GREAT READS FOR JUNE, 2016

The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson

                In mid-1914, School teacher Beatrice Nash arrives in Rye, a pretty coastal Sussex town to teach Latin to the local children.  She is under no illusions that they will share the same love for the great language as she, but she means to make her very best attempt to instil within young minds the epic poems taught to her by her father, an internationally recognised and revered classical scholar, from whose death she is still recovering. 

            Beatrice is determined to make her own way in the world, to support herself by her own efforts, rather than to depend on her father’s aristocratic but socially isolated (by their own rigid ideas of self-worth) relatives – who are not so eager to see her depart their care, for the sole reason that she may embarrass them by being ‘employed’ – which only makes Beatrice more determined to succeed.  She also vows never to marry, to yield all the decisions of her life to a man perhaps not smart enough to make them, especially not financially.  Beatrice admires Women’s Suffrage too, which makes her a square peg in a round hole, particularly in Rye, whose traditions and customs have been set in stone for centuries. 

Until the Great War changes everything.  In Ms Simonson’s lovely story the social strata of Britain is revealed in all its degrees of ugliness:  Dickie Sidley nicknamed Snout, Beatrice’s top Latin scholar (there aren’t many of them, but he is sharply intelligent and reads Virgil for the huge enjoyment it gives him) is denied the school Latin scholarship because his father is a Gypsy – and even if Snout didn’t have the Romany taint he still wouldn’t be eligible because his family is poor. 

Hugh Grange, an aspiring young doctor under the tutelage of an eminent Harley Street surgeon (and in love – he thinks – with the Great Man’s charming daughter) is railroaded into enlisting in the Army Medical Corps, not because lives must and will be saved by their expertise, but just imagine the scientific glory to be heaped upon those who can be at the forefront of new treatments for wounds great and small!  Hugh is privately uneasy that ‘men’ are not mentioned – just wounds.  The surgeon’s daughter, too, announces that any admirer in her circle who doesn’t enlist will be presented with a White Feather, the symbol of cowardice, by her and her equally patriotic friends.

Snout is so crushed by the school’s decision to award the Latin scholarship to a rugby player that he persuades his father to give him permission to enlist – a 15 year-old child, off to fight the Hun just as his favourite Trojan heroes did thousands of years ago.  His fate towards the end of the book is horrifying and undeserved, a searing and terrible example of inept and privileged leadership by those ill-equipped to have power over men, at the front because they had a title, and had inherited or bought their commissions.

Ms Simonson has marshalled a great cast of characters, too many to name here but all equally important for the many secrets they hide and hypocrisies they represent.  She has a lovely gift for writing humour in every form through all the social strata, and while I warn that this book is a real door-stopper (580 pages – yep, you’ll need strong wrists!) it is beautifully written and completely absorbing to the last page.  FIVE STARS

Coming Rain, by Stephen Daisley

         

            ‘Traitor’,Stephen Daisley’s debut novel six years ago (see review below) earned him several distinguished Australian literary awards, and ‘Coming Rain’, his second novel, has recently gained him New Zealand’s top literary prize.  And rightly so.

            Set in the Western Australia of the 1950’s, Mr Daisley paints an enormous canvas of harsh, bright horizons, red dust and flies ( I swear I can still hear them buzzing and feel the dust clog my nostrils), myriad wild creatures trying to survive and mean little settlements peopled by men and women as tough and unforgiving as the landscape.  Mr Daisley’s word pictures are breathtaking and brutal as he introduces us to his protagonists, Painter Hayes and Lewis McCleod, itinerant shearers-cum-charcoal burners on their way to shear sheep for Mr Drysdale, a landowner in decline;  his wife has recently died and the land is starting to get away from him.  Even though his lovely daughter Clara has returned from that posh finishing school to help him out, he can’t seem to find the old motivation, the old drive to farm the way he used to.  He is wallowing in his grief.

            Painter and Lew are an unlikely pair:  Lew has been with Painter for ten years, since he was eleven when his mother sent him off with a shearer’s agent after she was given a carton of Lucky Strikes;  fortunately for Lew he was taught the job by Painter, a Gun shearer – and a brawling, boxing drunk on his days off.  Painter lacks a lot as a father figure, but Lew is not complaining, for they look out for each other;  they work hard and travel from job to job in an old truck that becomes more scarred with each journey – but it still gets them there, as reliable an old horse.  He can’t imagine a different life for himself – until he meets Clara Drysdale, gloriously fit, charmingly pretty, a great horsewoman and dog-lover (she has a whole pack of adoring canines) – and the boss’s daughter.

            Painter tries to warn Lew away from certain disaster, but Clara is just as smitten and persuades her ardent admirer to ask her father for permission to ‘see’ her – and the consequences of such a respectful and timid request are  more brutal and tragic than anyone could imagine:  this reader didn’t see the figurative sledgehammer coming, and I am still shivering with horror, but again full of admiration for the sheer power, the absolute mastery of narrative that Mr Daisley displays, especially in his parallel story of a female dingo who keeps on crossing Lew’s path, both of them ultimate survivors  in a brutal world.

            What an honour it was to read this book.  I wish my review could do it justice, but I don’t have Mr Daisley’s wonderful word-power.   SIX STARS   

  

Traitor, by Stephen Daisley

This is a novel about friendship, sure and true and everlasting, born in the carnage of battle and strengthened by terrible subsequent adversity.  There are no happy endings in ‘Traitor’ for its theme is an exploration of what is traitorous:  the betrayal of friendship or of one’s country? 

David Monroe is a New Zealand soldier at Gallipoli;  he has already been mentioned in dispatches for his bravery at Chunuk Bair, but his life is changed forever by his meeting in the heat of bombardment with a Turkish Officer, a Doctor who is frantically trying to save the life of an Australian Digger – his enemy.  They are all victims of the next explosion;  the Australian dies and David, badly wounded by shrapnel, ends up being guard to the Turk Mahmoud, who has lost his foot and most of the fingers of one hand.  They bond with each other to the extent that David tries to help Mahmoud to escape, with disastrous results, especially for himself:  he is now regarded as a deserter and a traitor and undergoes terrible punishment, especially from men he formerly regarded as friends – they have no time for ‘conchies’. 

He demonstrates his courage again and again as a stretcher bearer on the battlefields of France and Belgium, where he has been sent after his prison sentence, but he is never forgiven, then or after the war;  people don’t care to associate with him for consorting with the enemy, a murderer of ‘our boys at the front’. 

