The Abstainer, by Ian McGuire.

 

 

           English author Ian McGuire has constructed a novel so justly weighted against the country of his birth that it would be easy to mistake him as being from the Emerald Isle;  his fictionalised account of the infamous hanging in November 1867 of three innocent Irishmen wrongly accused of the murder of a Manchester policeman weeks before is the precursor to the monumental battle that follows:  the retaliation by the Fenian Brotherhood’s efforts to take revenge against authority figures in Manchester, that filthy, teeming city that is home and slave work in the mills to a large and dirt-poor population of Irish, there because their own country cannot feed them.  Thanks to the English.  Manchester is the battleground for what is to come, a war to the death between two men, representing each side.

            James O’Connor has been sent from Ireland to ‘advise’ the Manchester Police Force on the Fenians.  He had a career as a constable in Dublin until tragedy robbed him of his family and he took to the drink;  now, he is on his last warning and has become an Abstainer – and an Outsider with the Manchester constables, who treat him with ignore, or contempt.  Never friendliness.  Nevertheless, he has built up a good network of informers and learns that an assassin is coming over from New York to commit a retaliatory crime big enough to stop the English in their murdering, bombastic tracks.

            Enter Stephen Doyle, a soldier who survived the American Civil War and found that the strategies, battles – and killing – is what he is good at:  warfare is his speciality and he does not expect to return to New York having failed at his mission.  But he reckons without the complication of James O’Connor being added to the equation, especially when Doyle dispatches one of the informers, O’Connor’s nephew.

            What started as a routine assassination for Doyle, with various unfortunates being disposed of along the way, becomes a titanic struggle to the last breath against O’Connor, who has enough weights on his conscience without adding more family members to the list:  he needs to atone for his nephew’s brutal death.

            Ian McGuire has written a singular historical novel that reads partly as a thriller, nailing us to every page, and a tragedy Shakespearian in its proportions.  His spare, beautiful prose makes one sentence do the work of ten.  ‘The Abstainer’ is a truly Great Read.  SIX STARS.

 

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, by Marianne Cronin.

 

   

       Lenni Eklund is seventeen years old and has a terminal disease.  She is a patient until her eventual death in a Glasgow hospital, and she’s not particularly happy about spending the remainder of her life there, or the lack of answers to the Big Questions, as in ‘Why am I dying?’, a question she poses to the resident hospital chaplain, Father Arthur.  He doesn’t have a Godly answer, but she likes the way his name rhymes with his occupation:  he, in turn, is flummoxed by Lenni:  ‘Because you are’ is not satisfactory, he knows this, but apart from sharing his sandwiches with her and eventually, his steadfast friendship in the too short time till his retirement, he can think of nothing else.

            Until Lenni joins an Art class for people with long-term conditions and meets Margot, a tiny eighty-three year old Scottish lady with loads of artistic talent and a fascinating life story to tell – and who better to tell it to than Lenni, starved for life experiences that she will never enjoy or endure, but the ideal repository for all secrets and confidences – not because she will die soon and take the secrets to the grave, but because she is the best listener imaginable, remembering every detail, and frequently bringing her own  hilarious take on Margot’s life experiences, good and bad.  A great friendship is born and nurtured, and between them they produce a painting for each year of their lives, which add up to One Hundred Years, a whole century!  And for each painting they tell each other the story behind the painting and, tragic as some of the stories are,  they are made luminous and unforgettable by the deep and enduring affection Lenni and Margot have for each other, and their perfect understanding of what they have together.

            This lovely story was always going to end in tears – how could it not, with the certain death of at least one of the unforgettable protagonists, but there’s no bathos or syrupy background violin music as Lenni eventually departs for pastures new;  thanks to Margot, Father Arthur and various other new-found friends from the Art class she has packed a century of life into her seventeen years.  She has lived.

            It’s hard to believe that this singular book is Marianne Cronin’s debut novel;  her writing is wonderfully assured – who would have thought that the story of a terminally-ill teenager could be so enormously entertaining and funny, but it is a tribute to Ms Cronin’s writing talent and the strength of her characterisations that Lenni and Margot will stay with us for many years to come.  SIX STARS.  

