And that was just fine, as it turned out. References to earlier plot lines were swiftly explained without too much exposition for the latecomer, but with enough to feel quickly acquainted with the battery of faintly bizarre characters. The Bryant and May series centres on the eponymous detectives who make up the core of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

Something of a law unto themselves and perpetually falling foul of the Met because of it, the PCU brings together a motley but talented crew of detectives and forensic types who investigate the kinds of crimes the other departments can’t solve. In this book, there isn’t even supposed to be a PCU; they’ve been officially suspended, pending investigation which seems to be inevitably heading towards formal disbanding. Just as it seems there’s nothing left for the team but to find new jobs (and, in Bryant’s case, shuffle inexporably towards a lonely death from old age and lack of stimulation), a headless corpse turns up which leads them into a race against time to solve a murder, prevent chaos striking a huge development project and possibly even save their careers.

Of Bryant and May it is Bryant, an eccentric, highly intelligent officer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of London and it’s convoluted history, that is the more striking. May is his sensible fall guy, against whom he bounces his ideas and who keeps him on the path of what passes for sanity in Bryant’s world.  The rest of the team is a mixture of sensible, likeable types  – the almost disappointingly realistic ones – and the slightly odd; Jack Renfield, for example, who’s trying to simultaneously shake off a reputation for being widely disliked and the Dracula jokes that follow his name about.

The strongest highlights of Bryant & May On the Loose are the fascinating points of London history and the clever pacing. Although you’re essentially given plenty of the detail that’s usually revealed at the end from the start, the intricately wound plot leaves plenty of room for guessing – and, indeed, second-guessing – and leaves just enough unsaid to keep the reader turning pages eagerly. Fowler is also far too skilled to suffer from the excessive exposition problem that occasionally surfaces in mysteries based on a long-buried secret; he works the historical detail into the plot in digestible chunks.

Although I’m not raving with excitement over the book, I couldn’t point out a specific criticism to level at it; a few things occasionally slightly grated(some uncomfortably unlikely dialogue, the odd overdose of eccentricity), but nothing that would stop me going on to read others in the series, which I now fully intend to do. All in all, it’s an enjoyably quirky, admirably pacy and interesting mystery, which is just fine by me.

Find out more about the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge. Please note that opinions are my own and unbiased; I am not required to give the books a positive review.

Transworld Publishers have done a nifty piece of blogger outreach by inviting anyone interested in reviewing some of their books to either get involved on their blog or, if they don’t have one (or don’t want to use it for the reviews), writing Amazon reviews. There’s no pressure to write a positive review, they just want word of mouth out there about their books, and you can choose which four you want from a list of 15 and they’ll be sent to you.

It’s all explained rather better on Transworld’s Between the Lines blog, where you can also leave them a comment to get involved if you’d like to.

The four books I’ve chosen are listed below, so I’m looking forward to receiving the first (once it’s read and reviewed, I get the next one). Since reading is the most relaxing thing to do apart from sleep between Ramona’s feeds and I mentally review every book I read anyway, this is perfect for me.

Bryant & May on the Loose by Christopher Fowler (review now published)

Amberville by Tim Davys

E Squared by Matt Beaumont

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Her name is Ramona (with two middle names after her grandmothers’ mothers), with inspiration from the Beverly Cleary books. Not the Bachelors’ song. Which we didn’t know. And is a bit awful. I would consider it a Very Good Thing if Ramona turned out to be half so imaginative and clever as her Quimby namesake.

I’m very proud to say that the first thing she’s developed a fixation with (other than eating) is a book. Admittedly, it’s a book with a mirror in it, but she does really like the solid pages too, especially the picture of the baby. So here’s Ramona, enjoying her first book.

Normal service will be resumed… soonish.

Larsson doesn’t hide the fact that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about sexual and physical abuse of women. The stats quoted at the beginning of each section, the horrific scene of brutal sexual violence against one character, the twisted tale of sadistic murder; it’s pretty clear (and sometimes, I think, a little more graphic than it really needs to make the point). But then the trilogy starts to be about the abuse of a specific character, and her history and that’s where I think the point loses its way.