This is Mr. Daisley’s debut novel and it is a searing, powerful evocation of a time when ‘King and Country’ meant everything to those at home and to those young men who went to fight – until they encountered the dreadful theatre of war, experiencing first-hand the great divide between patriotism and the bloody reality of destruction.  It is a story of love in many forms, parental love – in David’s case, the lack of it – the love of mateship, romantic love and the love of the land.  Mr. Daisley has crafted a superb and poignant story with unforgettable characters, and a wonderfully accurate portrayal of a life and times now barely remembered in this new century.   His prose is beautiful and elegiac – and utterly compelling.  SIX STARS   

            

LAST GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2016

Everyone Brave is Forgiven, by Chris Cleave

The first of British writer Chris Cleave’s novels that I read was ‘The Other Hand’, so singular that it was imperative for me to read whatever else followed, and that was ‘Gold’ (see review below), a superb story of the lengths to which certain athletes would go to attain glory. 

            Now Mr Cleave astonishes the reader yet again with ‘Everyone Brave is Forgiven’, his searing, terrifying account of London during the German bombing in the  first years of the Second World War, and how his main protagonists faced up to Hell on Earth.

Mary North races back to Britain from her Swiss Finishing School in 1939, intent on serving the war effort with the boundless enthusiasm of youth and the formidable talents born of privilege (Mary’s father is a conservative MP), not to mention age-old connections:  imagine her chagrin at being relegated to school-teaching, now that so many of the REAL schoolteachers (i.e.men) are off soldiering.  To add insult to injury, the headmistress of the school to which she is seconded thinks she is an ornament, not serious in her vocation because she favours the lesser lights in her class;  a young black child from America, son of an entertainer at the Lyceum theatre, and various children who are not doing well because they can’t grasp the basics.

Mary is outraged that she is sacked in the first week of her employment because her superior feels that her discipline is too lax, and anyway, all of the children are being evacuated to the country.  No-one requires her inexperienced services.   She is superfluous, and fuming – until the children no-one in the country wants return to London, including Zachary, the black child, the picaninny, the NIGGER, ignored and starved by his host family and stoned by his country ‘schoolmates’.    Mr Cleave doesn’t spare us from English hypocrisy of the time:  evacuating precious white children was paramount;  those of a different hue or intellectual capacity were returned to the bombing after being refused sanctuary in the country,  As Mary says:  ‘I see negro children cowering in basements while white children sojourn in the country, and yet both camps beg me not to rock the boat.  Look at us, won’t you?  We are a nation of glorious cowards, ready to battle any evil but our own.’

Needless to say, Mary has few friends who share her opinions but because she is young and VERY pretty she has many admirers, two of whom become entangled, to their detriment.  I have to say that Mary and her friend Hilda and their male admirers seem more than a little contrived, despite two of the characters being based on Mr Cleave’s grandparents:  Mary and Hilda’s cut-glass accents lacerate us every time they open their mouths and everyone is more witty than a bag full of George Bernard Shaws and Oscar Wildes.  While I delighted in Mr Cleave’s brilliant dialogue it doesn’t always ring true, especially when his male protagonists suffer starvation and the death of comrades whilst trying to defend Malta during its terrible Blockade. 

Having said that, Mr Cleave still manages to communicate with horrifying and superb imagery the terrible privation and losses suffered by London’s population during the Blitz, the desperation and sheer exhaustion of those called on to perform impossible rescue feats, and the fabled stiff-upper-lip so prized by all Britons – for those of their own colour.  How the world has changed in seventy years, and how glad we are that it has.  FOUR STARS   

 Gold, by Chris Cleave.

A few years ago I read a book by Chris Cleave called ‘The Other Hand’ (‘Little Bee’ in the U.S.A.), a story that has stayed with me because of its unforgettable characters (especially little Bee);  the horror and brutality of the circumstances that turn people, particularly children, into refugees; and how they fare afterwards in a supposedly caring world. 

I have been waiting patiently for Mr Cleave to produce his next opus, and here it is:  he pursues a completely different path this time, but as before commands the reader’s full attention and doesn’t relinquish it until the last page.

The London Olympics of 2012 are fast approaching, and three of Britain’s top cyclists are training hard for what will be their last big competition;  they are into their 30’s now, and despite huge former success and gold medals in previous Olympic competition, they know that this meeting will be their Swansong.

Zoë Castle is Miss Photo Op, the rock star of the trio, the athlete everyone wants to be – but no man wants to really know, unless it is to boast on FaceBook that they have worn her medals while they serviced her.  She is obsessively, destructively competitive and has no friends except her long-suffering rival Kate Argall, who through a superhuman feat of selflessness – or martyrdom, remains her steadfast ally, in spite of Zoë’s constant insults, backstabbing and, at one earlier point, her attempt to steal Kate’s man – just because he was Kate’s.

And that man, Jack Argall, is the third cyclist, brilliant, committed to his sport, to Kate, who is now his wife, and utterly committed and devoted to their daughter Sophie, 8 years old and battling leukaemia.

They all want to win gold for the last time, though in Kate’s case, it would be the only time;  she was looking after baby Sophie for the Athens Olympics, then opted out of Beijing when Sophie was diagnosed with her terrible disease.  She is now in the form of her life and knows full well this will be her last chance.

Zoë wants to win, yearns to win, needs to win again, because without victory she has nothing;  her life is meaningless without competition and victory by fair means or intimidation.  She cannot contemplate a future without being a winner:  a future down amongst the earthlings instead of soaring among the stars is unthinkable.

Mr Cleave handles his trio’s relationships, secrets and dilemmas with skill and insight;  he avoids the obvious tear-jerker element when writing of Sophie’s illness and her parents’ suffering;  instead he produces that welcome and increasingly rare phenomenon:  a novel that makes us think, a story that reflects momentous decisions that we all must make at various times in our lives, and the consequences of those choices. And when all’s said and done, that should be the objective of any writer worth his salt:  to engage his audience completely – not by literary artifice, but with a credible story, beautifully told.  Mr Cleave does so effortlessly.  FIVE STARS

A Time of Torment, by John Connolly

The State of West Virginia hides a reclusive sect within one of the smallest counties within its bounds, Plassey County.  Everyone in the adjoining villages surrounding The Cut, as it is known, are careful not to recognise – or God forbid – antagonise the Cut dwellers;  it is common knowledge that bad things happen to them if they do.  People disappear, and if they don’t, their bodies are found burnt and desecrated.  The people of the Cut keep to themselves, and their neighbours are happy to leave them alone.  It is rumoured that their small sect worships an alien God, a God of blood and retribution, a God that no normal Christian could countenance:  the Dead King.

