MORE GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2013

Wash, by Margaret Wrinkle

Never has man’s inhumanity to man been more amply demonstrated over thousands of years than in the iniquitous practice of slavery.  The Romans called their slaves ‘talking cattle’, and by the time Ms Wrinkle’s novel opens in 1823, the concept of slavery and slave ownership has changed little.

If a negro is lucky, they will have a ‘good’ master who will feed, clothe and look after them in return for their hard labour, even though their women and/or children could be sold in the future.  If the negro is not, cruelty and neglect and a very short life is the fate of his family and himself.

Richardson considers himself a ‘good’ slave owner:  he has a large plantation in Tennessee, and though he originally shunned using slave labour as a young man, realises that his fortunes will never improve without it – even though he fought in the Revolutionary war under Washington with a view not just to kick out the British, but to abolish slavery as well.

Now, at the age of 70, he has repressed his youthful ideals and has many slaves to tend his fields and his horses, for Richardson is also a horse- breeder:  no-one in the state has a finer eye for equine beauty, stamina and speed than he and he revels in his reputation for knowing which of his stallions or mares should service his neighbour’s horses to produce the ideal progeny.

Unfortunately, financial uncertainty forces him to accept the advice of his partner to hire out to stud his stable slave, Wash (short for Washington):  his neighbours are impressed with Wash’s stature, intelligence and strength and desire these qualities in the future children of their female slaves – what a workforce they will have!  And what a boon to Richardson’s income! And what an unforgivable indignity is visited upon Wash, to be regarded as one of Richardson’s studs;  forced to service whichever fearful, shivering female he is taken to in full, interested view of his owners.  He is just another animal to them and he hates them for it, for Wash started out life with a certain degree of freedom, and a mother who was able to cushion slavery’s blows more than most – until a white man strikes him blind in one eye with a hammer for offering an opinion.  He didn’t realise then that he should have kept his eyes lowered and his mouth shut.

Now, he knows the drill but inwardly rails against his lot;  the only protest he can make is to keep himself apart from everyone, refusing to share his inner self with anyone except Pallas, a neighbour’s slave midwife and his true love.  Over time, Richardson finds himself inexplicably drawn to his taciturn and hate-filled piece of property;  he wants Wash’s stories, his opinions – his being, the very thing Wash will never relinquish;  and in his unwanted, drunken  visits at night to Wash’s stable, he eventually unburdens onto his reluctant listener his own stories, hopes, sorrows and disappointments.  The tables are turned.

Ms Wrinkle uses gorgeous language to write of unspeakable cruelty and careless kindness;  all her characters are expertly and beautifully realised and this, her debut novel, should become by its very objectivity one of America’s literary milestones.  This is a superb story about a shameful page in America’s history and Ms Wrinkle’s story brings home to the reader the ultimate irony:  just as Richardson’s sons carry the family name into the future, Wash the stud slave’s descendants will also do the same, relishing freedom sooner than anyone thinks.  Highly recommended.

Black Irish, by Stephan Talty

It is hard to know where to start with this book:  should I list its virtues first (many), or its faults (enough to make me shout ‘AAAAARGH!)?

I’m a fine one to talk about correct grammar – but even so:  wouldn’t the most casual and uncritical of readers balk at the fact that one of the murder victims (for this is s novel about a serial killer) starts off being called Gerald, then Gregory, then George before he reverts to being good old Gerald again.  WHAAAT???   Are proof readers now extinct in Stephan Talty’s publishing house? 

As if that weren’t bad enough, a descriptive sentence was repeated verbatim IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH;  what a shameful lack of attention to the most ordinary detail  - I mean, this is why authors supposedly submit drafts before the finished product is finally unveiled.  In my opinion (and you know how perfect that is!) it lessened the impact and pace of Mr. Talty’s story:  having said that, he still winds up the tension of his plot in a very satisfying manner, and his characters – even though they have so many aliases – are credible and well-drawn, particularly the main protagonist, Detective Absalom Kearney.

She is the adopted daughter of a retired police detective, and has followed him into the Buffalo NY police force after a glittering Harvard education.  Her stern father is now suffering from the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and his condition is also a metaphor for the city of Buffalo – it has entered a decline, especially in its once-great steel industry, and people are leaving in their droves.  Typically, those who stay are those who cannot afford to move away, and more than once Abby asks herself why she has returned.  Looking after her father is a thankless task, for he has never been an affectionate man and his condition only exacerbates his aloofness.

Fortunately, Abby’s job with the Buffalo PD is very challenging and gives her many chances to show her brilliance – until a series of murders attributed to a particularly clever serial killer show enough evidence to incriminate her, the main investigator. 

Mr Talty ramps up the action very competently in all the right places and his depiction of  the societal foundering of a big city and its insular and tribal communities is evocative and well written;  what a shame his publishers didn’t attend to the groundwork.  It would have transformed this good suspense novel into a great one.  

