Reviews and Ranting

A couple of very nice reviews - firstly for Helen Fitzgerald's MY LAST CONFESSION, and another for Ray Banks' NO MORE HEROES.

A very detailed (maybe too detailed) and scholarly review of Louise Welsh's NAMING THE BONES (it's a pdf file). And Touching From A Distance looks at Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, concluding that it would be a good vehicle for Kiefer Sutherland

And, finally, a question for those of you who blog. What do you do when you receive spam comments that pretend to be a proper comment? Do you leave them, or just delete them? I had a good laugh when, in a post entitled The Plumber Reviews... in which I talked about my Dad giving a book to the electrician who came to fix the lights in the hall, and saying he would maybe get him to review it for me, I got a comment from Daniel the plumber who said "Thank you so much for sharing it. There are number of disasters which can be avoided if you have good plumbing infrastructure in your house."

However, today I had a comment on a post about the Edinburgh Book Festival - a post which clearly stated that the events are in the future - that said "Wow, sounds like it was a lot of fun. Sad that I missed it. ...I was too emeshed in a new book, Blah Blah Blah, to go anywhere." Obviously, that wasn't what the book was called but I don't really want to give the title - for a couple of pretty obvious reasons. On following the link, I found myself at a page for an AuthorHouse book (I've only ever heard bad things about AuthorHouse). And the poor author had hired some 'marketing company' who have decided that the best way of earning their keep is to spam blogs. Now, I am all for championing authors - leave a comment on the blog, send me an e-mail, stand outside my window and dance naked - I look forward to and relish it all. If you've got a vaguely Scottish connection then you'll definitely find yourself promoted here at Badsville. If you're not Scottish but I read and enjoy your book then you'll at the very least get a reviewlet in my monthly reads summary.

But this person (I'm assuming she was from the marketing company, since it was a different name from the author) didn't bother even reading the post she was spamming, but tried to pretend that she had (and that was the bit that really bugged me - be an honest spammer at least). So, Unnamed Author, your marketing company sucks - all they did for your money was annoy me. And, by the way, the money would have been better spent on an editor. On the page I visited, the main character's name was spelled two different ways, the grammar is shocking, and the synopsis was utterly confusing. It was no better in the excerpt I read (I know - five minutes of my life I will never get back).It did make me laugh in places, but that wasn't the intention.

So I deleted the comment. What do you think? Is that OK?

And finally finally...the mysterious horse-boy of Aberdeen.