Making, eating and reading

It was so lovely to have a long weekend away from work over the Bank Holiday. I made some spooky Halloween brooches - here's some of the making-up process... (and click on the link to see the final items in my Folksy shop).





I also enjoyed pottering in the garden on the one day we had decent weather; and spent some time with my family. My brother and his wife, who live near Aberdeen, are staying with Mam this week. They met me from work last night and we had a lovely pub meal in Newcastle (Surf 'n' Turf for me - delicious!) and a good old chinwag. My brother and I email and chat regularly but I haven't spoken to his wife for ages so it was great to catch-up on all the gossip.

I managed to sneak a bit of reading in over the weekend too - I finished 'The Surgeon', so that brings my total to 24 books read this year so far. Not as many as I'd like to read, but not bad considering I usually only read on the relatively short bus journey to and from work. Hubby and I are off for a week's break in Corfu soon so I'm hoping I can fit in a couple more books then.

The Surgeon is Tess Gerritsen's first book in the Detective Jane Rizzoli series. I thought that the Rizzoli character played a fairly small part in this novel though, with the main interest being between her homicide partner (Saint) Thomas Moore and his relationship with Dr. Catherine Cordell, the main focus of the serial killers' attention. Cordell was attacked by a serial killer two years prior, but those murders were brought to a halt when she shot him dead. So who is the new killer and how does he know so much about her and the previous murders?

Gerritsen's story is told through the well-rounded characters - the warring and grieving detectives, the traumatised and terrified victims and the chilling killer himself. The descriptions of the crime scenes and the murders are shocking in their detail (Gerritsen was a medic so she knows her stuff), and it is quite disturbing to listen to the killer's actual thought processes, but it's a great psychological/forensic novel full of supense - a definite page-turner.

I've now started 'In Cold Domain' by Anne Fine. I try to intersperse the crime novels with something a bit lighter so I don't get too scared and depressed! What books have you read lately? Any recommendations?