       

   

GREAT READS FOR MAY, 2013

Kind of Kin, by Rilla Askew

‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family’.  How true, especially for Georgia ‘Sweet’ Kirkendall.  She is overloaded with family and its attendant responsibilities when this story opens:  she is the reluctant caregiver to her husband Terry’s stepgrandfather (Terry wouldn’t dream of putting any relative of his in a home, despite the burden that it unfairly places on Sweet’s shoulders);  her own father has gone to jail for harbouring illegal Mexican workers on his Oklahoma farm – then refuses to accept bail:  he has principles he wishes to uphold, for the Mexicans were good people and hard workers, and they didn’t deserve to be deported, let alone beaten up so badly that one of them (a pregnant woman) died.  He will stay in jail as a protest.  Which would be all well and good, if grandpa hadn’t left behind his grandson, Dustin Lee, second child of Sweet’s dead sister Gaylene.  Dustin is now a reluctant lodger with Aunt Sweet ‘just until Grandpa comes home, hon’ – but Dustin is starting to despair.  Aunt Sweet’s son Carl Albert is twice his size, hates Dustin with a bully’s fervour, and works tirelessly at making his young life a misery.  Dustin needs to visit his grandpa in jail to tell him to come home – to stop his protest so that their lives can get back to normal, and to worry about principles another day.

Sadly, this does not happen:  the situation escalates from bad to worse, with the revelation that Sweet’s niece, Dustin’s half-sister Misty Dawn (the first of Gaylene’s ‘mistakes’) is hiding her Mexican husband who was deported, but sneaked back so that he could be with his little family again.  Misty Dawn needs – and expects – Sweet’s help in keeping him hidden, for there is a new law going through the books, introduced by an ambitious local counsellor that sends anyone assisting ‘illegals’ to jail.  Sweet is in between a rock and a hard place but the family ties that bind are made of indestructible material, and she does her best for the fugitives even though she seethes with resentment and loathing, mainly directed towards her feckless dead sister – always leaving everyone else to clean up her mess!

While Sweet is trying to solve one problem, another major one occurs with the disappearance of Dustin;  he has decided it’s time to go on the run, and poor Sweet’s life, whilst not entirely satisfactory before, now becomes a nightmare, not just of events, but of choices:  where do her strongest loyalties lie?  With her father, or her disgruntled bigot of a husband, who is raising his son to be a carbon copy, or to her dead sister’s children, Misty Dawn and Dustin Lee, each with their own terrible, poignant dependence on her to make everything right for them:  where to turn?  What to do?

Sweet’s decisions are the meat on the bones of this very fine book.  She is a singular heroine amongst characters that are no less well-drawn, and the problems she deals with are situations that can be recognised universally:  bigotry, familial love, betrayal, racism, responsibility, and attempts, always, to do the Right Thing. 

I hesitate to use that hoary old cliché ‘heartwarming’ when describing this lovely story, but it is a tale that does warm our hearts – and our souls.  Highly recommended.

Pilgrim Soul, by Gordon Ferris

Douglas Brodie, Gordon Ferris’s Scottish war hero and protagonist of two previous books , (see review of ‘The Hanging Shed’ below) rejoins us for his third adventure, this time as a reluctant Glasgow private investigator at the end of 1946, hired by a group of Jewish businessmen to track down the criminals who are burgling the homes of their families and friends.  The victims are all recent immigrants, barely surviving the unspeakable horrors of their treatment in the concentration camps;  they have very little to steal, but what is taken  with the jewellery and mementoes are the memories of their lives before the persecution and mass-murder;  all the happiness and stability and respect they enjoyed in a civilised society before Hitler and his sadists permanently stained Germany’s good name with Jewish blood.  The Elders want these callous burglars caught:  their people have suffered enough.

To Brodie this will be an easy nut to crack:  there are enough clues left by the offenders to solve the case within a week – and he does, but discovers from his investigations that when you lift a rock, more than one nasty thing tries to scuttle off:  he soon finds himself on the trail of the ‘RattenLinien’, Rat Lines established by Nazi sympathisers throughout Europe to help Nazi criminals escape upcoming Allied War Crimes Trials in Germany, aiding them with  disguises and paperwork so that they could live new lives in the Americas.

Brodie is outraged.  He was present with the British Army when they liberated Belsen:  he has witnessed sights so dreadful that his life has changed forever and his sleep is riven with nightmares.  His faith in his fellow man is utterly destroyed, and the thought that these cowards, these beasts have an escape route is anathema to him.  They must be caught and brought to Justice;  they must pay for their crimes with their lives, sentenced by a Military Court in accordance with international  law.

Unfortunately, some people have other ideas.  The fleeing Nazis, holed up in Glasgow with their flimsy disguises by a temporary glitch in the escape route, are also being pursued by the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Jewish terrorist organisation bent on three things:  the eviction by any means (including murder) of British Peacekeeping troops from Palestine;  the establishment of the State of Israel;  and the capture of Nazi criminals and sympathisers so that they can be returned to Israel to face Israeli justice.

Brodie’s excellent detective work pays off when he discovers Die Ratten’s hiding places, but his bid to bring them to the authorities is foiled by the ultimate betrayal, and to find out WHO, you will have to read the whole gripping story.  Mr Ferris has created a great anti-hero in Brodie;  he has many faults, cynicism and heavy drinking being just two;  he comes from humble origins and has a poor man’s disrespect of the upper classes; but his sense of honour is unshakeable, and despite his baser instincts, he always comes down on the side of right.  Add to that a brilliant evocation of Post-war Britain, rationing and a winter so awful that the reader digs out the parka and balaclava so that the blood doesn’t freeze in the veins before the book is finished, and you have a crime novel that’s first-class.  Highly recommended.

