Malcolm Knox, Jennifer Haigh, Dean Koontz_13 to 15
I've given up reading as many books as I finished in the past fortnight or so. Finished 'Bluebird' by Malcolm Knox. Honestly, I could have killed bloody Malcolm Knox for his wretched cast of loser beach bum layabouts, but I forgave him for his writing, and for the cheeky device of recasting Sydney as 'Ocean City'. So very good, and those bloody losers were brilliantly observed. Jennifer Haigh's 'Mrs Kimble' dumped me with another wretched man I did not want to spend time with—the eponymous Mr Kimble, the rotter. But was it "beautiful, devastating and complex" as the Chicago Tribune declared? It was. Dean Koontz is usually reliable but failed me with 'Your Heart Belongs to Me', a truly stupid book about—lordy—a man stalked by the twin sister of his transplanted heart, or some such rot. Definitely not "a terrifying thriller" per the cover line. One star, Mr Koontz.