Enter private investigator Charlie Parker, no stranger to battling the forces of evil, and recently terribly injured in his efforts to vanquish his enemies.  He comes to Plassey County to find his client, a man just released from prison after serving a trumped-up sentence for child molestation.  His only request of Charlie is to look into the disappearance of two women who were dear to him while he was inside;  women who didn’t believe that he was guilty of the heinous crimes of which he was accused.  He also tells Charlie that if he disappears, then he has been kidnapped, probably by The Cut, and his life will be over.  Charlie and his two murderous sidekicks Louis and Angel, are ready as always to ferret out the truth and find out where the bodies are hidden, not to mention adding a few corpses of their own to the growing pile.

Last, but certainly never least, Charlie’s two daughters, one living and one dead watch over him with varying degrees of anxiety – at least on the part of Jennifer, the little daughter murdered many years before.  (You really DO have to read these books from the beginning!)  Samantha, daughter # 2, seems to have more confidence in her father’s ability to successfully fight the Dead King;  she has quite exceptional powers of her own, which have yet to be tested.

John Connolly has always described his Charlie Parker tales as ‘odd little books’:  maybe they are for some but for legions of his fans around the world, odd is good!  (see 2014 review below)  His characters are always, without exception, well-drawn and credible and each story is wonderfully plotted with just the right mix of horror and humour – and always, ALWAYS beautifully written.  It won’t be a spoiler to say that the people of The Cut are eventually defeated, but horror and dread is still just around the next corner for Charlie and his mighty friends.  FIVE STARS.

A Song of Shadows, by John Connolly

In ‘The Wolf in Winter’, John Connolly’s last opus 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.  FIVE STARS  

           

              

   

MORE GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2016

Blood, Salt, Water by Denise Mina

Detective Inspector Alex Morrow returns after too long an absence (see 2013 review below), dealing still with the myriad problems thrown up by having a brother who is THE kingpin of the Glasgow criminal world, and still operating from prison, where she sent him in one of the hardest life-choices she had to make:  family loyalty or loyalty to justice?

Regardless, she is happy he is off the streets (for a change) even though she has to endure thoughtless remarks from her superiors to the effect that ‘at least he kept all the other crims in order’.  Teeth-grinding and fist-curling stuff but she can concentrate her considerable talents instead on a huge seven million pound scam that is being perpetrated by a Spanish quartet who are clever, but not clever enough to disguise their actions completely: the London Metropolitan Police want Police Scotland’s surveillance assistance as the scammers have transferred themselves to Glasgow;  if they are caught in that city, then Police Scotland can expect a fair dollop of the confiscated seven million pounds for themselves – and the police certainly need cash:  police resources are at their lowest ebb ever;  stations are being closed everywhere and morale is sinking rapidly.  A healthy injection from the Proceeds of Crime would cheer everyone up considerably.

Alex finds surveilling the couple despatched to Glasgow quite relaxing;  she even starts to develop a rapport with Roxanna, gorgeous and fiery girlfriend of the much younger Robin;  whilst not liking their life choices, Alex sees in Roxanna certain good qualities, especially maternal love towards her children that obviously comes before anything else.  She would never desert them, ever, therefore it is extremely worrying when one of her children reports her missing:  this is completely out of character, and Alex starts to fear for her entertaining Spanish con artist.

And rightly so.  Alex’s search for Roxanna takes her away from grim and grubby Glasgow to the beautiful areas of Helensburgh and Loch Lomond, only to find that murder has been committed, and quite professionally, too.

Ms Mina weaves a very tangled tale here:  there are more than the usual amount of sub plots and minor characters and one definitely has to pay as much attention as Alex does to every potentially guilty party – this could be to the story’s detriment in the hands of a lesser writer, but Ms Mina is so adept at mood and characterisation, particularly of local factions in small towns that it is once again a tremendous pleasure to involve oneself with each of her inventions:  shonky lawyers (more than one!);  snobby locals and their polar opposites;  small-time criminals – and their bosses;  and Alex’s various colleagues, those she likes and those she definitely doesn’t:  all as real and recognisable as thee and me, and let us not forget her wastrel brother, who has been attacked in prison (shucks, that’s a surprise!) and is doing the life-and-death hover in hospital.  Denise Mina is still the best, still a babe, still a top chick crime writer:  FIVE STARS!    

      

The Red Road, by Denise Mina

Ms Mina is justly renowned for her gritty and disturbing thrillers set in the stark confines of the city of Glasgow, and ‘The Red Road’ continues in the same vein:  Detective inspector Alex Morrow is Ms Mina’s White Knight in an unremittingly grey world, and once again she is battling – vainly, it seems, to make a significant wound to the belly of the criminal world of which her brother Danny is a kingpin.  Danny who tricked her, exploiting her yearning for family into ignoring her intuition sufficiently enough to nominate him as her twins’ godfather, yet another layer of respectability he constructs in his attempts to hide his activities from law enforcers: who better to have on your side than a high-ranking policewoman who is also your sister?

DI Morrow’s lot is not a happy one and is further complicated by the puzzling death of a respected lawyer who seemingly collapsed both lungs in a fall;  the resurrection of a 15 year-old murder for which a 14 year-old girl served a prison sentence – defended by the late lawyer;  and yet another murder committed on the same night (the night Princess Diana died) of a teenage boy.  His young brother was found guilty, but information has just surfaced that shows that the evidence and his ‘confession’ were manufactured – by the police.

Yet more killings are uncovered, and with them corruption so deep that Alex feels as if she is drowning in it:  whichever decision she makes will deeply affect innocent people.  If she says nothing and preserves the status quo the villains will continue on their merry way, reaping the rich rewards of their sins, and if she speaks out and exposes Glasgow’s festering underbelly yet again, more baddies are lined up to fill the shoes of those she sends away.

She speaks out.

And reaches her glass ceiling.  Her brother is caught in the net of her investigation, but because of their kinship she is not allowed to claim credit for her skill at catching him along with so many other big fish:  the praise and promotions go elsewhere.  She is forced to conclude – rightly – that she is too good at her job;  too principled, and too naïve in believing that there are others of her acquaintance who are of a similar mindset.

And we shall have to wait until the next gripping instalment to find out if Alex’s morals and self-respect remain untarnished, and if she can survive the horrors of her job without being permanently brutalised by it.

