Some books

I've been catching up on my reading during the holidays. So far a very good Swedish detective story which ended a more than 30-year-old series of books and two English books that actually made me a bit disappointed.

A week in December by Sebastian Faulks
Seven different characters in London seven days before Christmas 2007. The hedge fund manager who only thinks about money. The tube train driver who outside work disappears in books and the online world. The schoolboy who smokes too much pot, the Muslim student who believes in an Islamist world. The solicitor, the newly arrived footballer from Poland and the book-reviewer. All their paths will cross in on way or another.

The description of nowadays London is perfect and some of the characters are very well chiseled out whereas some are not. They are just briefly touched by and in the end makes the story haltering. After successes like the The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray Sebastian Faulks can do better

Bad boy by Peter Robinson
DCI Banks is on holiday in the US while his daughter hooks up with a Bad Boy. Back home again Banks gets the news that his old partner Annie Cabott has been shot at his house by the Bad Boy and the hunt is on.

This is not one of the better detective stories about Banks and Cabbot, instead it's a very predictable story which of course end with a regretful daughter returning to her father.

It seems to me that lately the books about Banks and Cabbot have either been very good or bad, which makes me a bit sad since the first books in the series were totally brilliant and I was really looking forward to next one. Now I will probably just wait until it's out in paperback.