by Julia Kuttner
Room, by Emma Donoghue
Jack lives in room with Ma. He sleeps in Wardrobe, plays with Paper Snake and eats food off Table. He has to be very quiet at night when the beeps sound at Door; it means that Old Nick will come to Ma. Jack is supposed to be asleep and not meant to listen to any conversation between Old Nick and Ma but he knows that this man is someone to be afraid of, and that he once hurt Ma’s wrist so badly that it doesn’t work properly anymore. But! It is Jack’s 5th birthday today, and Ma has made him a cake, his very first one, just like ‘in the TV’; yesterday he was only four, but today he is five, and anything can happen. And does. So begins Emma Donoghue’s gripping story of a young student kidnapped and held hostage for seven years, the birth of a son to her captor, and their eventual escape from him, all told in Jack’s words. What a singular feat of great writing, to describe the thoughts of a young child whose only reality is a 12x12ft room; who has never experienced rain, or hot sun; who has never heard the sound of a car engine, except ‘in the TV’, who has never spoken to anyone else but his beloved Ma, let alone played with another child. Ms Donoghue’s portrayal of Jack’s isolation is profound and very moving – and brilliant, especially as he struggles to understand and make sense of his new-found freedom – as does Ma: her attempts to reintegrate herself into society and family bring catastrophic results. This story will stay with me for a long time. I found (as the blurb on the cover suggested) that I HAD to read it until it was finished, and anything else I read hereafter has a lot of measuring up to do! This novel has just been selected as one of the New York Times’ 10 best books of the year, and shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize: rightly so. ‘The Finkler Question’ was the eventual Booker winner; I look forward to reading it, but ‘Room’ will be a very hard act to follow. FIVE 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. Highly recommended.
Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, was the last child and youngest daughter of David Mitford, second Baron Redesdale and his wife Sydney. Born in 1920, she was part of a family famous for its eccentricity – Sydney, known as Muv to her offspring, didn’t believe in sending girls off to school and educated them herself until they reached the age of eight; then they were entrusted to a succession of governesses, some of whom were less than leading lights educationally speaking. Lord Redesdale, called Farv, was unlucky in his financial investments (there were a succession of moves to smaller houses as the family fortunes waned) and delighted in being entirely unpredictable in his behavior, especially when his daughters brought friends home. He was heard often to say that he had only read one book, Jack London’s ‘White Fang’, and it was so excellent that it quite spoiled him for anything else, and he hadn’t read another since! This handsome pair produced a son and six daughters, all famed for their beauty, charm and intelligence: Nancy achieved international prominence with her comic novels ( many of the characters based transparently on her family) and historical biographies, and Jessica’s essays, reviews and best-selling exposé of the funeral industry ‘The American Way of Death established her reputation as a writer of excellent satire, but it was the sisters’ politics which fascinated and enraged 30’s and 40’s society. Diana, the most beautiful of the girls, married at the age of 18 the heir to the Guinness fortune, produced two sons then left him after four years of marriage to become the mistress of Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the British Fascists and great admirer of Hitler; she embraced her new lover’s politics as ardently as she loved him and when Mosely’s wife died, Diana and he were married in Berlin, in Hitler’s Drawing Room. The fifth Mitford daughter, Unity, had already spent a considerable time in Germany, a complete convert to the Nazi ideal,with the hope of eventually meeting Herr Hitler whom she patently adored: miraculously for her, the meeting took place and a very close and worshipful friendship was formed with the Fuehrer. Jessica, in the meantime, had embraced Communism with typical Mitford fervor and harshly decried her sisters’ extreme politics, though her own were just as radical for the times – in short, these were all singular women whose restless energy, joie de vivre and a self-confidence born of being high- aristocracy enabled them to make their mark indelibly on 20th. Century manners and mores.
In this charming memoir, Deborah (Debo) follows in her family’s wake, crying ‘Wait for me!’ As the youngest some of the cataclysmic events occurring to her sisters flew over her head, but as time went on, she understood more and became closer to her sisters as they proceeded through their lives and loves at a breakneck pace; in fact, Debo (if one reads between the lines) had some amorous adventures herself: dropped names glitter like sequins on every page, not least a friendship with President Kennedy. As we now know, he was friends with a lot of women, and while Debo may not have been a ‘friend’ in the biblical sense (one hopes!) it is telling that Jackie Kennedy gets nary a mention: ‘Jack’ occupies a lot of pages!
