↓↓↓↓↓

What I’m reading

It’s been a bit of a weird week for reading, given I’ve been busy with planned outings and tired from a lot of walking, but I did finish some books this week, all the same! Here’s a peek at the ones I intend to review (eventually) on the blog:

Folk Song in England is quite the chonker, but at least I got it finished before the trip! I enjoyed Mary Oliver’s poetry quite a lot, and the Fashion in Detail series from the V&A is always good, so it was a good reading week.

As for reading this weekend… well, we’re traveling home today which is quite the drive, and it’s my sister’s birthday dinner tomorrow, so we’ll see. I hope to dig into more of my new books, though; I’ve started William Tyndale and the English Language and Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries, so it’d be nice to finish those at least!

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz, and It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at The Book Date.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – Black Cat Bone

Posted March 28, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Black Cat Bone

by John Burnside

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 69
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
John Burnside's remarkable new book is full of strange, unnerving poems that hang in the memory like a myth or a song. These are poems of thwarted love and disappointment, of raw desire, of the stalking beast, 'eye-teeth/and muzzle/coated with blood'; poems that recognise 'we have too much to gain from the gods, and this is why/they fail to love us'; poems that tell of an obsessive lover coming to grief in a sequence that echoes the old murder ballads, or of a hunter losing himself in the woods while pursuing an unknown and possibly unknowable quarry. Drawing on sources as various as the paintings of Pieter Brueghel and the lyrics of Delta blues, Black Cat Bone examines varieties of love, faith, hope and illusion, to suggest an unusual possibility: that when the search for what we expected to find--in the forest or in our own hearts--ends in failure, we can now begin the hard and disciplined quest for what is actually there. Full of risk and wonder, Black Cat Bone shows the range of Burnside's abilities, but also strikes out for new territories. He remains consistently, though, one of our finest living lyric poets and each of these astonishing poems is as clear and memorable as 'a silver bracelet/falling for days/through an inch and a half/of ice'.

John Burnside’s Black Cat Bone wasn’t for me. It’s hard to put my finger on what didn’t work for me in these poems exactly — there were a few snippets and phrases I liked, like “And I wake, in the cage of my bones, / on the same cold ground” (from ‘Bird Nest Bound’, I think)… but somehow most of it didn’t grab me, though the first poem (which is quite long) made me think I might enjoy it.

Other reviews and descriptions are correct about the wintery feel and the nature imagery, but I guess it didn’t properly strike a chord with me; I think for the most part I just didn’t quite like the choice of words, like each one was subtly off.

Sometimes poetry is like that for me; ah well. You win some, you lose some. It was worth a try.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, John Burnside, poetry

Review – Twig’s Traveling Tomes

Posted March 26, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Twig's Traveling Tomes

by Gryffin Murphy

Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 352
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
A witch with a magical affinity for books who owns a travelling bookstore reluctantly teams up with a charming rogue, her former professor and a gnome in search of a rare stolen grimoire. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Thorne, India Holton, Travis Baldree and Sarah Beth Durst

Romance is easier read than done...

Louella Twig is the only witch of her kind, much to the disappointment of her former mentor and her previous academic ambitions. While others connect to nature as their source of magic, Louella has an affinity with books. Denied her graduation broom, Louella carves a new path using her talent, creating a magical ambulatory bookshop that travels throughout the realm uniting readers with stories.

She lives a cosy, stable life, until she collides - quite literally - with a mysterious man between the Romance and Adventure aisles. Everett Sharp is handsome, charming ... and a rogue on the run. He's absolutely not someone Louella wishes to share either an adventure or a romance with. But then her old mentor arrives with a desperate a valuable grimoire has been stolen and there is only one witch who can retrieve what has been lost ... a witch who now finds herself in need of a bandit with experience.

Together with friends both old and new, Louella and Everett embark on an adventure across the four kingdoms, encountering whimsical creatures, a flying greenhouse full of plant pirates and a magical World's Fair. Along the way, Louella starts to wonder if this new chapter of her life could include some romance after all ...