As always, Ms Mina poses many more questions in her stories than simply ‘who done what’:  she examines with great skill and insight the human frailties that assail so many of us, and the tipping points reached that turn ordinary folk into sinners.  FIVE STARS

Winter, by Marissa Meyer                      Young Adult reading

            Marissa Meyer’s retelling of  Snow White, the final fairy tale of her marvellous quartet of books starting with ‘Cinder’ (see ecstatic 2012 review below) brings to a close one of the best fantasy series I have ever read:  while keeping to the famous, tried-and-true details of the wonderful stories of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, she introduces completely new, futuristic settings and characters that compliment and comment on the age in which we live in such a way that I will never gaze upon the moon again without wondering what is REALLY Up There.

            Snow White has been transformed into Princess Winter, hated stepdaughter of Lunar Queen Levana – hated for her peerless beauty, her loving kindness, and her effortless ability to melt the hearts of everyone around her, qualities that are entirely lacking in Levana, despite her own gift of presenting herself as drop-dead gorgeous, not to mention a just and merciful ruler.  The truth, naturally, is exactly the opposite:  Levana’s subjects, especially in the outer regions, live in slavery and poverty, barely existing in the mines and forests created to bring wealth into Artemisia, the capital.   She and her allies, a band of wizards called thaumaturges, control everything and she will tolerate no-one who would undermine her power.  Winter’s days are numbered.  Except for her one ally, her childhood friend Jacin who is now a senior palace guard, and charged with ‘keeping her safe’ – which he does, for he loves her and would protect her with his life if need be, and that time comes sooner than expected, when Levana gives him the fatal order to dispose of his beloved Winter.

            Enter Cinder, now an Outlaw and ready to start a revolution, Red Riding Hood (Red for short) formerly an imprisoned pet in Winter’s menagerie, and Cress (alias Rapunzel), all intent on rescuing the enslaved subjects of Luna from Levana’s madness and cruelty.  They are assisted by various stout-hearted, personable allies;  Carswell Thorne, criminal but charming Ace spaceship pilot, enamoured of Cress but silent on the subject;  Emperor Kaito, Cinder’s own Prince Charming, and Wolf – the Big Bad one, madly in love with Red.  Yep, the gang's all here, and I’m sure you’ll all agree that reading every book of the series is a must, so that all the backstories are properly explained.  Will the Lunar uprising started by Cinder be successful?  Will all these wonderful recreated characters live happily ever after, in the best tradition of all beloved fairy tales?  Read the books, see the movies.  FIVE STARS    

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer (Young adult reading)

How lucky am I that one of our clever librarians recommended that I read this book:  what a favour she did me, what a break, WHAT A STORY!    

The tale of Cinderella – yep, Cinderella, her nasty stepmum and the two stepsisters – is transferred hundreds of years into the future.  Cinderella is now Cinder, living in New Beijing with a family who are, to say the least, most reluctant guardians.  She is a mechanic (truly!) and a Cyborg, to her shame, having been fitted out with a steel hand, leg and inbuilt computer screen after a terrible childhood accident.  Cyborgs are the future’s Untouchables, considered fit only to perform the most menial and degrading of tasks, but Cinder is such a good mechanic that a Royal prince visits her to have his tutor android repaired, and after that visit she and the reader are lost:  she to alien romantic impulses (she is not programmed for this!) and a reluctant involvement in a life and death experiment -  and the reader to being nailed to one spot until they have reached the last page.

To add insult to injury, the hapless reader finds that after a thrilling journey at a breakneck pace through more clever plot twists than a pretzel, (we all go to the ball, but Cinder loses her cyborg foot, not her slipper!)  there are three more books to come – and they haven’t been written yet!  To say I feel cheated is an understatement and the withdrawal symptoms are dire, but I also say with complete confidence that ‘Cinder’ will be the next big Blockbuster book/movie series:  you read it here first.

GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2016

The Soldier’s Curse, by Meg and Tom Keneally

In June 1825 convict Hugh Llewellyn Monsarrat is serving a second sentence in Port Macquarie, New South Wales after being transported from England for fraud and forgery.  He knows he should feel grateful that he wasn’t hanged, for the fraud for which he was convicted was impersonating a solicitor, thereby bringing the whole profession into disrepute – despite the irrefutable fact that he represented his clients more conscientiously than a lot of his colleagues.

A combination of unfortunate circumstances and the malice of a particular ‘godly’ personage has seen him lose his rights, hard-won in the growing settlement of Parramatta, for a second time;  now he is employed as a clerk for the new Commandant of Port Macquarie, who has been instructed to found a penal outpost in a place considered ideal for convicts to extract timber from the surrounding highlands and an excellent source of lime for the manufacture of bricks.

Monsarrat is a bitter man:  his original crime of impersonating a solicitor was brought about as much by knowing that his poor origins prevented his advanced education as much as his conceit at doing the job better than those both educated and lazy – for him the words ‘if only’ are the saddest words in the world.  But he takes huge pride in knowing that his peerless copperplate and superb efficiency will always stand him in good stead, especially at present with his new Gaoler, Major Shelborne and his charming young wife Honora.  His undoubted talent for his labours earns him small privileges;  a separate hut to sleep in and the enjoyment of the inestimable company in the Government House kitchen of housekeeper Mrs Hannah Mulrooney, herself a freed convict (transported to Australia from Ireland originally for stealing butter for her infant child).

Mrs Mulrooney is illiterate, like all poor Irish of her time but her intelligence and shrewdness are without question – and she makes a cup of tea beyond compare;  a drink not just hot and satisfying, but a balm for bad and sad moods and the blessed metaphor for the comfort of hearth and home.  Mrs Mulrooney’s kitchen is a vital haven for Monsarrat and various others who strive to be in her good books, and the kettle whistling on the hob is music to their ears.

Eventually all is changed by the departure of the Major on an exploratory mission, and the sudden mysterious illness of his young wife who, despite Mrs Mulrooney’s loving care sickens a little more each day, literally wasting before the housekeeper’s horrified eyes.  Monsarrat, who has access to the various books and newspapers sent to the Major is shocked to read that a spate of arsenic poisonings in England and Ireland connected with a green-dyed wallpaper seem to have distressing similarities to Mrs Sherborne’s symptoms and while it is true that green wallpaper is being fitted in the Drawing Room surely that is coincidental.  Isn’t it?

Until Honora Sherborne dies and Mrs Mulrooney is arrested for her murder:  Monsarrat knows with utter certainty that she is innocent, and it is up to him to find out the truth.  Who did murder Mrs Shelborne, and why?