The Hanging Shed, by Gordon Ferris               Reviewed August, 2012

  The year is 1946:  Scottish Douglas Brodie is a decorated soldier;  he has fought a hard war and has distinguished himself by bravery on the field.  The trouble is Civvy Street – his Demob clothing doesn’t fit, nor does the reality of postwar London adjust to his expectations.  He is a lost man, trying to sublimate into peacetime all the aggression and hatred that necessarily sustained him for six years, and he is fighting a losing battle – until he receives a phone call from a childhood friend, a friend who betrayed him when they were teenagers by stealing the love of Douglas’s life.  Brodie has never forgotten or forgiven Donovan’s treachery;  therefore it is beyond shocking to hear from a man who is begging for his help – for Donovan is in a Glasgow jail, charged and found guilty of murder, and due to hang in a month’s time ,unless Brodie can magic up a miracle on his behalf, because he is innocent -  innocent of the heinous, unforgivable crime of child rape and murder, even though the evidence is ‘incontrovertible’.

Donovan’s war has been cruel – he was the rear gunner on a bomber that was blown up by the Luftwaffe;  he survived but wishes he hadn’t:  his injuries have made him into a nightmare figure, and the resultant pain has turned him into a junkie.  He doesn’t care if he dies, but he does care that people know that he couldn’t, WOULDN’T commit the crime of which he is accused.

In his pre-war life, Brodie was a Detective with the Glasgow Police Force;  he is ideally qualified to delve into the evidence both real and manufactured that he is presented with by Donovan’s despairing lawyer:  the question is, does he want to do this favour for his old nemesis?  He loathes Donovan for calling on the far-off memories of staunch childhood friendship, and loathes himself more for not being able to put past treachery behind him.

Unfortunately as the story progresses, Mr Ferris allows his story to get away from him like a stampeding horse;  plot twists vary from unbelievable to bizarre to say the least – the villains are so awful they are almost comic-book caricatures, but he is a wonderfully acute observer of his fellow man, and I defy anyone not to recognise thee and me in the utterly authentic characters he creates.  He can set a scene with the best of them and generate enough action to make me feel that I shall be doing a disservice to myself if I don’t check out his other titles.  So many books, so little time!

  

     

LAST GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2013

Rubbernecker, by Belinda Bauer

Patrick Fort is 18 years old, and has left home  to study anatomy at university in the Welsh city of Cardiff.  He will share a tiny house with two other students and has a small allowance from his mum for food and incidentals, similar to so many other young people experiencing relative independence for the first time – with one huge difference:  Patrick has Asperger’s syndrome, and has gained his place at university because of his disability. The institution must accept a certain quota of handicapped students by law.

Patrick will never be ‘normal’.  His social skills are practically non-existent;  humour and irony are completely wasted on him, for Patrick takes every statement and situation literally.  If logic is not evident to him in conversations and actions he refuses to respond.  He is also fanatically clean and hates being touched, foibles which baffle and irritate his flatmates and fellow students, who are unaware that his condition has a name.

On the upside, however, Patrick has some enviable skills:  he loves puzzles;  he can fix a mucked-up Rubik’s cube in seconds, then offer to show the mucker-upper (in this case, the university Professor who admitted him to the anatomy class) where he went wrong;  he has a wonderful aptitude for all things mechanical;  and the human body, that supreme example of physical mechanics, is the puzzle he most wants to solve – for Patrick’s father was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was eight and the killer was never found.  Nor can Patrick understand the concept of death logically;  he needs to know by dissecting a body, where life goes, and if it could ever come back.  He needs to know, and the logical place to find out is in the Dissection class where he and his classmates are introduced to a corpse they name Bill.

Bill has donated his body to medical science;  he had been in a serious car accident, putting him in a coma for several months before he died;  now it is up to Patrick and three other students to study every part of Bill, and they must also establish the official cause of death whilst they do so.  Patrick is thrilled;  the mystery of where his father went when his life ended may soon be revealed!

Unfortunately, the only mystery revealed is the cause of Bill’s death:  he did not die of heart failure as was officially stated – he was murdered, and Patrick is faced with solving the biggest puzzle of his young life, and trying to keep himself alive as the murderer becomes aware that his was not, after all, the perfect crime.

This is SUCH a good book!

Ms Bauer has, through her impeccable research and enviable writing skills, made Patrick an entirely credible character, imprisoned within his syndrome but not lost to it.  Her minor characters are excellent and there are some great twists and turns in the plot – she had me fooled more than once, which is, after all, one of the most basic requirements of a good crime novel.  This was a pleasure to read.  Highly recommended.

AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE!

The Cypress House, by Michael Koryta

I found after reading ‘The Prophet’ by the above author, that I absolutely HAD to check out some of his earlier fiction – which makes me wonder where I have been all my life that I have remained ignorant of Mr Koryta (and Ms Bauer) until now.  I have spent too long in my fairy bower, obviously.

Anyway.