In spite of the sisters’ disparate political views – Debo has always been staunchly and loudly conservative – what impressed me most about this lovely, witty backward look into a family history is the great love that they all had for each other; personal and political differences notwithstanding : could one possibly ask for more? Highly recommended.
What a great pleasure it was to read this debut novel, judged to be one of the New York Times’ 10 best books of 2010, for Mr. Goodwillie has produced that rare thing; a superior literary thriller which combines great suspense with searching moral and ethical questions: which person or event provides the fire to the touchpaper of radicalism from within? What ‘last straw’ finally breaks the back of tolerance in an age of disillusionment and impotence? For Paige Roderick it is the death by friendly fire of her brother in the Iraq war – for Aidan Cole, jaded and going-nowhere-fast failed journalism student turned blogger, (phew, glad I wasn’t holding my breath when I wrote that) it is merely the fact that he wishes to rescue Paige (she’s a serious hotty, quite apart from her lofty ideals!) and keep her safe from the radicals she hitherto supported, after it becomes clear that they no longer want to blow up buildings: they want to kill people too. This novel is beautifully constructed, a split memoir with each chapter narrated by Aidan or Paige; Aidan has a very nice line in black humour, describing his New York lifestyle with ruthless honesty. Paige is also honest, remaining true at great cost to her integrity and ideals: she had firmly believed ‘that America had passed an invisible tipping point, strayed too far from the noble tenets of its founding; taking it back would require drastic measures.’ Now her radical friends have reached a tipping point of their own – radicalism has turned into terrorism and she knows too much for them to allow her to live. Mr. Goodwillie has written the thinking man’s thriller, fast-paced, highly suspenseful – and unafraid to ask the uncomfortable questions of a complacent, apathetic society. *****
This is the story of a newspaper, a newspaper founded in the 50’s in Rome by an industrial tycoon who had enough money to indulge himself in a flight of fancy, that of providing a superior international news organ for English speakers in Europe. It didn’t matter that it didn’t make money; what mattered most was that it be a benchmark always for the highest journalistic standards – and a means of being close to his one true love, the woman he installs as joint editor – with her husband. So begins Tom Rachman’s charming novel of the experience of living and working in Rome, producing a newspaper for English readers. He knows the business intimately, having worked as a correspondent and editor for Associated Press in New York and Rome, and for the Herald Tribune in Paris; in fact his characters have such a ring of truth about them I have to wonder how thinly veiled they are: how many of his former work colleagues recognize themselves in this book? There is the Editor-in-Chief, hugely intelligent, driven, and driving everyone else before her in a breathless attempt to produce a daily newspaper that people will read despite competition from the relentlessly encroaching electronic media; sadly, she also drives away the men in her life with her harsh judgements and scathing opinions of their worth. Her second in command Craig Menzies is a workaholic, living with a much younger woman whom he adores. He can’t believe that she wants to stay with him permanently – how could someone like him ever be THAT lucky? Through a tragic miscalculation of his own, he is eventually proven correct. Arthur Gopal, son of one of India’s greatest writers is in charge of ‘Puzzle Wuzzle’ and Obituaries; he knows he has more to offer the paper than the tasks to which he is set, and through a series of carefully calculated underhand moves manages to get the promotion he always dreamed of: culture editor, over and above the former holder of that title, Clint Oakley, a loudmouthed braggart and racist who is demoted in turn, to his fury and dismay, to Puzzle Wuzzle and Obits! Mr. Rachman’s debut novel is a delight, witty, convincingly written and peopled with great characters who are all linked by the work they do for the paper – which cannot last; the bosses in Atlanta are ready to pull the plug, with tragic consequences for one of their own. This is a very funny book, but the reader still gets sucker-punched along the way. I’m still thinking about some of the shocks I never saw coming, and this is how fine writing can be and should be. *****