The Keneallys have produced a beautifully written account of the early life in a new convict settlement which is now a lovely and bustling tourist destination in Australia.  Their protagonists ring true on every page and their research is impressively detailed, but the story’s leisurely pace does not match the action demanded by its plot:  having made that dire criticism, this  story was still a pleasure to read, and we can look forward to meeting Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney again, for ‘The Soldier’s Curse’ is Book One of a series.  FOUR STARS

Dexter is Dead, by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Morgan, Monster Extraordinaire (and immortalised in an award-winning hit TV series) is in the worst trouble of his twisted life:  he is imprisoned – so far without trial, thanks to the machinations of a Detective who regards him as Dog faeces on his shoe – for several murders that he did not commit, including that of his dear, silly wife Rita.  (See October 2013 review of ‘Dexter’s Final Cut’ below).  He is understandably outraged at this frightful miscarriage of justice:  he has committed so many perfect crimes that it is deeply insulting to be charged with killings for which he is (just this once) completely innocent.  What is the world coming to??

His situation cannot get any worse, surely – until he receives after an alarmingly long interval a visit from his adoptive sister Detective Sergeant Deborah Morgan who, contrary to his expectations, has not arrived to use her influence to free him – quite the contrary:  she doesn’t care if he ROTS in prison!  He is vile, unspeakable and only cares for himself (all true;  he cannot deny that is a fair assessment of his character, but …. This time he’s innocent!), but what about HIS KIDS!!!  Has he forgotten about Rita’s two children and his own little daughter with her?  Has he given any thought to them at all??

Of course not.  Dexter’s priorities are centred entirely on getting out of the pokey.  He has not spared a single thought for their health or welfare:  his own is much more important.  Fortunately, Deborah is more family-minded, as she scathingly reminds him:  she wants him to sign custody papers, then never, EVER contact her or the children again:  he is unfit to be in their lives.

Dexter is reeling from this shocking (and cruelly unjustified) attack.  How can he possibly think of the children until he is released from these trumped-up charges?  At the very least Deborah’s logic is fatally flawed, but if she won’t help him – as she has made painfully clear – then he seems destined to spend a long time in his mini-cell, arranging his toothbrush.

Until ….. until he receives a visit from a lawyer for the rich and infamous, someone he couldn’t possibly afford, who promises to ensure his rapid release from prison:  evidence has suddenly come to light (how?) that the arresting paperwork has been tampered with.  Dexter is a free man.  Oh, joy – there must be a God of some kind after all!  But no.  Especially when Dexter is collected from the prison gates by his brother Brian, instrumental in gaining Dexter’s release, but also requiring his very urgent help.  Dexter has always known that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but anything to do with Brian (a person of equally monstrous urges) usually poses a risk to Dexter’s well-being, not to mention life and limb. 

Dexter, as always is right:  Brian, hired assassin – ‘best job I ever had!’ – for a notorious Mexican Drug Lord, has offended his employer and is now on the run;  he needs Dexter’s undoubted expertise at enemy removal to help rub them all out.  What’s not to like about that job description for dark, daring, deadly Dexter (who loves alliteration) and badass brother Brian.  They are going to have SUCH fun!

And they do, until Dexter’s children are kidnapped by the Drug Lord and Deborah demands that he resume his fatherly duties and ‘do what he does best’:  rescue the kids and finish every one of the f*ckers off.  As painfully as possible.

So he does;  he, Brian and Deborah, that unholy trio of vigilantes go to the children’s rescue knowing that survival for all of them is slim or non-existent, and I have to say that Dexter’s demise is a sad day for crime fiction.  I still can’t believe that this excellent series is finally at an end, for Jeff Lindsay has created the perfect anti-hero in Dexter Morgan;  brilliant, witty, wise (let us not forget handsome!) and monstrously homicidal.  Dexter’s millions of fans are going to miss him – me too:  I can’t believe he’s gone.  FIVE STARS

Dexter’s Final Cut, by Jeff Lindsay

Ah, Dexter.  Dark disciple of drastic solutions to dreadful problems;   lover of alliteration;   pseudo-pillar of society, proud possessor of wife and ready-made family and respected blood-spatter expert for the Miami Dade Police Department:  could the latest book in this excellent series  be Dexter’s final, fatal foray into murder and mayhem?

OK, I’ll stop right there with my attempts at alliteration – they’re not a patch on Mr Lindsay’s, but I do hope that this won’t be the final Dexter adventure.  If a cold-blooded, relentlessly efficient and remorseless killer can endear himself to millions of readers, then anti-hero Dexter is a riotous success, a total knock-out - because he’s funny.  And brilliant.  And up until now, entirely unable to feel any emotional response to anyone he knows, including his family.

When this story begins Dexter is just boogying along in the same old groove, going to work, going home to the family, and sometimes departing from the norm with late night trips to find a ‘playmate’, someone who has committed a terrible crime for which he cannot be punished by the law – until Dexter decides that it is time for the miscreant to sin no more.

Life is uneventful, until a new TV crime series starts filming in Miami, and Dexter and his grumpy sister Detective sergeant Deborah Morgan are seconded as technical advisers to the production, Deborah being the ‘inspiration’ for TV star Jackie Forrest’s character, and Dexter’s expertise in forensics as a guide for Robert Chase, former megastar who is nearing his use-by date.  Needless to say, the novelty of explaining his work to his handsome but dim pupil palls very quickly for Dexter;  besides, Robert (call me Robert, not Bob) doesn’t seem to have the stomach for the latest grisly murder, that of a young woman found savaged, raped and carved up in a dumpster.  Robert’s definitely a workplace hindrance but one that Dexter has to cart around like a large colicky baby – then another young woman is found, defiled in the same heinous way and disposed of in another dumpster, and when the third blonde corpse is discovered it becomes obvious that the beautiful Jackie Forrest has a stalker, one who is killing women who resemble her, and he states that she will be next.

Dexter, much against his wishes is nominated to be her bodyguard for the duration of the shoot;  wife Rita and children are told by Deborah that he is away on highly secret business and Dexter moves into Jackie Forrest’s luxury hotel suite.  Here the reader could be forgiven for expecting the action to proceed in an orderly predictable fashion, with Dexter, happy murderous beast that he is, finding and despatching the stalker in his usual efficient and clandestine way before Ms Forrest is attacked – or at a pinch, even after a nail-biting confrontation occurs – from which she is rescued, of course. 

Sadly, no.

