READING ON THE PLANE

It was an 11 hour night time flight back from Bangkok so I figured after a couple of glasses of Chablis and a meal I would probably sleep the rest of the way home. Yeah right! I hadn't figured on being so engrossed in this thriller from a writer I hadn't previously come across. So John A. Flanagan you are responsible for keeping me awake for much of the way home.
Described as a Jesse Parker mystery I now see that this is Flanagan's second, the first, Storm Peak (Bantam 2009), I will have to now track down.
Flanagan is a former advertsing and television writer who lives in Sydney but the background for the Jesse Parker series comes from his many visits to the skifields of Colorado and Utah. Avalanche Pass is set in Utah at a ski lodge where the staff and guests are taken hostage by a group of mercenaries. One of the hostages is a high-ranking US Senator so the FBI become involved. It is a riveting read.

While away I also read Stella Rimington's latest, Present Danger, another excellent unputdownable holiday read, this one set in Northern Ireland and the south of France.. It is not surprising that these Rimington books, featuring the enormously appealing MI5 officer Liz Carlyle, are so complelling and seemingly authentic as the author is, of course, a former head of MI5.This is book five in her series. Published by Quercus.

If you like action packed-thrillers then I warmly recommend these two titles.

 As I was walking through Bangkok Airport I noticed in a bookstore there a new John Burdett title. The Godfather of Kathmandu (Bantam). Burdett is the author of Bangkok Haunts, Bangkok Eight, and Bangkok Tattoo, all titles I read and greatly enjoyed, and all bought on previous visits to Thailand. They are crackers.
His protagonist is Bangkok police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep whose mother is a fomer hooker and now brothel madam. Can't wait to read this new one.
Got home to find among the  small mountain of mail piled up at the Post Office, three Listeners, three copies of The New Yorker , Cuisine, Metro and 19 books for review. And of course the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival is about to get underway. May be a while before I get to the John Burdett!