Peachy Reads

This was one of those serendipitous finds that can happen when you work in a public library.  I was reshelving some returns on Friday when I noticed a book with my favorite place in Bruges on the front cover, Jan van Eyck Square. “#1 international bestseller” was written in large letters under the title, “European crime sensation Pieter Aspe” on the inside jacket flap, “the Flemish Georges Simenon”.  Well, okay then!  It was a great weekend read.  A fresh plot, good characters, a great sense of place in the wonderful Flemish historical city of Bruges and Flanders and Belgium beyond, even including Wallonia.  This is the first English translation of the Inspector Van In series, the second on the way.  There is a huge backlog of  Van In titles in Flemish just waiting to be translated for a larger world audience. Can’t wait.  Pretty near as good as Wallander.  Crack a Duvel and enjoy this one.  It may be the best thing to happen to Belgian crime fiction since Hercule Poirot.

Okay, so I finished my catch-up reading binge of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series with the latest installment Broken Homes , which is number four in the series.  It came out July 25th in the UK (and thus was prominently promoted during our visit this summer), but isn’t set to be published in the US until later.  Obviously I was captivated by this series, which takes the typical police procedural and jazzes it up a bit with some magical and otherworldly phenomena.  It has a great sense of place for Londonophiles, and the humor and sometimes snarky tone of the main character, Peter Grant, are a lot of fun. Broken Homes has a lot going on—murders and mysterious deaths begin to stack up so much so that it confounded me a bit until the very end, when everything suddenly made sense.  There is a surprise ending which is a real cliff-hanger, but Rivers of London no. 5 has yet to be published.  I hate to wait, but it’s probably a good thing, since I need to be reading other titles.

The UK and US titles and covers In a city as ancient as London there have to be a lot of spirits lurking about, so Peter Grant and his mentor are a sort of “odd squad” police unit that tackles the supernatural.  A series of unexplained murders begins to mirror the plotline of a Punch and Judy script, and the investigation centers on Covent Garden and the Actors’ Church of St. Paul’s on the piazza.  People are literally losing their heads over it, and by the end of the novel the market building at Covent Garden is in flames. The story is fresh, and the contemporary London setting is fascinating.  Peter Grant is a well-developed character, full of London slang, sarcasm, and witticisms.  This might just be Harry Potter for adults. When we were in London this summer, this series of detective novels was prominently displayed in all the bookshops and newsagents.  The cover art is certainly eye-catching.  My wife’s curiosity got the better of her and she bought this title, the first in