Mr Lindsay shocks us all with the direction of the plot, for the unthinkable happens more than once:  Dexter discovers that his raisin of a heart is not completely dry – he starts to experience feelings.  And because these alien emotions confound him he is not his usual sharp, analytical self.  He makes several crucial mistakes, errors which have the reader screeching ‘For God’s sake, Dexter – pull yourself together.  Man up!’  But he doesn’t.  When the story ends he is fathoms deep in the darkest ordure ever, with no obvious way up, facing punishment for crimes that he didn’t commit.  Is Dexter doomed?  Will he survive to kill another day?

I can’t imagine that Mr Lindsay would pay any heed to the writer of a Library blog in far-off Hobbitland and her pleas for Dexter adventure # 8,  but what about all the other millions of Dexter fans out there?  It will be all Mr Lindsay’s fault if they get in a sulk, for he has created an unforgettable character in Dexter and his Dark Passenger, so much so that his literary demise is unimaginable.  I have no realistic idea how Mr Lindsay can resurrect Dexter from his impossible predicament, but I have faith.  I hope he doesn’t leave him in the shite for too long, though;  Dexter’s fastidiousness is legendary and the suspense will kill me!  FIVE STARS

Girl waits with Gun, by Amy Stewart

            This action-packed account of the Misses Kopp’s attempts in 1914 to rid themselves of the fatal attentions of the Black Hand gang in New Jersey is all based on real events – even the newspaper accounts in the book are reproduced as printed at the time, but Amy Stewart has given us living, breathing embodiments of Constance, Norma and Fleurette Kopp, three unmarried sisters who live on their late mother’s remote farm outside Paterson.  Constance, the eldest is six feet tall and strapping with it;  she is thirty-five and is not interested in the domestic life expected of women of the day;  nor is her sister Norma, several years younger but happiest in the country away from city noise and bustle;  only the youngest sister Fleurette who, at seventeen wishes to experience all the joys cities promise is a girl of her time, despite being tutored at home by her mother and sisters, and sheltered as much as possible.

            Fleurette is pretty, vivacious, winsome and as tiny as her sisters are the opposite;  they know that eventually she will fly the coop but until then they hope to keep her protected from a hurtful world for as long as they can – until that world intrudes one day on their trip to Paterson for supplies:  one of those new-fangled automobiles drives into their buggy, destroying it and frightening the sisters (not to mention their horse!) to bits, then adding insult to injury the portly drunken driver and his friends have the nerve to tell them to get out of the way – the collision was THEIR fault because their horse spooked!

The patent unfairness riles Constance and the crowd of onlookers:  in the interests of fair play she requests that the person pay for the cost of destroying their buggy, and when he smirks at his mates and attempts to get back in his car, she sets in train the nightmare events to follow by herself acting the heavy:  wrenching the door out of his hands, towering over him (not hard, he’s pretty short) and threatening him with the law if he does not reveal his identity so that she can furnish him with an invoice.

Sadly for the Kopp sisters, they have made an enemy of a ‘Silk man’, Henry Kaufman, whose family owns silk mills that employ a lot of people.  Constance’s humiliating stand-over tactics witnessed by his disreputable mates and a huge crowd of bystanders are too much for Kaufman to forget:  a bloody revenge against all three sisters is the only solution that will satisfy him, and he has the money and connections to achieve it.

Ms Stewart has reconstructed historical events superbly;  her prose is as plain and no-nonsense as Constance herself, and the Kopp sisters’ origins while exotic to the point of fiction, are well-documented as fact, including a huge secret that drove the family from Brooklyn in the first place.  It is one thing to write convincingly of events that occurred a century ago;  it is quite another to bring the era and its characters so thrillingly to life.  FIVE STARS     

  

  

LAST GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2016

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 (see 2014 review below) 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!

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

Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström, surely the most outrageous policeman in Swedish thriller fiction, returns to shock and infuriate his long-suffering colleagues – not to mention the reader – in Mr Persson’s latest offering.

Bäckström has had some narrow escapes since ‘Linda – As in the Linda Murder’ which have nothing to do with apprehending murderers;  rather, the long arm of the law has reached out to grab him (him, shining example of all that is noble and honourable in the Force.  The nerve of them!) and it has taken all his resourcefulness to fend off charges of bribery, corruption – you name it – thrown at him, the result being not dismissal, as so many of his colleagues hoped, but exile for a year or two following up traffic violations - for Bäckström has an influential relative in the Police Association, so there!  He is not incorruptible (as everyone already knows), just immovable.

When the story opens, Our Hero through various circumstances has been recalled to his usual duties, investigating the murder of an elderly pensioner in a block of flats in suburban Stockholm.  He should be delighted to be back on the job, delegating with his usual superb flair all the work so that he ends up doing very little;  instead, he is in the depths of despair after a compulsory visit to the Police Doctor who prescribes immediate weight-loss,  lots of daily exercise and NO ALCOHOL – or else. 

Bäckström is inconsolable.  Life is shit.  Eating lettuce leaves and drinking water is no way to live for a man of his appetites;  he’s a gourmet, a connoisseur of strong drink and a fearless wielder of his Super Salami with various lucky partners in the comfort of his Hästens bed:  if this is his future, he might as well resign from life right now. 

Until God conveniently appears in a dream to Bäckström as he tossed and turned (on his Hästens bed) on the third day of his travail and Lo!  God tells him to forget about pursuing the new path;  the old path is his true path, so get back on it.  What else can Bäckström do but obey?  One doesn’t argue with God!

After a very satisfying meal of every food he loves and thought he’d never eat again, followed by a couple of very good beers, Our Hero is ready to concentrate again on his current murder investigation, and because he has a very good staff and a truly excellent Russian civilian investigator, it isn’t long before what everyone thought was the murder of an old pisshead by another old pisshead and all done and dusted by the weekend, turns out to be something much more challenging and complicated.

As before, Mr Persson gives us a wealth of detail, including mini-biographies of all the minor characters, but there is less sermonising than in ‘The Linda Murder.’  In this story that is not so important, for the dreadful Bäckström is such a force of nature and so outrageously entertaining that there is little room this time round for polemics - and it is an added pleasure to discover that (when he does it) he is actually very good at his job.  Much to the frustration of his superiors, most of whom detest him to a greater or lesser degree, the ‘fat little bastard’ CAN solve serious crimes and get results – whether they like it or not.  And Bäckström finds out that he who kills the dragon gets the princess – and what a princess!  He’s scared stiff.  FIVE STARS.

