I harbour a dark secret. It’s my way of rating a book. I read a lot, one hell of a lot, but occasionally I will give up on a book. I don’t like doing it and rationalize it by saying that I’ve reached an age where my time is better spent in other ways than persevering with a book I don’t really like.

What motivates me to bring the guillotine down on a book? It’s very simple, if during the story I tempted to turn to the last few pages to discover how it turns out, then I stick with it. No giving to temptation. No early reveal. But if a story fails to create temptation, then it’s the chop for that story.

Harsh, but it works for me. Admittedly, I do read a lot of thrillers and mysteries which lend themselves to end of book resolutions. One oddity that I’ve noticed over the last year of so is the high proportion of books I failed to finish having Girl in their title. Perhaps it’s not that all that odd, as it sometimes seems every new title has the word inserted.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one notable exception in a collection of disappointing reads.