What is Brian Ruckley reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Brian Ruckley, author of The Godless World fantasy trilogy and The Edinburgh Dead.

His entry begins:

I'm a bad reader. I've become constitutionally incapable of reading a single book, from start to finish, without getting distracted by some appealing new prospect. As a result, I've always got at least two or three books sitting at the bedside, which I'll dip into as the fancy takes me. Means it takes me a long time to finish a book, but at least it has the virtue of keeping things varied and interesting, I suppose.

Anyway, right now, three books I'm working my way through bit by bit:

Mussolini, A New Life by Nicholas Farrell. An intimidatingly thick, dense biography of Il Duce. I'm an incurable fan of all sorts of history, from cavemen to the 20th century, and this was a rather random pick at the library. By its sheer weight it looked certain to cure my ignorance of the guy who pioneered Fascism. And it's certainly doing that: a fascinatingly detailed look at his life and the amazingly chaotic state of Italian politics in the 1920s. It's more sympathetic to Mussolini than you might expect, which is...[read on]

About The Edinburgh Dead, from the publisher:

Edinburgh: 1828

In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces.

Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city's criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.

Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment - and no one is safe from its corruption.

The Edinburgh Dead is a powerful fusion of gothic horror, history, and the fantastical.

Learn more about The Edinburgh Dead at Brian Ruckley's website.

Ruckley's books include the fantasy trilogy The Godless World, which consists of the books Winterbirth, Bloodheir, and Fall of Thanes.

My Book, The Movie: the Godless World trilogy.

The Page 69 Test: The Edinburgh Dead.

Writers Read: Brian Ruckley.

--Marshal Zeringue