City on Fire, by Don Winslow.

 

            

Homer's classic‘The Iliad’ gets a 20^th century makeover here by the great Don Winslow in the first book of a new trilogy.  And what a trilogy it will be -  if he gets it right - as he transfers the Grecian siege of ancient Troy to avenge Spartan king Menelaus for the abduction of his breathtakingly beautiful wife Helen by Trojan prince Paris, to the modern setting of Rhode Island, U.S.A.

            August, 1986. A summer clambake is being held by the local Italian mob boss.  His Irish counterparts who run the docks and the unions also attend, for the two sides have had a peaceful co-existence for many years, dividing the various rackets equitably between them – you could almost say they were good friends until …..

            “Danny Ryan watches the woman come out of the water like a vision emerging from his dreams of the sea.

            Except she’s real and she’s going to be trouble.

            Women that beautiful usually are.

            Danny knows that;  what he doesn’t know is how much trouble she’s going to be.  If he knew that, knew everything that was going to happen, he might have walked into the water and held her head under until she stopped moving.

            But he doesn’t know that.”

            Winslow’s Danny Ryan is a minor captain in the Irish gang led by John Murphy, and through his eyes we see the disintegration of trust and vengeful territorial incursions that start after Murphy’s son Liam makes a pass (oops!) at Pam, gorgeous new girlfriend of Italian mobster Sal Antonucci.  Liam earns a huge beating for his attempts to touch the untouchable, so severe that he nearly dies in hospital, BUT!  The beauteous Pam visits him to apologise for causing him to come within an inch of losing his life – and the Gods must have laughed themselves to a standstill at their devious manipulation of events, for she ends up forsaking the brutal Sal and retiring to a safe house with Liam when he’s well enough to leave hospital.

            The new hostilities soon degenerate into outright war, with all its attendant tragedy:  Murphy’s gang is on a hiding to nothing through lack of numbers, including the loss of his son Pat, Danny’s best friend, in a brutal and bloody ambush.  It’s time for Danny to decide his own fate, especially as his wife is dying and he has a young son to care for. It’s time to desert the sinking ship.

            Everyone speaks like a 1940’s Private Eye in this novel, which I thought was overkill;  some of the dialogue sounds almost like parody but as always, Mr Winslow has created sufficiently compelling new characters and situations out of the ancient verses (the new version of the Trojan Horse is particularly convincing), that his story can only improve.  And there was even an excerpt from Book Two at the end.  A taste of better things to come?  FOUR STARS.       

 

THE BEST OF THE BEST, THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME 

THE FIRST FOURTEEN OF THE GREATEST READS OF THE YEAR 2020, FOR ALL GREAT READERS!

1.    The Testaments, byMargaret Atwood.

2.    The Butterfly Girl, by Rene Denfeld.

3.    The Overstory, byRichard Powers.

4.    American Dirt, by JeanineCummins.

5.    Saving Missy, byBeth Morrey.

6.    The Mirror and theLight, by Hilary Mantel.

7.    Broken, by Don Winslow.

8.    The Dickens Boy, byTom Keneally.

9.    The Last Crossing,by Brian McGilloway

10.          Call Your Daughter Home, by Deb Spera

11.          The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donohue

12.          The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

13.          Like a House on Fire, by Caroline Hulse

14.          The Sound of Stars (YA), by Alechia Dow

 I thank you all for your interest throughout the year - isn't it great to have great stories at our fingertips.  In spite of Covid and its attendant worries, we are still able to enjoy the best escapism of all.  Season's greetings everyone, and let us hope that 2021 will be a vast improvement on crappy old 2020 - we all should have a refund on this year!  Lots of love to all.  

 

Like a House on Fire, by Caroline Hulse.

 

 

         Stella and George Mandani are getting a divorce – for reasons as diverse as unforgivable untidiness on George’s part (constantly leaving kitchen cupboards and doors open, thus driving Veterinary surgeon Stella into a permanent state of frothing-mouth resentment, just as one example), but they have decided not to announce the fact just yet because it is her parents’ 40^th wedding anniversary;  her mum Margaret Foy has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to plan the weekend, beginning with an Original Murder Mystery Party written by Margaret, and all parts played by family members, favoured friends and neighbours, but unbeknownst to Margaret, there are several hitches and glitches waiting to spoil what should be her perfect weekend.

            First, her husband Tommy has just lost his retirement job at the local supermarket for not being Politically Correct:  his breezy statement ‘Cheer up, it may never happen’ was taken amiss by a woman in a bad mood and, rather than enrol in a course to help one avoid today’s hidden minefields of unwitting offense he has handed in his notice.  Helen, Stella’s ‘Perfect’ older sister is feeling anything but:  her 10 year-old daughter is turning into a bit of a rebel – a rebel with a cigarette lighter!  Add to that the fact that Margaret’s favourite child, gay son Pete is VERY late, which is worrying because he has a starring role in the drama (being the favourite this is only fair), so when should one get the Show On The Road?  It is vexing, to say the least.

            But what is most irritating is that there is another cloud on Margaret’s horizon:  on the following Monday she is due to start Chemotherapy for a cancer that looks pretty terminal so, being Margaret the Controller of Everything, she has decided not to start the treatment:  what’s the point in feeling sick enough to WANT to die, when she will die anyway.  She might as well feel as healthy as she can for as long as she can and chemo can just go and get forgotten about.  Except that secrets have a way of revealing themselves whether one wants them to or not, including George and Stella’s decision to part – not to mention what happens to Helen’s daughter and her cigarette lighter.  The weekend definitely ends with a bang!