Here’s something different in the Whodunnit category, and what a welcome – and different – breath of fresh air it is: Emily Tempest, the novel’s protagonist, is a half-aboriginal woman whose stamping ground is the Northern Territory. Her white father has worked in the mining industry all his life and never remarried after the death of his aboriginal wife 20 years earlier. Emily has received a unique upbringing in that her father has encouraged her to embrace both cultures ; consequently she is responsible, educated ( well, nearly: she went to Uni to study Earth Science, not with the intention of getting a degree but to understand better the ancient land that has its roots in her heart. When she felt she had learned all she wanted to know she left. Without the degree.), and fearless to a fault: her aggression and disrespect for authority is legendary, especially if she sees injustice – ‘that bint has got nice tits and a mouth like a blowtorch!’ – is a common opinion held by Emily’s suffering work colleagues, the local constabulary. For Emily is the district’s Aboriginal Community Police officer – a ‘Clayton’s Cop’, she calls herself, but conscientious in her representation of her people, those sad, aggressive, drunks and no-hopers who subsist in the humpies on the edge of town. Mr. Hyland doesn’t give us the hearts and flowers version of the uneasy alliance between the People of the Dreaming and the white usurpers; imbedded racism bubbles away under the surface and spills over it too; ‘those bloody abos’ contribute diligently to their own degradation, but the story is infused with great insight (Mr. Hyland worked for 10 years with aboriginal communities in Central Australia) and hope; with Emily as their champion ‘those bloody abos’ have more rights than they were aware of, and a reason to return and protect the great red land of their ancestors from something evil that is poisoning it and everything it sustains. An old miner is murdered before he can reveal what that poison is, and Emily relies on her prescience and instincts as much as her intelligence to solve the crime – along with a cast of Outback characters that put ‘Dad and Dave’ to shame. This is the third Emily Tempest novel; I hope the library will give us the treat of the other two: ‘Moonlight Downs’ and ‘Diamond Dove’: the action is hectic; the corpses pile up everywhere; the ducks are all lined up in a row at the conclusion, and the Ocker humour is unbeatable. One of the characters stops to think and ‘He gave a fair imitation of a budgie trying to pass an emu’s egg’. Can you top that? I don’t think so. ****
Stephen King needs no introduction. Some of his more fulsome admirers have likened him to a modern-day Dickens, which is certainly true regarding his output; fans can expect a new novel every year, faithfully arriving regardless of adverse personal circumstance (he had a near-fatal accident one year) and world calamity. It would no longer be politic to say that he is reliable as the weather, given the current apocalyptic floods occurring world-wide, but you can certainly set your clock by his ability to churn out yet another best-seller. Having said that, Mr. King’s novels, while not all of a high standard, are ALWAYS wonderfully readable, having just that right blend of the ordinary and macabre which never fails to make the hair rise on the back of the neck most pleasurably. He says that he has always been interested in exploring the reaction of ordinary people to extraordinary events, and this is never more ably demonstrated than in his latest collection of four novellas, all dealing with themes of retribution: the first is called ‘1922’, the year that a husband hates his wife so much that he plans what he hopes is her perfect murder, only to snare his son into being his accomplice with tragic results; ‘Big Driver’ is a cautionary tale of what happens to a lady novelist who accepts an offer of help to change her flat tire on a road to nowhere; ‘Fair Extension’ recounts the bargain a desperate and dying man makes with a stranger when he reveals to himself as well as the stranger that he hates and despises his so-called best friend; and ‘Good Marriage’, demonstrates that the true love between two decent people changes irrevocably when large sums of money are involved – and decency flies out the window, too. Yes, Mr. King has done it again, producing the cleverly plotted page-turner that I always expect of him: entertaining, readable, reliable: yep, that’s him!
