245. & 246. Hallowed Murder & Mortal Engines
Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart - one of my resolutions for 2009 is that I'm going to try and stop myself going on here about how much I shouldn't be reading first books of series when I know it's never going to make any difference. Here are two more examples of just how fruitless that is!
Where Hallowed Murder is concerned, our protagonist is Jane Lawless who runs a restaurant - in this particular book, she's also acting as an alumnus adviser for her old sorority, one of whose members has apparently committed suicide. Jane isn't so sure and decides to investigate, discovering that some of the people around the sorority have issues with both religion and sexuality that make them prime suspects in Alison's death.
It's very much a book of its time, since it's set in the 1980's, and the whole sorority thing is a complete mystery to me anyway - I didn't guess the identity of the murderer, though, so I expect that if I get the chance to pick up the next book in the series (Vital Lies) then I probably will...
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve - this is the first in a quartet of books and I've been trying to get hold of it for a while, since I always seemed to see the next book in my local library and never this one!
The universe in which these books are set is one of a future Earth where various cities have been rebuilt in such a way that they can travel across land in search of prey, that prey being other cities whose resources they can recycle. In the case of Mortal Engines, the main city we're talking about is London which is under the control of the Guild of Engineers.
Our hero is an apprentice Historian, Tom Natsworthy, whose job it is to clean the exhibits in the museum, but who inadvertantly crosses paths with one Hester Shaw, who is very much an anti-hero. She has a vendetta against the Head Historian, who Tom idolises, because he was responsible for the murders of her parents and her own disfigurement - Tom finds himself left behind by London and reliant on Hester to find his way back to some kind of safety, but of course things are nothing like as simple as he has always been led to believe.
It's an intriguing premise, peopled with characters who seem very real, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series works out. The next book in the quartet is Predator's Gold.
Where Hallowed Murder is concerned, our protagonist is Jane Lawless who runs a restaurant - in this particular book, she's also acting as an alumnus adviser for her old sorority, one of whose members has apparently committed suicide. Jane isn't so sure and decides to investigate, discovering that some of the people around the sorority have issues with both religion and sexuality that make them prime suspects in Alison's death.
It's very much a book of its time, since it's set in the 1980's, and the whole sorority thing is a complete mystery to me anyway - I didn't guess the identity of the murderer, though, so I expect that if I get the chance to pick up the next book in the series (Vital Lies) then I probably will...
The universe in which these books are set is one of a future Earth where various cities have been rebuilt in such a way that they can travel across land in search of prey, that prey being other cities whose resources they can recycle. In the case of Mortal Engines, the main city we're talking about is London which is under the control of the Guild of Engineers.
Our hero is an apprentice Historian, Tom Natsworthy, whose job it is to clean the exhibits in the museum, but who inadvertantly crosses paths with one Hester Shaw, who is very much an anti-hero. She has a vendetta against the Head Historian, who Tom idolises, because he was responsible for the murders of her parents and her own disfigurement - Tom finds himself left behind by London and reliant on Hester to find his way back to some kind of safety, but of course things are nothing like as simple as he has always been led to believe.
It's an intriguing premise, peopled with characters who seem very real, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series works out. The next book in the quartet is Predator's Gold.