            Ms Hulse has written a sparkling novel of the times – I’m sure we can all identify with the myriad family problems faced by the Foy family and their singular ways of dealing with them.  She has achieved the perfect balance between humour, seriousness and every other emotion in between:  a perfect Christmas read.  SIX STARS.

The Rosie Result, by Graeme Simsion.

           Professor of Genetics Don Tillman is very happy with his life at the beginning of the final book of Graeme Simsion’s marvellous trilogy:  he is still married to Rosie, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, who has now gained all her qualifications for new medical research into various mental illnesses;  he has a satisfying job at New York’s Columbia University;  their 11 year old son Hudson – after a few false starts – is doing well academically (for the most part:  maths and English excellent, handwriting illegible and sports terrible), and Don has firm, loyal friends.  For the first time in his life, he fits in.

            But Rosie inadvertently changes everything when her application for a position as lead researcher on a medical team in Melbourne is accepted.  In what seems an obscenely short time, Don’s little family is ensconced in a three bed two bath house in suburban Melbourne, and Hudson is not adjusting at all to his new environment and new school.  Meltdowns, formerly few and far between, are occurring often:  Hudson, because of his American accent and complete lack of interest in sports (he’d rather read books on Space Travel) is  bullied by his class-mates, the ‘neurotypicals’ (that’s thee an me, folks!).  Something has to be done, and Don, who went through the same agonising situations when he was the same age and knows just how damaging they can be, determines that he is the one to do it:  his brilliant, atypical, ‘your son has autism’ boy will receive the maximum benefit from Don’s own adolescent Baptism of Fire:  Hudson will fit in if they both die in the attempt!

            Thus begins Don’s efforts to help Hudson lead a normal life by showing him all the pitfalls of ‘being weird’ and how to avoid them, including tuition on How to Ride a Bike – but Hudson has his own ideas about what he considers normal, and his own solutions to his problems of not fitting in. He’s brave enough to acknowledge that he’s On the Spectrum, and eventually, confident enough in his new learned skills to think that maybe ‘neurotypicals’ might like to fit in with him for a change.

            This is such a lovely story that I am saddened to think that this will be the last we read of Don and his singular little family, but Mr Simsion has ended his trilogy at the right time – leaving us wanting more, and wishing to show more tolerance to those of us who don’t always fit in.  SIX STARS.

GREAT READS FOR AUGUST, 2016

The Dying Detective, by Leif G.W. Persson

Lars Martin Johansson is 67 years old and retired from his job as one of the most effective and respected police officers in Stockholm.  He was known among his colleagues as ‘the man who could see round corners’ and his success rate at crime solving was envied by all, but he has to admit that time has dragged somewhat since he stopped work.  However, he has occupied himself in other ways, usually by eating and drinking huge amounts of everything that he loves – until  horrifyingly predictable consequences in the shape of a massive stroke give him warning that he must change the beloved habits of a lifetime, otherwise there will be no lifetime left.

                Needless to say, Lars Martin is not a happy man.  He hates being parked up on the sofa in his study contemplating his floppy right arm and weakened right leg;  physiotherapy exercises are boring and the food his banker wife arranges for the caregiver to prepare for him wouldn’t keep a vegetarian nourished, let alone a dedicated carnivore like himself.  He needs distraction!  And it arrives before he has even left the hospital, in the shape of a request for help from the neurologist who treated him:  she has found among her late father’s papers evidence that suggests that he as a church minister heard a confession from one of his parishioners that they knew the identity of the killer of a 9 year old girl whose rape and murder  25 years ago was never solved.  She can think of no-one more able ( despite his physical infirmity)  to reinvestigate a heinous crime that was mishandled right from the start – by tactless, hamfisted and lazy Evert Bäckström, no less, anathema to all good Stockholm police detectives.  (See review below).

            On reviewing all the old files which his contacts in the force make available to him, Lars Martin is not surprised that the investigation failed:  the whole thing’s a dog’s breakfast, mostly attributable to ‘that fat little horror’ who should never have risen higher than issuing traffic fines – but nepotism is alive and well as the fat little horror has a relative in the Police Union:  he can’t be touched.  Still!  Lars Martin is determined to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb, even though due to a recently passed law, the case is prescribed:  no-one can now be prosecuted for the crime.  The statute of limitations has expired.  But how poor little Yasmine Ermegan died fills all normal people with such horror and revulsion that Lars Martin is determined to find the killer;  he will worry about punishment for that pervert once he has a name – and he WILL find him, for Lars Martin is still ‘the man who can see round corners’.

            Mr Persson has given us a stand-alone novel this time, with only indirect reference to his usual anti-hero ‘that fat little horror’ but what a delight it is to read.  His plotting is (as always) perfect, and minor characters all have great back stories, including Maksim, the mysterious Russian orphan provided by Lars Martin’s brother and employed as a chauffeur/general factotum, but able to lift a heavy tray of food with just thumb and forefinger.  He knows no-one who is stronger, he says, and Lars Martin believes him.     

            Mr Persson is not averse to inserting himself into the story, either – and not in a very flattering way!  Oh, he’s a charmer and a great wit, is this Mr Persson, but he also lays bare the underside of the human condition in stark and unflattering terms, leaving us all in no doubt whatsoever that criminal behaviour, neglect and cruelty are always with us.  This is his best book yet.  SIX STARS!   

The Sword of Justice, by Leif G. W. Persson

The absolute antithesis to the usual burnt-out but noble detective in thriller fiction returns, much to every Swedish Noir readers’ delight:  Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström rears his head again, corpulent, crafty and amoral as ever – and just as successful, mainly because he is so expert at ‘making a bit on the side’ (what else is a man to do to supplement the basic wage?), and manipulating every system to his advantage.

