Great reads for December 2010

Great reads for December

Ghost light, by Joseph O’Connor

When I began this book, I didn’t think I’d be able to continue with it;  I wasn’t in the mood for the unbearable poignancy of the first couple of chapters which set the scene for what happens to Molly Allgood, a once-famous actress using the stage name of Maire O’Neill.  How fortunate I am that I chided myself for my faint-heartedness and pressed on beyond the squalor and misery of Molly’s old age, to be utterly beguiled by her memories of her youth and beauty, and her once-in-a-lifetime love for John Millington Synge, the famous and controversial Irish playwright.  Synge was a co-founder with William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory of the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin and produced his works there until his premature death at the age of 37;  Molly and her older sister Sarah received their dramatic training there and both went on to fame and fortune in the early part of the twentieth century, Sarah making a name for herself in Hollywood and Molly becoming a notable stage actress.  Tragically, Molly cannot forget her reclusive and brilliant lover, and as her life enters its decline she sees him everywhere – in the mirror, on the street – and was that his voice just whispering behind her?  Mr. O’Connor recreates these real-life characters with superlative skill;  he is careful to stress that he has written a work of fiction, and profusely apologises to Synge scholars for the many errors and licence he has taken with dates and facts - all in the name of a good story -  but there is no denying the life and the breath he has given his protagonists.  In true Irish fashion, he can be the Master of Melancholy in one chapter, then in the next  he ambushes  the reader with a seduction scene that is side-splittingly funny.  Mr. O’Connor can wear the masks of Tragedy and Comedy with equal ease, and the elegance and musicality of his prose is a delight.  He ‘can make a glass eye cry’, or let the reader be ‘as happy as a threaded needle’.  What more could we ask?   FIVE STARS

Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst

Costa Zannis is a Senior Police Officer in Salonika, Greece, in 1940.  World War 2 is underway and Hitler is massing his forces in the Balkans, ready to push south.  Costa is very good at his job;  he is a decent man, blessed with an empathy and  excellent judgement of his fellow citizens and their failings - but  Costa’s world has become a very dangerous place, and feels even more so when he is approached by a very rich lady, a German Jew, who wishes his assistance in smuggling Jews out of Berlin, where she lives with her husband, a high-ranking Wehrmacht officer.  So far, she is untouchable by the Gestapo – her husband is powerful  - but her friends are not;  she has the money to finance their flight, but not the contacts, until she hears of Costa and his very special network of friends and colleagues.  Thus begins Costa’s reluctant expansion of his talents;  from canny policeman to clandestine operative, for he cannot refuse her request for his help – no decent man could.  Mr. Furst takes the reader on a fascinating, suspenseful journey through the Balkan countries as the first Jews make their tentative way to Greece and safety;  he has a particular talent for establishing atmosphere and mood, essential elements in a spy story – BUT! – (and it’s a very big one) – in the latter half of the story Costa’s talents become known to others who require him to further the war effort  in a different, risky,  even more life-threatening way and though the novel’s tension should heighten at this point to an unbearable level the story suffers and the suspense starts to sag with the introduction of glamorous, beautiful Demetria , wife of a cruel shipping magnate.  It is love at first sight for hitherto down-to-earth and sensible Costa;  he falls for her like a blind roofer (which brings me to wonder cynically why no-one ever seems to fall in love at first  sight with a woman who has, say, a wall eye or is slightly mustachioed.  Demetria is also blonde and has a big bottom, but this is 1940:  big bottoms are IN).  The plot’s impetus suffers accordingly.  Having said that, ‘Spies of the Balkans’ is still an enormously entertaining read;  Mr. Furst is too clever a writer to produce a flop – it’s just not quite as good as his previous novels, in particular ‘The Spies of Warsaw’.  Read that one as well!

