LAST GREAT READS FOR MARCH, 2014

The Last Days of the National Costume, by Anne Kennedy

Auckland city, 1998.  A huge power outage has occurred, shutting off electricity to thousands of residents, and bringing Auckland to the unwelcome attention of the world:  ‘I mean to say, what modern first-world city on the planet blacks out its entire CBD?  And for weeks on end?’

GoGo Sligo (yes, I know;  awful, isn’t it,  but there is an explanation for Megan’s ghastly nickname – I just don’t know why the author stayed with it.) and her husband Art (Arthur) Frome live in the inner city, in a grace-and-favour villa provided by his wealthy parents.  He is a PHD student nearing completion of his dissertation and GoGo, a university drop-out, occupies herself with a small business, repairing and embroidering various garments for private customers and designers.  Their life is comfortably secure and pleasant, not least because every month a cheque arrives from Art’s grandmother the family matriarch, ensuring that living on the smell of an oily rag is both unseemly and unnecessary.

Life is good, pre power-outage:  GoGo’s business is humming along well enough, and because she works with her hands, she allows her mind free-range speculation about her clientele:  ‘Blouse, cream silk, torn front placket’ translates into ‘Desperate hurry, sex.’  ‘Jacket, man’s sports, navy, cigarette burn’ becomes ‘Late night, yacht club, gazing at woman.’  ‘Blazer, school, torn front panel’ is ‘Boy, innocent.’  And so on.  She is almost always right, for GoGo’s customers usually end up confiding in her – her honest face?  The calming atmosphere of her little workroom?  Who can say, but GoGo takes a certain mordant pleasure in her powers of deduction, and when an Irish national costume is brought in with a ripped shoulder seam by a punky woman who could hardly be described as the owner of the costume, GoGo is suitably intrigued.  The customer has no information about the costume which is obviously old, an heirloom that needs extensive repair to restore it to its former glory, but GoGo takes on the job, certain that she will ferret out its mysteries sooner or later.

The mysteries reveal themselves all too soon:  she is visited first by a business man who wants to collect the repaired costume, and while he is there his wife also arrives, demanding to know if GoGo has had an Irish national costume in for repair:  it is an heirloom for her daughter and she saw a person of her husband’s acquaintance wearing it in the supermarket!  For reasons inexplicable to her GoGo denies she has the costume and doesn’t reveal the presence of the woman’s husband in her workroom:  she is now complicit in Punk and Businessman’s deception and morally no better than they who practised the deceit.

And things don’t improve:  the inner city power outage occurs, knee-capping her business (sewing machines can’t work without power);  she lies to the businessman, telling him that the costume is not ready because she hopes at first that he will confide (as they always do) in her about his adulterous relationship – she makes him return several times with the promise that it will be ready – and confess he does, but he tells her his family history, his Irish childhood in Belfast – and completely ensnares her mind and her heart, until GoGo is a Gone Goose.  (Well, what a stupid name.  Anyone called GoGo deserves everything she gets.)

Anne Kennedy has given us a story of very uneven quality.  GoGo is a charming, gossipy narrator, witty and sharply observant of everyone’s foibles but her own;  however, I found her reasons for delaying the return of the costume entirely unconvincing – certainly insufficient on which to hang the plot.  Conversely, her client’s narrative of his Belfast childhood and the family’s reasons for leaving were gripping heart-in-the-mouth stuff, and her account (all true) of a big city without electricity is first class.

GoGo’s husband Art, privileged young scion of the squattocracy is absent for large parts of the story, despite the importance to the plot of his family’s eventual fall from wealth and grace.  For Ms Kennedy’s story to succeed on all levels he should have been given the spotlight he deserved:  he is a character just as fallible as GoGo and the businessman, but more likeable.

It is a shame that such a good plot has so many glaring inconsistencies.  If Ms Kennedy’s characters had been more credible (GoGo:  give me a break!!) this good novel would have been much, much better.

By Blood we Live, by Glen Duncan

With his first two novels in this trilogy, ‘The Last Werewolf’ and ‘Talulla Rising’ (see July 2012 review below) Glen Duncan raised the bar for all aspiring horror writers:  no-one does bloody and gory better than he, nor do his characters enjoy themselves more as they rip and chomp their way through hapless humans with mindless delight – there ain’t nothin’ like it, especially as feeding on humans is vital to their existence.  By Blood We Live:  there is no other way.

Unfortunately, humans are starting to resent being torn to pieces at full moon, and they are even less enthused at being drained of blood by vampires every three days.  (Vampires have a withering contempt for werewolves; they regard them as merely part-timers, not serious in their vocation.)  Yes, humans are starting to strike back in the form of the Militi Christi, the Soldiers of Christ, an organisation funded by the Catholic Church and bent on exterminating with silver bullets and wooden stakes every monster it can lay its hands on.

