Reading in Reykjavík

Genre : Women’s fiction, foodie book Year of publication : 2006 Setting & time : Small town in Ireland, 1980s Sisters Merjan, Bahar and Layla, refugees from the Iranian revolution, arrive in the Irish village of Ballinacroagh and open the Babylon Café. Chef Marjan prepares mouthwatering Persian food in the kitchen and serves it with the help of their sisters. But while most of the villagers welcome them, some disapprove of their presence, especially small-town kingpin Thomas McGuire, who wants to buy the house where the café is to open a disco. Aided by the town gossip and his loutish older son, he begins a campaign against the foreign ‘sluts’. But his younger son is dating Layla, the village priest is the sisters’ most faithful customer and the café seems set for success. Each chapter begins with a Persian recipe and the food is incorporated somehow into each chapter. It’s no secret that I like to read foodie books, so when I came across this novel in the library, I took i...

Michael Innes is best known for his Appleby series, but this is a non-series book, albeit one that takes place in the same world. Appleby is even mentioned once in the book, and it is stated that he is no longer with the police. The detective in the story is one of his successors at the Yard. Year of publication: 1949 Genre: Mystery, thriller Type of mystery: Kidnapping plot, murder Type of investigator: Police, special agent and amateur Setting & time: England and Ireland, contemporary (to publication) Story: Respectable, elderly private tutor Richard Thewless is hired to accompany the 15 year old son of Britain’s most respected nuclear physicist on a summer visit to relatives in Ireland, when the first choice for a tutor cancels his appointment unexpectedly. Only he didn’t really cancel, he was murdered (unknowingly to the boy and his father), and Detective-Inspector Thomas Cadover wants to know why. The boy, Humphrey Paxton, seems to be both nervous and given to telling st...