 

The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn.

   

         Best-selling American author Kate Quinn tries her hand here at a very British story:  the Bletchley Park code-breakers of the Second World War, that  dedicated band of talented and special people who saved countless lives with their skill at cracking ciphers and codes and by so doing, shortened the race to victory by at least two years.

            Ms Quinn stumbles occasionally over everyday idiom – the British drive Motor cars, not automobiles; regardless, she still recreates very skilfully the everyday stress and fear that all had to endure daily, especially when the bombing started:  there is no respite from the terrible and ruinous tragedies suffered by Ms Quinn's excellent characters, all based on real people.

            At the war’s beginning, three young women are recruited to work at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire.  They all have different reasons for working there:  Osla is a wealthy Canadian debutante who, thanks to her finishing school education, has an excellent command of the German language;  Mab (short for Mabel, but she doesn’t want anyone to know that; she wants to forget her East End origins) is nearly six feet tall and has nimble fingers.  She will be an excellent operator of the huge Bombe machines that spit out unintelligible data to be broken down by Enigma machines, used by the brilliant code-breakers, one of whom is a girl they recruited themselves – their overbearing landlady’s daughter, mousy, bullied Beth.  Beth has never been encouraged to believe that she will have any other kind of life except as her mother’s ‘little helper’.  Bletchley Park is her salvation, not least because of her genius for unravelling codes that she sees as rose petals, intricately layered until they are peeled back the right way.

            A further complication arises in Osla’s life:  she is in love with Philip, Prince of Greece, but is informed by MI5 that because of his German connections (his beloved sisters are married to German nobility) and the oath of secrecy she has signed, she must cease contact.  Which she does, and it breaks her heart, especially when his engagement to Princess Elizabeth is eventually announced.  Mab meets the love of her life, only to lose him again in a bombing raid, and Beth is horribly betrayed by a traitor and incarcerated in an asylum.  Ms Quinn ramps up the pace to heart-stopping suspense here, dragging us by the nose through Mab’s tragedy and Beth’s efforts to escape her fate.  The three friends must depend entirely on each other to survive.

            Ms Quinn’s exhaustively researched novel  expertly recreates the life and times of those heroes who stopped the German War Machine without leaving Bletchley Park.  It is a fitting tribute to their dedication.  FOUR STARS.         

 

Ash Mountain, by Helen Fitzgerald.

  

          The tragic and terrible toll of the recent Australian Bush fires on the environment and population has never been more graphically depicted than in Helen Fitzgerald’s ‘Ash Mountain’, a deceptively slim volume telling a giant story that resonates unforgettably with all its readers.

            The small inland town of Ash Mountain isn’t far from Melbourne, but Fran thought she had escaped it and its painful memories forever – until her beloved dad suffers a serious stoke and requires her return.  Her 16 year-old daughter Vonnie, whose father was Fran’s best friend (and everyone knows that sex with besties seldom works out) comes too – not because she wants to, but because she’s going through a rebellious stage, and she likes to ruffle as many town feathers as she can, starting with Australia Day.  Ha!  Everyone knows it’s really Invasion Day.  (Vonnie’s dad has aboriginal blood).

            Fran has a much older son, Dante, product of Fran’s first sexual encounter at the age of 15;  he is currently residing as a Happy Hippy in Ash Mountain.  Raised by Fran’s dad, Dante is thrilled that his mum and little sister are having a stint in the old home town, even though the eventual outcome will be very sad, because Gramps is not expected to hang on for much longer.  Still, it’s great that everyone is back together again, even if it’s not permanent – why would it?  Fran is not surprised to see that nothing has changed – the Catholic church and its boarding school still holds sway;  each mass on Sunday is well-attended, thanks to the popularity of Father Frank (quickly imported to replace that Paedo Father Alfonso – what a scandal, say nothing and it’ll go away!);  her ex-schoolmates are still living in the same houses, still as vicious and catty as ever, even though they are now ‘respectable’ married women.  Yep, nothing has changed.  Fran doesn’t want her beloved dad to die, but the quicker he declines, the quicker she can leave, for the longer she stays, the more distressing secrets begin to reveal themselves, secrets she is not interested in and of which she is afraid.