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I’m a sucker for books about books, and especially about magic involving books, so I had to give Gryffin Murphy’s Twig’s Traveling Tomes a shot. I love the idea of how Louella’s magic works, the books shouting out to her to help her give each person the perfect book — even when it isn’t necessarily in Louella’s interests, as sometimes the right book for someone might make them angry (when it suggests their husband is cheating, for example) or help them do something unethical.

I kinda enjoyed the fetch quest way the book played out, as well, with Louella using her magic to find the scattered pages of her old master’s book. It’s a bit of a romp, and some of those bits were quite fun — and the familiar she accidentally acquires along the way (a “haregon”, AKA “dragon rabbit”) is pretty cute and entertaining. The characters we learn about along the way are often fun in concept too, like Louella’s parents and their flying greenhouse.

Buuut I found the romance more than a little frustrating. The instant attraction felt completely unearned and cookie-cutter, and I didn’t feel like there was a speck of real chemistry between them beyond the author repeatedly telling me there was. I know the descriptions are meant to indicate that they’re super into each other, it is “shown not told” in places, but it just didn’t ring true somehow. Like someone holding two dolls up to each other and smooshing their faces together, saying “now kiss”. Some of the humorous moments feel similarly forced, to be honest.

That romance element takes up a fair portion of the page count, so given it didn’t work well for me, it’s not too much of a surprise that I didn’t love the book. The bookish magic is fun, and if insta-love doesn’t bother you (which… for me, it kinda depends on how things play out, and it didn’t work for me here), you’ll likely have more fun than I did.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Gryffin Murphy, romance, SF/F

Review – Carmilla: The First Vampire

Posted March 26, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Carmilla: The First Vampire

by Amy Chu, Soo Lee

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Horror
Pages: 109
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Before Dracula, before Nosferatu, there was…CARMILLA.

Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery graphic novel is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets.

At the height of the Lunar New Year in 1990s New York City, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered and no one, especially the police, seems to care.

A series of clues points her to Carmilla’s, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story—and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past.

The first volume of Amy Chu and Soo Lee’s Carmilla: The First Vampire is an interesting attempt to mingle a retelling (or rather, continuation of) Carmilla with Chinese folklore and the idea of hunting dangerous creatures, which… it’s hard to say how well that works, because the main character (Athena) doesn’t know about and has been protected from it.

It all feels a bit rushed, to be honest; Athena taking in Violet feels apt enough, but her breakup with her partner Morgan feels completely skipped over, along with her grandfather’s revelations, and even the deaths of certain characters. It focuses mostly on Violet and Athena, and the obsession Athena develops with Violet, which… didn’t quite manage to evoke the weird longing/repulsion that’s such a feature of the original Carmilla.

Given it’s a first volume, there’s probably more to see, and this is mostly setup — though that feels weird, given the title and the fact that Carmilla is apparently vanquished in this book already? In any case, I’m not super inspired to read more.

The art was okay, not my favourite style, but some fun character designs.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: Amy Chu, book reviews, books, graphic novels, horror, SF/F, Soo Lee

WWW Wednesday

Posted March 25, 2026 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Greetings from my graduation day! This is very late, but I’ve had a long day. I have successfully added a fourth qualification to my collection (BA Hons, BSc Hons, MA, and now MSc) — gotta catch ’em all, right? Right…?

What have you recently finished reading?

I snagged a copy of Japanese Dress in Detail from the V&A museum yesterday, and read it that evening! Like the other books in this series I’ve read, it was pretty interesting; maybe my favourite part was reading about firefighters’ dress, which was wadded both for protection and so it could be soaked with water for protection.

Before that, I finished Steve Roud’s Folk Song in England, which was slow and thorough, and an enjoyable survey of both the history of folk song and (necessary to understand it) the history of collecting folk songs.

What are you currently reading?