The Crime of Huey Dunstan, by James McNeish

 Huey Dunstan has murdered a man in a violent and frenzied attack;  his case is regarded as open-and-shut and despite a spirited defense from his counsel, he is sentenced to life imprisonment.  Dunstan is 23 years old, reserved, even withdrawn,  but regarded as a good man, respectful to authority and his elders and the last person to be considered capable of such a crime.  His counsel feels that there is more to the case than meets the eye and enlists the assistance of an old friend of his, Psychologist Charlie Chesney, to interview Huey, and see if he can prise his secrets from him, thus leading to an appeal and a retrial where the charge of murder could be reduced to manslaughter, with a defence of provocation.  Mr. McNeish is a most competent writer and presents his characters well, particularly ‘Ches’, who narrates the story -  and happens to be blind.  I have to confess that I found Ches’s daily struggles and compromises with his disability to be more fascinating than the crime itself, important though it is in light of current events:  thanks to the infamous Clayton Weatherston trial, where he would admit only to manslaughter not murder because he was ‘provoked’ into stabbing his girlfriend 216 times, the law of provocation as defence has now been abolished in NZ.  This law still applies in Mr. McNeish’s story, however, and he produces a satisfying courtroom drama with all the twists and turns that we would expect in such a case.  Because Ches is 82 when he begins the story I can’t expect him to be resurrected in a second book -  he is reminiscing, really, about a particularly intriguing case in the body of his life’s work – but that’s a shame:  the reader is the poorer for not reconnecting with Charlie Chesney, in his official capacity or otherwise, in the future.

Our Kind of Traitor, by John le Carré

Dima is a Russian gangster, and proud of it.  He is also an expert money-launderer for the Russian Mafia and has amassed huge wealth for them, and for himself – but a new young ‘Prince’ is coming to the fore in the Mafia Hierachy, and the Prince doesn’t like Dima;  Dima is too ‘Old-School’, he dwells too much on the old Vor code of Honour amongst thieves (and murderers) and after one last, biggest laundering operation – the opening of a new ‘respectable’ bank in the City of London – Dima and his family will be eliminated, as were several of his dear friends and colleagues already:  it’s time, thinks Dima,  to defect with all his secrets and sell them to his preferred country of asylum, Great Britain.  Yet again John Le Carré has crafted an impeccable story of secret service diplomacy, political corruption and life-and-death back-room dealings;  his characters are superb,  almost Dickensian in range and description and utterly, utterly believable.  Mr. Le Carré has the best eye and ear for accents and body language in the business, and his wit, interspersed even at times of great suspense in this beautifully plotted story, is delicious.  This is the master at his best:  FIVE STARS.

 Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen

The Lathams are your typical upper middle-class suburban American family:  father Glen is a respected Ophthalmologist;  Mary-Beth his wife is content if not wildly happy with her comfortable role as his consort and mother to their three bright children, beautiful Ruby and twins Alex and Max;  she has her own little side business designing gardens for her neighbours – everything in the Latham family garden should be rosy, but it isn’t.  There are secrets in this family;  damaging secrets:  14 year old Max suffers from anxiety and depression and Ruby is a recovering anorexic.  There are some who would regard these illnesses as typical 21^st century diseases;  that may be so, but family suffering is not lessened because many children are now bound by such commonality:  the Lathams try to respond  to and overcome their problems with as much love and good common-sense as they can muster – until a tragedy, more unbelievable  and horrifying than they can ever imagine overtakes them all.  Ms Quindlen, in her spare, lucid prose guides us through the unspeakable events that change the Lathams’ lives forever.  She tackles the core subject, grief, with great delicacy and skill;  in fact she writes so intimately of her characters that I wondered if she had suffered a similar tragedy and used this story as a catharsis:  regardless, she has produced a novel of great insight, empathy and intelligence.  This is a harrowing read, but it’s also a story of courage, familial love and most importantly, hope.  Highly recommended.

DVD’s       DVD’S       DVD’S       DVD’S       DVD’S       DVD’S

Check out the many wonderful new titles in your library, donated by The Friends of Horowhenua Libraries, resourceful and tireless fundraisers Supreme:  thanks to their latest efforts all library users can enjoy a huge range of movies, from Documentaries to mini-series, Art house films to mainstream Blockbusters,  all for a very reasonable rental (Video-Ezy, eat your hearts out!)  Below is a selection of movies I have watched and loved over the past few weeks – and for those of you who don’t like subtitles:  live dangerously!  Don’t miss out on some great movies because you don’t like to read words at the bottom of the screen – you read them in books WITHOUT the pictures, don’t you?  Same difference, as far as I’m concerned.  Happy viewing.

LAST GREAT READS FOR NOVEMBER, 2015

Europa Blues, by Arne Dahl

I’ve done it again:  unwittingly read the latest book of a series, BUT!  Swedish author Arne Dahl has provided so much information from earlier stories that I don’t feel that I should go right back to Episode One – and bless him for that because there are only 24 hours in a day, and I have to have SOME sleep.