Riders, by Veronica Rossi                        Young Adult

18-year-old Army recruit Gideon Blake dies whilst training to be a part of the elite Ranger Regiment;  on a training jump his main parachute fails to open and he plunges thousands of feet to his death.  He knows he died;  no-one could survive such a fall, but here he is in hospital, nursing terrible injuries that will take months of rehab – but as if that weren’t miraculous enough, his broken bones seem to be healing at a crazily rapid rate, so quickly that he is discharged early into his mother’s care.  And that’s when life gets really weird, for he now wears a bracelet that seems moulded to his wrist, a bracelet made of an unknown red metal.  He can’t remove it.

And Gideon seems to inspire aggression in people who had hitherto regarded him with kindness and friendship;  as he heals (ever more rapidly) he decides to seek some kind of peace with his twin sister Anna, a college student in San Francisco, only to find himself mentally influencing her to drop her waste-of-space boyfriend (no loss there, he’s doing her a favour) and changing the mood of a student party, especially as it seems to be infiltrated by a gang of people so evil he is filled with a raging need to destroy them utterly:  he will make WAR on them all!

Until Daryn, a mysterious girl appears at the same time, dragging him away from doing just that, and appraising him of his new role in life:  he HAS died, but has been reborn as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, called up again to fight the terrible scourge of evil that manifests itself now as The Kindred.  Gideon is War, and he and Daryn must find Conquest, Famine and Death as quickly as possible so that they can prevent the Kindred from world domination. 

Ms Rossi has written some breathtaking fantasy here with nail-biting action on every page.  Her characterisations of the other Horsemen are as spectacular as they should be, and their weapons and steeds deserve special mention, particularly Gideon’s Red Horse, flames pulsing from mane to tail and the most terrifying thing he has ever seen:  how will he ever learn to ride it when it wants to kill him if he even moves his eyeballs? 

There is no shortage of smart, funny dialogue – Gideon is a motor mouth supremo, especially in his exchanges with Death, who loathes him sufficiently enough to try to cut him down with his scythe – often, but eventually the Horsemen unite as they must to join the great battle of Good versus Evil:  may they triumph, but we will have to wait for the sequel to find out.  FIVE STARS

MORE GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2016

The Unfortunate Englishman, by John Lawton

Mr Lawton first introduced Joe Wilderness to us in 2013 with ‘Then We Take Berlin’, (see review below) a furiously-paced thriller set in Post War Germany:  at that time Joe was a young Cockney chancer – with special abilities, sent to Hamburg as a very junior intelligence officer.  Now, twenty years later, he is once again with British Intelligence – but only because it’s the only way he can get out of a German prison for a botched job involving a CIA ‘buddy’ who has proved to be anything but.  His former boss, ex Lt. Colonel Burne-Jones is happy to have him ‘back on board’ at MI6;  as before he has a particular job in mind well-suited to Joe’s great spying and language talents (not to mention burglary skills) – but should Joe refuse this kind offer to return to the fold, then there is nothing else for it but to leave him languishing in a West German prison for a very long time.

Once again Joe is a Spook, but with age comes experience and he really is exceptional at what he is so reluctant to do – which is to train a British Metallurgist to ferret out information about Soviet Atomic Weapons Complexes on the pretext of purchasing zinc and indium from them.  Geoffrey Masefield has plenty of bona fide credentials but Joe senses that Our Geoffrey is more seduced by the romantic fictional dream of being a spy, than the actual nuts and bolts of being one:  shouldn’t he have one of those tiny cameras?  No?  Well, what about a gun at the very least?  Spymaster and pupil are at loggerheads and despite all of Joe’s reservations, Our Geoffrey, Secret Agent, is sent off to the Soviet Union to do his worst.  Which he does, eventually ending up in Moscow’s notorious Lubyanka prison.

It gives Joe no pleasure to have to say ‘I told you so’ to Burne-Jones – who is also his father-in-law (yes, twenty years can produce some surprises:  Joe is married to the Boss's daughter Judy and has twin daughters, Molly and Joan, whom he thought he would never take to but loves to bits) and now he is faced with a return to Berlin, that city of wrecked opportunities, dreams and promises, there to find the best, safest and easiest way out of the fiasco Our Geoffrey has created – and no-one is more surprised than he to be approached by the Russians themselves:  what about a spy swap?  With conditions, of course.  Aren’t there always?  And when Joe hears what those conditions are, the honourable intelligence officer becomes the Artful Dodger once again, with reluctant help from his former henchmen.  He has been made an offer he can’t refuse.

Mr Lawton has produced a sequel to ‘Then We Take Berlin’ which (dare I say it?) is even better:  most of the characters which delighted the reader in the first book return to entertain again;  his plotting is just as fast paced and action-packed and the dialogue is again smart, funny and entirely credible.  Mr Lawton has yet to drink from the same flask as John Le Carre, but he is sitting at the same table!  FIVE STARS

Then We Take Berlin, by John Lawton

John (known as Joe) is a Cockney wide boy, a thief trained to the nth degree by his grandfather Abner, who adopts him when his alcoholic mother is killed by a German bomb whilst enjoying a lunchtime G and T at the local pub.  Joe has many things stacked against him, not least his East End origins and the bestiality of his father, a soldier who returns infrequently from battle to take out the horrors and evil of war on his 13 year old son.  Life, especially during the London blitz would be unendurable were it not for the home of sorts provided by his grandfather, and Joe’s love of reading – the best form of escapism ever.  (And I’m sure every dedicated reader knows that.)  He is a ‘word child’:  he has a gift for languages ; he can imitate successfully any accent;  he is  a boy of ferocious intelligence but devoid of scruples – in short,  he is the perfect apprentice thief.  And he is an apt pupil.

All continues as normal in Joe’s world until Abner has a fatal accident, and necessity dictates a change of address;  the war has come to an end but Joe’s draft papers arrive, and he is sent to the Royal Air Force, there to stir up so much trouble that he is constantly in ‘the glasshouse’ for insubordination – until his many and doubtful talents come to the attention of Lt. Col. Burne-Jones, an intelligence officer who sees in Joe his true calling:  cat burglar and spy for the British Secret Service.  After a crash course in German and Russian, he is despatched to Hamburg, ostensibly as a clerk, but also to check on various citizens who swear they endured six years of the Nazis without becoming one of them.

Germany:  broken country of ruined cities and a vanquished and traumatised population – the perfect breeding ground for rackets and the black market.  Joe the Chancer is in his element.  There is money to be made, quite apart from his clandestine activities on behalf of His Majesty.  He’s happy as the proverbial pig in shite – and then he meets Nell.

