Topical

With all the talk of the NSA, if you can get hold of a copy, The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford makes fascinating reading. From inception to the eighties (when this book was written) it's a history of the NSA and it shows that while they've always just hoovered up data the methods they use just get more sophisticated as the tech improves.

Best Books of 2013

These are my top 10 but please don't take the  order as one to ten, they're all good for different reasons

S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst

Mortal Bonds by Michael Sears

Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

Loyalty by Ingrid Thoft

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

A Dangerous Fiction by Barbara Rogan

Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller

Wild Beasts of Wuhan by Ian Hamilton

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (NF)

Ghost Man by Roger Hobbs

Book 3 needed some major rewrites and I only realised how badly I'd neglected the blog when one of my regulars told me he thought I'd packed it in.  There are some cracking titles for next year and I will be reviewing the first batch of those in  January. For now, Merry Christmas and a happy new year!