Anyone else use this - especially when its been in the back of a dark cupboard for 10+ years? I think it actually gets stronger with age. Leave it for 20 years and one sniff will clear your sinuses, start a nose bleed and then blow the back of your head off!

Just Finished Reading: The Dry by Jane Harper (FP: 2016) [401pp] 

Australia, two years into the drought. Who could blame him for losing it? Going crazy? Killing his family and then himself? Horrible as it was people could understand, especially those in the small town of Kiewarra going through the same thing. Luke’s parents though, they couldn’t accept it. Not their son. They just couldn’t imagine him killing his wife, his son. No. But what other explanation was there? The police investigation was over. An open and shut case. Obvious. But still... It was Luke’s father who called Aaron Falk, a teenage friend who had left the town years earlier under a cloud of suspicion. Now in the Federal police looking into financial crime, he seemed the ideal person to look at the farms finances to see if anything stood out as a reason. Almost immediately questions started to appear. Why did the discarded shotgun shells not match anything on the farm? Why did Luke kill everyone except the 13-month-old baby? Guilt? Shame or something else? The more Aaron dug the more he found and he wasn’t alone. The new local cop had his suspicions too. But digging into the past, recent and distant, has consequences and some people want the past buried for good and for good reason. Be careful what you dig for... 

As usual I picked this up because it looked ‘different’ and that it languished in a pile of books for the best part of 10 years. Part of the reason I then picked it up was that it was based in Australia (adding variation to my fictional world tour) and that Sarah was enthusing about it over on her Blog. I was, to say the least, not disappointed. This novel had a wonderful sense of place, and you could almost FEEL the moisture being pulled out of you as you turned the pages. You feel Aaron’s shock of returning home to an area he knew so well now devastated by years long drought. There’s also a real feeling of animosity with some of the people he left behind. The author really gets across the complexity of emotions in all of her characters, and you KNOW how much I like good/great characterisation which we have here in spade!  

The mystery itself is very, very good. Although I had my suspicions about the killer, I also had similar suspicions of other residents that didn’t pan out (obviously). It's always great when you’re kept guessing to the end and the reveal isn’t a rabbit out of the hat gimmick but makes complete sense but you still didn’t see it coming. I don’t think I can fault this in any meaningful way – or at all actually! A good solid mystery, very good characterisation, a solid main character, good dialogue... and a quick read – so much so that I found myself slowing down to saviour it more. I could ask for a better more entertaining read and count this as one of the highlights of the year so far. Even better there’s a pair of sequels and I already own the first one. Definitely recommended to anyone who’s looking for a bloody good mystery thriller.  

[Highest page count of the year so far: 401pp][+2pp]

The Last 10 Books (I added to my Wish List) - March 2026  

As usual I’ve been adding books (and other things I won’t mention here) to my Wish List like it's the end of the world. As always, I blame a combination of YouTubers, Current Events, my Butterfly mind and updating my hardbacks to paperbacks. So, here they are:  

Made in Manchester: A Peoples History of the City that Shaped the Modern World by Brian Groom 

Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals by Matt Kennard 

Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right by Quinn Slobodian 

Sceptred Isle: A New History of the Fourteenth Century by Helen Carr 

The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist 

Lenin: A Biography by Robert Service 

Trotsky: A Biography by Robert Service 

The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism by Clara E. Mattei 

Escape From Capitalism: Economics is Political, and Other Liberating Truths by Clara E. Mattei 

Liverpool: A Story of Britain by Sam Wetherell 

A nice mix I think with the usual heavy emphasis on History. Zero idea when (or indeed IF) any of them will get purchased, but its highly likely I’ll be reading the book on Liverpool this year. I’m really looking forward to THAT one! 

Where in the World? - 2025/2026 edition  

Has it been a whole YEAR already? Time certainly flies when the news cycle is on super-spin mode! My regular readership will probably remember that I’m reading around the world in the sense that I’m reading fictionalised tales in real locations. This means that SF or Fantasy doesn’t count even if it takes place is a version of London or New York. But it’s the location that counts, not the authors origins or anything of that kind. So, where have I been this last year? Updates, as usual, in BOLD.   

Afghanistan – 2
Australia – 1
Botswana - ½
Burma – 1 (NEW)
Canada – 2
China – 2 (+1)
Crete - 1
Cuba – 2
Cyprus – 1 (NEW)
England – 95 ½ (+9)
Estonia - 1
France – 18 (+4)
Germany – 5 ½
Greece – 2
Holland - 1
India – 2
Ireland – 2 (+1)
Italy – 6 (+2)
Iraq - 1
Jamaica - 1
Japan – 5 ½ (+2)
Norway – 2
Malaya - 1
Portugal – 4 (+1)
Russia – 5 (+1)
Scotland - 2
South Africa – 1
Spain – 4 (+1)
Sweden - 3
Turkey - 2
Ukraine – 2 (+1)
USA – 63 (+5)
Vietnam – 3

That's presently just slightly under 17% of the world... by total number of countries, not total area or anything!
 

