Category: Book reviews – fiction

Em Thompson, Murder on the Ordinary Express, (Eccentric Directions 2025)

This extremely funny novel features Thompson’s unique writing style and innovative vocabulary tricks. He turns other parts of speech into other parts of speech: ‘uncountitude’, ‘pedantic plodology’, ‘bloodredded moments’, ‘freshenupped’, ‘fastidious pernickityness’, ‘alimonious divorce’. She is ‘highly umbraged to have her probity impugned’. Any clichéd metaphor or pun you might find in here will be cleverly turned on its head and done something even cleverer with.

See the full review on Goodreads.

S S Turner, The Last Toll Collector, (Fortis Publishing 2024)

Ex toll collector Valerie sets up an ‘independent nation’ in a herring factory in Iceland
After losing her job as toll collector on the Golden Gate Bridge to machines, Valerie Tobruk is at her 23rd job interview. AI was filling so many of the job opportunities nowadays.

See the full review on Goodreads.