#TopTenTuesday – 27 March 2018

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists and of books and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

27 March 2018’s #TopTenTuesday is “Books That Take Place In Another Country”

I live in Manchester, so these are all books (or series) set outside England:

1 – Janet Evanovich‘s Stephanie Plum series, set in Trenton, New Jersey, USA. I have got a little behind in this series and need to catch up but the first dozen or more books are brilliant. I love the characters of Stephanie, of Lula, Grandma Mazur, Ranger and Morelli. I also feel like I know Trenton pretty well even though I’ve never been there!

2 – Christopher Brookmyre‘s Jack Parlabane series, set all over Scotland and sometimes into Europe too. In fact, scratch that: all of Brookmyre‘s books – because they’re all so good: one is set within a computer game and one is set in space!

3 – Tony Hawks‘s series of ‘challenge’ (or ‘taking a drunken bet’) books see him going Round Ireland with a Fridge, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, visiting One Hit Wonderland (including Nashville and Albania) and moving A Piano in the Pyrenees.

4 – Stephen Fry‘s amazing Making History explores what might have happened in 20th Century Germany (and the rest of Europe) if Adolf Hitler had never been born – with shocking consequences. It is clever, witty and challenging, heartbreaking, dramatic and hilarious.

 

5 – Some of my favourite Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mysteries are set in exotic locations, including Egypt, Iraq, Petra and Vinkovci. Many of the locations reflected places Christie herself had visited and loved with her archaeologist husband.

6 – Agatha Christie‘s Miss Marple also gets a look in in the holiday stakes in A Caribbean Mystery. I don’t know why anyone would want to go on holiday anyway near Miss Marple, though – you’d end up either dead, ruined, bereaved or under suspicion of murder! (See also: Jessica Fletcher) 😉

 

7 – Although I love Val McDermid‘s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, it being set in a fictional northern English city disqualifies it here. However, two of my favourite books of Val‘s do qualify: The Distant Echo, the first in the Inspector Karen Pirie series, is set in Scotland and the standalone Killing the Shadows is also set in Scotland as well as Toledo in Spain (and a bit in England, but shhh…)

8 – Vicki Tyley‘s breakneck speed mystery thrillers are set in Australia and each is led by a strong female character. I have read every one of her books and they are all brilliant, particularly Brittle Shadows.

9 – Patricia Cornwell‘s Kay Scarpetta series is set in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Although I have let myself get behind with these books, the early ones particularly are fantastic. Here are four of my favourites:

10 – And, finally, a book I want to get round to reading: A Spoonful of Murder, the latest in the Murder Most Unladylike series by Robin Stevens. This instalment sees schoolgirl sleuths Hazel and Daisy travel to Hong Kong following the death of Hazel’s grandfather.

 

Thank you for reading my Top Ten Tuesday. Please feel free to comment or share yours below. x