I just started on Stephanie Boonstra and Campbell Price’s Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries, which I picked up at the Petrie Museum. I haven’t got very far in, though!

I have several other books on the go, including Emma Southon’s Servus, R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis and Nicola Whyte’s Murder Like Clockwork. I’m furthest into the latter, and I’d love to finish it this evening, though it’s a PDF only advance copy so I can only read it on my laptop, which is a bit at odds with my desire to become one with the nearest horizontal surface (the hotel bed) after a long day.

What will you be reading next?

It’s a good bet I’ll start on Twentieth-Century Fashion in Detail, another of the books from the V&A soon! Possibly even tonight. That won’t keep me occupied very long, though. I brought a bunch of the books I’m meant to be reading for my BookSpinBingo card with me, so maybe one of those!

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – Cat Tales: A History

Posted March 24, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cat Tales: A History

by Jerry D. Moore

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 272
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Feared, revered, respected, and beloved, cats have left an indelible paw print on the histories and civilizations of humankind. Over the last two million years, cats and people have interacted in diverse and unexpected ways, but the predecessors of today's furry friends were predators, not pets.

Leading anthropologist Jerry Moore charts the cat's path from deadly enemy to improbable roommate, making use of the latest archaeological evidence to produce an original and revealing narrative. Starting with the terrifying prehistorical scimitar-tooth cat of the Pliocene age and the lion drawings of the Paleolithic Chauvet caverns, Moore journeys through our complicated history with these charismatic creatures. He travels along the Nile and across the Mediterranean, sailing on to South America, exploring pet cemeteries, cat mummies, and exquisite statuary across continents and centuries.

Illustrated throughout with photographs, artifacts, and artworks, this book surveys our relationships with cats from the Paleolithic period to the present day, unlocking the mysteries of these remarkable creatures. While cats are now beloved members of families around the world, our attempts to bring cats in from the cold have not always had happy endings, as Moore explores through such famous feline fanciers as Joe Exotic, Siegfried Fischbacher, and Roy Horn. From incredible archaeological finds to cave paintings, and from classical statues to contemporary social media, Cat Tales surveys ancient and modern interactions between humans and cats, wild and domestic, to ask a simple question: who domesticated who?

Jerry D. Moore’s Cat Tales: a History digs into the origins of humans and how their paths crossed with cats, using mostly archaeological and anthropological evidence. Although he does discuss the domestication of cats (the true domestication that resulted in house cats), there’s quite a focus on big cats as well: hunters, hunted, something in between, “tamed”, etc. Humans have a fascination with big cats that he pretty convincingly shows has been a lasting one.

I did find a couple of anecdotes a bit annoying, since they didn’t actually seem to go anywhere, like one he recounts about a family hiking and being watched by a mountain lion: yes, and? But mostly the archaeological evidence is interesting and the implications are discussed fairly well (and seem to be reasonable, cautious sources).

It’s illustrated by a lot of in-line colour images, which I continue to enjoy as a newly common thing in non-fiction. No more insertions of random colour plates totally divorced from the text!

There are detailed, numbered and well-organised notes on the sources, and an index, so all in all, pretty well-presented and organised. I think it just failed to entirely connect up the dots and talk about the relationship between humans and house cats.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, history, Jerry D. Moore, non-fiction

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2026 Reading List

Posted March 24, 2026 by Nicky in General / 32 Comments

It feels like five minutes ago that we were posting our winter reading lists, but today’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is a spring reading list! As ever, I don’t really theme my reading lists, so this just ends up being what’s top-of-mind for me. At the moment, that means finishing the books that I bought last year and haven’t started yet, so let’s pick out some of those.

