Review: Corridors of Death (Robert Amiss #1)

Corridors of Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards

My rating:         Mystery

Imagine Yes, Minister with added murder, and you'd have a good idea of what to expect of this very British mystery. Senior civil servant Nicholas Clark is murdered at work, and none of his colleagues could really claim to be sad about his fate. Indeed, the police are positively overwhelmed with possible motives - it seems that everyone had a plausible reason to want Sir Nicholas dead.

The point of view switches between Amiss (a civil servant) and Milton (the policeman who ropes him into helping with the investigation), giving insight into both their perspectives on developing events. I really enjoyed the interplay of the main characters, as well as the caricatures of civil servants and politicians who surround them. Although this book was written in the 1980s, it's all too easy to imagine similar events taking place today in the timeless corridors of Whitehall.

My only reservation was that I found the circumstances of the death (which I won't go into to avoid spoilers) somewhat implausible. However, this did fit in with the generally exaggerated feel of the novel, so in that sense it wasn't a bad fit.

I'll certainly read more by this author - I've heard they get even better as the series progresses.

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Win a $100 Amazon Gift Card

If your reading addiction is anywhere near as expensive as mine, you'd be glad to see a chunk of your Amazon spend taken care of. So how would you like to win $100 to spend on anything you fancy from amazon.com?

The lovely Amber at Beautifully BellaFaith has brought together over 160 blogs to support this awesome gift card giveaway. Not only will one lucky person win a $100 Amazon gift card, but they will also receive a $50 gift card for Victoria's Secret, and a $50 gift card for their choice of Target or Walmart. There are loads of ways to enter, and you'll get bonus entries if you complete all of them - so good luck!

The rules:
This giveaway will run from May 30th to June 7th 2012.
This giveaway is open worldwide (except where prohibited by law). You must be 18 or older to enter. You do not have to be a blogger to enter or to win.

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Review: The Kitchen as Laboratory

The Kitchen as Laboratory edited by César Vega, Job Ubbink & Erik Van Der Linden

My rating:         Non-fiction / Science

This is a fascinating collection of essays on the scientific properties of food and cookery, covering a wide variety of topics. There's lots of technical detail in these pages, including graphs and molecular structure diagrams, which I found utterly fascinating. However, it's not all theory: there are plenty of recipes to illustrate the points being made in each essay. From stretchy Turkish ice-cream, to mango "ravioli" produced by spherification, I have an ever-growing list of intriguing foodstuffs that I'd love to try making. (Of course, as a vegetarian, it's hardly surprising that I was less interested in the chapters on bacon and gravadlax, and I skimmed over these sections.)

Some of the articles felt like they could have been much longer - for example, the chapter about moussaka could easily have been double the length, and felt a little thin on the details - but in general each chapter is a solid introduction to its topic. Each chapter could be read as a stand-alone essay, making it easy to dip in and out of the book, but they've been edited together in such a way as to highlight the links between different phenomena. Definitely interesting reading, and full of inspiration for the enthusiastic amateur.

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