Needless to say, this is nothing new – monsters have been fair game for hundreds of years, hunted by various arbiters of good versus evil – but this time the Militi Christi (thought by uncharitable monsters to be formed by the church to take the heat off all the accusations of child abuse)  seem to have vast numbers and superior intelligence-gathering that the werewolves in particular find baffling and devastating, especially when they are felled by silver bullets.

It is time for werewolves and vampires to unite in a common cause:  survival.  

Remshi, the oldest vampire in existence (20,000 years and bowing under the weight of all that ‘life’ experience) is looking for werewolf Talulla Demetriou, not only to form a future alliance, but because he is convinced that she is the reincarnation of one of his lovers from long ago;  his great and only love, despite feeling enormous affection for his ward Justine, an abused young prostitute he rescued from the streets.

As with the first two books, the action never flags, and Mr Duncan rubs the reader’s nose in all the sins of the world;  there is no escape from human degradation – in fact, the monsters come off, if not squeaky clean (how could they, butchers all?) but a lot more honest and free from hypocrisy in their lifestyle.

Having said that, I still found the continuous action, the ‘search and destroy at all costs’ to be overkill:  Mr Duncan’s enormous intellectual skill and delight in presenting his monsters as the good guys is intriguing, though hardly unusual in the ‘bonk and bite’ genre;  despite his wonderful, anarchic characters and their predicament, there will be an all-out war:  will evil prevail?  And who are evil -  the monsters or the Soldiers of God?  WHAT is evil?  Mr Duncan asks all these questions, but provides no satisfactory answers.  Regardless, he has produced yet again an enormously entertaining  book, perhaps not an ideal end to his trilogy, but commendable and highly readable.  You be the judge.             

 Talulla Rising, by Glen Duncan

I have been waiting for Glen Duncan to write his sequel to ‘The last Werewolf’ for what seems like ages, but It wasn’t, really :  he has turned out #2 in record time because (he says in a very funny interview in the NYTimes) that he needs the money – presumably to keep the wolf from his door (sorry, sorry!) -  and fair enough, as long as the quality of writing doesn’t suffer.  Well, I’m happy to report that all is well in Mr. Duncan’s anarchic and bloodthirsty world of monsters big and small.  He brings a refreshing literary talent to the relatively new ‘bonk and bite’ book style – there are so many of them these days that very few break the bounds of boring predictability:  Duncan’s 9 foot killing machines and smelly vampires are a breath of fresh air (if it wasn’t so laden with blood) in what is fast becoming a very tired genre.

Jake Marlowe, The eponymous Last Werewolf, was killed at the end of the first book;  unbeknownst to him, his lover Talulla Demetriou manages to survive the attack that ends his 200 year-old existence – and she is pregnant with his twins.  She is helped to hide from countless enemies by Cloquet, a former enemy and perennial loser who becomes her helpmeet and staunch ‘minder’;  she gives his life the sense of purpose it has always lacked – after all, it’s a big job to find a suitable victim for slaughter every month when the moon rises.  Not everyone can do it!

Unfortunately for Talulla, word of her pregnancy has reached some very unsavoury (and smelly) ears:  it is believed by a certain cult of vampires that the consumption of a werewolf baby at a certain time of the year will give them the ability to march around in daylight, instead of dissolving into an odiferous puddle of ash as soon as the sun hits them.  Talulla is a marked woman/werewolf, captured and completely disabled by the nasties as she is giving birth and forced to watch helplessly as the vampires make off with her little son. Luckily (depending on which way you look at it) the kidnappers were unaware – as was she! – that another child was on its way:  Talulla’s little girl is spared the same fate as her twin.

Thereafter begins a mad pursuit through Europe to try to track down Talulla’s enemies before they destroy her child, and on the way she encounters to her utter astonishment other werewolves,  all new -  it seems Jake was a little careless in his ‘relations’ with a certain prostitute, who in turn managed to infect several other people:  Werewolves rule, Dude!

Mr. Duncan’s plotting is bombproof:  in case the reader wonders where our hairy heroine gets the money to charge around the planet recruiting allies and helpers, well, Jake left her his considerable fortune, amassed over two hundred years, for a start.  No matter how many times I looked for a ‘Yeah, right!’ slipup I never found one;  the action never flags and some great new characters have been added to the mix.  I’m happy to say that this is that rare thing:  a sequel that packs just as much punch as the first, and is just as engaging.  And Glen Duncan can’t end things there because (by his own admission) he needs the money!  All to the good, I say.  Highly recommended.

     

MORE GREAT READS FOR MARCH, 2014

Then We Take Berlin, by John Lawton

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

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

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

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

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

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

A song for the Dying, by Stuart MacBride

As always, I found after starting this story that there was a previous work, ‘Birthdays for the Dead’.  Lots of awful things happened in the first book, including the murder of main protagonist Detective Ash Henderson’s daughters and his imprisonment for the murder of his brother – a frame up:  to say that Ash has had a rough ride is a euphemism of the first order, and at the start of book two there is only one thing on Ash’s mind:  revenge.

