Crossing Places

I've just started reading a crime story by Elly Griffiths called The Crossing Places. It is really good. Ruth Galloway is a forensic archaeologist living on the north Norfolk coast near King's Lynn. She is asked to help DCI Harry Nelson when some bones are uncovered near a beach. Fortunately or unfortunately the bones turn out to be an Iron Age burial but that is not the end of the story. On the basis of 100 pages I would happily recommend it to anyone who enjoys the less violent crime story. The author also writes as Domenica De Rosa - whose Summer School I read and enjoyed a while back. This is different in style and content but every bit as good.

Good book

Domenica De Rosa's Summer School is like eating a box of chocolates and drinking a glass of wine while relaxing in the sun. It is about 7 ill assorted people attending a creative writing course in Tuscany. The characters are all believable and the dialogue is well written with touches of humour. The text is interspersed with extracts from diaries and pieces of creative writing. My favourite character was Mary - 74 years old spinster and retired civil servant, but all the characters are interesting including Patricia the owner of the castello where the event is held.

Some of the characters achieve their dream while others achieve things they could never even have dreamed of before the course. The book is almost as good as attending such a course yourself and there are lots of creative writing tips. I loved it. I think the overall standard of such books is improving and I seem to find more and more which are up to this high standard. The boundary between chick lit and literary fiction is becoming even more blurred - which can only be a good thing.