Here is a story of South Africa, that wild, cruel, beautiful land, written by an Afrikaner woman about Afrikaners in the 50’s and 60’s and beyond. It is the story of a childless white woman, Milla De Wet, who is trapped in an unhappy marriage with her husband Jak, righteous upholder of Boer ideals and utterly convinced of white supremacy over his brown farm labourers: ‘Give a Hotnot your thumb and he’ll take your arm!’ Milla is lonely, unfulfilled and severely disillusioned with her young handsome husband; he’s not happy with her either, or his life on her inherited family farm. He beats and belittles her constantly. She sees as her salvation the adoption of a little coloured girl from her mother’s farm; Agaat has been ill-treated and abused nearly to death: Milla sees her rescue of the child as an excellent act of charity, a way of proving (especially to her forbidding old Boer mother and Jak) that she can be the perfect Christian, dispensing love and kindness to the needy and less fortunate, and a wonderful surrogate mother to the child who is not hers – and the wrong colour. The inevitable happens. Loving bonds are formed, then broken – her husband is jealous of the new-found affection Milla has for her little charge and decrees that Agaat must be trained and treated as a servant - then a miracle occurs: after many years Milla is finally pregnant, but after the birth of the longed-for son, Agaat is jettisoned, exiled to an outside room ; her favoured status is over.
Louis Kahn, internationally renowned American Architect, died of a heart attack in Penn Station, New York in 1976, aged 74. He had just returned from India, and because he had insufficient identification on him his body was unclaimed for three days. He had also been declared bankrupt, owing half a million dollars at the time of his death and he had two mistresses, each with a child to him – and a wife of many years at home.
This classic little Swedish movie was made in the 80’s but it has lost none of its impact; nothing is dated – the world according to adolescents is still unexplored, wondrous – and frightening. 12 year-old Ingmar and his older brother can no longer live with their beloved mother; she is very ill. Older brother goes to their Granny and Ingmar is sent to his uncle in a little town a long train ride away. He is forced to leave his beloved little dog behind but is assured it will be taken care of: that is the first betrayal. Despite missing his pet terribly, Ingmar makes friends easily, and looks forward to going back to live with his mum and ‘making her laugh again’ when she is better. The trouble is – well, Mum doesn’t get better and Ingmar and his brother are forced to learn some of life’s very hard lessons whether they want to or not. Lasse Hallström directs and guides his actors effortlessly through low comedy and high drama and all his actors respond accordingly, especially Ingmar – he is a delight: I can’t believe that this wonderful child will now be getting on to forty; he will always be twelve to me, mischievous, poignant and funny. Be warned (those who don’t like them!) there are subtitles, but they will be secondary after the very first scene. What a beaut little movie! 
ean Gilkyson has been round the block more times than she cares to admit after the accidental death of her 21 year-old husband Griff in a car which she was driving. The child of their union, 9 year-old Griff never knew her father but knows with certainty the relationship her mother is in now will end in violence and tears – if they are lucky. 
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
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!
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.
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.
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 21st 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.
I have been reading a lot of very mediocre stuff lately; consequently it was a pleasure, a DELIGHT, to come across this lovely story by Susan Wilson. This is her sixth novel and the first I have read – it’s strongly reminiscent of Garth Stein’s wonderful ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ in that part of the story is narrated by the Good Dog of the title, but there the similarity ends, for Chance is very different to Stein’s Enzo; in fact he fancies himself as a bit of a dude, an ex-fighting dog and a mighty street warrior with pit-bull ancestry – until he ends up in the pound on Death Row. He is rescued, albeit reluctantly, by Adam March, who because of a careless promise he made, needs to find a dog as a substitute pet for a homeless man he doles out lunch to everyday at a shelter for indigents. Adam, by his own standards has hit the bottom of the barrel, too: he is a former top executive of a huge corporation who loses everything –carefully sculpted wife, spoilt daughter, several homes, the bulk of his money and social status – when he strikes his P.A in a fit of uncontrollable rage. He is sentenced by a spectacularly unsympathetic judge to a year’s community service at the shelter. ‘You’re an arrogant bastard who needs to learn some humility’, says the judge, and this is what this book is about: learning to be humble, learning to redeem oneself, learning to make real friends, and learning to love again. It’s definitely a feel-good novel and in the hands of a lesser author these themes would seem chintzy and old-hat, but Ms Wilson’s considerable writing talents chronicle Chance and Adam’s experiences together in entirely credible fashion. FIVE STARS.
