Madeleine

The film is excellent, have you seen it? The recent TV series wasn't so good though!

"The Christmas Egg" by Mary Kelly

Yes it was a very sad day yesterday, Jonathan Miller - well known in the UK for the theatre - also died.

I agree meg, although I was a bit frustrated at the ending of the first book, I did feel that leaving the case "open" and not finding out what happened was the right way to go. I think the police did bring in dogs, wasn't it a dog that found Rob? But back then they would have had heat-seeking tracking devices, I'm sure. Anyway I wonder if they'll adapt any more of the books. It would have been better if they'd left them as two separate cases. And the earlier relationship, with Cassie, Rob and Sam all being such good friends, was completely ignored.

sorry to hear of all your problems, I hope Mr Meg is on the mend now. the weather here seems to be either mild and rainy, or cold and frosty, at the moment we're into cold and frosty (and sunny) but the rain is due back, just in time for the weekend as usual, although it will be milder, in the low tens.

Sadly the recent TV version rather ruined both, it started off very well when it just focussed on the first books, but then they mixed in the storyline from The Likeness too, and the whole thing just seemed to collapse under too many storylines, and the second story wasn't very convincing and felt rather rushed - I think separate series would have been better, although it was well acted and well made. I have the third book lined up, I suspect that each book will be a bit different, as it's not a conventional crime series. Re Wolverine - agree about Hugh Jackman, I watched Logan recently and OMG it was violent! Made Game of Thrones look tame which is saying something.

I'm afraid I agree with the critics, I read both novels earlier this year - loved the first one, thought the second one was OK but too long - and although I think the first two episodes were excellent, it all started going wrong for me around episode 4, when they started to bring in the Lexie storyline. When I heard that they were merging the two novels I thought oh-oh, and sadly it's all turning into a bit of a mess, too many storylines. The road building is in the book, but the first book concentrates solely on the Katy Devlin murder and the earlier disappearance of the other children, whereas the 2nd book is only about the Lexie case apart from a few brief references to earlier incidents. If you'd watched the 2nd episode it would have made more sense, I don't think you can watch a serial like this in alternate episodes, but the first few episodes were quite steady and did stick pretty closely to the first book before it all started to go haywire.

The Body Farm - Patricia Cornwell

I'm just about to start The Corset for Halloween.

I loved being read to as a child, my mum did it and we also had story hour when the teacher would read to us, one boy fell asleep once and we were all getting ready to go home and he was still sitting there, snoozing away and had to be woken up!

I don't think it's stopped raining since last night, definitely not today, still going strong now!

Good to have you back Binker, keep well.

Girl with a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier

I had that problem with the second in the Dublin Murder series, The Likeness - it was just too long. A shame as she's a good writer. I will still carry on with the series though, and have the Wych Elm on my tbr.

I agree with Meg, I can't stand "to gift" either