Michael Best

This is Smiley as amateur sleuth rather than as a spy master.

It feels far more dated in style than something like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which was written only shortly afterwards.

I much prefer this early stuff to his later works.

Short, punchy and bleak.

At times I found myself wishing this book was not so detailed; having finished it, I am glad for that detail.

A tip for readers - have a notepad and pen handy so that you can note, for easy reference, the names and roles of the various ambassadors and ministers that keep popping up.

The ideas in the book are interesting, but the style has not aged well and I don't think Asimov was ever the most stylishly gifted of writers in the first place.

I enjoyed the writing, but the story proved increasingly unsatisfying.

A really interesting idea, but the novel feels rather messy and uneven.

I do love Dan Jones's way of getting historical events across. The book gives the reader a wonderful feel for the violence and waste of life during this period.

I enjoyed this book, but nowhere near as much as his works on the Plantagenets and The War Of the Roses. I felt an absence of passion for this subject as compared to medieval English history - the absence was probably mine (but perhaps a little was his?).

An interesting idea which Wells seemed to struggle to develop.

Probably 2.5. As usual, she writes so well but the story left me cold somewhat.

An eye-opening and shocking read. Sadly, though IEX still exists it appears to have created very little impact in the corrupt stock market.

Initially I really liked this book. The physical underground railway caused me no issues. However, it all began to go wrong with the other divergences from history. Increasingly, his writing style grated. Mabel's short tale near the end was wonderful, but by then I just wanted the book to finish. The book left me cold and that seems wrong for such an important subject.

I really liked the writing, but the story seemed strangely paced, too long with an almost rushed conclusion.

It is one of those books which leaves me supremely frustrated, in particular the melodramatic decline of Dr Jordan followed by his complete disappearance from the story, and the strange hypnotism/seance scene. Oh, and that rushed conclusion.

I felt that even Ms Atwood got bored with her tale.

It is months since I read this book and yet it still keeps popping up in my thoughts. For me, a near perfect gem.

For me, this series should have stopped after book 1.

I did not need a conclusion. I certainly did not need the 500 pages of books 2 and 3, which merely detracted from the freshness of book 1.

Ultimately, I finished this book with a sense of mild dissatisfaction. Much of the writing I liked, yet it felt very heavy handed in places and over-long.

It took me a while to get back into the flow of Vargas's very individual style of crime writing. Once I had taken off the arm-bands and let the water take me, I was carried weightlessly.

I didn't really like this book. A bit preachy, overwritten in places, and too long for the story.

I did not know much about the lives of Von Humboldt and Gauss. I really enjoyed this unusual romp.

An intriguing start, but it rather fell away to become quite a disappointment.

I began reading this book using the font AndikaInk but, after a few pages, I changed to ClearSans font. Nothing else of interest happened.

I really enjoyed reading this book but, somewhat against what one might expect, I have no interest reading any others in the series. I like it as a standalone story.

Hope Arden - a woman people forget quickly. In my case, I feel the same fate will apply to this book.

A crashing disappointment after reading Harry August.

A very enjoyable addition to the Giordano Bruno series.

I often struggle with “funny” books and for this was never more than mildly amusing, and never funny. Perhaps I am too distanced in time and profession for the characters or circumstances to ring true.