Strange New World, by Vivian Shaw.
I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, and even reread the previous three books to prepare for it, but I still haven’t picked it up. Surely, surely, now will be the time.
The Wolf and His King, by Finn Longman.
This is a retelling of ‘Bisclaveret’, which I studied in my first undergrad degree, and I am very excited to read it. I got it for Christmas and it just hasn’t made the way to the top yet, but surely now!
Wearing the Lion, by John Wiswell.
I’ve been very curious to try Wiswell’s books, and though I’ve heard slightly mixed things about this one, it does sound potentially right up my alley.
Brigands & Breadknives, by Travis Baldree.
I loved Legends & Lattes, and though I wasn’t as big a fan of the prequel, I’m still looking forward to giving this a shot.
Cat Dragon, by Samantha Birch.
Got to admit, I know very little about this book other than the fact that there are cat dragons, and I am all over this concept.
Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves.
I enjoyed Graves’ previous book, Tir; I don’t think he and I entirely see eye to eye on what makes ‘Welshness’, but he still has interesting things to say, and I’m interested to learn more about Welsh food culture beyond cawl, Welsh cakes, bara brith and rarebit.
Thrice Married to a Salted Fish, vol 1, by Bi Ka Bi.
It sounds like a fun story, and the other volumes should be set to come out this year, so I’d like to dive in soon!
Mistakenly Saving the Villain, by Feng Yu Nie.
Ditto! I’ve seen some comparisons to Heaven Official’s Blessing, which intrigues me since I love that book.
Shield of Sparrows, by Devney Perry.
I admit to being slightly intimidated by how much of a chonker this one is… but I’ve heard some really good things, so I’d like to give it a shot soon.
The Isle in the Silver Sea, by Tasha Suri.
This one comes highly hyped up, so I have very high expectations. I’ve enjoyed Suri’s work in the past… but again, it’s a bit of a chonker, so I’m a little shy of it, ahaha.

You might notice that there are actually some repeats from my winter TBR. I must admit, I only read four books from the list: The Palace of Illusions, Spinosaur Tales, Solo Leveling (light novel vol 1) and Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (light novel vol 1). Oops! Maybe I’ll do better with the spring list… though to be fair, I still don’t even own a copy of The Wife Comes First.

What are you excited about this spring?

Tags: books, Top Ten Tuesday

Review – Sky High

Posted March 24, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 254
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
In the village of Brimberley, the worst thing on the horizon seems to be the chance of being outshone by the rival village choir of Bramshott. But that is until Brimberley’s lead tenor is blown up in his home by an explosion that rocks the whole community. As an amateur coalition of the motorcycling choir leader Liz, her ex-commando son and a retired general begins to piece together this strange crime, mystery upon mystery compounds in a case involving dark secrets buried in the turmoil of the Second World War, parochial grudges, a burglar whose reputation borders on the mythical, and a volatile killer poised to strike again.

First published in 1955, this classic village mystery with elements of WW2 spy fiction showcases Gilbert’s ingenious plotting and ability to blow the reader’s assumptions sky high.

I was a little worried that Michael Gilbert’s Sky High would be kind of grim, since the last book of his I read was really grim in a weird way (it was so matter-of-fact about prisoner of war camps). This one is also rather haunted by war, admittedly, and there is a certain melancholy matter-of-factness about matters of war, since many of the characters were soldiers or related to soldiers, and one of the main characters was in Palestine, etc.

That said, it doesn’t have quite that same dark feel, in part because one of the other main characters (his mother, actually) is a comfortably middle-aged woman who manages the choir, rides a motorbike, and has a gift for amateur detection. It practically takes a village to untangle exactly what’s happened, though, with each character contributing their own skills.

In the end, I was surprisingly sad about who the culprit turned out to be, and surprisingly invested in it not being any of the characters I liked — I hadn’t realised I was getting attached. There are some tense moments, too, which feel really well done. I couldn’t help wincing to myself as Tim worked out what was bothering him in the final scenes, bracing myself for the possibility the author wasn’t going to let him figure it out in time.

Overall, I liked this a lot more than I’d expected; the mystery was solid, we had most of the pieces to work it out, and I cared more than I realised.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, crime, Michael Gilbert, mystery