Hang onto your hat:  you’re going to have another white-knuckle ride (as all those really flash reviewers say) through a hurricane;  into drug-trafficking;  smacking up against smelly corpses and other nasty things in swamps;  and feeling the hairs rise on the back of the neck (even if you have none) as the hero tries to deal with the supernatural.  Oh, it’s great stuff, and while the reader’s credulity has to be suspended more than once, it’s a small price to pay for such a page-turner.

It is 1935, the middle of the Great Depression, and a band of men employed by the Government  are on their way by train to Florida to work on a hugely ambitious  project:  to construct a succession of highway bridges across the Florida Keys.  The men are excited;  they are employed  where so many thousands are not, and the work will last a long time.  The atmosphere is light-hearted – until one of them, Arlen Wagner,  starts to see his workmates transformed into skeletons.  This is not the first time such a thing has happened to Arlen;  during the Great War of 1914-18 he fought as a Marine in France, in Belleau Wood:  that’s when he first knew who would live and who would die.  He has sought the anaesthesia of alcohol ever since, unable to come to terms with these terrible futuristic visions, but now he knows that they must all leave that train -  get off at the very next station, or die.    Something terrible is going to happen and he is never wrong.

The men regard him as a crank – does he seriously think that they are going to give up the chance of steady work on his whim?  Only one young man follows him off the train;  his would-be friend, Paul Brickhill, a gangly, friendly-as-a-puppy teenager:  something in Arlen’s warning rings true for him.

And as they watch the train of soon-to-be- corpses leaving a tiny station in the deepest, darkest Florida countryside, that’s just the start of misadventure and misfortune for the pair:  worse things are going to occur as inevitably as the sunrise.

This is the perfect airport or beach read.  As Stephen King, that peerless master of Horror says in a cover endorsement: ‘ a hurricane, gangsters and the supernatural – what’s not to like?’  I couldn’t agree more, and the icing on the cake is that Mr Koryta isn’t a sloppy scribe who can tell a good story:  he can really WRITE.  Lucky us.

      

MORE GREAT READS FOR APRIL, 2013

The Prophet, by Michael Koryta

High school football Coach Kent Austin has no contact with his big brother Adam, though they both live in the same small town of Chambers, Ohio.  Chambers has little to recommend it;  its once-prosperous steel mills have closed, people have left, and those who have stayed are there mainly because they can’t afford to live anywhere else.  Adam makes a living as a Bail Bondsman, not his first choice of occupations, but it pays the bills and he’s good at it.  Having a steady income also allows him to indulge in his alcoholism, the perfect medication for the huge guilt that plagues him, for nearly twenty years before, Adam and Kent’s younger sister was cruelly raped and murdered and he holds himself responsible.

In the meantime, Kent has found the Lord, inherited the football Coach’s job, and married his daughter:  he has successfully ‘moved on’, so much so that he feels it in his heart that it’s time to visit the prison and bestow his forgiveness on his sister’s killer (who laughed in his face), thereby earning Adam’s undying hatred.  Far from ‘forgiving’ the murderer, Adam wants to kill him himself and as slowly and painfully as possible.  In Adam’s eyes, Kent has committed the ultimate betrayal, a desecration of their sister’s memory and one awful, drunken night he uses his fists on his brother to emphasise his point.

There things stand until another brutal murder takes place.  This time the victim is the seventeen-year-old girlfriend of the high School’s star quarterback and her death occurs during a make-or-break game for the Cardinals, Kent’s highly successful team;  they are on the way to the State Championship for the first time in twenty years and they have the support of the entire town, not least because it’s great to have something to be proud of again in Chambers.

The girl’s murder casts a pall over everything, but it forces the brothers into the same orbit once more:  the parallels between the latest murder and their sister’s 20 years ago have a familiarity that they can hardly bear to endure – but they must, for the latest killer has intimated that he can murder with impunity – and he is coming for Kent, and Kent’s family.

This is the first time I have read any of Michael Koryta’s books but it won’t be the last:  here is the white-knuckle ride I was promised in ‘The Boyfriend’. After reading that plodder of a book, it was pure pleasure to read a thriller worthy of the name.   That’s not to say that it doesn’t have flaws – I was genuinely surprised when Mr WhoDunIt was revealed, but the reasons for his actions I felt were less than convincing.  That said, Mr Koryta portrays familial love and sibling rivalry in pure, real terms, and it was satisfying to know that Kent, that staunch, respected, holier-than-everyone high school and town leader finally faced the consequences of actions to which he gave no thought many years before.

One last comment:  (I know I should stop here, but I can’t.  It’s the reviewer’s version of verbal diarrhoea.)  For those familiar with gridiron football, this book will be a football fan’s delight.  For those who aren’t, like myself, its rules and plays etc. shall ever remain a mystery.  I watched all the seasons of ‘Friday Night Lights’ and loved it to bits, but was no closer to understanding gridiron at the end of the series than I was at the beginning.  In my defence I have to say that in this part of the world Rugby in its various forms is King, and the All Blacks are its princely warriors.  I have tried to look for similarities between the two games but there are none that I can see, so I’ll just have to sit on my fist and lean back on my thumb, and hope that American readers will forgive my ignorance.

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.  Highly recommended.      

