What Katie Read

Having recommended this to my book club I have just read it for the second time, and despite knowing what happens I really enjoyed revisiting it.   It is a very unusual murder mystery novel told from the perspective of Jasper, a 13 year old boy who has autism, synaesthesia and prosopagnosia, or face blindness.   Not the ideal witness to a murder, you can hear the police thinking!   It has been likened to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , a book I also really enjoyed, and I can see why, but I still regard The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder as a very unique novel. At the start of the book Harris defines synaesthesia for readers not familiar with it.   Synaesthesia is a relatively rare condition, where the stimulation of one sense affects another sense.   In Jasper’s case, when he hears sounds he sees colours.   I had actually come across synaesthesia before, as my husband has it, albeit in a much milder form than Jasper, but I ima...

Do not be put off by the title!!   This is not a cheesy romantic lightweight story, but is actually quite heavy and sad in places.   I am perhaps slightly biased as the story is set in Victoria, Australia and I used to live there, so I enjoyed the references to places I know and the occasional use of local lingo.   It also, obviously, features a bookshop, and what reader doesn’t love a bookshop!? The story is set in the 1970s and centres on Tom, a good honest farmer with a kind heart, perhaps too kind.  At certain points I felt he needed more backbone and assertiveness, but gentleness is clearly in his nature and he does not wish to force his will on other people.   He has made his decisions and chooses to live his life in a simple manner and behave a certain way, and there is beauty and honesty in that, which other characters can and do appreciate, despite their frustrations. As the title suggests, there is a lot of heartbreak in the story.   ...