If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or Goodreads you’ll have seen that I put up an “away” message on each of them (although if you follow me on Goodreads you might see this newsletter there as I couldn’t work out how to turn crossposting off…). I’ve said before that when reading books with content we might not agree with (and I read a LOT of them) it’s up to all of us as individuals to balance the enjoyment we get from the book against any distaste we might feel. The same is true for the social media companies we use and increasingly I’m finding that the value I get from each of the 4 listed above is outweighed by discomfort at their business practices and a feeling that I was an employee as much as a customer.
I haven’t decided yet if I will fully quit any of them, but I certainly don’t regret taking a break.
Books I’ve Read This Week
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
A strange mix of a book, for me at least. I loved some of the writing but disliked the overall experience. On the face of it the plot of two outlaws on a mission for their ruthless boss sound like something I’d love, but this isn’t really a book that’s about it’s plot. I’m not sure what it was really trying to achieve, but whatever it was, it didn’t achieve it for me.
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley by MC Beaton
Not the best of the Agatha Raisin books, but still an entertaining diversion. This one features ramblers, the death of a local landowner and the continuation of the main romantic sub plot. If you’ve read any of the books you know what to expect, a little humour, a decent mystery and Agatha’s enjoyable abrasiveness.
The Deep by Nick Cutter
The Deep is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. It’s a sci fi horror novel about a terrible new disease threatening humanity and our efforts to defeat it. The only cure seems to be a weird substance found at the deepest point of the ocean floor and a brilliant scientist is sent to a secret lab in the Marianas Trench to research it. When contact is lost with the lab, his brother is recruited to go and find out what has happened.
There are many great things about this book, some fantastic scenes of body horror, some deeply creepy parts, an unsettling back story for the two main characters and some claustrophobic deep sea action.
The problem is the knitting of all of those elements together into a satisfying whole, which Nick Cutter fails to do. The book pivots frequently from one style of horror to another, and whilst they’re all effective on their own, the constant shifting is dizzying. The various strands of the plot pull against each other, and Cutter’s attempts to force them back together at the end requires a twist that I found ludicrous. A shame, because parts of this book are superb.
CriminOlly 
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