Book 73: "A Dead Man in Deptford" by Anthony Burgess

Kit Marlowe, Marley, Morley, or Merlin (he explains that it is only the aristocracy whose surnames are fixed in Elizabethan times) is a divinity student at Cambridge when he is persuaded against his better judgement to become a spy in Francis Walsingham's secret service, but already his dreams lie in the playhouse rather than the church.

But is it his controversial plays, his reputed atheism, homosexuality or his spying that will lead to his death in a tavern in Deptford, or will he just be stabbed in a meaningless brawl?

I enjoyed it much more than another novel about the death of playwright Christopher Marlowe. That is "Tamburlaine Must Die" by Louise Welsh, which I read a year or two ago.

Book 74: "The Return" by Hakan Nesser

I was expecting this detective story by a Swedish author to be set in Sweden but I soon realised that it wasn't, as the names of the characters, places and newspapers didn't sound right; they seemed to be a mixture of Dutch and German, with a few Eastern European. In fact there were no country-specific references at all, and on looking the author up on Wikipedia, I found that this series is set vaguely in Northern Europe but that the country is never named. I found this really rather irritating, which is a pity because the murder-mystery itself was very interesting.

Book 75: "A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel" by Tom Phillips

the art dandy Grenville, amused by the latest girl - the new audacity began devoting himself to Vice on the day specified,

"A Humument" is an altered book art project rather than a novel. Tom Phillips took a forgotten Victorian novel called "A Human Document" and started to decorate each page by painting, collage or simply scoring out the words, leaving a few words on each page to form a new story. It seems to be the tale of a man named Toge (whose surname can only appear on pages that originally contained the word together or altogether), and his on-off relationship with a woman called Irma. He also has a friend (or rival?) called Grenville, but it's all rather obscure and elliptical.

"A Humument" is an ongoing project, with each new edition of the book having some pages with new artwork, and the artist's aim is that eventually he will have replaced every page from the first edition.

The official site for "A Humument"