As this story unfolded I found myself glad that I had missed Book One:  the various tragedies that Detective Henderson has to live with are almost too horrible for this craven reader to contemplate;  in fact it was all I could do to stop myself from physically recoiling at the gruesomeness of the current plot, let alone roll around in the bloodbath of Plot One – I know, I know, it’s only a story, but I have never been very good at reading about cruelty and sadism, especially when it involves children:  it is then that I wish that I was a fan of Mills and Boon!

Having said that, I must also state that I could not put this book down.

Mr MacBride has created a nightmare landscape in the Scottish city of Oldcastle, a classic battleground of good and evil where the goodies are sometimes worse than those who commit the crimes.  In his long experience Ash sees the new order of PCness and criminals having – and knowing – their ‘rights’ as an unforgivable delay in the capture of bad guys, and a further erosion of the rights of decent people – the victims.  Not that he can do anything about it from Inside, languishing on his trumped-up charges and attending futile meetings of the Parole Board.  Until …..

Until he is suddenly released from Jail by the head of a new crime unit established to find a serial killer of nurses whom everyone thought had disappeared eight years before.  Prior to his misfortune, Ash had had some success at investigating the killings and was known for his ability to think outside the square.  His skills are needed in the latest investigation, for ‘The Inside Man’ has struck again:  Oldcastle is in a panic.

There are more twists and turns to this plot than a pretzel!  I can only admire Mr MacBride’s expertise in keeping all the balls in the air without dropping a single one.  I  found Detective Ash (despite his obvious bitterness and thirst for blood) to be a lot more credible than most of his counterparts in crime fiction.  He is also completely professional, eventually finding the killer – and you’ll never guess, EVER, who it is! – before he goes after the people who put him in prison, which is exactly as it should be.  His reluctant team mates – he is a jailbird, after all – are carefully drawn and individual delights, but if I have an ongoing criticism it is this:  it rains in Oldcastle ALL THE TIME.  Couldn’t the reader have enjoyed a few rays of sunshine as relief from Mr MacBride’s Shakespearean blasted heath?  A little bit of sun never hurt anyone;  as it is, we must rely on the warmth and relief of clever, funny dialogue and gallows humour to light up the gloom, and that’s no bad thing;  in fact in a story like this it is vital.  Highly recommended.   

   

GREAT READS FOR MARCH, 2014

Bad Monkey, by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen has been called the funniest crime novelist in print by many reviewers, with complete justification:  he has a long list of novels to his name, all best-sellers, and all set in Florida, his home state.  He has a fan base of millions, not only because he produces with each new story a fast-paced, hilarious plot with great characters, but he also has an important ecological and environmental message to deliver:  he is a major voice protesting against the overdevelopment of Florida’s beautiful wild places;  the despoliation of the environment by big corporations and the destruction of rare animals thanks to loss of habitat.  He is a champion of creatures great and small and the places they call home, and what better way to skewer corporate greed than with a pen.

The bad monkey of the title resides with Neville, an elderly fisherman in the Bahamas who has just been deprived of his idyllic beachside home and land by an unscrupulous Miami fraudster who has faked his own death by having an arm surgically removed (!), then bribing a fishing mate on a cruiser to have it fished up by an unsuspecting tourist.   After his ‘death’ is declared an accident, he will be free to develop Neville’s home as a luxury timeshare resort where he and his pudgy wife will live a life of sinful pleasure on their ill-gotten gains – they think.

Neville, however, is not without initiative.  He consults the local voodoo woman, a disreputable old hag who demands his body and the use of as payment for the powerful spell she will cast to rid him of the fraudster – a bridge too far for Neville:  he has his standards!   Even copious quantities of alcohol would not be able to disguise his revulsion – instead, as a second option he reluctantly hands over his monkey, much to that bad-tempered creature’s dismay, then waits for the fraudster to meet a horrible fate.

It doesn’t happen.

Enter Andrew Yancy, disgraced former Monroe County detective demoted (by his boss for an act of public violence against his girlfriend’s husband)  to restaurant inspector, a job guaranteed to put anyone off their grub.  He is deeply unhappy but the only thing that sustains him is that something smells fishy (sorry, couldn’t resist) about the lone arm dragged from the deep, and the chain of murders (including an attempt on him) that follows:  he sees a way back to his boss’s good graces and his return to detective status if he can follow up and make sense of the clues that reveal themselves.

Oh, it’s all happening in ‘Bad Monkey’, with the monkey playing an important part in the downfall of the baddies, and an eventual satisfactory ending for the goodies, but the overarching message is clear:  don’t foul your own nest!  Which is what is happening with distressing frequency everywhere.  Bless Mr Hiassen for highlighting this in every book that he writes.  Highly recommended.

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd.

On her eleventh birthday in 1805, Sarah Grimke is given a ten year old slave, Hettie ‘Handful’ to be her waiting maid.  Sarah is the daughter of wealthy Charlston plantation owner and judge John Grimke and his imperious wife Mary;  it is high time she left the nursery and had her own proper room (fortunately vacated by one of  her older brothers, sent off to college to be a lawyer) and Hettie has been taken away from her mother Charlotte the enslaved family seamstress to learn the duties of looking after a young lady.

