M.C. Beaton, Death of an Outsider

I read this over the course of a weekend and loved it. It is pure entertainment - soft and cushiony and very enjoyable. The protagonist is Hamish Macbeth, a policeman in Lochdubh - a little village in the highlabds of Scotland. In Death of an Outsider he is filling in for a policeman in neighbouring Cnothan when the most hated man in the village is murdered. It is exactly what you would expect, lots of gossip, an overbearing and brutish superiour, a love interest, descriptions of the Scottish landscape... lovely!

Next is Her Brilliant Career by Rachel Cooke - non-fiction for a change.  

Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt

I thoroughly enjoyed this! Having read (and not enjoyed) Brighton Rock recently I wasn't sure what to expect from Travels with My Aunt, it was a very pleasant surprise, funny, silly and completely engaging.
It is narrated by Henry Pulling - a retired bank manager who has led a very quiet, very sheltered life. he meets his aunt at (what he believes to be) his mother's funeral and a short while later finds himself travelling on the Orient Express with her. His Aunt Agatha is the polar opposite of Henry and is full of improbable stories of her long, eventful and risque life.

Henry is a perfect narrator - he is a boring but endearing man, and reminds me a little of Mr Hastings in Poirot novels, slower and more innocent than the reader but he works well coupled with the other characters and the plot. The novel has something to say as well as being funny and silly. Greene is showing a man who has coasted through life and not experienced anything, never travelled, never married. Pulling gradually loosens up and starts to enjoy himself (though is just as stoic) so the novel seems a sort of warning - though is never overt or preachy - to never avoid adventure, or to seek it out.

I have also just finished Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton (guilty pleasure!)