Meet Finnish-born Inspector Pekkala, the latest hero in a long line of thrillers about flawed but brilliant detectives – but here’s the difference: Pekkala was formerly Tsar Nicholas the second’s most singular and trusted detective, dubbed ‘The Emerald Eye’ and given carte blanche in his investigations – until the revolution and fall of the Romanovs. Pekkala’s fall from favour is equally steep; he makes an unfortunate impression on Comrade Joseph Stalin and ends up barely surviving for the next decade in the gulags of Siberia - until Stalin requires his unique talents for investigation. He promises Pekkala his freedom if he will track down and deliver the murdered Tsar’s fabled gold reserves – for the Glory of the Revolution and the good of the Great People of the Soviet Union, naturally! A number of books have already chronicled the Romanovs’ last months before they were shot to death at the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg in 1918, most notably ‘The House of Special Purpose’ by John Boyne, and ‘The Kitchen Boy’ by Robert Alexander; both books show better craftsmanship, but what Sam Eastland lacks in technique he makes up for with sound facts and solid research, fast-paced action, plenty of suspense and believable characterization – the basic requirements for all successful thrillers. This is his debut novel: I look forward to # 2.
Despite its Bodice-Ripper title, Ms Perkins-Valdez’s debut novel is anything but – rather, it is the second damning account of slavery that I have read this year; more subtle, perhaps, than Andrea Levy’s ‘The Long Song’ (recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) but having the same horrific impact: how can people who purport to be civilized visit so much inhumanity on their fellow men?
I hardly dare introduce yet another Brilliant but Flawed super-detective to readers, but Aloysius X. L. Pendergast is such a singular invention of the above authors that, after reading the latest in a long line of Pendergast adventures, I feel I must give this SuperHero some publicity. Pendergast is an FBI Special Agent, but that is the least of his talents: he has two PHD’s (only two? you say); he’s a master psychologist and manipulator of the human psyche; he has an exhaustive knowledge and appreciation of the arts and literature; he is an accomplished forensic scientist; he is immensely wealthy, the last survivor of a Brilliant but Flawed family of old New Orleans aristocracy ; he is a driver with Formula One capabilities; he is a martial arts expert; he has ‘preternaturally fast’ (a favourite Preston/Child adjective) reflexes, and he is a crack shot – naturally. In fact, what Pendergast doesn’t know about weaponry – about ANYTHING – isn’t worth knowing! Lastly, he is tall and thin, pale as death (he always dresses in immaculate black suits which give him the appearance of a wealthy undertaker) and he has a disconcerting, silvery stare. Bet you haven’t met anyone like that in the Supermarket lately. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention (and how could I have forgotten such a villain!) Diogenes Pendergast, Aloysius’s equally Brilliant but Well and Truly Flawed criminally insane brother: he has chosen the paths of evil, due to a terrible childhood incident which drove him to madness.
Everyone has read of the evils of slavery in America and the war that was fought between the States to emancipate its victims, but less has been written about the equal injustice perpetrated by the British Empire, who transported slaves from Africa to harvest the huge sugar plantations they established in the Caribbean. Andrea Levy in her third novel, takes us back to the times of her forebears in early 19thcentury Jamaica, a time of complete dominance by the white planters, a time of regarding their slaves as livestock, to be traded, sold or disposed of any way they saw fit – until that same ‘livestock’ rose up in bloody revolt, leading eventually to King William 1V declaring an end to the British Slave Trade. This is Ms Levy’s first excursion into history; previously she has written tellingly and well of contemporary race relations in Britain; now she explores the rich and violent path of her ancestors in Jamaica, treating us to a life as seen through the eyes of Miss July, a house slave in the Big House of the Amity Plantation. At the end of her life, Miss July is writing her memoir at the behest of her son, and what a story it is, full of humour, cruelty, deprivation and great sorrow, for Miss July has been used badly – and has badly used people in return. Regardless, she is sly (she tells lies!), funny and utterly irrepressible; she is an unforgettable singer of ‘The Long Song’, as she calls her memoir: long may her music sound.