Unfortunately, Handful lives up to her name – she is disobedient and sassy, earning without effort cruel punishment for her misdeeds.  She pines for her mother, and instead of sleeping on the floor outside her young mistress’s room – in case she be summoned during the night – she constantly sneaks back to the slave quarters to be with the only person she loves in the cruel world they are forced to inhabit.

For her part, Sarah is appalled to be given another human being as a gift and tries to free Handful, much to the outrage of her family:  her carefully crafted document of manumission is ripped apart and flung into her room and intensive instruction in the duties and future expectations of young ladies is commenced.  In its own way South Carolina aristocracy has imprisoned Sarah as much as the slaves that are vital to its way of life;  the role of the Southern gentlewoman was that of wife, mother and housekeeper:  she owned nothing, was not allowed to vote and her opinions were not sought on any subject by the patriarchal society in which she existed.  And it didn’t do to rattle the cage!

Regardless, Sarah still champs at the bit, especially as she has a lively intellect and is clever enough to know that her plain looks will not easily snare her the husband her family wishes for her:  indeed, her younger sister Angelina has much better success in that area and would be married ten times over were it not for her regrettable and forceful opinions on emancipation.

  Sarah’s only means of escape is to journey north to New Jersey as companion and general dogsbody to her ailing father, who as a last resort has been prescribed bracing doses of Northern sea air;  she is astounded to experience the North’s differing political viewpoints, and when her father dies having received no benefit from the climate Sarah decides to stay in the North, eventually making a life for herself with the Quakers, who are devout and staunch believers in the emancipation of slaves – but not of women.

Angelina eventually joins Sarah, and her fiery eloquence, combined with Sarah’s irrefutable logic gains them fame – and notoriety – among the first abolitionists to tour the Northern States lecturing on the evils of slavery, until their message comes unhappily close to calling for the emancipation of women as well as slaves.  Their male counterparts are not happy!

And neither is Handful:  with the departure of Sarah her protector, Handful’s life has become almost unendurable;  she is terribly crippled as a punishment for attending a Black African church, despite having permission to do so but far from breaking her spirit and being the good nigger that her owners expect, she becomes more determined than ever to make her escape, or die trying.

Ms Kidd writes with great power of the iniquity of slavery and she has based her novel on the true life story of the Grimke sisters, early and fearless champions of emancipation for all.  She has researched assiduously the Southern way of life and its ingrained and casual cruelty to the human beings who kept it wealthy before the Civil War, and she illustrates beautifully the courage born of desperation needed to take the first steps in defence of the enslaved.  Above all, this is a novel about sisters, the love they have for each other, black or white, and the wings they have to invent for themselves so that their spirits may fly.  Highly recommended. 

       

 

NEW GREAT READS FOR FEBRUARY, 2014

Linda, as in the Linda Murder, by Leif G. W. Persson

 This book was published in Sweden in 2005, which makes it part of the new wave of Swedish crime fiction made so popular by the late Stieg Larsson:  now English-speaking readers can finally enjoy Mr Persson’s singular anti-hero Evert Bäckström thanks to an excellent translation by Neil Smith.

Detective Superintendent Bäckström is short and fat but makes up for his physical shortcomings with a massive ego, native cunning and a happy knack of getting everyone else to do his work for him – the euphemism is ‘delegating’, and Bäckström is a champion delegator – in short, he is a master at working the system to his own advantage.  None of this burnt-out, angst-ridden cynicism that dogs most detectives of today’s crime fiction:  he is serene in his self-belief and his ability (thanks to his delegating powers) to crack any kind of case presented to him.  And the Linda murder is just such a case.

Trainee police officer Linda Wallin, aged twenty, has been found raped, tortured and murdered in her mother’s flat in Växjö , a picturesque town inland from the Swedish coast.  The police have little to go on initially;  most of the townspeople are away for the summer holidays and there are few clues to get the ball rolling.  Due to the inexperience of the local police in crimes of such seriousness, Detective Superintendent Bäckström is sent from Stockholm to oversee operations.   

And he couldn’t be happier!  He can turn in all his dirty laundry (there’s a month of it) to the hotel drycleaning service and charge it to the job;  he can take full advantage of his room’s minibar and dining room – he can even watch blue movies in his second-in-command’s room while that worthy is elsewhere so that he can state, hand on heart that he would never watch such filth:  he’s in heaven.

Except for the lamentable fact that PC counselling seems now to be reigning supreme in the Swedish police force:  staff feelings and wellbeing must now be considered (by a specially trained counsellor –‘ call me Lo’ -  whose lack of a bosom dismays Bäckström), particularly for those who had close contact with the crime scene – for the love of God:  wouldn’t that be everyone ? 