Nell, short for Christina Helene von Raeder Burkhardt, patriotic Berliner and aristocratic German , and at twenty already a victim of tragedy at the hands of the Nazis is trying to atone for the terrible sins of her countrymen, witnessed first hand at Belsen.  She occupies a high moral ground, ultimately inaccessible to Joe the Rogue;  he finds her principled view of the world amusing, strange and naïve:  his experience of life has taught him that principles mean nothing – there is only money, and everyone has his price, including himself.

Mr Lawton has given us a gripping read, a searing account of man’s inhumanity to man, and characters that live and breathe on the page.

Joe is the Artful Dodger of the Second World War, endearing, charming, amoral, and bent as a corkscrew.  No good can come of his liaison with Nell, his polar opposite, but the reader hopes until the bitter end that the impossible will happen – this is a novel, after all!  Regardless of the outcome, John Lawton has written a page-turner par excellence:  highly recommended 

               

GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2016

The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh

Flood Of Fire, Book Three

Amitav Ghosh concludes his great sprawling saga of the 1840’s opium Wars with the Flood of Fire unleashed upon the Chinese by the British for daring to oppose their ‘lawful, honest and just’ attempts to trade in opium in China.  Such was the economic sway of the East India Company and its various powerful representatives that the British Government consented to send troops to China to bring that unruly nation to heel;  it was unthinkable that pig-tailed heathen should refuse God-fearing and righteous attempts by virtuous opium merchants to educate and guide them in matters of commerce and trade:  they would have to be taught a lesson.

It has taken Mr Ghosh more than five years to produce this last great story, and I have to admit that I had forgotten some of the characters and a lot of the detail of the first two volumes ( see below ) but his account of Britain’s shameful part in subjugating and humiliating a teeming, populous nation in the name of the twin Gods Money and Profit is first rate, written in a style both lucid and exciting.

The fates of several of the characters are resolved for good or ill here;  the corruption of Zachary Reid, an honourable young second mate on the Ibis is gradual and inexorable, but one still reaches the end of the trilogy hoping that he will redeem himself, even though he sells his soul to not one devil but two when Hong Kong is ceded to the British.

Throughout this story is demonstrated the casual superiority and careless racism directed by British Officers to the men who laid down their lives for them in China:  the Indian Sepoys who fought like tigers for their commanders but were regarded as completely expendable;  one such career man being Kesri Singh, whose Army career evolves into different duties, the keeper of terrible secrets being one.

What an epic adventure this trilogy is, but what leaps out more than all the vividly drawn characters – and there are so many! – is the beautiful Ibis, used for slave-trading and opium transport, but untouched by the evil that men used her for:  she is the great beating heart of this trilogy, the vital life-saving connection for all who need to escape.  SIX STARS!   

Sea of Poppies, Book One

This novel is the first book of a trilogy, and an exhaustive account of Britain’s infamous Opium trade, poppies grown and manufactured into the drug  in India and sold to China in a bid to unman and enslave both populations – until the Chinese Mandarins decide to block further imports of the poppy to their country, thus starting the Opium Wars in the late 1830s, a conflict championed by all ‘right-thinking’ British importers and supporters of Free Trade everywhere – or more correctly, a fight by them to retain the huge profits and enormous riches gained in living off the misery of others.  This story is an ambitious undertaking;  a great sprawling mess of a tale centred around the 1838 voyage of the Ibis, a two-masted schooner fitted out originally as a slaver, then altered minimally after the abolition of slavery to transport indentured Indian labourers to the Mauritius Islands.  The Ibis’s next port of call is  Canton, there to deliver its supplementary cargo of Opium, but such is the detail, the scene-setting, the sheer sweep of the story that at the end of Book One the Ibis is nowhere near Mauritius, but instead fighting a mighty storm, with an officer murdered and several escapees deciding to take their chances in a stolen longboat – Mein Gott!  What an ending:  I am nearly as much up in the air as the crashing waves and screeching winds so thrillingly described by Mr. Ghosh, and am still marveling at the ease with which he has brought an initially bewildering and polyglot array of characters (almost a cast of thousands, and every one has a backstory) into being, then pared them down convincingly until the remainder through many a different circumstance end up as voyagers on the Ibis.  This novel is also notable for the almost unintelligible mixture of Hindusthani, Urdu, Lascar and old British slang used as dialogue, and I had great fun reading the origins of many of our English words still in use today. Mr. Ghosh has crafted an adventure story in the fine tradition of the great 19^th century classics;  he’s a worthy successor to Conrad, Defoe and Melville and I am looking forward with great anticipation to Volume 2, ‘River of Smoke’.  A treat is surely in store, and I hope Mr. Ghosh is hard at work on volume 3.  Highly recommended.

River of Smoke, Book Two

This is the second book of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy.  At the end of  ‘Sea of Poppies’( Book one)  the Ibis, a converted slave ship carrying indentured Indian labourers to Mauritius, is caught in a huge storm.  Two condemned prisoners and three Lascars murder an officer, escape the ship and are thought drowned :   the ship’s first mate is held responsible, not for the loss of life of those worthless monkeys, but for the danger that was caused to the main shipment, a huge cargo of opium on its way to the Chinese port of Canton. 

It was cruel of Mr. Ghosh to leave the reader in such suspense, but ‘River of Smoke’ answers all the questions raised in the first novel, and presents us with a host of fascinating new characters to enjoy.  There is a welcome reintroduction to some of the main protagonists of Book One, but some take a back seat as the action shifts from Calcutta to Canton.  Mr. Ghosh writes of his characters with gusto and verve and it is nothing less than a delight to follow their adventures, framed against the background of Britain’s iniquitous embrace of the Opium Trade, all in the name of ‘free’ enterprise.  Exhaustive research has been undertaken to present an authentic account of the everyday life and business in ‘Fanqui-town’ enclave of the  fabulously rich British Traders:  not permitted to reside in Canton itself, they nevertheless carve for themselves fiefdoms that ignore Chinese laws completely, believing themselves in their monumental arrogance to be above and beyond the control of the heathen devils.   Chinese objections to the enslavement of their population to the poppy go unheeded until a powerful new High Commissioner is appointed by the Emperor – a scholar, an intellectual, a poet -  and worst of all incorruptible,  he  takes up the cudgels on behalf of his people and engages the traders in the first battle of what is to become known as the British Opium Wars. 

Mr. Ghosh’s meticulous attention to fact and his great gifts for imagery and characterization make this story a winner;  my opinion after reading ‘Sea of Poppies’ was that he is a worthy successor to the great 19^th century adventure novelists, and this still holds true with ‘River of Smoke’:  when Book Three is read, I know that I will regret this great trilogy coming to an end.  Highly recommended.