Tell me, dear reader, have you ever tried to create a timetable for a secondary school? No? Well, to give an idea of the complexity, imagine trying to complete eighty-one sudokus simultaneously where each sudoku is linked to every other one by having a cell in common. While sky-diving. Oh, and when you finally land with a solution in your hand, someone comes to you and tells you that the top right cell on sudoku fifty-six can’t be a 9 because that number can’t be next to the 8 in the adjacent cell. And then repeat about four or five times.

Anyway, that’s one reason why my reading this month has been down again – a mere seven books. Luckily, they were seven decent books, but hopefully, as I think the timetable is all-but-done, I can get down to some proper reading this month.

But seven books isn’t none, so of course I need to pick a book of the month. Is “need” the right word? Yes, yes it is.

The books in question were:

Fear Comes To Chalfont by Freeman Wills Crofts Not his best, but another example of why Crofts should not be overlooked as a top Golden Age writer.

After The Exhibition by Dolores Gordon-Smith Another outing for Jack Haldean in an exemplar of how to do a Golden Age pastiche from a master of the genre.

A Most Efficient Murder by Anthony Slayton And another decent Golden Age pastiche – the promising start of a series.

The Red House by Roz Watkins A well-crafted twisty thriller with a final chapter that completely wrong-footed me. It’s very dark though…

The Trial by Rob Rinder The latest celebrity to take up the mystery-writing gauntlet and probably the best yet. Rubbish cover though…

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ajatsuji A clever Japanese classic mystery – if only it wasn’t so obvious…

Fearless by M W Craven A new series from the author, with an intriguing lead character. A real page-turner of a thriller. Thank goodness he got the physics right on page 238 though…

You know, depending on my mood, I could have chosen almost any of these. Even The Mill House Murders, despite everyone I know spotting the “who” very early on – not necessarily the “how” though… But it’s going to go to the book that I couldn’t put down. I was desperate to read and review it by publication date and thanks to Mr Timetable, I had about twenty-four hours. But I had faith based on prior experience and Mike Craven did not let me down. Fearless just drew me in as it went along. Ah, just realised what it was. I read another book recently with a protagonist with a different point of view from most people and basically, the reader was told about the differences from the beginning. Here, that aspect of the character is drip-fed, allowing the reader to think about it until things are made a little clearer by the narrator. It’s a really good character study – amid the guns, knives and blood…

So, congratulations to M W Craven for his umpteenth Puzzly – you know, I really should do a count on these at some point. Next month, we’ve got a somewhat dull Poirot to kick things off, an early (so hopefully good) Belton Cobb and then, who knows?