Although I’ve only added a disappointing TWO new countries to the list, I am encouraged by the spread even if the US and UK (OK, England) get the lion's share of visits! In the next 12 months I’m going to aim for at least THREE new countries and might even manage to push it to FOUR with a bit of effort. Wish me luck!  

Happy Birthday: Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a Welsh politician who was Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1970 to 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was Vice-President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. Kinnock was positioned on the soft left of the Labour Party.

Born and raised in South Wales, Kinnock was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1970 general election. He became the Labour Party's shadow education minister after the Conservatives won power in the 1979 general election. After the party under Michael Foot suffered a landslide defeat to Margaret Thatcher in the 1983 election, Kinnock was elected Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. During his tenure as leader, Kinnock proceeded to fight the party's left wing, especially the Militant tendency, and he opposed NUM leader Arthur Scargill's methods in the 1984–1985 miners' strike. He led the party during most of the Thatcher government, which included its third successive election defeat when Thatcher won the 1987 general election. Although Thatcher had won another landslide, Labour regained sufficient seats for Kinnock to remain Leader of the Opposition following the election.

Kinnock led the Labour Party to a surprise fourth consecutive defeat at the 1992 general election, despite the party being ahead of John Major's Conservative government in most opinion polls, which had predicted either a narrow Labour victory or a hung parliament. Shortly afterwards, he resigned as Leader of the Labour Party; he was succeeded in the ensuing leadership election by John Smith. He left the House of Commons in 1995 to become a European commissioner. He went on to become Vice-President of the European Commission under Romano Prodi from 1999 to 2004, before being elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Kinnock in 2005. Until the summer of 2009, he was also the chairman of the British Council and the president of Cardiff University.

[I quite liked Kinnock. I think he would have made a pretty good PM. It's a shame he never got the chance. Instead we got John bloody Major...]

Interesting!

Just Finished Reading: Israel’s Forever War – Israel, Palestine and the Last Hopes for Peace by Paul Moorcraft (FP: 2024) [204pp] 

All eyes seem to be on the Middle East and Israel in particular at the moment and rightly so. With the Straight of Hormuz effectively closed and oil prices rising towards the stratosphere it's hard not to take notice. But why did this war actually happen? Whist not directly about the present adventure in the zone this interesting short book does look at some of the recent background to current events primarily inside Israel/Palestine as well as in the region generally. 

Primarily looking at events after the Hamas attack on 7th October 2023 and the following 12 months of Israel's response, the author attempts throughout to be as even handed and as unemotional as possible – quite possibly to the detriment of the narrative. He looks at the Camp David Accords in 1978, the Oslo Accords in 1993 as well as various summits, conferences and initiatives attempting the solve the ‘Palestinian Problem’ and the repeated attempts to achieve a ‘Two State Solution’ which, at least in my opinion, has been a pipe dream, a fantasy, from the earliest days. The author acknowledges the perception/reality of Gaza being an open-air prison as well as Israeli war-crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people but, from memory, doesn’t use the word Genocide at any point. Maybe he didn’t agree with the definition or maybe he thought it too emotive, I’m not sure. 

He did point out some of the history of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas and how the Israeli government actually encouraged the existence and growth of Hamas as a counterweight to other Palestinian groups – essentially a way to divide and weaken all sides and prevent a unified front against Israeli occupation. Ironically this worked far better than anyone no doubt imagined. 

This is a very difficult topic to look at rationally. Emotions are VERY high on both sides and compromise seems (indeed probably is) impossible. History dies hard especially when SO much blood has been spilt over such a long timescale. Personally, I am not confident at all that anything can be resolved inside the existing Israeli borders. One particular thing that did jump out at me was a brief discussion about Israeli incursions into Southern Lebanon (happening yet again as I write this). The world was very surprised by how well Hezbollah forces did against the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) in 2006 effectively fighting them to a standstill. Hezbollah where trained and equipped by Iran. If US forces go into Iran in the coming days/weeks it probably won’t go as well as expected considering the guys who trained the group that held the IDF at bay will be facing them.  

Overall, I thought this a reasonable if rather short account of recent events in and around Israel. There are some irritating repetitions (I wondered if this was a somewhat rushed publication derived from a number of articles mushed together and not completely edited as it should have been) but it certainly wasn’t a poor/bad attempt at describing things. Its thinness (and proximity to events) did limit proper analysis but that wasn’t what the author was going for I suspect. If you just want a fairly brief and mostly high-level view of current events this could be what you’re looking for. Reasonable.  

[Side note: I do feel guilty about not reading about the Ukraine war yet (its coming). Along with reading up about Israel I guess I’ll also have to shoehorn a book or two about Iran and, probably, Cuba at some point. Wars not only teach Americans geography, but they also add to my TBR and generally I don’t need much help in that department.]  

They *tried* that here once... It did NOT go well. People just used other banks ATM's or got Cash Back from like ANY high street store!