The Unburied Dead by Douglas Lindsay

The following review is the first one written for a book read on my Kindle proper. The Unburied dead is another book published by Blasted Heath.

The Unburied Dead by Douglas Lindsay. 2012. Blasted Heath. Epub £1.99. ISBN 978-1-908688-17-0.

This was my first read of a Douglas Lindsay book that had nothing to do with his hilariously over-the-top demon barber, Barney Thompson. To be brief; well written and superbly in-your-face, this chilling tale is even better than Lindsay’s earlier works and I am fast becoming a fan of anything he produces.

Set in Glasgow, the plot switches between two separate stories. In one, we are introduced to the thoughts and actions of an unknown serial killer, who is obsessed with his former girlfriend and kills her repeatedly, believing his victims to be her. The deaths are brutally violent and send shock waves through the community.

In the second story, we follow the path of a down-beat police officer, DC Thomas Hutton. A former soldier who has seen active service and is still very much traumatized by it all, Hutton goes through women like nobody’s business, falling in love and getting married, then divorced, with alarming regularity. He is disillusioned with his job and seems to merely go through the motions, fuelled by his vodka and his loneliness.

It is just before Christmas and Hutton, along with most of his colleagues, is mixing merriment and gift-buying with this case, in order to try and catch the killer before he strikes again. While he is busy and pre-occupied, with his mind on his women – both past and present – more than on his work, he accidently stumbles across several clues that could indict keys members of the local constabulary, as well as identify the killer. Hutton’s Christmas ‘holiday’ is not that merry, to say the least, and he ends up trudging through the snow on Hogmanay in a last-ditch attempt to sort everything out, only to discover that things are far, far worse than he could ever imagine.

Lindsay is one of those talented authors that can mix dry humour with dark and bloody violence. He can get into your head and distract you from yourself, as well as make you chuckle. The short length of his stories are perfect for me just now, in my ‘New to Kindle’ state, as they are a fairly quick read, and, as a result, I am not the slightest bit concerned about how long I will be kept away from my pile of beloved paperbacks!

The Sin Eater by Sarah Rayne

For some reason this book was very difficult to get hold of. Published by Severn House in March 2012 in hardback and trade paperback. I am delighted to say I have finally got hold of a copy. A hardback first edition at that.

Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks

This review was written before I acquired my Kindle and the book was read using the iPad Kindle App. It is published by the new e-publishing company Blasted Heath and is a mighty fine read.

Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks. 2012. Blasted Heath. Epub £1.99. 187 pages ISBN 978-1-908688-18-7.

Another hard boiled stonker from the very talented Ray Banks, WOLF TICKETS features the antics of 2 former army mates; one, Farrell, who is Irish and one, Cobb, a Geordie, that have parted ways in recent years, mostly due to women, but are brought together again when Nora, one of these aforementioned women, and the love of Farrell’s life, does a runner, with a large wad of his cash and his precious leather jacket. Farrell, a thieving, all-round rascal, wants his money back, and knows exactly where to find it, as there is also a very large stash of money hidden somewhere in the North of England and his gut feeling is that Nora, also a money grabbing ne’er-do-well, is on her way to grab that too.

Both lads are hard-core trouble makers and are not afraid to use violence to get what they want. Cobb’s particular favourite is the old sock with batteries in the toe that he carries in his pocket and uses to slug people that get in his way. His other party tricks are shop-lifting, from charity shops, and fire raising – using the cans of paint stripper he has stashed in the boot of his car.

So, Farrell and Cobb set out to find Nora and get the money back but, being the kind of lads that they are, meet a whole load of trouble on the way.

Ray Banks has this talent for being able to smack you with hard core noir fiction and leave you exhausted and disturbed but, strangely, still smiling and reaching out for more. The short length of this latest shocker means you can read it in a few hours and enjoy the full impact all at once – in fact, you will lose the tension if you put it down, so just save it for an afternoon off!!

Banks and Blasted Heath together are changing my opinion of ebooks, since I get so engrossed in these nasty wee tales that I forget I am holding a Kindle and the format ceases to matter!

My Most Embarrassing EFL Moment

I have been asked to share my most embarrassing EFL moment, so here it is. Nothing to do with Kindle or ebooks or reviews. Plenty to do with being a twerp. I hope it brings a wee smile to your faces.


I’ve been teaching English since November 2005. I did my first chunk of the awesome online i-to-i course at that time and have never looked back.

I went to Japan in 2005 for a year and had a fantastic experience. I worked for two language schools and also had private students at the weekend. The incident I am about to describe for you happened at around 9pm one evening. I had been working for this one school since 8am that morning and was pretty shattered. They didn’t believe in giving their native language teachers much in the way of breaks, since a break for a teacher meant they weren’t working – so not earning money for the school, which, according to them, was not good.

So, I was shattered and it was my last class of the day. An hour-long class for one single student, whose name I have long forgotten. He was a nervous and awkward young man in his 30s, who still lived with his mother and had a terrible “comb over”. I think he was a scientist of some kind and he was always smartly dressed in a suit.

On this particular day I was so tired that I could hardly remember what my own name was. I leaned forward to point at something in the textbook and, as I did so, let out an enormous fart! I didn’t even feel it! It echoed around the school room, filling the uncomfortable silence and bouncing off the walls! I slowly looked up, to see my student red faced and twitching. Oh dear. Flatulence is a massive taboo in Japan. Polite girls don’t do that sort of thing.

After apologizing profusely, I struggled through to the end of the lesson, keeping a tight hold on my sphincter muscles, and praying nothing else awful would happen. To my absolute horror the student went to talk to my headmaster after the class and then, to make things even worse, my headmaster walked over to talk to me. I was sure I was about to be sacked for my unforgivable error, but no! Headmaster smiled broadly, shook my hand and said the student had told him it was the best English class he had ever had!!!!

The full impact of my gaseous mishap became evident the following week, when the student appeared in casual clothes, and smiled at me broadly for the whole lesson. It would appear that, yes flatulence is a taboo in that country, but is also a fetish and my dear student thought my accident was my attempt at flirting!!!!

Needless to say, I have kept a tight hold on my muscles ever since!!!

I finally catch up with technology

When the Kindle first came on the market, I must admit I was sceptical. I was doing a lot of on-screen proofreading at the time and my eyes were suffering as a result. The thought of doing yet MORE reading on a screen was less than attractive to me, so I gave the Kindle a miss.

Then I bought my iPad,

which had a Kindle App...

... so I downloaded it, as you do (it was free after all), and acquired some ebooks...


Kindle on the iPad and I have a love/hate relationship. Once I managed to overcome the surges of nausea that hit me whenever I changed the page, I got on OK with it. Sort of. The books I read using it where extremely good. They had to be or I would never have stuck to them. Despite this, I still didn't manage to fully immerse myself in them and mourned the loss of the touch and smell of paper that is so much part of the reading experience.

Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short, the number of ebooks I am being asked to review has slowly been increasing and my inability to bond happily with the iPad App meant I had to resort to drastic measures...

Two weeks ago I BOUGHT A KINDLE!!

Thanks to Mum for some birthday money, I figured that there was nothing as pressing as fast-approaching Middle-Age to encourage me to try a new piece of kit.

So, I am now the proud owner of a Kindle. The posh touch screen variety at that. And here is where this new blog comes in. I will publish reviews of the ebooks I read here, as well as on Amazon, and keep you all up to date on how I get on with it.

Wish me luck!! Ax