On the plus side, there’s a whiff of romance in the air:  another neighbouring returnee, a widower with three daughters, has changed from being a teenage dickhead into a lovely man she would like to know better – until the bush fire starts.

Ms Fitzgerald’s stark, terrible prose flings us all into the fire:  there’s no escape for many of the town’s inhabitants who make the wrong decisions, gambling on outrunning the flames in their cars, or staying behind like Father Frank – not to help, but to try to destroy incriminating evidence.  (That was a spoiler, wasn’t it!).  But throughout the terrible suspense of who survives – and how – runs a priceless and necessary vein of humour to relieve the horror:  Fran is a champion at upsetting Father Frank;  she even steals a dollar from the collection plate and tells him in Confession – take that, you old hypocrite!  This is a stand-out book.  SIX STARS.       

 

Later, by Stephen King..

 

  

          Jamie Conklin sees dead folk.  Not that he’s looking for them, you understand, but for some inexplicable reason they reveal themselves to him just after they have died - starting with his neighbour’s wife, standing in her nightie next to enormously distressed Professor Burkett, who is weeping in at the door to his apartment.  Jamie is six years old, but he can tell that he is the only one who can see Mrs Burkett, so he stays silent, letting his Mom comfort the poor man – even when Mrs Burkett says to Jamie ‘I bet he’ll ask that Dolores Magowan out to lunch now!’ Jamie still stays silent until the next time he sees a dead man at a traffic accident:  the man’s injuries are so terrible that Jamie can’t bear the horror of it, and finally tells his mom, even though he knows she will think he’s seriously ‘disturbed’ – maybe the same as his Uncle, mom’s brother, in a care facility with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

            Naturally enough, mom doesn’t believe him at first, but her checking reveals certain irrefutable facts, enough of them for her to swear Jamie to secrecy about his ‘gift’ – no-one else must know about it, ever.  Fair enough;  as far as Jamie is concerned, it’s not something he can brag about, anyway.  His lips are sealed.

            Until years later, when mom meets a woman who becomes more than a friend -  Liz Dutton, an NYPD detective who now takes up a lot of his mother’s time and attention.  Jamie isn’t sure what to think of this interloper who calls him ‘Champ’, which he dislikes – but she also buys him Matchbox cars for his collection and sometimes makes him laugh – which he loves.  He doesn’t know how he really feels about her until he finds out that mom has told Liz about his ‘gift’ and Liz wants to use him to speak to Thumper, a notorious supermarket bomber who, before committing suicide a couple of days ago swore he’d hidden another bomb, bigger than all the others and guaranteed to kill hundreds.  Unfortunately, Liz doesn’t want to find the bomb to save all those lives:  she wants to save her job because she’s that worst of people – a bent cop.

            Stephen King takes us, as always, on another heart-stopping journey through supernatural highways and byways, scaring us all rigid, then using his inimitable humour to relieve the tension.  He is that most enviable of writers:  each new book feels like a yearly reunion with a treasured old friend.  FIVE STARS.   

 

           

 

Avoiding the Autobahn, by Tony Straw.

           

 

           The arrival of Covid-19 has effectively ruined the world’s travel plans.  One cannot now travel with the freedom we all took for granted just a year ago:  we are now the nation (the Team of Five Million) who, because they must stay at home, must also play at home.  Fair enough.  But we can always remember yesteryear when a chance cough as a stranger passed by didn’t make our hair stand on end, and nostalgia trips were what we experienced when we viewed all the photos of various Great Holidays.  Now we must rely on others to provide the nostalgia trips for us, and Levin author Tony Straw (Bon Vivant and all-round Good Bloke) has filled the gap admirably with ‘Avoiding the Autobahn’, an account of a trip that he and his wife Lee made to central Europe in 2015.

