Merrily versus Wordsworth and druids and covid and DEATH BY MISADVENTURE? 

Though I've skipped a big chunk, this series really charts the spiritual and social decline of the British countryside through creeping gentrification, intensive agriculture, poverty, greed, corruption and general malaise. Hard to see a forthcoming entry that doesn't have the Wye choking in sewage. Grim.

The device of adressing the reader directly while discussing the conventions and historical development of the genre you're writing in is a bit overly clever-clever, but it settles down, and the actual story is really good, but the logical end-point of breaking the fourth wall - and whenever this happens I never feel like I'm the reader the writer is talking to, but some other reader over there I can't see - ends up being a touch trite and obvious. Really? That's where you were going with this? When writers engage in this sort of playful deconstruction, they always seem to neglect the most important part of what makes any book, including murder mysteries, worth reading - pathos - in favour of plot mechanics and tropes, presumably becase they're more easily identified and quantified and do indeed exert a fascination. The ending here undermines a moment of immense pathos. Perhaps deliberately, but it either wasn't worth it, or he failed to find anything profound or new in the point he was trying to make. Still, I admire ambition, so, nice try, author.

Magnificent, harrowing, richly textured sequel to Hild, as she tries to protect her people and her place from a disaster only she can see coming, but loses more than she can almost bear.

A sprawling, dense, vivid and colourful epic, charting the rise and fall of three key figures in the French Revolution, their early lives and connections, their intertwining or contrasting domestic affairs, their ideals and physical and intellectual prowess, their vanities and corruptions and charisma, driving one of the great epochal historical changes. Lively and fractious and ascerbic and witty and bitter, they chart a course through the overthrow of the old regime and the dawning savagery of the new. Intense, driving, bewildering, exhausting right until the devastating end. Brilliant.

Another murder mystery that feels compelled to talk about the genre of murder mysteries as its own plot unfolds. One is tempted to say 'meh' but I quite like which particular murder mystery this one ended up emulating. So, a weekend on the Greek island retreat of a retired actress is shattered by murder, as told by her successful playwright best friend, who readily admits to being a bit of an unreliable narrator. Really quite good.

Merrily versus hairdressers.

Great stories. Authors reading their own work is interesting, not professional, but hey, you'd go hear them read at a shop or a festival right, so why not. Really great stories.

Dortmunder steals the wrong ring and soon the cops and the fanatics and his fellow criminals are all trying to track him down.

Trying to plan a heist of a penthouse apartment stuffed full of valuable art, the gang are inconvenienced by the Jersey Mob taking over Rollo's bar and grill.

All three volumes, but not, sadly, the appendices to City Of Saints And Madman. Bronson Pinchot reading the Hisotircal Guide is an absolute blast, especially as the footnotes head into triple figures. Forgot how much Shriek was almost a dialogue between Duncan and Janice, nice effect. Finch has a lot of torture in it, making it a bit grueling at times.