He is still not popular with those lesser beings, his colleagues;  they know that every time he says – nearly every day – that he has to attend an important meeting at Headquarters in Stockholm he is really skyving off;  filling his fat little frame with expensive food and drink, then going home to sleep the sleep of the just and/or avail himself of obliging female company, thanks to his growing reputation as Sweden’s premier crime fighter.  His colleagues will never take kindly to all the orders and legwork he dispenses, particularly when his own dubious habits and chronic laziness are well known:  yep, they’d love to see him fall flat on his smug face, preferably in something nasty and foul-smelling, but will it ever happen?

Not immediately, for Our Hero has received wonderful news:  Thomas Eriksson, Sweden’s most crooked defence lawyer has been found murdered at his home, along with his huge Rotweiler.  The police are hardly at a loss to name suspects;  there are so many who want Eriksson dead that it will take considerable time to cross them off their list of ‘people of interest to the investigation’ – which (naturally) Bäckström is heading:  as far as he is concerned, someone has done Sweden an enormous favour ridding it of such vermin – he is glad Eriksson is dead;  still, it is up to him (and his grumbling, mumbling team) to wield The Sword of Justice and apprehend the killer.

Mr Persson is a master of characterisation – he has created an anti-hero absolutely unforgettable;  portly, gluttonous, an unashamed leaker of info to the newspapers (for a hefty consideration) as the investigation continues, but a sharp little man intelligent and shrewd enough to figure out every angle of what is fast becoming a crime involving art fraud, the Swedish Mafia and – last but not least – a trail that could lead to (surely not!) – the Swedish monarchy.

And let us not forget Bäckström’s regrettable impulse buy:  Isak the parrot, on his best behaviour in the Pet Shop, only to turn into the Parrot from Hell when his new owner brought him home.  Isak plays a minor but important role in proceedings, becoming in his own little way as memorable as his owner, who trusts and prays that he will not meet the same fate. 

Leif Persson has produced yet another winner:  he effortlessly patrols Jo Nesbo country – with dark satire and delicious humour.  SIX STARS!

One Dog and his Boy, by Eva Ibbotson            Children’s Fiction

           

         Children’s writer Eva Ibbotson died in 2010, aged 85 and ‘One Dog and his Boy’ was her last novel:  what a sad day for the children of the world that there will no longer be any more products of her wonderful imagination to delight and charm them.  She made the impossible seem plausible and reality larger than the everyday:  what a gift, and how fortunate our library is to carry some of her best titles, delighting children of all ages (especially me!)

            Hal is an only child.  His family is seriously rich, but Donald, Hal’s dad is never home, instead racking up heaps of air points pursuing all his worldwide business deals.  Mum Albina is a shopaholic and changes houses, furniture and carpet whenever she feels like it.  Which is often.  She also is a cleanliness freak and can’t bear mess of any description, so, despite the fact that it is Hal’s birthday she will never consent to him having a dog – the only present he has ever wanted:  well, he’ll get over it, thinks Albina.  She’ll just buy him another huge electronic whatsit that he can play with by himself.  For Hal has few friends – not that he cares, IF ONLY HE COULD HAVE A DOG!

            His sadness finally makes an impression on his father, who decides to follow the advice of one of his friends – why not rent a dog?  There is a firm called Easy Pets that rents dogs by the hour or by the weekend;  it’s jolly expensive (the proprietors cater to all tastes, especially people’s worries about appearances, and charge accordingly) but Hal could choose a dog on Friday, have it for the weekend, then on Monday when he returns to school, the dog can be taken back to Easy Pets.  Simple.

            Naturally, Hal has no idea that he will only be renting a dog for the weekend;  he is speechless with delight to think that he will be allowed a dog at last and is completely unprepared for any future betrayal.  On his visit to Easy Pets with his dad he chooses Fleck, a little mongrel terrier who was only there on suffrance, smuggled in by the kennel maid who found him as a stray:  it is the best weekend of Hal’s young life.

            It goes without saying (though Eva Ibbotson says it very well!) that his parents’ treachery has far-reaching effects:  Hal decides he will not be without his true friend Fleck.  He decides to kidnap the little dog from Easy Pets and use his birthday money to travel to see his grandparents, Donald’s mum and dad whom Albina thinks are so low-rent they are really not welcome to visit.  It will be a long trip from home to the North-East of England, but he is determined not to live in a house with two people who have betrayed him so cruelly.

            The adventures of Hal and Fleck – and the other purebred dogs at Easy Pets (for they would not stay behind!) are beautifully told, and the people they meet along the way are charmingly drawn (even the villains).  Ms Ibbotson covers a multitude of social ills – environmental pollution, abandoned children and dogs – in a language so plain and clear that every child who reads her books gets a great, humane message to show kindness to animals, the environment  – and each other.  SIX STARS!    

           

Pegasus and the Flame, by Kate O’Hearn                                          Junior Fiction

What a lovely story - and what a great introduction to the Greek Myths for children who would not otherwise come in contact with these marvellous legends.  Kate O’Hearn is doing more than she can possibly know to stimulate children’s interest in the timeless and ancient tales of the Gods and Heroes of Olympus,  especially with the amount of excitement she can generate in her plotting and her true blue characters.

