Books - Review

Art historian scholarly couple with baby daughter go off to their country retreat only for him to get sucked into trying to scam their yokel local neighbours out of a priceless painting they discover mouldering away in their decrepit farmhouse.

Jolly good, really enjoyed this, but had to skim a few places where the Dutch art history lectures got just too much. But lots of silly funny bits too!

Two boys playing games in WW2 start spying on one of the mums, only for it all to backfire a bit when they discover the reason for her suspicious behaviour has more to do with the affair she is having than any military secrets.

Prett good - entertaining stuff, and he gets the childhood feelings over pretty well mostly, although I didn't like the discrepancy between the wise adult looking back to the rather dumb kid. Too big a difference in the personalities somehow.

John Dyson, a journalist stuck editing the nature column of the newspaper has ambitions for greater things and manages to get himself invited on a TV talk show as an expert in racism. This doesn't go too well but it doesn't seem to matter and he gets invited back, but he risks missing the recording when his freebie trip to the Middle East doesn't return in time.

Quite funny in places. Bit dated of course.