GREAT READS FOR APRIL 2013

The Elephant Keepers’ Children, by Peter Høeg

‘Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow’ (as it was known in this part of the world) was the novel that launched Peter Høeg’s international reputation in 1992;  it was a worldwide bestseller, a fascinating thriller, a mystery on many levels, and the subject of a successful movie several years later:  now, Mr Hoeg travels a different road.

Peter, Tilte and Hans are the teenage children of the Pastor of a picturesque Danish island celebrated for its tourism – and the eccentricities of some of its locals, all of whom are gifted (or not) with some very unusual names, because the island of Finø has long been known as a place to which all races are welcome;  in fact, the more exotic the better, and all of those races have brought their names.

Pretty Tilte’s one true love is called Jakob Aquinas Bordurio Madsen;  he has broken her heart because he claims to have heard an inner voice ordering him to forsake the secular life and become a Catholic Priest.  Hans falls in love with Ashanti from Haiti, a renowned trance dancer (don’t ask!) and thrilling religious vocalist.  Peter, at 14 the youngest sibling, has lost his heart to Conny (the only one in the entire story with a normal name), a fellow student who shares his feelings – until after a series of lucky coincidences, she is whisked away by her mother to be a child star of stage and screen in Copenhagen. 

The local colour also extends to Bermuda Seagull Jansson, Finø’s combination midwife and undertaker:  she can hatch, AND dispatch!  Then we have Count Rickardt Three Lions, fabulously rich former heroin addict, who is now the owner of the local Rehab Centre.  Bodil Hippopotamus is a flinty-eyed undercover police officer;  and Pallas Athene is a two-metre-tall Dominatrix with a propensity for road rage when she is behind the wheel of her red Jag.  And these are but a few of the cavalcade of the strange and wonderful who aid the three siblings in the search for their parents – on the surface such pillars of the community, supposedly on their annual holiday to the Canary Islands, but in reality planning the biggest jewel heist in Danish history.

Their children have already had a taste of Mum and Dad’s less than religious activities two years before, when the parents returned from the Canaries with a Maserati and a mink coat:  highly suspicious, especially as most of the Danish police force thought so, too.  It was touch and go for a while but in the absence of proof of the insurance theft of which they were suspected, the rectory and its occupants were still all together;  Mum and Dad escaped prison by a whisker and the children weren’t condemned to separate children’s homes.

And that is at the crux of Peter Høeg’s zany, laugh-out-loud comic novel, overflowing as it is with unbelievable characters and Keystone Cops pursuits:  the fear within us all of losing our security;  our loved ones;  our WORLD, and the lengths to which we will go to preserve it.  Highly recommended – if you can stand the pace!

The Boyfriend, by Thomas Perry

At the risk of destroying my own credibility, I have to caution you, dear reader, NOT TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN BOOK REVIEWS!  Especially in really flash, reputable, long-established American newspapers.  I am enormously disappointed in the above author, especially as I was led to believe by the illustrious reviewer that I was in for a white-knuckle ride, and the speed wasn’t going to slacken until the last page was turned.

Well.

What a load of old rubbish!  We never get beyond walking pace in Mr. Perry’s story.  He is the respected author of twenty one previous thrillers, several of which have won prizes – the dust jacket tells us that so it must be true; therefore I am mystified to know why a writer of obvious experience should produce such a pedestrian tale.

So, here we go:

Jack Till, a Private Investigator and retired homicide Detective is hired by the parents of a young murder victim.  It was revealed to them after her death that she was an escort, and the police, after an initial investigation have come to the conclusion that she was murdered and robbed by one of her ‘clients’.  Her case has been put on the back burner;  the police have more important crimes to pursue.  This is not good enough for the young woman’s grieving parents.  They want answers so Jack is hired with an upfront payment of one hundred thousand dollars, to find out what the police have not.

After several desultory chapters, we learn that more young escorts have died in different cities, all of similar appearance, and just before a major murder of a public figure:  gracious moi, could these crimes be linked, do you think?  Of course they are - to Joey Moreland, a handsome, charming young sociopath who moves in on the various escorts as a way of lying low until he makes the hit, then he takes them out, too – but usually when they are not looking:  after all, they have been good to him, putting him up and all, not to mention providing free professional services.  It’s nothing personal, but he really can’t leave any girl alive who knows what he looks like.

Thereafter the novel is involved in Jack’s dogged search for Joey, and I have to say I have no idea why I stuck with this book and its two-dimensional characters to the bitter end.  I can only assume it was because I wanted Illustrious Reviewer to be right, but she flamingwell wasn’t!  In actual fact, her review was a whole lot better than the book, whatever that may signify:  maybe she should find a story more worthy of her reviewing skills, or go back to her knitting.  And I won't be so quick to take her at her word in future, so there.     

   

MORE GREAT READS FOR MARCH, 2013

Habits of the House, by Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon needs no introduction:  not only is she a literary household name, but she also gained fame in the British advertising world before she started her writing career for coining the unforgettable phrase on Billboards:  ‘Go to Work on an Egg.’  What a woman!