            Mr Dahl sets his thrillers in Stockholm but his protagonists, members of an elite section of the Swedish CID travel far and wide through Europe to unravel his latest mystery.  Paul Hjelm is one of the stars of the team, and (miraculously) he hasn’t reached burn-out level yet – he has had an intense affair with a colleague, but (again miraculously) his marriage is still intact;  in fact life is as good as one could expect, given the job he has and the hours he spends away from home.  Hjelm has an antidote for the horrors he must face every day (this is Swedish Noir, remember);  he is something of a philosopher, a clever abstract thinker;  and he firmly believes the world is still redeemable whenever he listens to jazz trumpeter Miles Davis’s magical playing on ‘Kind of Blue’.  There is still plenty of beauty in the world to match the ugliness. 

            Until his colleague Jorge Chavez calls him to come and examine the remains of someone who has fallen into the Wolverine enclosure at Skansen Zoo.  There is precious little left to see:  those furry wee critters with the pretty faces attacked the mystery man in a fury and the police have found just a pink- trousered leg so far – but that leg had a rope tied round its ankle.  The man was hung by his legs in the pit, and his death must have been excruciating:  who was he and why was he murdered so horribly?

            As their investigation progresses, Hjelm and his team (and what a singular lot they are!) discover the man’s identity:  he was a Greek gangster, suspected of murder and drug trafficking and currently pimping and terrorising a group of East European prostitutes.  What a nice guy!  Then other ‘nice guys’ are discovered to have met a similar fate in various European cities – not being dispatched by Wolverines, but by being hung upside down, then having a sharp metal rod inserted into their temples, guaranteeing maximum pain before they died.  When the Greek pimp’s skull is eventually found in the zoo enclosure, he too has been murdered with the metal rod.

            Mr Dahl is a very clever writer, certainly more literary than most, and his translator, Alice Menzies, deserves huge and hefty pats on the back for presenting his story so beautifully.  Each character is scrupulously credible and there is a wonderful vein of very necessary humour threaded like gold throughout a convoluted and horrific plot.  Hjelm’s colleagues, far from being burn-outs themselves, have lives which, if not the norm, are at least as ordinary as they can make them;  in fact they ring so true that maybe I will have to visit the earlier books, whether I want to or not!  FIVE STARS

A Spool of Blue Thread, by Anne Tyler

Family dynamics:  that weary, well-worn euphemism for the myriad ways that people hurt those whom they should love most. 

            The clarion cry of ‘It’s not FAIR!’ engendered by sibling rivalry which, as siblings reach adulthood becomes ‘Why did they love you more than me?’ has never been portrayed with more skill, perception and humour than in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler’s peerless chronicle of a family’s life through three generations – not very long as a family ancestral record, but of sufficient length to draw the reader into this graceful story, because we recognise so much of it as our own.

            In 1994 Red and Abby Whitshank have four grown children.  They live in Baltimore, Maryland in a house that Red’s father built, and Red has taken over his father’s construction company after both his parents were killed in an accident.  Abby is a social worker, a woman who welcomes the waifs and strays, especially at Thanksgiving, a holiday her family secretly dreads for they never know which awful waifs will be present at the carving of the turkey – but Abby doesn’t care:  her heart is big and There But For the Grace of God etc etc.  More turkey, anyone?

            In the main, Red and Abby are content with their life and their family, whom they love dearly.  Amanda, the oldest girl is a lawyer;  Jeannie followed her father into the construction business, a bold step;  Douglas (called Stem for a very poignant reason) has also gone into the family company;  but Denny, the third child – well, Denny appears to have taken on the role of family failure;  family flitter-away-from-responsibility candidate;  family jack-of-all-trades – and master of none, despite much encouragement and many new starts,  assisted emotionally and financially each time by his parents.

Time passes inexorably;  Red and Abby age;  their family start families of their own – all except Denny.  His life is a mystery to them:  they have no idea where he lives, or what he does for a living – does he even work?  Then they receive an invitation to his wedding.  He is marrying the bride because she’s pregnant.  Oh.  Okay then.  They’ll have a grandchild to love and spoil!  Sadly, no.  Denny disappears for years, until family concern about Red and Abby’s vulnerability as they age brings him home, and what has been simmering beneath the family surface since childhood erupts in an ugly geyser of hatred and resentment:  Denny’s anger is never directed at himself;  he could never hold a mirror up to reveal his many faults:  instead, he lashes out at those who are the last to deserve his ire, causing ructions that are shocking but come as no surprise to anyone.

I can’t remember reading at any time a more perfect evocation of family life;  the petty jealousies, the perceptions real or imagined, of who loves who best, and the immense loyalty and unity only a family can draw on when tragedies occur.  And the great, beating heart of this family is contained in the house, built by their grandfather for someone else, but eventually becoming his, as told in beautiful flashbacks.

Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby, both writers who ‘know their onions’ (my old gran used to say that often!) maintain that Anne Tyler is ‘the greatest novelist writing in English’ and it is easy to see why.  SIX STARS!!!

The American Lady, and Paradise of Glass, by Petra Durst-Benning

These two novels complete the Glassblower trilogy.  I reviewed the first book in September (see review below), but have to say that the sequels do not live up to the promise of Book One.  That is not to say that they are not readable but quality of writing has taken a dive in Ms Durst-Benning’s attempts to cover   the huge societal changes in turn- of-the-century New York, the setting for ‘The American Lady’. 

            Marie, the true artist and youngest of the  Steinmann girls is persuaded to visit her sister Ruth, now happily and respectably married to her lover, Stephen Miles, and grandly ensconced in New York.  Initially, Marie cannot believe the enormous change in Ruth’s personality – she seems to have forgotten completely their humble origins in the German village of Lauscha and has thrown herself with singular verve into conquering high society, a mission Ruth has successfully accomplished with the aim of cushioning her rebellious daughter Wanda from all of the sadness and poverty that marked her own early years.

            Marie finds Ruth’s new life enormously constricting, and after various excursions with Wanda makes new, exciting friends in the Art scene of New York, including a daring, wanton Isadora Duncan copycat called Pandora:  she meets all the darlings of the Modern movement, and Ms Durst-Benning name-drops with abandon everyone who was artistically anyone at that time;  she also decides it is time for Marie to meet her Great Love, a handsome Italian Count whom she eventually marries – much to the icy disapproval of his family in Genoa – only to find that ‘her handsome Italian’ harbours a terrible secret, a secret that appals Marie to the extent that she knows that she and her unborn child would be better off with her own family in Lauscha, permanently away from him and his medievally awful family.  BUT!!!  (There’s always a But.)

            Marie’s plans to escape her situation are thwarted in melodramatic, Mills and Boon fashion:  there is no escape from her awful life – until …..  until Rebellious Wanda manages to engineer a visit to Genoa to find out why none of Marie’s family has heard from her for so long.

            Rebellious Wanda has taken up residence in Lauscha to research her origins, after finding out a secret that Ruth had thought well- hidden, and being the impetuous Wilful Wanda that she is, she decides it is time to lay all the family skeletons out in the harsh light of day:  she has a family she never knew existed, and perhaps in Lauscha she can make a good and meaningful life for herself.  Fair enough, especially when Ms Durst-Benning gives Wanda the role of rescuer extraordinaire – but Wanda’s adventures should at least have the ring of truth, not to mention Marie’s:  the credibility of Book One has been entirely lost with the switch to Torrid Romance in Book Two.

            There is improvement of a sort in Book Three, ‘The Paradise of Glass’:  Ms Durst-Benning writes very well of the glass industry in 1911; the plot is well-researched and believable.  The everyday lives of Lauscha’s inhabitants are well-portrayed and the older characters endear themselves to the reader, BUT! (Sorry about the buts, but  I believe absolutely in buts)  In Ms Durst-Benning’s efforts to present Wilful Wanda as a young woman defying the constrictions of her time – especially in  her heroic attempts to organise the glassblowers of Lauscha into a united group of investors so that they can buy their own foundry – the storytelling expertise of Book One has deserted her, and Wanda, Wilful, Winsome, Worldly though she may be, is not drawn with the skill required to carry a trilogy.  THREE STARS   

                

The Glassblower, by Petra Durst-Benning

Ms Durst-Benning completed this first novel in her trilogy in 2003;  unfortunately for English readers, it was not translated from the German until 2014 – but better late than never.  Now we can all enjoy her lovely story of the Steinmann sisters, daughters of proud and protective widower Joost Steinmann, a respected glassblower in the small Thuringian village of Lauscha.  In 1890,  Lauscha is renowned throughout Germany as the international destination for exquisite glassware, and Lauscha is proud of its reputation for craftsmanship, and the artisans who reinforce the village’s good name.

            Joost shelters his three daughters.  Every young man who comes calling in the hope of getting to know his pretty girls better is shown the door:  men are all up to no good – only after one thing!  The girls despair of ever meeting suitors, but they are too busy to reflect on their lack of experience, for there is much work to be done in their father’s business – until one morning he fails to rise from his bed.  Joost has closed his eyes for the last time, and to their horror, his sheltered, cosseted daughters are on their own.  Who will look after them now?  How will they earn any kind of living in a patriarchal society where a woman’s duty is clear:  ‘kirche, küche, kinder’.  The choices are few, but if a woman does have to earn her living she does so for slave wages in one of the few glassworks in the village.  Those uppity Steinmann girls are no different from anyone else – they’ll have to lose their airs and graces and subsist, just as other widows and single women do!