The investigation puddles along at a frustrating rate – and sadly, so does the plot.  Despite the outrageous and diverting presence of Detective Bäckström Mr Persson allows his good story to be overwhelmed by pedantry – which is not surprising, given the fact that he is one of Sweden’s renowned criminologists, an eminent psychological profiler and Professor at the National Swedish Police Board.  He knows his onions, but ….

But Linda’s murder and the unveiling of her killer becomes swamped by Mr Persson’s great scholarship, intentionally or not.  He has several important arguments to make about murder, particularly the selective reporting by the media, maintaining correctly that the media ultimately decides which murder is sexy enough to keep before the public eye for an extended length of time:  those that are solved quickly sink without a trace, especially crimes of passion and that old chestnut, domestic violence;  his points are inarguable but cost the plot vital pace.

Fortunately, Evert Bäckström saves the day yet again:  he is outraged to find that a scheming female journalist who shamelessly pursued him for advance information on the case is now suing him for sexual harassment.  He is furious – not because of the harassment charge, but because she called his display of his ‘super salami’ (‘what do you think of this, my dear!’) an angry red sausage.  She doesn’t know quality when she sees it!

So:  were it not for our fearless, ruthless and unscrupulous Detective Superintendent, this story would be little more than a detailed expository text on a particular crime and how it was solved.  Bäckström gives it sorely needed humanity.  He’s a babe!

Tatiana, by Martin Cruz Smith

Contrary to Evert Backstrom’s enormous faith in himself, special investigator Arkady Renko has faith in nothing except his powers of deduction, which are considerable.  He is the archetypal burnt-out, depressed and cynical sleuth, but he is also Russian, which, by popular decree, means that part of his dolour is attributable to his nationality.

This is Arkady’s eighth adventure.  He first appeared in ‘Gorky Park’ when the Soviet Union was still in existence;  now communism enthusiastically embraces capitalism in the Russian Federation:  corruption is blatant and politicians shamelessly rub shoulders with the latest Mafia bosses:  the face of crime has changed but Arkady, in spite of many trials, tragedies and serious injuries, has kept up with the play;  he is as sharp as ever and as interested as always in crimes that are disguised as accidents – as in the death of Tatiana Petrovna, a crusading journalist and thorn in the side of Oligarchs and criminals.

She fell to her death from her sixth-floor apartment and the authorities have ruled it a suicide, the only problem being the lack of a corpse:  where has her body gone?  A search of Moscow morgues reveals little information except a marked lack of interest in Arkady’s enquiries and the plot thickens when an interpreter’s notebook, the last thing that Tatiana was investigating before her death, comes into his possession.  The only problem is that it is all in code, seemingly indecipherable – and wanted by new Mafia boss Alexi, son of murdered Mafia billionaire Grisha Grigorenko.  Alexi is only too eager to prove to other criminal leaders that he has the right stuff to take over from his dear old dad and is more than displeased that Special Investigator Arkady Renko is showing an inordinate interest in his affairs – and the identity of Grisha’s killer.

There are many intricate strands to be woven into the complex pattern of this plot, and all is revealed in Mr Cruz Smith’s usual thorough and intelligent fashion.  He shifts the action from Moscow to Kaliningrad, (formerly Koenigsberg, a German outpost for hundreds of years until the end of World War Two) and writes so well of the little province that one would swear he was a Koenig born and bred:  his research is excellent, and all his characters are well drawn and possessed of a mordant humour well-suited to their environment.  Unfortunately, the last chapters which should be action-packed seem to lose air – what should have been a heart-in-the-mouth climax to the tale ends with a sigh instead of a bang, and that is a shame, for Arkady is a very strong and intelligent character on which to base a series.  He carries a heap of baggage but one hopes that he will always keep on toting the load. 

This is not Mr Cruz Smith’s best work compared to excellent earlier titles, but despite the ultimate loss of pace ‘Tatiana’ is still a worthy episode in the drama of Arkady’s life.  Highly recommended as a series.    

GREAT READS FOR FEBRUARY,2014

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

Theo Decker is in a heap of trouble at the smart Manhattan school he attends (thanks to the hard work and sacrifices made by his solo mother) – he dreads her disappointment in him as they are summoned to a meeting with the Principal.  He wishes to be anywhere else but in a cab, heading towards his disgrace and possible suspension. 

Serindipitously (he thinks) their cab is stuck in a traffic jam, forcing them to leave and walk the rest of the way, only to be so drenched with rain that they take shelter in an uptown Museum that is currently hosting an exhibition of 17^th century Dutch Masters:  could anything be better, thinks Theo;  his mother, an art lover, intended to see the exhibition anyway and Theo feels fortunate that art has always nurtured her spirit throughout a chaotically unhappy marriage to Theo’s father, an alcoholic, and the consequent struggle after he deserts them to provide a stable and loving environment for her son: who knows - by the time they meet with the Principal she might even feel moved to defend him, rather than take the opposite view.