Emily Jacobs is 13 years old.  She is trying to deal with the loss of her beloved mother who died of cancer three months before.  Her father is a member of the New York City Police force, and he has to leave Emily alone on a night when a particularly bad storm is raging.  She is not really afraid of being alone;  her grief troubles her more than solitude – until she hears thumping and bumping on the ceiling, and it is even more worrying when the plaster starts to crack and flake!  Now, if that were me I would rush to the bedroom and hide under the bed, but Emily is brave enough to go up onto the roof to find out what – or who – is going to crash through to her level.  (Obviously she is braver than this mere mortal) And what does she find but a beautiful horse, breathtaking in its magnificence, and even more unbelievable:  it has WINGS.  And it’s badly wounded.  How can she help him, especially when she realises that he is Pegasus, beloved of the Gods, and bearer of Zeus/Jupiter’s thunderbolts.  Pegasus has come to earth to search for ‘The Flame’,  a descendant of Vespa, keeper of the Sacred Flame of Olympus, now extinguished by enemies.  If it is not reignited soon, Olympus and all the Gods will perish.

Ah, this is thrilling, and things get better and better as the plot advances – the characters are positively Olympian in more ways than one;  Ms. O’Hearn has an excellent knowledge of  Greco-Roman mythology and she weaves this brilliantly into her story of young people dealing with grief and loss, not to mention her love of animals, particularly horses – and even better still, the story doesn’t end with this book:  the next title is ‘Pegasus and the Fight for Olympus’.  What a neat treat to look forward to:  can’t wait.  FIVE STARS

Pegasus and the Rise of the Titans, by Kate O’Hearn  Junior fiction

  

          This is the fifth book in Ms O’Hearn’s series starring Pegasus the winged horse and his earthly companion Emily:  once again they have death-defying adventures, and again the plot concerns the Gods of Olympus and their enemies, this time Saturn, power-crazy brother of Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune:  he has discovered a potent weapon to release him from the captivity and exile his brothers have imposed on him, and nothing will give him more satisfaction than to destroy Olympus and everyone who lives there – including Emily and her soulmate Pegasus, instrumental in imprisoning him the first time.

            Once again Emily and her friends journey to earth to find a solution to Olympus’s imminent destruction, this time ending up at Diamond Head in Hawaii (true!);  they are forced to make the acquaintance of Pele, the Fire Goddess, and her pesky, quarrelsome sister Na-Maka, Goddess of the Sea, neither of whom get on – and their subsequent battles are world-shaking!

            This is such a great series for children, with all the right ingredients to make them look forward to the next episode, but Ms O’Hearn also has a vital underlying message concerning animal and environmental conservation that can never be stressed early enough;  it is greatly reassuring to know that children’s environmental education can be absorbed so effortlessly and with so much fun.  FIVE STARS.             

MORE GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2015

World Gone By, by Dennis Lehane

Joe Coughlin, the wild boy of ‘The Given Day’ and the reckless, charming outlaw of ‘Live by Night’ (see November 2012 review below), has now, ten years after losing his beloved wife and most of his friends to murder by his many enemies, become a respected consigliere to the Florida Mobs.  It is 1943; Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano and Meyer Lansky control a huge moneymaking empire of vice and corruption, guaranteed to expand even further thanks to America entering the war after the bombing of Pearl harbour.  Even though Charles Luciano is currently languishing in jail, he still has an iron grip on all his various enterprises, and the shrewd and clever advice given by Joe Coughlin is an essential element of their success.

            Yes, Joe’s life has stabilised as much as his reputation as a gangster will allow:  he is rich;  he donates to many Florida charities;  he has many successful businesses;  he is having a red-hot affair with the blue-blood wife of the Mayor, and he has a young son whom he adores:  except for the loss of his wife, his one great love, life should be pretty damn good – until he learns that someone has put out a contract on him.

            Thanks to Joe’s comparatively early exit from gangster power struggles to a safer and more successful counselling role, he has gained a justified reputation within the criminal fraternity as a fair and clever mediator;  he is everyone’s ally because his advice has benefited everyone.  Who could possibly want him dead?  What could anyone gain by killing the goose that laid the Golden Egg?  And who is the young boy who appears with increasing regularity just at the corners of his vision, a young boy in clothes twenty years out of date:  is he a ghost?  Is he warning him of something?  Joe’s life has suddenly become a frightening prospect, especially when he thinks of his beloved boy.  Nothing must happen to him.  He will do his utmost to protect him from evil without – and within, for Joe has started to suspect his most trusted friends and allies of duplicity.  Something must happen soon, and it does.

            Joe’s inexorable fall from gangster grace is beautifully, chillingly rendered as always by Mr Lehane’s storytelling expertise;  he is a writer of such consistent quality that, though the reader knows that all will end in tears, they still gallop towards the last page, hearts in mouths, hoping for a different outcome – which Mr Lehane rightly refuses to provide, instead demonstrating superbly the sadness and inevitable nostalgia that Joe, that fatally charming criminal, feels for a world gone by.  Highly recommended, as always.

Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane has written many novels, several of which have been successfully filmed.  He centres his stories mainly in Boston, Massachusetts and has always created great characters and great plots.  ‘Live by Night’ is a loose sequel to ‘The Given Day’, an epic tale of the First World War, the soldiers who returned and the police force they joined.  Racism and Baseball play a huge part in this fine book and it would be an advantage for the reader to read this first, if possible, but ‘Live by Night’ can stand alone on its own merits.

Joe Coughlin is twenty years old when this story begins.  He is the youngest son of one of the most respected and prosperous senior police officers in the city of Boston, and he hates his father. His two older brothers have long since fallen out with their martinet parent and left home;  his mother has died, and Joe has happily turned to a life of crime – partly to spite his old man, but also because he likes it.  He doesn’t class himself as a gangster;  he’s an outlaw, a euphemism which has a better ring to it;  it’s 1926, Prohibition is in full swing and there are myriad opportunities to make piles of money from this absurd law as a bootlegger for speakeasies: Joe is thrilled with his circumstances and feels even better that his father, who knows everything that transpires in Boston, is aware that he has a successful criminal – sorry, outlaw – for a son.