            Ms Durst-Benning easily captures the reader in the first chapters.  Each daughter is different:  haughty, beautiful eldest daughter Johanna, unaware of her business acumen until she is forced to employ all her intelligence to prevent the family from starving;  middle daughter Ruth, equally pretty but convinced that the only way out of poverty is to make a good marriage – and then does the opposite;  and Marie, the dreamy youngest girl, nascent artist and eventual self-taught glassblower, using her late father’s equipment so that she can realise in glass the beautiful baubles she creates on paper – all in secret, for a female working as a glassblower is unthinkable.

            Late 19^th century Europe is captured unforgettably in all its beauty, poverty, double standards and hypocrisy;  Lauscha, that tiny village with the enormous reputation is riddled with hierarchies that refuse to accept change, and the Steinmann girls find that the way ahead is strewn with pitfalls – and I won’t find out what happens until Book Two ‘The American Lady,’ comes into the library.  Ms Durst-Benning has given us a real page-turner, even though Samuel Willcocks’ translation favours the modern idiom perhaps more than it should.  That minor quibble aside, I can’t fail to give this lovely, unashamedly romantic story FIVE STARS.

             

                 

THE DECEMBER FIRST FIFTEEN!

2014 – not long now before this year fades into history and we will be greeting a brand new year:  here at Te Takere, our beautiful library and community centre in Levin, New Zealand (check out our Facebook page), the staff and volunteers (that’s me!) wish you a most happy and healthy 2015 and, in common with all the (marginally) more well-known lists of what’s currently hot in the world of contemporary fiction, I present for your entertainment MY list of the very best books I have reviewed this year:  MY FIRST FIFTEEN.  They are not in order of preference, but in date order as I reviewed them;  the full review of each title can be accessed on that month’s posting.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt   reviewed January

My Notorious  Life, by Kate Manning   reviewed April

The Blind Man’s Garden, by Nadeem Aslam  reviewed May

The Enchanted, by Rene Denfeld   reviewed June

Prince of Fools, by Mark Lawrence   reviewed June

He Who Kills the Dragon, by Leif G.W. Persson  reviewed July

Love and Treasure, by Ayelet Waldman   reviewed August

Remember Me Like This, by Bret Anthony Johnston   reviewed August

The Guts, by Roddy Doyle   reviewed September

The Secret Place, by Tana French   reviewed September

The Giver, by Lois Lowry    reviewed (finally!) October

The Drop, by Dennis Lehane   reviewed October

The Wolf in Winter, by John Connolly   reviewed  November

All the Light we Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, reviewed November

Revival, by Stephen King   reviewed December.  (See below)

If I had to nominate top titles, then it would be a toss-up between Donna Tartt’s ‘The Goldfinch, and ‘All the Light we Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr, both masterworks of modern fiction, followed by ‘The Enchanted, by Rene Denfeld.  How lucky are we to enjoy such peerless writing, but the same can be said of all the titles on the list, and how lucky are we that we have such great titles in the library stock, readily available to all.

Revival, by Stephen King.

One of the secrets of Mr King’s enormous success as a writer is that his protagonists are the usual flawed, everyday people that we can all identify with -  then he unleashes his soaring imagination and has unbelievable things happen to them, and part of his huge talent is to make the reader believe utterly in the credibility of his plotting.   I am constantly amazed at the unflagging energy that he possesses to produce a new book each year;  each one completely different, and each one – if that is possible – better than the last. ‘Revival’ is the latest addition to this enormous body of work, and yet again Mr King takes us on a journey that we would rather not make, but find impossible to resist.

Jamie Morton is six years old in 1962 when he first meets young Methodist minister Charles Jacobs who has come to the Morton’s small Maine town as a replacement.  Like every other Methodist in town, Jamie and his family are charmed by Charles, and all the young boys are in love with Mrs Jacobs because Mrs Jacobs is gorgeous – ‘youth was her makeup’ and it makes her glow.  The reverend and his wife also have a sweet little five-year-old boy, Morrie, and appear to be very happy with their new placing. 

When the reverend isn’t occupied with his pastoral duties he indulges himself in an unusual hobby:  a big interest in electricity - not its obvious power to heat or to light the surroundings but most of all, a belief in its power to heal.  He is convinced that eventually electricity will be used for curing all kinds of illnesses, even the hopeless cases.  Jamie is not convinced:  he thinks the reverend has his wires crossed – God figures out who should be healed, not electricity! 