It comes to the point where every single unpleasant character – and they’re ALL men, the bad guys; the women are all either laughably perfect or appallingly damaged – is a violent misogynist. It’s not enough for them to be a bit of a turd; no, if you’re a man and a bad guy, you must also want to rape women, sexually abuse small children or think every woman who isn’t interested in you is a twisted lesbian Satanist (seriously, read it, you’ll see). Oh, or you’re a pimp.

The main male character, however, Mikael Blomkvist, is none of these things. No, he’s the perfect embodiment of journalistic integrity, and he’s disgusted by the pimps and abusers, murderers and rapists. As well anyone decent might be. But at the same time, he treats the women he actually cares about pretty shabbily, bouncing from bed to bed and refusing to renounce his lover for the sake of his marriage or subsequent relationships. He trundles from one sexual encounter to the other, assuming that no-one could possibly be any more emotionally invested than he is. This is not to say that women can’t be dispassionate about casual encounters at all; it’s just that Blomkvist never troubles himself to find out either way.

So on the one hand we have a bunch of cartoon bad guys who all want to destroy womankind, and yet womankind’s defender is at best a rather self-obsessed bedhopper. Oh yay; just what we need to save us. Of course, even the most independent and powerful of all the female characters – the dragon-tattooed girl herself, Lisbeth Salander – can’t free herself without his help. And even his lover, the irrepressible Erika Berger, is stalked by a man (of course) whose favourite epithet for her is ‘whore’.

I’m really not sure where Larsson was going with all this. They’re well-written and gripping books – the murder mystery, the family saga and the post-Cold War spy thriller – but this relentless casting of women as victims is frustrating.

That, and the fact that no-one seems to be able to do a damn thing without hourly infusions of coffee and sandwiches.

There are so many things I want to be doing, but my head can’t seem to get it together. I want to write some posts for BitchBuzz because it is an awesome site that Cate Sevilla has worked her arse off to make a success. I want to get back to writing the damn novel I’m 20,000 words into, but somehow when I try it all comes out sounding wrong and then I get dispirited. I know that is exactly the point at which I should continue to write, not give up, but I’m scared I’ll end up so irritated that I’ll scrap the whole lot. Although I think my husband might go mad if I did that; he actually enjoyed reading it. I want to plough on and finish before I go back and edit because otherwise edit is all I’ll do, but I can’t take my mind off a continuity slip I know is festering in one of the earlier chapters.

I want to review the mighty Keris Stainton’s excellent book, Della Says: OMG! but the words are Just. Not. Coming.

On the flipside, I have filled up the freezer with meals and baking to be enjoyed after Octobaby makes her appearance, and I have got almost everything ready for her room, etc. I have an appointment with the consultant next week to ensure I’m still low risk and can keep planning for the birth I’d prefer (on the understanding that ultimately it’s Octobaby that decides). I do need to step up the hypnobirthing practice a bit but I haven’t let it slide completely either. Octobaby is currently forcing us all into a guessing game by refusing to reveal to the midwife which end is up (or down) – perhaps she’s re-enacting the tale of the Grand Old Duke of York – which is making me slightly nervous. Yes, I’d rather have a planned Caesarean than an unplanned breech birth, but I will be a little bit gutted if it comes to that, because surgery was the one thing I wanted to avoid, and I have had back surgery that makes me worry about the effects of an epidural.

I now feel huge but am apparently still not carrying that prominently considering that on Saturday I’ll be a full eight months gone. But then, it’s a novelty having clothing clinging to my stomach and not feeling self-conscious about it!

Mr. G. is taking a couple of days off – tomorrow and Monday – to help get the final bits and bobs ready to welcome our little wriggler into the world, so I’m hopeful this will fill me with renewed purpose, so that I’m not wandering around the house reading baking books and wittering to the cats. Because I have my retirement for that. (Joke! I have very active parents and in-laws; I am not being ageist. Promise.)