Yep, Joe is a is a Twelve O’Clock Fella in a Nine O’Clock Town;  he lives by night, and the night has even more appeal when he meets Flora Gould, a very shady young lady whose hunger for thrills matches his own.  Unfortunately, she is the mistress of a real gangster called Albert White.  Albert is averse to sharing his mistress with Joe and in short order Joe’s life turns sour:  through a series of  unfortunate events he endures a terrible beating, hospitalisation, the loss of his great love and an eventual stint in prison, the sentence of which is reduced thanks to his father calling in some favours.

Like it or not, Joe  should now be repenting at leisure.  His father Thomas, despite his supposed neglect of his youngest has sacrificed his promotion to help his boy survive in prison with a shorter sentence;  all that matters to him now is that his son come out of the dreaded Charlestown Penitentiary alive.  Joe, far from repenting (he’s only sorry that he got caught) devotes his energies and considerable intelligence to surviving attacks from within – and without, eventually forming a long-term alliance with a mafia man, Maso Pescatore.  Ah, the road to Hell takes many forms, and Joe’s journey covers a lot of ground before the eventual showdown and fight to the death:  this is a classic tale of winning it all but losing everything in the process, and Mr Lehane tells it beautifully.  He is a master of suspense and snappy dialogue;  his research is impeccable;  he creates atmosphere and times without any discernible effort and I defy any reader to finish any of his books, then decide not to read another one.  Highly recommended.

The Same Sky, by Amanda Eyre Ward

            Two protagonists take turns to narrate this story;  the first, Carla, is a young Honduran child of eight who lives in extreme poverty with her grandmother and her two much younger twin brothers.  Her mother, in an attempt to make a better life for her family has managed to make the hazardous journey to America, land of gold-paved dreams;  she will eventually send for them all when she saves up enough money from her job at Texas Chicken.

            Alice is a Colorado girl transplanted to Texas after she meets and marries Jake, whose family own a long-established BBQ restaurant.  Her life would be excellent except for the tragic fact that she cannot have a child, thanks to cancer and subsequent doses of chemotherapy.  Jake and Alice’s forays into surrogacy and/or adoption have also failed, and they are resigning themselves with reluctance and sorrow to the fact that their family will only ever consist of themselves.  Alice is not always a likeable character;  she is disagreeable, contrary and downright mean from time to time, especially when she sees Jake’s acceptance of their situation as capitulation:  where is his gumption, his spine, the ‘never-say-die’ attitude that she possesses in abundance?  She is contemptuous of his resignation, and embarks on several new attempts (all unrewarding) to satisfy her thwarted maternal instincts.

            Carla, meanwhile, has suffered tragedy:  firstly, her mother saved enough money for just one of her children to come to her in Texas;  the woman who is delivering the child opts for the ‘quiet one’, twin Carlos who has always been a steadying influence on Junior, his sibling.  Junior is bereft and does not take the separation well;  worst of all, Carla’s beloved grandmother, their island in a sea of poverty and desperation, dies after a short illness.  Carla and Junior are alone.

            Carla’s attempts to find a child’s solutions to her terrible adult problems are portrayed with agonising and brutal clarity by Ms Ward, who spares the reader nothing but the harsh, brutal truth of poverty and such degradation that countless migrants will do anything, including risk death, to Ride atop the Beast, the train that travels from Honduras to Mexico, there (if they are still alive – and lucky) to swim or ride with ‘coyotes’ across the Rio Grande into Texas without being caught by border guards.

            By comparison Alice’s life seems breezy and uncomplicated;  she is loved (most of the time -  she’s prickly);  she and Jake have built the BBQ restaurant into a thriving business;  her family in Colorado have produced three nephews for her to love – but it is not enough:  she will always want more.  She will always want a child.

            Ms Ward unites her two characters fleetingly at the end of this wonderful story, for Carla eventually makes the journey to Texas after suffering unspeakable torments on the way, only to realise that The American Dream is just that;  a dream that hides a reality of drudgery and second-class treatment.  Reuniting with her mother has not been the rapturous experience that she has always longed for;  instead her mother and Carlos hold her responsible for Junior’s absence.  She is now twelve years old.

            In today’s world cruelty, evil and poverty in many countries is the terrible norm, and no writer in my experience has produced work more affecting and poignant, harsh and brutal, as Carla and Alice’s story.  By the very simplicity of her prose, Ms Ward conveys life under the same sky as it is for so many, and as it could be for a very few.  Most highly recommended.

A Song of Shadows, by John Connolly

In ‘The Wolf in Winter’, John Connolly’s last opus (reviewed November, 2014 see below) an attempt was made on the life of Charlie Parker, dark hero of most of Mr Connolly’s books.  He was grievously wounded, but with a choice he made whilst hovering between life and death, and the spiritual support (literally) of his murdered daughter (it pays to have read the preceding books), Charlie decides to give life one more chance.  With the devoted assistance of Louis and Angel, hired killers par excellence he rents a house in a little village on the Maine coast, there to try to regain his former strength and dexterity.

It is a long, painful road back to recovery.  Charlie is not used to the weakness and agony his many injuries cause him but he is determined to get better:  he made the decision to live, now that is exactly what he plans to do.

He is delighted to have a visit from his daughter Samantha, his child by his ex-lover Rachel, and it gives him pleasure to have found a playmate for her;  his beach side neighbour, Ruth Winter has a little girl Amanda who, despite health problems that keep her away from school a lot, welcomes Sam’s company:  from a social perspective life is good.