‘Habits of the House’, we are told, is the first book of a trilogy – which is a good thing, for this is a most charming story, with characters that any reader would love to meet again;  the only problem being that Ms Weldon’s novel bears a great resemblance to the ubiquitous ‘Downton Abbey’, and unkind critics could say that she was perhaps trying to ride that most successful  bandwagon:  after all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery but that said, Ms Weldon still manages, in spite of many similarities, to produce a different slant on manners and mores – and the hypocrisies -  of life upstairs and downstairs at the turn of the 19^th century.

The Earl of Dilberne has reached a financial crisis:  because of various unwise investments, not to mention trying to keep up with the gambling habits of the Prince of Wales, he has run through his own fortune as well as the enormous dowry his wife, Lady Isobel, brought into their marriage:  the time has come for drastic action.  There is nothing else for it but to marry off Viscount Arthur, their playboy son to someone with a LOT of money.  And at the close of the season, there are not many young heiresses to choose from – except Minnie O’Brien, recently arrived from America with her distressingly vulgar mother, openly shopping for A Title. 

Arthur keeps a mistress, whom, he learns in due course  (to his horror), used to service his father.  He is amenable to marrying to save the family bacon (his tailor bill is ENORMOUS – one wishes that they would stop sending so many reminders for payment!), but he still requires, in fact expects, that his blushing bride will be a virgin.  His contempt and disdain are absolute when he discovers that Minnie has A Past, and an unsavoury one at that.  The fact that he keeps a woman for his pleasure is not, to him, in any way a double standard:  that is what gentlemen do.  Ladies are not afforded the same freedom.

Add to the mix the private lives of the people who look after and service the needs of the upper crust:  Grace the ladies maid, Reginald the footman,  Mr and Mrs Neville, the butler and cook;  they all know a lot more about their employers than one could ever dream, and Eric Baum, the Earl’s lawyer, a Jew, laments to himself as he swears revenge – after too many slights – ‘the Israelites may be God’s children, but God is an Englishman.’

Well said, Ms Weldon:  bring on Book Two!

Oh Dear Sylvia, by Dawn French

Silvia Shute is in the intensive care unit, critically ill with a serious head injury caused by a fall from her balcony.  Her elder sister Jo and estranged family, ex-husband Ed and furious daughter Cassie (son Jamie is with the British Marines in Afghanistan and states that he couldn’t care if she lives or dies) reluctantly visit her room to keep vigil, and over the next ten days Sylvia’s virtues and faults (and there are many) are revealed:  she has divorced not just Ed, but her children, too, has sold the family home after saying she wouldn’t, and jettisoned Cassie (pregnant at the age of 16) to sink or swim in The Real World.  Jamie is so hurt and angry at the inexplicable dissolution of his home that he immediately joins the Military, not caring what happens to him – ‘Take THAT, you bitch!”

Yep, Silvia has many enemies, but all is not revealed until two thirds of the way through the story – just why she decided to reject her family, and who took their place, and the price she paid for her choice.

Dawn French is a much-loved TV star in this neck of the woods;  her reputation is stellar in Britain and she recently gained much praise for her foray into storytelling with the delightful ‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’ (reviewed March 2011, see below), but it pains me to say that Ms French’s second novel isn’t up to the standard of the first:  there are some lovely characters in this book, but the story is spoilt because Ms French seemed bent on writing parts of the narrative as though scripting a TV Sitcom/Romcom.  Shame, shame, shame but I’m inclined to think that her editors should take the blame for some of the outright clunky stuff that escaped the net.

Ms French’s intentions were patently clear:  I am sure she wished, ultimately, to reflect upon the end of life, and how family and loved ones react to their loss;  how they say farewell, and how their lives change as a result:  sadly, this story doesn’t hit the mark.  I wish it had, because Ms French at her best is a great storyteller.  This book is like the weather – good in parts.

  

A Tiny Bit Marvellous, by Dawn French

There is no end to Ms. French’s myriad talents – quite apart from her superb comic skills as an actress she has now proven that she is also a writer of insight and wit, capturing effortlessly in her amber the 21^st century family:  Mum Maureen Battle (Mo), capable and efficient, on-to-it child psychologist – except when it comes to her own children, about whom she clearly hasn’t a clue;  Dad or ‘Husband’ as Mo invariably refers to him, hovering lovingly in the background, keeping the wheels turning in ever so subtle ways in his efforts to provide a loving and stable environment for his family;  (he has a job, ‘doing something with computers’, but everyone seems to be vague as to its specifics);   Dora, about to turn 18 and full of teenage angst and self-loathing, is fretting about the humiliation of being dumped by her small but perfectly-formed boyfriend;  being a virgin;  being less than interested in a future career; and being FAT!  Last but not least, Peter:  call him Oscar please, as he is such a disciple of Mr Wilde that he is sure he is his reincarnation.  Peter is also tall, cherubic, flamboyant, academically brilliant and gay as a hat – and proud of it  - no gender angst for Mr. Peter;  in fact the only thing he agonises over is having to live in Pangbourne, the most deeply unfashionable place on earth.

