I also wonder how the German translator handled the supersecret clue which involved a made-up name, Maud Opfer, sounding like murder victim in German.

I’ve mentioned this before but he has a scene where a woman is fellating a man who is simultaneously nuzzling her neck

Didn't you say something very similar about Peter Robinson not long ago? Did you get them confused or do they both do it? (I do remember a scene in a Peter Robinson where the woman

I really feel for that translator!

Once upon a time in a distant past when I used to do all sorts of contract work, one of things I used to do was typesetting. Having volunteered as a typesetter (compositor) on Peace News because I was a fast typist, I got to be a member of the National Graphical Association, in those days an essential if you wanted to do typesetting work. So I ended up being an unusual compositor in that I worked freelance rather than being a permanent employee - which got me a few interesting temporary jobs. But one turned out to be a bit of a nightmare: typesetting a truly dreadful novel... African Revenge... I forget the author's name, which is probably Just As Well. (Even the title might be misremembered, but I think not.)

I bet the translator felt the same way about Peter James's rubbish.

Oh yes I might be getting them mixed up. It was a Roy Grace book, so apologies to poor blameless Peter Robinson.

Oh good, because I quite like Peter Robinson, while recognising that he has his faults.

I got to be a member of the National Graphical Association, in those days an essential if you wanted to do typesetting work.

I remember those days well. I started a typesetting business and in order to get it off the ground I had to be an NGA member as my clients were mostly large London publishers who wouldn't touch non-union work. What a bunch of misogynistic thugs the NGA were! A mere woman, taking away men's work . . . .

What a bunch of misogynistic thugs the NGA were! A mere woman, taking away men's work

I suspect that varied from place to place - but sadly (to put it mildly) that was probably pretty normal 8~(

I worked a few times for a tiny typesetting company that belonged to a woman (in Bradford). I've still got her card somewhere.

I'd thought Peter James was the one who wrote Yorkshire-set policiers, that got adapted for TV with Stephen Tompkinson.

Clearly I'm mistaken - who am I mixing him up with?

Peter Robinson.

Thassim. Blimming Peters.

Just finished Ilium by Dan Simmons (The Terror, Hyperion, etc), a mammoth of a book that interweaves the journeys of several heros across time and indeed, space. It doesn't have the visceral descriptive power of The Terror but it still absorbs you into the places and minds of the characters, bringing a very complex story alive like a blockbuster movie.

After finishing it I felt I needed a break before starting the sequel (of course there's a sequel, 850 pages isn't enough for a DS tale) and so I went back to Finding Grace (K.L. Slater), a missing child mystery which I'd thought pretty good but it just seemed thin and by the numbers, so I've embarked on Olympos.

Post humans, space travel, the Trojan war and debates on the humour in Proust, rubbish or brilliant, you decide!

I found a copy of The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry lying around. It's a second-hand copy which I don't remember buying. Did someone here recommend it? I can't say I do. Three different narrators, mother, father, social worker. It's a big book and it just stops instead of ending.

Just Stopping is being literary. Ending is commercial/popular/genre.

Do you feel there should be more after the stop?

In which case... cunning marketing, now you have to buy the next installment.

Or is it more like, That's it, you've had your allotted number of pages, now fuck off?

No sequel. It just stopped, and off I duly fucked.

I think they just stop so that you think how ambiguous (and therefore clever and not trapped by conventionality) the author is. I think they can't write a proper story.

Amen, bro sis.

Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz - very entertaining!

The Thursday Murder Club - also entertaining.

#1098 - yup, I liked that.