Until a body is found on a nearby beach, and it is eventually established that it wasn’t a drowning or a suicide, but murder;  at the same time a family has been found murdered in their burning house and the Maine police are swamped with crimes for which they are badly under-resourced.  Tragically, these crimes pale into insignificance when Ruth Winter is cruelly murdered on the night of Sam and Amanda’s playdate, but the most uncanny event for Charlie Parker is that his daughter wakes him to tell him that a man is trying to enter Ms Winter’s home.  How could she know?

Charlie is injured trying to apprehend the murderer on the dunes and it seems that finally his own life is about to end – until Sam (who was under strict instructions to stay in her bedroom) appears at his side to confront the killer – who succumbs to burial under a massive fall of sand, an occurrence that hasn’t happened for decades at that part of the beach .To say that Sam is no ordinary little girl is an understatement.

It is time for Charlie, with the assistance of Louis and Angel, to return to what he is best at:  investigating murder and stamping out evil – if he can, and the deeper he delves into Ruth’s killing, unspeakable old crimes and pure evil finally reveal themselves, for Ruth, a Jew, was killed so that she would not disclose anything she may have inadverdently learned about old Nazis:  Nazi war criminals who entered the United States from Argentina under assumed identities, several of whom settled in Maine.  None wish to be exposed and sent back to Germany, and they will go to any lengths, including multiple murders, to stay where they are.

Charlie Parker is a different person now, after his close brush with death.  There is an implacability, a hardness and resolve about him that cause his loyal friends much disquiet but they are determined – as always – to support him to the hilt in his efforts to purge evil.  Charlie is unfazed by the fact that the battle may be uneven;  what nearly stops his heart is the knowledge that his daughter Sam is just as committed as he to stamp out the enemies of the world, and he is fully aware that she is in just as much danger.

As always, Mr Connolly leaves his readers in terrible suspense right to the last page -  which only poses more questions and enables this beautifully written series to continue.  What a master he is, and what a pleasure it is to read a Charlie Parker book.  Highly recommended.  

The Wolf in Winter, by John Connolly

The town of Prosperous, Maine lives up to its name.  Founded in the eighteenth century by persecuted religious fugitives from England, the settlement grew and gradually flourished, whilst still retaining quaint old buildings (why, they even brought their own church with them to assemble, brick by brick!) and  customs.  The town is still governed by a hereditary council of Selectmen, all descendants of the original inhabitants and, while displaying courtesy to all who come to visit such a picturesque place, it will be eventually noticed that Prosperous does not welcome new people to live within its limits:  Prosperous keeps to itself.

            Until the apparent suicide of Jude, a homeless man who visited the town searching for his daughter, brings private detective Charlie Parker looking for answers:  while it is hardly unusual that a man of the streets would want to end his life, the method of death feels wrong, especially when Charlie checks into Jude’s movements in the days before his death.  Jude had helped Charlie in the past;  it is now up to Charlie to do the right thing.  If Jude’s death was indeed suicide, was it because of his daughter?  Is she dead, too?  And if so, why?  How?

Yet again, Mr Connolly draws the reader into the web of Charlie’s latest dark adventure.  In modern Man of Sorrows Charlie Parker and his two murderous sidekicks Louis and Angel, Mr Connolly has created three unforgettable protagonists – and their enemies are legion, especially The Collector, a self-appointed avenging angel of righteousness, dedicated to ridding the world of those so evil that no lawful punishment is fitting enough. 

Charlie, Angel and Louis have undergone more than one baptism of fire in preceding books to seal their bonds of friendship and loyalty, but when they face the chilling mystery that is Prosperous, one of their number is so grievously wounded that, even as this great book comes to a close it is impossible to guess if he will survive, let alone appear in a sequel.

I take my hat off to Mr Connolly, first of all in praise of his wonderful literary skills:  there are many writers who tell great stories but there are few who write with such clarity and elegance.  And it takes a rare talent to make the supernatural element of every Charlie Parker story so credible, and all the supporting characters so real that they are itching to step off the page and do us harm.

That said, how long will it take Mr Connolly to produce his next book – will there be a next book, with the life of one of the Three Dark Musketeers hanging in the balance?  It’s a big worry, one that I hope will be removed soon.

In his acknowledgements at the conclusion of ‘The Wolf in Winter’, Mr Connolly thanks his readers for continuing to read ‘these odd little books’.

As if we could stop.  AS IF!!  Highly recommended.

           

               

LAST GREAT READS FOR NOVEMBER,2014

The Wolf in Winter, by John Connolly

The town of Prosperous, Maine lives up to its name.  Founded in the eighteenth century by persecuted religious fugitives from England, the settlement grew and gradually flourished, whilst still retaining quaint old buildings (why, they even brought their own church with them to assemble, brick by brick!) and  customs.  The town is still governed by a hereditary council of Selectmen, all descendants of the original inhabitants and, while displaying courtesy to all who come to visit such a picturesque place, it will be eventually noticed that Prosperous does not welcome new people to live within its limits:  Prosperous keeps to itself.

            Until the apparent suicide of Jude, a homeless man who visited the town searching for his daughter, brings private detective Charlie Parker looking for answers:  while it is hardly unusual that a man of the streets would want to end his life, the method of death feels wrong, especially when Charlie checks into Jude’s movements in the days before his death.  Jude had helped Charlie in the past;  it is now up to Charlie to do the right thing.  If Jude’s death was indeed suicide, was it because of his daughter?  Is she dead, too?  And if so, why?  How?