Ah, chance is a fine thing, but it refuses to work in Theo’s favour:  he is sent to the Museum gift shop to buy postcards while his mother returns for a last look at Rembrandt’s ‘The Anatomy Lesson’, and in that short time a terrorist bomb is detonated with catastrophic results, including the unthinkable:  his beloved, beautiful and loving mother is killed instantly in the explosion.  Theo is knocked out, miraculously spared serious injury, and able to comfort an old man who dies a little later;  he even retrieves (at the old man’s request) one of the paintings seemingly untouched by the blast:  a small and beautiful painting of a Goldfinch – but where is his mother?  The great pillar and support of his life, the fulcrum, is there no longer:  what is he to do?

After this literally life-changing event, Theo measures his life by his existence before the explosion, the peace, security, affection and stability of his mother’s presence, and after, when he was forced to face life without her.

In Theo’s post-explosion world, he is compelled to face many huge changes, not always for the better:  he is taken in at first by the Barbour family, wealthy Park Avenue residents and the parents of his only school friend – until his father materialises after a year with a new girlfriend, Xandra. (Xandra?  What kind of name is that.)  ‘We live in Vegas now, Buddy – you’ll really like it out there.’  Yeah, right.  Las Vegas is no place for a grieving, traumatised thirteen year old boy, ignored and uncared-for by a couple who live their lives oblivious to his everyday needs – until he meets Boris at his high school:  Boris, battered son of a Russian mining engineer;  ebullient, indefatigable, crime-wave-waiting-to-happen, try-anything-more-than-once Boris, who, despite his nihilism and fatally bad influence on Theo, manages to steer his friend back to New York and the stability he so sorely needs.  And throughout Theo’s Las Vegas sojourn, he has gained comfort and solace from a secret and unexpected source:  the Goldfinch, that little jewel of a painting that Theo should have handed in to the authorities but never did:  it is now his lodestone, his talisman, and his life, so miserable and despairing would be even worse without it

Ms Tartt has written an extraordinary story, tumultuous and sweeping in plot and characterisation;  her prose is sumptuous and deft, and despite the sadness of Theo’s circumstances there is a wonderful, Dickensian humour that colours most pages of this vast (770-odd pages, but fear not:  all you need is strong wrists!) and superlative page-turner.  As an additional delight, her writings and musings on art are beautiful and moving, especially her thoughts on the Goldfinch, that brave, dignified little creature, tethered always to his little brass perch.  Her characters leap from the page;  the kindly Hobie, decent and tolerant, who becomes a guardian of sorts for Theo and teaches him a trade;  Mrs Barbour, ‘a fashion drawing come to life’, spectacularly undemonstrative but responsible and caring – and Boris, always Boris who, despite fulfilling early everyone’s predictions that he would embrace ‘a life of crime’ and at one stage betraying Theo in the worst possible way, manages to turn up trumps for him when it matters most. Boris is unforgettable.  

My only criticism is this:  ‘The Goldfinch’ is Donna Tartt’s third novel in twenty years.  She gained great international acclaim for her first work, ‘The Secret History’ in 1992:  there followed ‘The Little Friend’ in 2002 and now we have opus # 3.  She has famously said that ‘a novel takes as long as it takes to write’ and I don’t doubt that for a minute:  the only trouble with long gestations is that I might be pushing up the daisies by the time she produces the next masterwork, and the thought of that ticks me off no end – not the fact that I might have reached the end of the trail, but that I could miss Ms Tartt’s next wonderful book!  Most highly recommended.         

YET MORE GREAT READS FOR JANUARY, 2014

We Are Water, by Wally Lamb

Wally Lamb has done it again – produced another gripping page-turner that is impossible to put down until the eyes refuse to cooperate any more, and that’s saying something considering its doorstop size.  The reader, as always, gets maximum bang for the buck!

Mr Lamb tells us the story of the Oh family, using this family as metaphor for the modern face of America, its cultural and sexual diversity, changing racial divisions, and its response to great and terrible events.

Annie Oh is getting married for the second time – to a woman.  She was married for twenty seven years to psychologist Dr Orion Oh, giving birth to three children, twins Ariane and Andrew and later ‘the mistake’, Marissa.  Now she has fallen in love with Viveca, a wealthy New York Art dealer and Gallery owner, and the champion of Annie’s nascent artistic career.  They intend to marry in Three Rivers, a small town in Connecticut;  Viveca considers it charming and symbolic, for here in Three Rivers one of Annie’s works was judged Best in Show, giving her the impetus and confidence to continue with the burning compulsion she has to make Art:  unfortunately, Three Rivers is also the setting for the entire length of Orion and Annie’s marriage, the place in which their children grew up, and despite Orion’s despairing acceptance of a situation he cannot change, he draws the line at Viveca’s wish to have the ceremony in the Oh family home.

