The Merge, by Grace Walker.

  

        This is a very disturbing story.  Disturbing because some of the reasons for ‘Merging’ are already painfully evident:  summer wildfires laying waste to various European countries; overpopulation and consequent food shortages and, at the novel’s beginning, a new ‘privileged’ class springing up in the UK called Combines:  you have to give up your seat on public transport for a Combine – and your house, accepting instead inferior accommodation – while it is still available – for Combines are part of a new world order designed to reduce the world population by ‘combining’ through a radical new scientific process:  two souls  transforming into one physical body – a healthy one!  All kinds of major diseases will disappear.

            Like Alzheimer’s disease, with which Amelia’s mother Laurie has been diagnosed – if Amelia and Laurie sign up for the Merge of their separate consciousness into one body, Laurie will be well again – except, except that Amelia’s boyfriend Albie is implacably against the whole idea, in fact he is an integral part of a very strong protest movement which is starting to receive a lot of publicity, but Amelia decides to go ahead with the probationary period – she wants her beloved mum back – and she’s perfectly placed to expose all those Combines if it turns out to be a huge scam.  Surely it’s a win-win situation?

            And it is, but for whom?  The other candidates for the Merge have endeared themselves to Laurie and Amelia, but they are all at different stages of thought about whether it’s the Right Thing to do, and one young reformed addict starts talking suicide – which changes the minds of Laurie and Amelia, who eventually find that their new opinion means nothing:  they are part of the Merge whether they like it or not.

First-time novelist Grace Walker has produced the Dystopian Novel par excellence:  her depiction of life in a world under pressure in the not-too-distant future is chilling and all too real, and the increasingly desperate measures that ordinary people are forced to consider so that they and their loved ones may stay alive are all too poignantly written.  There are no happy endings here, but justice may be done on the very last page.  SIX STARS.

 

 

 

 

The Retired Assassin”s Guide to Country Gardening,

By Naomi Kuttner.

 

Cozy Crime has now become a successful and popular genre – one that readers could tire of in time to come for its very predictability; the villains always get what’s coming to them, and there’s just the right amount of romance and twists in the plot to keep readers guessing.  And there’s nothing wrong with that so far, as retired MI6 Assassin Dante Reid decides to take early retirement and decides that a remote little town in New Zealand called Te Kohe is the ideal place in which to start a different life, the only snag being his reclusiveness and utter lack of sociability and the incontrovertible fact that Te Kohe is like every other small town anywhere:  it thrives on gossip, and the addition of a tall, handsome etc etc solo male with absolutely no social skills is more newsworthy than Donald Trump.

            Enter Charlie Wilson, a young gardener calling to find out what Dante would require from his services, which was tending to the former elderly occupant’s beautiful grounds and conservatory, where a Corpse plant will soon come into bloom (the Horticultural Society is mad with excitement!) and will require extra care.  An employment agreement of sorts is reached and Charlie is happy because he loves his job – but hasn’t been entirely honest with Dante:  he sees ghosts.

            All his young life Charlie has seen ghosts, usually the elderly of Te Kohe.  This has given him a reputation of talking to himself, which kind people dismiss as harmless eccentricity and the cruel make rude gestures involving screws loose but, having ‘lived’ with this phenomenon for so long, he has decided that his new employer needn’t be shocked by the supernatural this early  in the piece.  In any case, there’s going to be a big social occasion at Te Kohe’s poshest hotel very soon, everyone will be invited even though they don’t like the town’s richest man who’s paying for everything, including a massive fireworks display – he loves rubbing everyone’s nose in the fact that he’s a success and they aren’t, but hey!  He’s paying, and maybe a firework will go up his nose:  That would be something to see.

            And a murder does occur, which leads back to other, older crimes concerning Charlie’s family and the Town’s Richest Man:  how to prove that he’s not as clever as he thinks, particularly when Eleanor, a recent sophisticated and elegant recruit to Te Kohe’s Upper Echelons, decides to lend her considerable deductive talents to the mystery – ‘Helping the Police with Their Enquiries’ takes on all sorts of extra emphasis, especially when Charlie and Dante are both viewed as suspects and the police think they have a cast-iron case. 

            Fortunately for everyone’s nerves Ms Kuttner keeps all her ducks in a very clever row;  every i is dotted and t crossed so that we can prepare ourselves for the very next book in the series – which I hope will be soon;  despite blood and gore and ghosts, the main, best ingredient is humour:  this was seriously good fun.  FIVE STARS.