The Birdwatcher by William Shaw.

Follow Sergeant William South in this British crime thriller set around Dungeness along the Kent coast. William is a regular community beat bobby but he gets involved in a murder inquiry when his friend and neighbour is found murdered.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Birdwatcher and it ticked all the boxes for me. Characterisation was spot on, there were no shallow characters in this book. The plot was lovely and complex. I liked how real locations were used. I loved the rural locations and the remote landscape. I liked how William’s hobby of birdwatching gave added value to this story. It was not the actual birds but how people run their hobbies and how those skills affect other things they do. I know nothing about birds but loved reading about the dynamics of birdwatching as a hobby, which is so very different to bus spotting! Although birders and bus spotters both like to catch the unusual rather than the everyday. I expect their bags, notebooks, cameras and anoraks are the same!

The plot of The Birdwatcher was complex and the pace steady. I liked the quality of the dialogue between the characters. I liked how doubts steadily built up in your mind as William searched around to find the killer of his friend. Doubts also grew about the victim as both the reader and William wondered what secrets the victim may have been hiding.

I loved the ending and the buzz it gave me as I wondered all the “what if’s” that happened throughout the story. Had the many minor details not happened or been spotted, the story would have had a very different ending. Very early on, I thought The Birdwatcher was a very good read and this impression remained constant all the way to the end. I consider The Birdwatcher to be an OUTSTANDING read that gets the top score of 5 stars from me.

William Shaw is a new author for me and I found his writing style very easy to get into. In many ways his writing, the way this story is told and the general feel of this book is very similar to Tana French with her Dublin Murder Squad series. I was so impressed with The Birdwatcher that I am now reading the next in the series called Salt Lane.

The Birdwatcher was written in 2016 as is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.

Okay, I know I am late to the party but I Am Pilgrim has won many awards, has got umpteen 5 star reviews on Goodreads and has been featured on many lists of books you should read in your lifetime. So when the price was reduced, I downloaded a copy onto my Kindle.

Pilgrim is just one of the many names that our hero uses in his work as a secret agent. I Am Pilgrim is a LONG story spanning 704 pages on my Kindle. It does represent value for money because of the sheer number of words! But those words will take a LONG time to read.

I Am Pilgrim has been given lots and lots of praise from all around but there are a minority of people who simply don’t get it. I was DISAPPOINTED by I Am Pilgrim and do not consider it was worth the praise levelled at it. I thought it was a TEDIOUS read that went on forever. The whole book felt SHALLOW with nothing of depth and just seemed like a collection of previously watched television plot lines strung together. This story lacked originality and there was no WOW! factor. The writing style was simple and the dumbing down made me wonder if it was aimed at children. For adults there were no surprises as this SLOW story dragged along, with the hints being confirmed later on.

I Am Pilgrim lacked reading pleasure and I found it quite DULL. I got more pleasure from reading the updated terms and conditions attached to Flexible tickets on the National Express coach network.

I found character development AVERAGE but I did not engage with the hero Pilgrim and thought the bad guys were far more interesting.

I did not like the way this story was told. Pilgrim looked backwards and told the story of the bad guys when he would not have known the history at the time.

I Am Pilgrim was fleshed out with extra bits of information about locations and cultures, in the style of the Dan Brown novels but without the sparkle it gives the Robert Langdon series.

So there you have it, I Am Pilgrim was a debut novel and a POOR read for me, a disappointment that gets just 2 stars.

I Am Pilgrim was written in 2012 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.