            Flying via San Francisco for a couple of day’s sightseeing and shopping (‘Going shopping with your husband is like shopping with the Game Warden’ observes Lee.  Any woman would agree.), then, having a last beer (Tony has an Advanced Degree in Beer Appreciation) at the airport they tip their large, exuberant barmaid all their remaining dollars after she deliberately regurgitates her tongue-piercing.  She relishes their admiration of her vast array of ‘body-jewellery’.  Pride knows no Pain!

            From San Francisco to Zurich, then on to Berlin to meet friends Adrian and Ulrike.  A rough itinerary is planned, car hire and travel from North to South on the minor roads to avoid the stress (for timid Kiwis unused to 200+KPH speeds) of the ubiquitous Autobahn system.  The Czech Republic and Austria are on the way, but what better place to start than Berlin, that wonderful Paris of the North (they say that about so many cities, don’t they, but it’s true.), steeped in culture and history, good-fellowship und bier.  Lots of it.  Und Wurst.  Every kind imaginable and all excellent.  Except Curry Wurst:  it is impossible to understand Berliners’ attraction to Curry Wurst so it’s best not to try.  It will be one of life’s mysteries.

            The tour starts:  on the road with Tony, Lee – and their recalcitrant GPS baptised Gretel.  Gretel has a mind of her own and shows it at every opportunity, taking them on some wild rides into very obscure places, regardless of how carefully Tony has programmed their route.  Driving is hazardous anyway;  thanks to having to drive on the ‘right’ side of the road,  our Kiwis are already at a disadvantage without having to battle Gretel.  BUT!

            All’s well that ends well:  Tony charms us all with his warm and witty commentary of a wonderful holiday that may be their last  for some considerable time thanks to Covid – but not permanently, I hope:  at the end of the book they were already planning their next trip.  Let’s hope it can eventually happen, so that we can enjoy the next instalment.  FIVE STARS

 

           

 

The Siberian Dilemma, by Martin Cruz Smith.

 

   

         The Siberian Dilemma: if one is fatally unlucky and falls through thin ice on Lake Baikal (or any Siberian lake), does one drown beneath the surface, or scramble up through the hole – then freeze to death within minutes on the ice?  Either way, the outcome is the same.  Dire.

            And being vulnerable to such an end is no surprise to Arkady Renko, Senior Investigator of Police in Moscow;  permanent sufferer of burn-out and world-weariness, but still oh-so-good-at-his-job and catcher of bad guys no matter how powerful they have become – or who in the Kremlin can protect them.  He is a thorn in the side of his hateful boss Zurin, but knows too much about him to be removed.  So Zurin does the next best thing:  Arkady will be despatched to Irkutsk, Siberia, to prosecute a Chechen terrorist on behalf of Zurin.  Said terrorist had made an attempt on Zurin’s life ‘so needs to be put away for a good long time’.  Arkady’s absence would also give Zurin some breathing space in which to pursue an affair with a Cuban ‘lady’ he has been lusting for.

            Arkady is thrilled to be going to Siberia – what a stroke of luck, for Arkady’s great love, crusading journalist Tatiana Petrovna is doing an article there on Oligarchs, and is currently travelling with one, Anatoly Kuznetsov. 

            Arkady hasn’t heard from her, and the less he hears, the more he worries.  His ‘exile’ will be the perfect excuse to reassure himself that she is safe – and that she is still his, especially when he meets the Oligarch:  Kuznetsov is charismatic, brilliant and charming, and is thinking seriously of starting a political party in opposition to Putin.  Which makes him the ideal subject for Tatiana’s article – and a moving target of the Kremlin.  Tatiana refuses to acknowledge the danger:  this is the best story she will ever write!  And maybe the last, thinks Arkady who, in the short time he has been in Irkutsk has already worked out that the Chechen terrorist is exactly the opposite, and a sniper is taking shots at him.  Siberia isn’t the friendly destination it’s promoted to be.  What a surprise!

            This is the ninth book in Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series;  its quality of writing is as high as ever - as is the body count;  there are the usual beautifully drawn and engaging minor characters, and Arkady has a very droll line in self-deprecating humour.  He’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, but he’s still a lethal weapon.  FIVE STARS.