The Book Review-pure fiction + coffee developer!

In the few moments I get left over after reading and re-reading  'Snow Canvas' , 'My Leica and I' ,and 'Living Leica'  (1956 edition,  of course)  few other books or subjects attract my attention.

However, one that did arrive , via Amazon, is a detective mystery.The title is 'The Dead in their Vaulted Arches'

I have found that I only enjoy this type of book when I am able to read most of a series with the same characters such  the Bryant and May series  by Christopher Fowler, The Powerscourt series of David Dickinson,  Edward Marston on Railways and the unique series of Martin Beck books which when read in order and arranged by the spine will spell Martin Beck!

If I still have your attention I shall introduce the latest in the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley (pub. Orion 2014). Again, a series is involved and number 6 has proved to be of interest to me as a darkroom worker. In short this is the adventure of the younger daughter of an impoverished Colonel with a country house left to decay on the death of his wife, the owner, in 1939. Her body is recovered just post war and his daughter is astounded to be picked out as her true successor by Sir Winston Churchill as the body arrives home.The heroine is found to have inherited all the amazing intellectual ability of her Mother, included is an inherited Leitz brass microscope.  In the course of the adventures of this patriotic family the young lady discovers her mother's last home movie undeveloped and manages to develop it using strong coffee and reversal chemicals, all described in detail,  together with the manufacture if a safelight and a reel! Needless to say the film is a key to the solution of many things.

All very' Ripping Yarn' stuff and by no means the end of the series, which continues, but readable as a stand alone book or preferably after the minor characters are introduced by earlier books. Given the Boy's Own storyline I found the presence of points 'For Discussion' and an interview with the Author, at the end, just a little strange unless I have got hold of a School Edition-I think not. Possibly this is is a response to the growth of Book Groups.