Michael Gorey

My enjoyment of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series has caused me to rediscover the library. I simply couldn’t afford to keep buying them!
Apart from computers and electronic bar codes, libraries haven’t changed much since I last visited regularly some 20 years ago. Funnily enough they’re still full of books.
I picked up an interesting non-fiction book at [...]

Sight Unseen is another thrilling mystery by the largely unheralded English author Robert Goddard.
I’ve read all his books and this latest is one of the best.
It blends 18th century politics and history with the recent past and modern era to produce an explosive cocktail of spice and tension.
It’s the story of uninspiring university history student, [...]

I came to Richard North Patterson’s “Degree of Guilt” after reading “Conviction” and “Balance of Power”. The reverse chronological order possibly explains my lack of enthusiasm for this novel.
It’s not as though the books form a series, although some characters are the same, it’s more that Patterson seems to have matured as a writer with [...]

Following my enjoyment of Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian, I couldn’t resist some further reading in this excellent series.
The second novel, Post Captain, treats readers to more of the same brilliant narrative, daredevil action, political and military intrigue.
Captain Jack Aubrey has fallen on hard times and has to constantly avoid his debt collectors and [...]

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian is a delightful book and a wonderful starting point for anyone interested in nautical fiction.
It’s the first in O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series and I’m glad I started here, as it sets the scene for future novels.
Jack Aubrey is a frustrated lieutenant waiting in a Mediterranean port for his first command [...]

The phone rang at 4am last night. It disturbed my slumber, but no way was I getting up to answer it. Juliet thought it might have been a call from South Africa, so picked up the phone and found it to be a researcher from BBC World Service in London. The researcher also left a [...]

Conviction by Richard North Patterson is a powerful and disturbing book about truth, justice and the American way.

It poses more questions than it answers, incisively exposing the flawed
legal system in the United States, where elected judges care more for
public opinion than justice.

It tells the story of a semi-retarded black man, Rennell Price, who is
convicted with [...]

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has been top of the bestseller list in Australia for several months. I don’t need to review the book in much detail, because presumably most literate people in the world have already read it and formed their own opinions.
I don’t know why it took me so long to [...]

Havoc in its Third Year is a powerful, moving novel set in the religious turmoil of 1630s England. Written by Ronan Bennett, it was only after beginning this book that I realised he had also crafted The Catastrophist, which I read and enjoyed several years ago.
The Catastrophist is set in the dying days of Belgian [...]

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow is a
strange book. It’s bizarre plot entices the reader and there are some
hilarious, side-splitting scenes. Unfortunately, long periods of
tedious introspection by the main character, Henderson, undermine the
positive attributes.
Henderson is a rich American who inherited his fortune. He’s a
strong man and a Second World War veteran with an eccentric [...]