2. The singular is “medium”.

3. “Mediums” should only be used as a term if you’re talking or writing about more than one psychic.

4. “Social media” is a plural term. Think of it in the same bracket as “social tools”, “social platforms” or “social channels” if it helps.

I know we don’t speak Latin anymore. I know that there comes a time when the language inexorably changes and you just have to go with the tide (check out the double possessive rule; if it’s been in operation for centuries, it’s time to give up the fight).

I just can’t help being driven slightly insane by the huge number of articles I read every week entitled “social media is [insert insightful comment / occasional platitude here]“.

I will now go back to being sweetness and light. I’m even planning some baking blogging* for you soon.

In 2007 I did actually write 6-7,000 words of nonsense, largely as an exercise in having an idea as my writing muscles had near-irretrievably seized up. Last year I did nothing at all. The ideas were not flowing and I just didn’t have the time.

Having done nothing with the Monster Book since the epic 10,000+ word writing marathon at the Urban Writers Retreat, I’ve decided it’s time to go back to it. Now, NaNoWriMo prohibits use of pre-written prose as the idea is to freely write whatever and not be tied up in feelings about characters, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I’d rather have an idea I really want to work on and use it as an excuse to get a little further down that track than stare at the empty screen until I get thoroughly miserable and then ignore it until, oh, next May or something. So even if I nail the 50,000, I can’t win. That said, if I nail the 50,000 I’ll probably have finished the bugger and that’s a much bigger win than a snazzy web badge and PDF certificate will ever, ever be.

I plan to use the UWR to help me actually do this, too, if there are any sessions left this year. (There are). Plus this year I know more other people doing it and can use The Guilt to spur me on.

I’ve got a bit of a list of things to write about for BitchBuzz and haven’t had the time to do much of it.  I have made a start on a new post I hope to make quite a regular one, which is Simple Recipes for Anyone; basically, if you can’t make these then you should probably step away from the kitchen, never to return.

First up is shortcrust pastry, and in the schedule (but not live yet) is chocolate ganache icing. If you read this blog, you’ll actually already have seen the recipes for both of them… Given that the vast majority of people who come looking for this site are actually seeking buttercream icing, that’ll be next.

The women’s resources, on the other hand, are quite different and much more serious. The post is all about the Women’s Resource Centre and the wonderful things it does to support women’s organisations and lobby the Government.

Oh, and top of those I got in a quick piece about the Islington Contemporary Art & Design Fair, which fellow design fans ought to enjoy as it happens over the next few weekends.

Next on the list:

• Quick travel guide to Rome
• A piece about a very talented UK baker who’s now launching her own business
• A savoury recipe (I know!)
• A post on a cute cupcake bakery (no, there can never be enough)

Just as soon as I have time to write them.

In 1869, Emily Davis made history by creating a college for the first female undergraduates in England, in a house outside Cambridge. The lecturers were whoever could be persuaded to help out; the five students were not to actually be awarded degrees at the end of their courses. It would take two world wars before Cambridge allowed its female graduates to qualify, becoming the last university in England to do so – although it was the first English university to tolerate female students, after a fashion.

So what happened between 1869 and 1948?

Read the rest of the review at The F Word

As an examination of drifting thirtysomethings, unsure if they’re ‘fuckups’ or not, encountering a stream of stereotypical families as they careen across North America looking for a place to call home, it doesn’t exactly tread new ground. But Mendes’ great strength, here as in American Beauty, is not an original story but an original retelling

Read the rest of the review at BitchBuzz

Also, something I didn’t mention in the BB review but should have done is the great soundtrack. It’s not groundbreaking stuff, musically, but the Nick Drake-inspired drifting wandering-man-with-a-guitar tracks suit the movie brilliantly and are the excellent side of easy listening. Mostly courtesy of a US-based Scot, Alexi Murdoch.