Just a bit of gentle name dropping....

I am doggedly ploughing through C.J. Sansom's Winter in Madrid, a tale set against the backdrop of WW2 and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. I thought I'd really like this but it's failing to set me alight. Historically interesting - and this author's a pretty serious historian - but it just seems to be plodding a bit too slowly and ponderously along. Or maybe it's just me, not in the right frame of mind for it.

C.J. Sansom (who really is a great writer notwithstanding my slight whinge) was our runner-up in the Dagger in the Library Award, which I need to name-drop here since I'm just back from the swanky awards dinner in London. Guest of honour was Gyles Brandreth, who gave a faintly insane but entertaining speech. I think he's writing something where Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde form a crime-busting duo, if I understood right?! Our winner was Craig Russell, an author I'd never read before the Dagger. He's Scottish but sets his books in Hamburg. The setting is really interesting, the characters good and the stories gory, so I commend him to this blog! And he was a nice man, and let us hold his Dagger. This is him in the middle, with me and my fellow judges.