My Week in Books – 2nd February 2025

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On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared five books that deal with aspects of the Holocaust to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was New-To-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme.

New arrivals

Three ARCs and a book club pick...

Traitor’s Legacy by S.J. Parris (eARC, Hemlock Press via NetGalley)

Front cover of Traitor's Legacy by S.J. Parris

England, 1598. Queen Elizabeth’s successor remains unnamed. The country teeters on a knife edge.

When a young heiress is found murdered at the theatre, the Queen’s spymaster Robert Cecil calls upon former agent Sophia de Wolfe to investigate.

A cryptic note found on the dead girl’s body connects to Sophia’s previous life as a spy, and her quest soon takes her into dangerous waters. Powerful enemies emerge, among them the Earl of Essex: the Queen’s favourite courtier and a man of ruthless ambition.

This is a murder that reaches directly into the heart of the court. And Sophia is concealing a deep-buried secret of her own. She must uncover the truth before her past threatens to destroy her.

That Which May Destroy You by Abda Khan (eARC, Chiselbury)

Front cover of That Which May Destroy You by Abda Khan

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…?

Miriam Hassan stands in the defendant’s dock at Birmingham Crown Court charged with the cold-blooded murder of her well-known, rich, charismatic husband Zaf, to which she pleads not guilty. However, nothing is straightforward.

There is conflicting witness testimony. The couple argued on the day in question, and Miriam was overheard threatening him. A witness places her at the scene of the crime. Miriam’s evidence casts doubt on her guilt, but no one can corroborate it.

It soon becomes apparent that both Zaf and the marriage were not as they seemed. Miriam discloses details about the ‘gaslighting’ and emotional abuse she suffered, and the court also discovers that Zaf in fact had a number of enemies. On the other hand, Miriam stands to inherit Zaf’s vast fortune if she walks free.

Through the moving testimony in the courtroom and dramatic flashbacks of the two-year marriage, the reader is taken on a gripping and thought-provoking journey, but when the shocking truth is finally revealed, the reader will be left with a moral question that may be difficult to answer.

A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow (eARC, Headline via NetGalley)

Front cover of A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow

Berlin. May 1940. As Hitler prepares to invade Western Europe, there is bloodshed closer to home.

CI Horst Schenke is an investigator with the Kripo unit. Powerless against the consequences of the war, he fights to keep criminals off his patch. But with doubts growing about his loyalty to the Nazi regime, he is walking a tightrope. If his relationship with a Jewish woman is exposed, a dreadful fate awaits.

Berlin’s gangsters run their crime rings with impunity. Decadent senior Nazis protect them. Schenke is different. He won’t turn a blind eye when innocents are caught in the crossfire between warring gangs. But dangerous enemies know everything about him. They will do whatever it takes to bend him to their will . . .

Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton (audiobook)

Front cover of Butter by Asako Yuzuki

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer”, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay by Flora Johnston
  • My Five Favourite January 2025 Reads
  • Book Review: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  • Book Review: The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor

#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos to Flush by Virginia Woolf

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is a classic novel, Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Once again a novel I haven’t read. Described as ‘a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society’ it was made into a film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich as the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont respectively.

Links from each title in the chain will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Dangerous Liaisons was published in 1782, seven years before the start of the French Revolution. My first link is to a novel set during the French Revolution, A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. (I’m afraid this is a book I set aside unfinished.)

Hilary Mantel’s short story collection entitled The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher was published in 2014. In the story that gives the collection its title, the narrator imagines the assassination of the then Prime Minister. Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll concerns the actual attempt by the IRA to kill Margaret Thatcher during the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton in 1984.

In Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, set in the murky underworld of 1930s Brighton, seventeen year-old gang leader Pinkie Brown takes revenge on a reporter whose story has led to the death of the gang’s former leader.

Richard Attenborough played the role of Pinkie in the 1948 adaptation of Brighton Rock. He directed the 1977 film version of the book A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan about Operation Market Garden, an Allied operation in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II aimed at seizing control of a number of bridges over the Rhine. In the film, Dirk Bogarde portrays Lieutenant General Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning, one of the senior officers in charge of the operation.

Browning was the husband of the writer Daphne du Maurier. Du Maurier’s biographer Margaret Forster was the author of Lady’s Maid in which a young woman arrives in London to become personal maid to the ailing, housebound Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Flush by Virginia Woolf is a charming story told from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel.

My chain has taken me from 18th France to 19th century London. Where did your chain take you?