  The novel is written in diary form, with each member of the family contributing their own thoughts and opinions (and some of them are hair-raising) about each other, and while some of the humour is laugh-out-loud funny (as we would expect from Ms French) there is also very shrewd and poignant observation of this flawed, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, I want family – the problems they face are all too familiar to anyone who reads this charming, wise little story;  the dangers parents wish to protect  their children from are still the same, but stranger-danger has become Internet- danger in the 21^st century,  and not always preventable.  Fortunately,  Dad/Husband/Den – that loving, unsung problem-solver extraordinaire – well, he only gets one chapter to narrate, but he saves the day, his family and his marriage:  what a Star!  Oh, and I nearly forgot (for shame!) to mention Nanna Pam, Mo’s loving mum, dispenser of sound common sense and wise council, and baker of everyone’s favourite cakes – and the yummy recipes are all at the back of the book.  Magic.    

   

GREAT READS FOR MARCH

Merivel, a man of his time, by Rose Tremain.

Here is the sequel to ‘Restoration’, Rose Tremain’s superb novel of 17^th century England in the reign of Charles II, and I am delighted to say that the story, once again, loses nothing in the telling.

It is 1683 and Sir Robert Merivel is 17 years older, back in favour with his godly hero the King, and delighting in being a father to Margaret, his pretty and vivacious daughter.  The King has restored Bidnold, Merivel’s beloved Norfolk estate back to his ownership, and all should be perfect – yet it isn’t. 

Merivel is bored.  But when he examines possible reasons for his restlessness and lack of concentration, he is hard put to find a cause:  he has a flourishing medical practice caring for the sick in the area (not that they pay him, for hard times have visited all); he is a generous host, socialising often with his neighbours, and he takes a great and kindly interest in the smooth running of his estate by his trusted, long-time servants.  But - he is lonely.

Merivel’s proudest achievement has been the raising of his beloved daughter;  now she will soon be an adult and he knows he must prepare for her coming independence and eventual marriage, the thought of which, whilst he hopes for the best possible match, fills him with the dread of losing her, his only child.  The solution is clear:  while Margaret is holidaying with family friends, Merivel will launch himself on a new adventure, thus proving to all that he can lead an independent and exciting life of his own – he’s not ready to moulder away in dowdy seclusion at Bidnold just yet, thank you very much!

To that end, Merivel obtains a letter of introduction from the King to Charles’s cousin, Louis XIV of France (given most reluctantly:  Charles cannot see the sense of going to France:  Merivel must face his fears, not flee from them!) applying for a post as physician at the court of Versaille;  he will enjoy French cuisine, French women, and bask in the warmth and approval of the Sun King and his ministers, freely bestowed because of his close friendship with the King of England.

Needless to say, events do not transpire as Merivel wishes.  He has adventures aplenty, but not the thrilling and delicious kind he imagined.  As before, his life plays out in entirely different and unhappy ways, and once again he must subject himself to uncomfortable and humiliating self-examination.  As anyone knows, being honest with oneself is the hardest of truths to face, but Merivel, that flawed, self-indulgent, kindly and loving man, does so with bravery and grace.

Ms Tremain has created a great and enduring character in Robert Merivel, and a wonderful evocation of an age which bears much resemblance to our own.  It was a singular pleasure to make Merivel’s acquaintance,  and proves yet again that Ms Tremain is an unsurpassed writer of fine historical fiction.  Highly recommended.

GREAT TEEN FICTION IN YOUR LIBRARY.

Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer.

It has been a while since I reviewed any teen or children’s fiction available in our library, but the librarians have recently given me some great titles that ably demonstrate the wealth of writing talent catering to young readers, ensuring by their excellent stories that the wonderful pastime of reading will continue into adult life.

Such a story is ‘Scarlet’, Ms Meyer’s sequel to ‘Cinder’, her fabulous futuristic version of ‘Cinderella’.  (Reviewed May, 2012, see below).  ‘Cinder’ was so good that this reader found it a real chore to have to wait for Book two – and I’m grinding my teeth to think that Book three won’t be released until next year:  couldn’t Ms Meyer speed things up a bit?

Anyway:

Cinder is in prison, having been captured at the the Prince’s ball – instead of leaving a slipper behind, she leaves her Cyborg foot!  How’s that for a variation on the old tale?  A?  A?  Sadly, the loss of her foot means that she was an easy catch and is now disabled in her cell – until a secret visit from professor Erland, a research scientist:  he provides her with a new state-of-the-art hand and a top-of-the-range foot, enabling her to engineer (she’s a mechanic, remember) a daring escape from jail.  And guess who he is?  Yep, Ms Meyer’s version of Cinderella’s fairy Godmother. 

She also takes with her another prisoner, Thorne, because he has a stolen spaceship hidden in a warehouse, and on their travels they link up with Scarlet Benoit, who has been looking for her beloved grandmother, kidnapped by a gang of wolves.  Scarlet wears a red hoody, has a nasty temper and a reluctant attraction to a street fighter called – Wolf.  Now.  Who do you think she could be?  And guess what happens to poor old Grandma imprisoned by the wolf gang in the bowels of the Paris Opera House, derelict and in ruins since the Fourth World War? (the Opera House, not Grandma!)  Nothing good, that’s for sure.

As before, Ms Meyer has her readers in an iron grip and doesn’t relinquish them until the very last page:  once again, the reader is screaming ‘but what happens NEXT!  And once again, we’ll just have to wait and see.  I’m sure all this suspense is hell on the digestion, but I’ll just have to tough it out.  This is a great series.

