The latest two books were both ones that have been on the to read list for a while. The first is a crime I got at the library- Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel – and the second was part of my race and USA reading themes – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. 
Death of a Nationalist is set in Madrid just after the civil war. One in a series of books it’s main character is a young policeman who is trying, in this novel, to solve the murder of an old friend. It’s not a period of history I knew anything much about so it was very interesting to find out a bit more. As for the crime story I found it very good. It weaves together nicely and is more complex than first appears which meant that I was as surprised as the hero as to who the real villain is. 
The end of To kill a mocking bird was also unexpected. I’ve never seen the movie or read the book so I had no idea what happened beyond the start of the trial. I always assumed the trial was the end but it is far from it.
I loved the innocence and fun of the main character Scout and how she and Jem grow up over the story. The South of the US is not a part I’ve visited but like the Sookie Stackhouse books this one paints a vivid picture, albeit at an earlier time. I was thinking it would make a nice book talk along with ’Roll of Thunder, Hear My Song’.
Given when it was written, and the audience Harper Lee wrote it for, there is a bit of a ‘here is the moral’ feel at points but this isn’t surprising. I did like the way that, while she repeated the moral a few times, it was done in a slightly different way and made use of Scout’s innocence to show the hypocrisy. What I did notice was the role Scout was expected to take as she became a young lady even within her progressive thinking family – one battle at a time I guess 