It’s always a pleasure to recommend a book by Nelson de Mille - he is a consummate master of the perfect airport and beach read; his books are page-turners par excellence. He can get a little long-winded sometimes, but he’s ALLOWED. He produces so much high quality suspense in his writing that he can be forgiven for occasionally flagging in pace or getting bogged down with more detail than his readers think they need. In his latest book ‘The Lion’, sequel to ‘The Lion’s Game’ and the previous ‘Wild Fire’, Mr. de Mille has no problems at all with the tempo as he again treats us to his danger-prone and irreverent protagonist John Corey, Special Contract Agent (after various misadventures with the NYPD) for the FBI. John’s a bit of a maverick; bad guys seem to walk into his innocent fists often; he has been known to say ‘Who, me?’ when various villains fall unconscious (or even dead) at his feet: in short he treads a very fine line between permissible force and police brutality – not to mention insubordination - but he’s just the man to have onside against the most feared Islamic terrorist of them all, The Lion, back again to wreak death and destruction on long- suffering post 9/11 New York. Mr. de Mille is known for his impeccable and thorough research – at no time do we feel that we must suspend belief in the plot and its fascinating characters – until Mr. Corey ‘inadverdently’ causes another villain to bite the dust. And our Hero proves that he is indeed a well-rounded personality, for his daily existence has elements of the mundane from time to time. Normal life intervenes when his wife suggests that they go wine-tasting at the weekend: in his mind he replies ‘Wine tasting? WINE TASTING? What kind of crap idea is that?!’ In reality he says’ Darling, what a great idea, let’s do it.’ Proof, if we ever needed it, that Mr. de Mille is intimately familiar with real life situations as well as death-defying suspense. What a good writer he is, and how well he deserves his huge readership.
This is a wonderful story. It has been a rare privilege to read such rich and beautiful prose, to be swept up and carried along by the relentless tide of history - even though we know the terrible outcome, for Ms. Orringer has written a novel of the Holocaust. This is a risky subject on which to write as everyone knows of the heinous crimes of the second world war, the extermination of millions of Jews, and the sheer tragedy visited upon families and generations yet to come, but the author succeeds admirably because of the strength and believability of her characters. The novel starts in 1937, when Hungarian student Andras Levi wins a scholarship to attend the Ecole Speciale, a venerable school of Architecture in Paris. His life and that of his brothers Tibor and Matyas are chronicled; their hopes, dreams and ambitions; their love affairs and eventual marriages; then the agonizing privations they suffer as part of Hungary’s Jewish ‘Labour Force’, cannon fodder as the expendable front line of Hungary’s Army fighting for Germany against the Allies. The war years are predictably horrendous, not only for the unimaginable loss of beloved family, but the destruction of entire cities and lifestyles, bombed out of existence. How could anything ever be resurrected from such annihilation? Despite the seriousness of the subject, Ms. Orringer has not written a tragedy; rather it is a compelling story of Life in all its guises; heart-wrenching, comic, dramatic, powerful, triumphant and moving – which is what life can be for all of us . FIVE STARS.
Here be dragons – lots of them! For lovers of fantasy fiction, Stephen Deas is the new Flavour of the Month, and for those of us who previously decried such nonsense (like myself) – well, we’ll all have to eat our words, for Mr. Deas has effortlessly captured our attention, hearts and minds with the sheer brio and excitement of his story-telling, and he won’t release us until he finishes the series – however long that may be. Not that I mind, for he can tell A Story-and-a-Half: The Realms are a loose federation of Kingdoms who depend on their dragons for their power; bred, guarded and nurtured by their keepers, they are ridden by the aristocracy, used for hunting and warfare and kept docile by the Alchemists with a mysterious potion added to their food; without it they would return to their natural state, uncontrollable and terrifying, able to destroy armies and turn cities to ash – and one of them has escaped. The leadership of the Realms is also ready for change: enter Prince Jehal, power-hungry and unscrupulous, ready to murder if he has to – and he does, reaping unexpected and unwanted consequences. In fact the Prince, nasty as he is, gains the reader’s sneaky sympathy by the end of the second book of the series – what WAS he thinking? Couldn’t he see the danger coming? The fool better smarten up his act in Book 3! And so on. In other words, a complete entertainment, totally addictive with great characters – and those dragons. Oh, those dragons: I’d love one for a pet, if I had a place big enough to keep it (and several dairy herds to feed it). Perhaps I could do a deal to rent the Waitomo caves?