Looks like another winner

After last week's page-turner which took over my life, it was time today to search out something else to read. It was yet another gorgeous day of fine weather, but a restless night meant it was after 2.00 by the time I got in to town to browse the book shops. Waterstone's didn't do anything for me (they've done something really strange with their book displays as you enter the shop -- they're arranged almost sculpturally on the tables: attractive, but off-putting because the sub-text seems to be 'don't touch'), and Hodges Figgis wasn't much better. So I went back to Grafton Street and heaved a sigh of relief when I went in to Dubray Books, with its attractive interior and neatly and sensibly laid-out displays.

As usual, the 3 for 2 offers attracted my attention. After the weightiness of Alex Ross's book, I was thinking of something lighter as a follow-on foil -- an undemanding thriller or such-like. One of the shop assistants was advising a customer who seemed to be buying a truckload for a relative or friend, and I overheard her recommend The Savage Garden, by Mark Mills, I flipped through a few pages, liked what I saw, and picked that up. Then I remembered being taken by John Updike's Terrorist, and that got picked too. But the one which I'm most intrigued by and which I've chosen to read first is Christine Falls by 'Benjamin Black' (which turns out to be a pen name for John Banville).

I got through 40-or-so pages before coming back home, and I'm hooked already. The characterisations, the wonderfully crisp and stylish writing, the already intriguing plot: this book looks like it has just about everything I need right now. I'm looking forward with great anticipation to turning its pages.