Yet again, Mr Connolly draws the reader into the web of Charlie’s latest dark adventure.  In modern Man of Sorrows Charlie Parker and his two murderous sidekicks Louis and Angel, Mr Connolly has created three unforgettable protagonists – and their enemies are legion, especially The Collector, a self-appointed avenging angel of righteousness, dedicated to ridding the world of those so evil that no lawful punishment is fitting enough. 

Charlie, Angel and Louis have undergone more than one baptism of fire in preceding books to seal their bonds of friendship and loyalty, but when they face the chilling mystery that is Prosperous, one of their number is so grievously wounded that, even as this great book comes to a close it is impossible to guess if he will survive, let alone appear in a sequel.

I take my hat off to Mr Connolly, first of all in praise of his wonderful literary skills:  there are many writers who tell great stories but there are few who write with such clarity and elegance.  And it takes a rare talent to make the supernatural element of every Charlie Parker story so credible, and all the supporting characters so real that they are itching to step off the page and do us harm.

That said, how long will it take Mr Connolly to produce his next book – will there be a next book, with the life of one of the Three Dark Musketeers hanging in the balance?  It’s a big worry, one that I hope will be removed soon.

In his acknowledgements at the conclusion of ‘The Wolf in Winter’, Mr Connolly thanks his readers for continuing to read ‘these odd little books’.

As if we could stop.  AS IF!!  Highly recommended.

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.

Werner and Jutta Pfennig are orphaned when they are very small;  they live a precarious existence in 1930’s Germany at Children’s house, an orphanage in a mining town outside Essen in the Ruhrgebiet.  Despite their deprivation they are happy in each other’s company and secure in the love of Frau Elena, who keeps home and hearth together, caring selflessly for each child left with her.

            Both children show an aptitude and intellectual curiosity beyond their years, Werner for Radio Mechanics (he builds a radio out of next-to-nothing at age eight) and Jutta for Art.  As she grows, Jutta is increasingly disturbed by what she sees happening in her country and is inclined to voice her relentlessly logical opinions of the new order at all the wrong times.  Werner is more cautious, especially when he earns the opportunity to attend a school for gifted boys:  he hopes Jutta will keep her mouth shut so that his prospects of bettering himself won’t be ruined.

            Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father, Daniel.  She became blind at the age of six and relies completely on him to show her ways through her sightless world.  He is a locksmith and safebuilder and has charge of all the locked, precious places of the Museum of Natural History;  six days a week they rise early to go to his job, and while he works, Marie-Laure gets an education from various Professors, all eager to impart their specialised knowledge to a child whose attention is absolute, enhanced by sound and touch, undistracted by extraneous images.

            In 1940 the prospect of the German invasion of France becomes a terrible reality:  the Museum sets about hiding its most priceless possessions elsewhere, for it is well-known that the Nazis wish to plunder the museums of Europe to fill their own galleries with ‘appropriated’ treasures – those that Göring does not want, of course.  Marie-Laure’s father is given the task of smuggling the Museum’s most prized gem, ‘The Sea of Flames’ out of Paris to a safe location at Evreux:  tragically, everyone else is fleeing Paris ahead of the Germans at the same time – what should have taken hours takes days, and when Daniel and his exhausted, sightless child arrive at the Chateau where he thinks he can at last leave the huge responsiblility the Museum has given him to someone else, they find everything looted, ransacked and ruined.  The owners have fled.

            Instead of returning, minus the precious gem, to their apartment in Paris, they are forced to seek shelter at St. Malo on the Breton Coast.  Daniel’s great-uncle lives there in seclusion;  his experiences in the Great War have made him a recluse but he provides shelter and stability for the fugitives at a time when they need it most – until August, 1944 when war and death come to St. Malo , as it did everywhere in France.

            Werner, meantime, has found that the school in which he centred all his hopes for the advancement of a scientific career is more interested in producing the perfect Aryan soldier, and despite excelling in his chosen subjects – and witnessing acts of brutality and sadism against his gentle, principled best friend – he is not sent to Berlin for further education as he had hoped, but sent to the front instead.  Germany is losing the war and they need every able-bodied man or boy that they can find.  Werner’s disillusionment is complete:  he now sees what his sister Jutta saw with such clarity nearly a decade ago.  As he and his radio unit limp into St. Malo in August, 1944 he despairs for his dashed hopes, his foolish dreams of a distinguished life of science:  eighteen years old and his life looks like it will soon be over before it has even begun.

            Mr Doerr writes of the parallel lives of Marie-Laure and Werner with dazzling skill;  such are his talents that each time we leave one character we are regretful – until we are swiftly bound up in the life of the other.  At no time does his story descend into sentimentality, nor is one country condemned more than another;  instead he writes of human nature:  kindness, greed, nobility, brutality, and the familial love that binds most things together:  the very glue of humanity – until war rips everything apart.

            This book is very special.  Mr Doerr makes his words sing.  Highly recommended.    

                

LAST GREAT READS FOR JUNE, 2014

Once we Were Brothers, by Ronald H. Balson

Elliot Rosenzweig is an immensely rich Chicago philanthropist.  He has given away millions to deserving causes of every religious denomination, refusing to limit his charity exclusively to Jewish organisations, despite the fact that he is a Jew and a survivor of Auschwitz. (And he has the tattoo to prove it.)  No, there are needy, deserving souls of every stripe and colour in the world and he will help as many as he can and such is his generosity that Chicago’s mayor dubs him ‘Chicago’s Treasure’.  Life, after such horrific wartime experiences, is good indeed.

Until an elderly stranger attacks him at the Opera, screaming that Elliot is Otto Piatek, an infamous Nazi known as the ‘Butcher of Zamosc’.