As time passes, Jamie comes to love and admire the reverend, as do most of his congregation – until a shocking tragedy occurs which transfixes the whole town:  reverend Jacobs loses his wife and son in a terrible road accident,  causing him to lose his faith and to preach one last homily ‘The Terrible Sermon’ in which he professes his rejection of God and all religion.  The townsfolk are stunned and Charles Jacobs disappears from Jamie’s life forever – he thinks.  But as the years go by and his life path takes several bad turns, it is Jamie’s fate to meet up with the reverend again – whether he wants to or not.

By the time Jamie has reached his lowest ebb, the reverend Jacobs has become Dan Jacobs, carnival trick photographer, masterly at relieving ‘rubes’ of their money;  regardless, he is still there to help and ‘heal’ Jamie when his need is most desperate:  when Jamie sees him again many years later, Dan Jacobs has become Pastor Danny, renowned faith healer, dispenser of that good old fashioned hallelujah religion he scorned and rejected after the deaths of his beloved family – but scarily, many of his professed cures appear to work.  Notwithstanding, Jamie knows from his own experience of being ‘healed’ that there are vicious and inexplicable after-effects.  If he investigates his old friend further and tries to stop more ‘cures’ and electrical experiments, will he have a tiger by the tail?

We are all propelled inexorably towards the last terrible electrical ‘cure’, the object of the reverend’s lifelong quest to speak to his dead family once more, and I have to say (cynic that I am) that I found the climax to be the weakest part of an otherwise superb story.  Various allusions to Mary Shelley and her masterwork were clumsy and the monsters who made an appearance caused me to quake with laughter rather than fear – but, hey!  After 400 pages, Stephen King only fell at the last hurdle:  most times he wins the race.  (see July 2014 review below).  STILL highly recommended.

Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King

Former Detective K. William Hodges is nearing the end of his tether.  Since he retired from the city Police Force, life has lost its edge;  there is nothing meaningful to relieve the boredom of his days, most of which are spent watching inane TV shows, eating junk food and drinking too much. 

Some days are worse than others:  on those days he contemplates suicide and sits in front of his TV with his father’s gun by his side – until the day he gets a letter, purportedly from a man who mowed down a line of job seekers in a stolen Mercedes, a case that was still unsolved when he retired.

The letter writer seems to know a lot about Bill Hodges, including details of his first name (Kermit); information about his farewell bash (it was a drunken riot of fun!); and even more chilling:  insider knowledge of Bill’s suicidal thoughts.  Is this monster a mind-reader?  How does he know so much? 

The general tenor of the letter is designed to increase Bill’s feelings of worthlessness, to push him into that last act with his father’s gun:  ‘it would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People ‘slipped through your fingers’.

But you are thinking of it, aren’t you?  I would like to close with one final thought from ‘the one that got away’.  That thought is:

F--- YOU, LOSER.

Just kidding!

Very truly yours,

THE MERCEDES KILLER.’

Once again, Mr King takes the reader into the dark places of minds and hearts with his usual effortless skill.  In this latest opus there is nary a hint of the supernatural for which he is so famous; not a spectre in sight:  instead he writes of the monsters that contemporary society creates who walk among their unsuspecting victims disguised by spurious normality -  as here, where the Mercedes killer is revealed early in the plot as Brady Hartfield, dutiful son of an alcoholic mother and hard worker at two jobs, one as a computer technician, the other driving an ice cream van.  What could be more normal; (even a little sad – the sacrifices that boy makes for his mother!) he works super hard at blending in with everything and everyone – why, he’s practically invisible!

But not infallible.  Contrary to his expectations, his letter has given K. William Hodges (Det.Ret.) a huge boost;  the depressive clouds have parted – his mind, always keen, has something to grapple with again:  start playing the game, Mr Mercedes.  Let’s see who wins!

As always, Mr King provides his main protagonists with great supporting characters, in this case Jerome, Bill’s 17 year old lawn and odd job boy – who just happens to be black, highly intelligent and a computer whizz – but not half as whizzy as Holly, a true PC Maestro who unfortunately is plagued with ‘issues’.  They are Bill’s doughty assistants.  Their dialogue is perfect, crackling and comic (how I wish I could remember some of those one liners!) but it never distracts us from the horror and creeping suspense of a great story.  Mr Mercedes is going to strike again.  But where?  When?  And can they stop him?

Stephen King has once again held a mirror up to contemporary society, and it shows a chilling image, one that is very hard to look at.  Highly recommended. 

                 

The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel.