    

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer (Young adult reading)

Our Children’s librarian recommended this book to me and as she’s seldom wrong in her reading choices, I’m happy to give this the ravingest (ravingest??) endorsement possible:  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, 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.

Waterfall, by Lisa T. Bergren

Gabriella and her sister Lia are the daughters of two archaeologists who travel from Colorado to Italy each summer to excavate ancient Etruscan tomb sites.  Sadly, the girls’ father died six months previously but their mother is still committed to carrying on their work, pushing into the background the terrible grief they all feel by relentlessly pursuing the research that meant so much to she and her husband – neglecting her daughters in the process:  they’re bored out of their minds!  They want to hang out, have fun, be the teenagers that they are, and not hang around archaeological sites:  they’re fed up with history, ancient and otherwise;  it’s time for a little rebellion, and to that end they decide to do the unthinkable:  sneak into a tomb and check it out a little, even though they both know they are not to go within 100 metres of the latest excavation.  Do they care?  Well, what do you think?

The inevitable happens:  fitting their hands into mysterious prints on the wall of tomb #2 sends them on a terrifying journey through time, and when it ends, Gabriella and Lia find themselves in the year 1431, in the middle of a pitched battle between the Forellis and the Paratores, warlords fighting for dominance of the region of Toscana each family covets.

Oh, this is all great fun – it doesn’t take Gabriella 5 seconds to realise that the ‘knightly dude’ striding towards her is, seriously, like a total hottie of the first order, which makes her wonder over the coming weeks why she never met anyone like that in the 21^st century - and how she wishes that she had some product (at the very least) to control and improve the huge mane of her hair which refuses to lend itself to medieval hairstyles.  She’s hard put to convince her Forelli hosts that she is a visitor from Normandy temporarily separated from her family;  her Italian is good, but her Norman French is practically non-existent:  it is better to say little and look mysterious than chatter and reveal serious holes in her story, especially to speakers of French.

Marcello the Hottie is betrothed to another, an arranged alliance between his family and the most powerful family in Siena but predictably, this does not stop him from being smitten by his mysterious visitor.  Naturally, the course of true love does not run smooth and he and Gabriella endure political powerplays, battles with their Paratore enemies and eventually the dreaded separation as Gabriella is finally forced to return to her own time.  But for how long?

Miss Bergren has provided all the necessaries here to keep everyone turning the pages:  a novel, well-researched plot, action and humour by the ton and a most satisfactory line-up of battles and villains. I’m looking forward to reading Book Two, ‘Cascade’ for I’m not ready to leave these characters yet:  what a pleasure it will be to read more of the same.

Little Manfred, by Michael Morpurgo             Children’s fiction

To most children, Michael Morpurgo needs no introduction;  he has a great body of quality work for young people which covers many different subjects, and his book ‘Warhorse’ about a young man’s wonderful relationship with his horse during the 1914-18 war was filmed to much acclaim by Steven Spielberg.  Now, he visits another war, World War II, to examine once again, through the eyes of the very young and the elderly, the horrors and tragedies of a global conflict, searing and traumatic for all those who fought and a source of unforgettable memories and regrets for those who survived.

It is 1966.  England has just won the World Soccer Cup, defeating Germany 4-2;  the country is ecstatic!  On their Suffolk farm, Charley and her mother cannot understand what the fuss is about;  neither of them share Dad and Alex’s worshipful enthusiasm of the Beautiful Game and really couldn’t care less WHO won.  Needless to say little brother Alex thinks his sister is just being a big GIRL.  She doesn’t know what’s good.  Instead, Charley and her mum would rather that Dad would do as he said he would, and fix mum’s old childhood toy, a small wooden Dachsund called Little Manfred, which he stood on and broke – and always said he’d repair but never did.  For some reason that she never reveals, Little Manfred is very important to mum, and she is very upset that her old toy is missing a wheel.

It is not until the children visit the beach not far from their farm that many little mysteries are solved:  they meet two elderly men, an Englishman and a German, sightseers who have returned so that one of them can see once more where he was a prisoner of war, working on the very farm that Charley and Alex’s mum lived with her parents twenty years before, and where she still lives with her husband and family. 

Walter, the German, was rescued by Marty, the Englishman when his ship, the mighty battleship ‘Bismarck’ was sunk by the British navy in a huge sea battle;  Marty’s ship, HMS ‘Dorsetshire’ picked up some of the survivors from the water but nearly 2000 men drowned, abandoned to their fate because there were rumours that U-Boats with torpedoes were in the area.

Walter’s best friend Manfred and he formed a bond with Marty, who showed them kindness in many ways , but the steadfast friendship of Manfred and Walter sustained them throughout their imprisonment, and the kindness shown to them by the farming family they were sent to made their lives more bearable;  in fact Manfred became so close to their little girl that he made her a wooden toy, a Dachsund, so that she could remember them when they returned to Germany.

Twenty years later, the toy is still with her, broken but not discarded, a symbol of love, friendship and understanding that transcended fear and hatred in the midst of war. 

What a lovely story this is, simply told but full of wisdom and life lessons that we could all live by, young and old alike.  Little Manfred was truly the gift that kept on giving.  Highly recommended for all ages.