April is here – it’s been a busy month at work and I’m currently struggling with an end-of-term (technically start-of-holiday) cold. Hopefully by the time this posts, it will have disappeared and I can get on with plenty more reading, um, I mean all the household and gardening jobs that I need to do.

Meanwhile, it’s been an odd sort of month for my reading. Five new releases in a row, one re-read and then three books from the classic era, including one ultra-rare title. So which gets the Puzzly? For once, it’s an easy choice…

Anyway, the nine books in question were:

• Seeds Of Murder by Rosie Sandler – the first in a cosy series from an author who I met at Stockport Noir. Interesting but rather lacking in murder…
• A Game Of Murder by M R G Davies – publishers, please stop pretending that a bog-standard murder mystery has some sort of game playing element to it. If I owned Cluedo, I’d be a bit peeved…
• How To Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson – a really interesting thriller with an original idea. Not quite my sort of thing, but definitely worth a look.
• Murder Like Clockwork by Nicola Whyte – a cosy, but definitely superior. More a story of following an investigation rather than a clued mystery, but will probably check out the first in the series, due to the intriguing leads.
• The American Suspect by Jim Kelly – another series that I’ll probably come back to, a wartime mystery set in Cambridge.
• The Herring Seller’s Apprentice by L C Tyler – the standalone that became a series despite the fairly final last chapter. A re-read and somehow overlooked for a Puzzly the first time round…
• The Double Turn by Carol Carnac – the latest from the British Library Crime Classics range. Decent but there are better Lorac titles to choose from…
• Epitaph For A Dead Actor by Dulcie Gray – a new classic mystery author for me. A great setting, undoubtedly helped by the author’s inside information, and the most obscure clue ever to give away the killer…
• Devil Kinsmere by Roger Fairbarn – the earliest (?) historical mystery but not worth breaking the bank for…

Let’s not waste time here – I’m going to correct a mistake from over a decade ago. The Herring Seller’s Apprentice is a must read for every fan of crime fiction. An intriguing plot, wonderful characters, a clever structure all wrapped around a love letter to the genre. Read it now!

Oh, and a couple of people did ask, and, as it was in the Bookseller the other day and Len has mentioned it on Twitter – early next year, keep an eye out for A Surfeit Of Herrings – Ethelred and Elsie ride again!

Right, here comes April!