Every family member has a turn at narrating the story, a literary device which Mr Lamb uses very skilfully:  Annie is naïve, uneducated and wounded by a terrible childhood tragedy in the first section of the book;  later, as her career develops and her reputation grows she gains in sophistication and wisdom – but still is the keeper of childhood sorrows she can never share with anyone, let alone her husband and family. In time, those secrets have terrible repercussions for them all and how each family member reacts to each new trial that presents itself is beautifully and convincingly realised.

There is a fascinating subplot, too, involving the Oh family home:  more than fifty years before, a suspicious death occurs there.  A negro employee of the house owner is found dead, stuffed head first down a well on the property:  the death is never fully investigated, and to the outrage of the coloured community a verdict of accidental death is returned.  The rumour mill works overtime, but the truth is more awful than the most lurid gossip:  ugly racist secrets lie buried beneath a veneer of small town friendliness and respectability.

Mr Lamb has given his readers once again what they are accustomed to expect of him:  a superbly story that picks them up and carries them on the crest of its narrative wave until it dumps them on the shore, emotionally drenched but thinking ‘God, what a trip!’ 

This reader will ride the literary wave with Mr Lamb any old time: most highly recommended.

Bridget Jones - Mad about the Boy, by Helen Fielding

It gives me great pleasure to announce the return of Bridget Jones, calorie counter, Nicorette muncher, wine glugger and comfort food abuser in times of great stress – and Bridget’s life is constantly stressful.  She is also a Diarist extraordinaire and compiler of To Do lists upon which nothing gets crossed off:  so what, you might well ask, is new? 

Bridget’s life is still hopelessly disorganised, but with several crucial differences:  since last we met around ten years ago, Bridget has married her Mr. Right, Mark Darcy;  they are the proud parents of two beautiful children;  he has a successful career as an international human rights lawyer and they are more happy than a nuclear family has a right to expect – until Mark is killed whilst negotiating the release of two British hostages in the Sudan.

Bridget’s diary opens four years after she is made a widow.  She is now past fifty with two small children - ‘Heavens, darling – why did you leave it so late to have children?’ says her hopelessly out-of-emotional-touch Mum, who should realise without having a brain transplant that Bridget hadn’t fallen in love and married Mark until her forties.  Better late than never, Mum.

But Bridget is not coping well in her new role as a solo parent.  She is bereft, alone and lonely.  She misses Mark and yearns for him constantly;  his comforting and solid presence, perfect foil to her role as arch procrastinator and mistress of indecision:  now she has to make every choice herself and she is failing miserably.

Enter Bridget’s motley collection of loyal and loving friends, all in their own way living less than perfect lives but determined to see her restored to their idea of stability - put bluntly:  she needs a shag!

Our heroine is suitably horrified.  She couldn’t possibly!  A shag would be unfaithful to Mark’s memory.  She’s too overweight from all the comfort food consumed which didn’t do its job.  She has no idea, nor does she want to find out, about all those internet dating agencies or how to register with them.  There are no babysitters.  And besides (and most importantly) she has nothing to wear.  What’s a gel to do?

Feel the fear and do it anyway, that’s what!  The hapless Bridget’s adventures in the 21^st century dating world are poignant, hilarious and sharply observed, as are her forays into the foreign field of screenwriting – a modern version, she decides, (set in gloomy Queens Park to lend to the tragic mood) of ‘Hedda Gabbler’ by Anton Chekhov.  Bridget still has a lot to learn about literature, life and love – even at her age – and sets out to do so in her usual endearing, laugh-out-loud and hamfisted fashion.

Ms Fielding writes as ever with great comic style, ruthlessly chronicling our texting and twittering world yet still achieving that fine balance between comedy and tragedy so crucial to this story.  It may be that this is the last time we read about Bridget and her friends, which is a shame:  what a story!  What a gel!  What fun!  Highly recommended.             

MORE GREAT READS FOR JANUARY, 2014

The New Countess, by Fay Weldon

This is the third book in Ms Weldon’s historical trilogy of early twentieth century manners and mores, (see review below) and what a delight it is, charmingly written yet effectively skewering the hypocrisy and double standards of the age in every chapter, particularly with regard to the plight of women at all levels of society.

Much has happened but little has changed since Chicago heiress Minnie O’Brien wed Viscount Arthur Hedleigh, eldest son of Lord and Lady Dilberne.  It is now 1905;  Minnie has dutifully produced two boys – the heir and the spare – and whilst she loves her husband and sons dearly, chafes at the boredom of being Her Ladyship.  Arthur has his head perpetually buried in the innards of the Jehu, the car he has constructed (with her money) and hopes to produce;  he has time for nothing else and is impervious to Minnie’s unhappiness at having her decisions regarding the upbringing of her little sons ignored.  The boys are cared for by his old Nanny, who should have  retired years ago but has been brought back into service by the Countess, Arthur’s mother who trusts every decision the old harridan makes.  As  Minnie’s concerns are regarded as American nonsense, the situation is ripe for disaster. 