This is the final volume of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of novels recounting the tempestuous partnership between Tudor King Henry VIII and his utterly devoted ‘Fixer’, Thomas Cromwell – Cromwell, who rose to Lord Privy Seal, and whose power, with the king’s approval, became so great and all-encompassing that Henry’s nobles feared that such a base-born yokel would eventually become a danger to them and their own dreams of glory:  such delusions of grandeur so far above his station have to be stopped!

The story opens where ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ finished, with the beheading of Anne Boleyn, that incestuous, adulterous whore, leaving Henry free to make plans to wed young Jane Seymour, who will surely give him a son to ensure the Tudor Succession.  His daughters Mary and Elizabeth have been declared bastards, and Mary has been coerced into renouncing her Catholic faith (on pain of death, Cromwell makes clear) so that her father may renounce Roman beliefs, establish the Church of England – and plunder the treasure and lands of the Monasteries and Abbeys.  The wealth pouring into the king’s treasury is enormous, but a large proportion must be spent arming England against its Catholic enemies;  Cromwell has never been more busy, lining his own pockets handsomely along the way – naturally.

In this mammoth last episode, Ms Mantel relates the facts of history in ways that make them all seem new;  each character is beautifully drawn, especially Henry, that Monarch who believes utterly in his divine right to have that which no-one else does, and Cromwell is always there to execute his wishes – never mind that foreign diplomats regard Henry as ‘a man of great endowments, lacking only consistency, reason and sense’:  with Cromwell behind him (in the shadows) the end will always justify the means.

Until it doesn’t:  Jane Seymour dies giving birth to the much-longed-for son, but the next marriage to Anne of Cleves, engineered by Cromwell to form an alliance with German Protestant princes is disastrously unsatisfactory, both to the ageing king, no longer the handsome man in his flattering portraits, and Anne, not the beauty that Holbein has painted.  Because Henry cannot and will not blame himself, the blame falls on Cromwell – who else?  With predictable consequences.

Ms Mantel’s talents are such that she evokes in effortless detail a time when the power-mad and the power-hungry jostled for favoured positions with the Supreme Power – crushing the powerless along the way.  She was awarded the Booker Prize for ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring up the Bodies’:  (search drop box)  could she be lucky a third time?  SIX STARS 

           

 

LAST GREAT READS FOR JULY, 2014

Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King

Former Detective K. William Hodges is nearing the end of his tether.  Since he retired from the city Police Force, life has lost its edge;  there is nothing meaningful to relieve the boredom of his days, most of which are spent watching inane TV shows, eating junk food and drinking too much. 

Some days are worse than others:  on those days he contemplates suicide and sits in front of his TV with his father’s gun by his side – until the day he gets a letter, purportedly from a man who mowed down a line of jobseekers in a stolen Mercedes, a case that was still unsolved when he retired.

The letter writer seems to know a lot about Bill Hodges, including details of his first name (Kermit); information about his farewell bash (it was a drunken riot of fun!); and even more chilling:  insider knowledge of Bill’s suicidal thoughts.  Is this monster a mind-reader?  How does he know so much? 

The general tenor of the letter is designed to increase Bill’s feelings of worthlessness, to push him into that last act with his father’s gun:  ‘it would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People ‘slipped through your fingers’.

But you are thinking of it, aren’t you?  I would like to close with one final thought from ‘the one that got away’.  That thought is:

F--- YOU, LOSER.

Just kidding!

Very truly yours,

THE MERCEDES KILLER.’

Once again, Mr King takes the reader into the dark places of minds and hearts with his usual effortless skill.  In this latest opus there is nary a hint of the supernatural for which he is so famous; not a spectre in sight:  instead he writes of the monsters that contemporary society creates who walk among their unsuspecting victims disguised by spurious normality -  as here, where the Mercedes killer is revealed early in the plot as Brady Hartfield, dutiful son of an alcoholic mother and hard worker at two jobs, one as a computer technician, the other driving an ice cream van.  What could be more normal; (even a little sad – the sacrifices that boy makes for his mother!) he works super hard at blending in with everything and everyone – why, he’s practically invisible!

But not infallible.  Contrary to his expectations, his letter has given K. William Hodges (Det.Ret.) a huge boost;  the depressive clouds have parted – his mind, always keen, has something to grapple with again:  start playing the game, Mr Mercedes.  Let’s see who wins!