Elliot is shocked to the core by the accusations, and is determined to get to the bottom of them, for he feels that a man’s worth is measured by his reputation – and despite his denials and the display of his tattoo to try to placate his accuser, Elliot knows that some mud - even a little - will always stick.

So begins Mr Balson’s story, after one of the clunkiest starts ever;  in fact I thought the first chapter was so poorly written I nearly didn’t continue, thinking the obvious:  ‘Mr Balsom, for a writer you’d make a pretty good lawyer’.  Which is one of his occupations.

However!  Fairness prevailed – mainly because a previous reader had written in the remarks sheet on the book’s flyleaf:  ‘amazing story’.  Okay.  I’d go a little further.  And I am glad I did:  Mr Balson eventually hooked me in when Elliot’s elderly nemesis Ben Solomon begins to recount his story to a very reluctant listener, attorney Catherine Lockhart who is railroaded into meeting him by a very dear friend.  Ben isn’t just accusing Elliot of being a Nazi Butcher:  he wants to sue him for all the money and jewellery that Otto Piatek collected from his Jewish friends, under the guise of safely hiding it until they 'really needed' it.  Ben believes that stolen Jewish wealth was the basis of the huge fortune that Elliot has amassed: he must be brought to justice, and, captivated by his story and eventually convinced of the righteousness of his charges, Catherine agrees to represent Ben Solomon.

Ben’s wartime memories are gripping, starting in Zamosc, Poland in 1933.  Ben’s father was a factory owner and community leader with a reputation for assisting anyone in need – and that included a penniless Christian woodcutter who asked if he could leave his 12 year old son Otto with them for a while ‘until he got on his feet’.  Ben’s family take Otto into their home and treat him as their own and they could not have a friend more staunch and loyal than that abandoned child:  ‘yes, once we were brothers’.  Deceit and betrayal seemed unthinkable – until poor advice albeit well-meaning, starts the gradual metamorphosis of an honourable, loving boy into a heartless Nazi puppet.

Mr Balson is never going to set the literary world on fire, but he has (after that lamentable beginning) constructed most efficiently another story of the Holocaust that is unforgettable, reminding us yet again of the terrible, rebounding effects of those unspeakable acts that will influence generations of families yet to come – and the strength of his characters, particularly Ben, remind us again of the stubbornness and invincibility of goodness – as well as evil - within man.  There should be more Bens in the world!

Wolf, by Mo Hayder

This is Mo Hayder’s seventh novel featuring Detective Inspector Jack Caffrey, and as Ms Hayder’s countless fans of the Gruesome know, Caffrey is a burnt-out cynic for very different reasons than the usual awful rigours of the job:  when Jack was eight, his nine year old brother Ewan disappeared, kidnapped by a paedophile who was never prosecuted for the crime;  he managed to stay one step ahead of the law until his death, and throughout Ms Hayder’s seven stories with Caffrey as protagonist the reader is reluctantly inched forward with Jack as he keeps searching for answers regarding his brother, always within the parameters of the latest plot – which, true to form, is another blood-and-gutser.  

And I don’t say that as a criticism:  Ms Hayder is too good a writer to consign her to the ranks of formulaic hacks, but don’t ever start one of her novels and hope for hearts and flowers.  You read her books through your fingers, mouth a perfect ‘O’ of horror, and ‘Wolf’ is no exception.

Oliver Anchor-Ferrers, his wife Matilda and daughter Lucia have come to their Somerset holiday home ‘The Turrets’ for a little R & R.  Oliver has just undergone a major heart operation and they have decided to let London and his very successful business look after itself until he has regained his health and strength.

Oliver and Matilda both worry about Lucia. Fifteen years ago, a terrible crime was committed in the neighbourhood, a double murder of two teenagers, one the ex boyfriend of Lucia:  their intestines were gouged from their bellies and arranged in a heart shape above their hacked and beaten bodies and since that awful time Lucia has not ‘gotten on’ with her life;  every career path she has tried has failed through her lack of ability or loss of interest, and as time has passed she has become increasingly embittered with her circumstances – and her parents.  They fervently hope that this visit with them to the country house will ease her sore heart – why, she might even start to love them again!

Ah, in a perfect world …… the trouble being that in this world a nightmare is beginning:  on the very first day of their arrival Matilda goes out to work in her beloved garden – and discovers reeking intestines shaped like a heart.  They are too remote for cellphone coverage, having to drive to the main road for reception, and they discover that the landline is not working.  Neither are the alarms that would normally alert their monitoring service.  Their car keys seem to have been misplaced.  Surely, surely the police would have notified everyone in the area if the monster jailed for the murders fifteen years ago had been released – or (unthinkable) made an escape?

Ms Hayder’s plot thickens expertly and inexorably, until the last hope for the beleaguered family is the escape of their little dog, a note affixed to her collar giving their address and cry for assistance – tragically, by the time she is rescued all that is left of the note is two words:  ‘help us’. 

A series of fortuitous events introduces Jack Caffrey to the dog, especially the fact that the dog eventually excretes (with much labour) an engraved wedding ring and a gold neck chain.  Jack’s detecting skills are on high alert as he endeavours to discover the dog’s owners, and the cryptic symbols etched on the inside of the ring – it is not until much later that he starts to tie in gleaned information to the dreadful events of the past.

Ms Hayder ramps up the suspense to an almost unbearable degree.  The reader is taken on a mad trip over the rapids of a twisting and turning plot, with no respite until the last page.  And then, even when cast ashore in the shallows at the end of that wild ride, said reader (me) is faced with the worst kind of dilemma:  ‘What am I going to read now?  What could possibly top that?? ’

 Highly recommended.