As always, Mr King provides his main protagonists with great supporting characters, in this case Jerome, Bill’s 17 year old lawn and odd job boy – who just happens to be black, highly intelligent and a computer whizz – but not half as whizzy as Holly, a true PC Maestro who unfortunately is plagued with ‘issues’.  They are Bill’s doughty assistants.  Their dialogue is perfect, crackling and comic (how I wish I could remember some of those one liners!) but it never distracts us from the horror and creeping suspense of a great story.  Mr Mercedes is going to strike again.  But where?  When?  And can they stop him?

Stephen King has once again held a mirror up to contemporary society, and it shows a chilling image, one that is very hard to look at.  Highly recommended.

The Liar’s Daughter, by Laurie Graham

Nan Prunty’s mother tells lies, and the biggest one of all, so everyone says, is the whopper that Nan’s father is none other than illustrious war hero Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.  Nan and her mother Ruby Throssell live a hand-to-mouth existence in Portsmouth, and Nan’s childhood memories are unpleasant, for Ruby likes to drink;  when she is old enough Nan is called upon to earn grog money for her mother in very unsavoury ways, causing her to often wonder why, if her father was the man who vanquished Old Boney and the French so that the British could hold their heads high, she and her mother have to live by their wits.

Ms Graham’s novel spans fifty years of a fascinating period of European history;  from Nelson’s triumphs at sea to the war in the Crimea in 1855, by which time the great man is all but forgotten – except by Nan, whose search for proof of paternity has become obsessive, even though she has a family of her own, all of whom find her convictions tiresome.

Ms Graham’s characters are enormously engaging;  Nan and her mother are apples from the same tree but having said that, the story proceeds at a slow amble until Nan’s daughter Pru decides to apply as a nurse to Miss Florence Nightingale at the start of the Crimean War.  Then the action speeds up.  After several years of good nursing experience at reputable London hospitals, Pru expects to be accepted and is shocked to find that she cannot make the grade, not because of her efficiency, but because of her humble origins:  Miss Nightingale requires only young ladies of good family, regardless of their lack of experience.  Despite that, lower born practical women went at their own expense to the battlefields and made a huge difference, their origins notwithstanding.  In the accepted historical teachings of our day this has been understated to say the least.  Miss Nightingale is ‘The Angel of Scutari’;  ‘The Lady of the Lamp’:  no-one would gainsay that, but  Ms Graham may be sincerely thanked for scrupulous research and candid revelations of typical societal double standards of the time.  This little story is light as a soufflé, but just as enjoyable.  Highly recommended.  

     

    

 

The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyer.

            Penny Coyne (yes, really!) is a very elderly librarian from a small Scottish village:  what makes her notable is that she has highly reputable skills as an amateur detective, solving numerous cases that have foiled many police, and forcing them to call on her services more than they would wish to.  Eat your heart out, Miss Marple!

            She is about to meet Johnny Hawke, typical burnt-out LA detective, with a reputation not only for putting away the bad guys (some of them in a very permanent fashion) but also for inadvertently causing the demise of every partner he has had so far:  in light of that fact, are Ms Coyne’s days numbered?

And why would they ever meet except for both receiving invitations to an impossibly High Society wedding at a very grand Scottish Mansion now being run as a hotel – neither of them know either bride nor groom.  Which is enough to prick anyone’s curiosity, so here they are, Penny in tweed skirt and twinset, and Johnny, trying not to look like an LA cop in a very cheap suit.

            The stage is set for one of the cleverest Whodunnits I have read for years, and the Big Reveal doesn’t happen to the very last page – and even then presents more questions than answers.  Johnny has ended up in Scotland because he’s on suspension for being the cause of death yet again of his latest hapless partner and has been told by his boss to ‘get out of town and stay out’.

The wedding invitation arrives at a very welcome time though he is worried as to how the bank account will survive the experience, especially in light of the Great and the Good arriving for the wedding;  they have no such financial worries.  The bride and groom, too, seem madly in love – until the bride reveals to Penny last-minute cold feet, then she disappears just before the ceremony is to begin – and is found dead, a presumed suicide, in a similar fashion to the circumstances of the crime Johnny was investigating in which his new partner died, and further investigation reveals that this is the third similar death in similar circumstances. 

            It is not long before the brawny brainy gumshoe recognises a kindred spirit in the woollen-clad, keen observer of human behaviour  -  ‘there are always consequences when you break any rule, Johnny’ – and they combine to make a formidable team.  Until , further into this dazzling story, the reader is aghast to realise that Johnny and Penny are not bona fide protagonists, (spoiler alert) but characters in a  brilliant video game:  no-one is what they seem and Chris Brookmyre has tricked us all with his marvellously inventive characterisations and plotting:  what a booki!  What a writer!  What a game!  SIX STARS