Enter Rosina, Arthur’s younger sister, intelligent ‘but without charm’, a round peg in a square hole, who rushed off to Australia with an immensely rich (but common) Australian sheep farmer, there to endure extremes of heat and cold and a life utterly alien to that which she had previously been accustomed – exactly what she craved until she was tragically and unexpectedly widowed:  now she has returned, independently wealthy and full of dreadful feminist ideas – not only that, but she has written a book about the sexual customs of the Aboriginals, due to be published any day. 

For pity’s sake!  Will this girl never cease creating tidal waves in polite society?  The Dilbernes are appalled, particularly as King Edward VII has expressed a wish to visit their country estate for a week’s shooting in December, four months away, accompanied by Mrs Alice Keppel, his mistress – and her husband, for forms sake.  Lady Dilberne is suitably outraged:  forced to welcome That Woman as her equal in her drawing room;  forced to turn a blind eye to ‘sleeping arrangements’;  and spend tens of thousands of pounds bringing Dilberne Court into the Modern Era – not just new furnishings but electric light, hot running water, and flushing toilets:  she is seething with resentment at the social injustice of it all.  Life has suddenly become enormously difficult for the Countess.

Therefore, she regards as tiresome the fact that Minnie has fled to London to stay with Rosina after finding Arthur in a compromising position with a lissom stranger:  Minnie is a whiner, thinks the Countess,  and needs to grow a thick skin.  Men always have mistresses, but it is their wives ‘whom they respect’.  Perhaps, but the Countess has a lot to learn.  She has not bargained on Minnie’s resourcefulness in her attempts to see her children and retrieve them from the clutches of their ancestral family and the awful Nanny, nor did she expect to have Minnie’s Irish mother creating a dreadful scene on the steps of their Belgravia home, the common Irish harpie – oh, it is all too awful to contemplate.

Ms Weldon’s sparkling prose effortlessly takes the reader back more than a hundred years to the birth of feminism, engendered of necessity by a man’s complete control of his wife’s wealth (Minnie is shocked to learn that she, a rich heiress, has no money:  Arthur’s family has it all.), his control over her education;  (no need for that – she’s there to run home and family) and most insulting of all, refusal to allow women the vote.

‘The New Countess’ is a smart, funny book – and a pitiless view of the way society functioned all those years ago.  And as to What the Servants Knew:  well, as usual they knew everything -  and didn’t hesitate to discuss it.  Highly recommended.

Long live the King, by Fay Weldon         reviewed June, 2013

This is the second volume of Ms Weldon’s ‘Love and Inheritance’ trilogy, following ‘Habits of the House’ and once again, the reader is in for a treat as they follow the fortunes of the aristocratic Dilberne family, recently rejuvenated financially by the arranged marriage between son and heir to the Earldom, Arthur, and Minnie, a very rich but ‘low-born’ young Chicago heiress.

The old queen has recently died and all of London is agog at the arrangements for the impending coronation of Edward VII, formerly Bertie, Prince of Wales, the gambler and profligate now a Monarch determined to prove to his nation and government that he can rule with wisdom, power and dignity:  his ministers and courtiers are eager to assist him in that regard, but the pomp and ceremony demanded by him are making big dents in the public purse and any objections are met with the assertion that the Empire ‘expects a good show’, so a good show must be arranged.

Isabel, Countess of Dilberne expects to make a good show of her family and is gratified to know that she and her rich daughter-in-law Minnie will walk behind Queen Alexandra in the Abbey procession – her social standing can rise no higher – until by a series of misadventures, three extra seat invitations to the Abbey are lost, first sent by her to the Earl’s feuding, hateful younger brother Edwin, a parson in Somerset, then irretrievable when the rectory is burnt to the ground  a couple of days later.  Even worse, she and her husband are expected to take into the family fold the only survivor of the conflagration, Adela, 15 year old daughter of Edwin, an act of charity too hard for the Earl who flatly refuses to have contact with anyone connected with Edwin.  Fortunately or not, Adela disappears and is thought to have committed suicide, causing her reluctant relatives to heave sighs of pity and relief:  they no longer feel an obligation through blood – no matter how odious – to be responsible for her:  they can devote their considerable energies to Coronation etiquette, costumes and who is permitted by rank to wear more inches of ermine than others – and who will be sitting where, and next to whom, because the vexed question of the missing invitations has still not been answered.

Ms Weldon enjoys herself thoroughly – as does the reader – guiding her characters through the perilous waters of English society high and low, and there is no more shrewd observer of the double standards that prevailed at the beginning of the twentieth century (as illustrated so ably in ‘Habits of the House’), and no writer who could intersperse her fictional characters with the real-life luminaries of the time more successfully. 

Ms Weldon writes in elegant prose of the great new ideas of the thinkers and  literary titans of the day;  George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Arthur Balfour, Ford Madox Ford, and that lone, formidable female Beatrice Webb, champion of women’s rights, creating such sparkling dialogue between them and their enormously wealthy society patrons that the reader is utterly convinced that Ms Weldon was actually present whilst great plans were hatched.

This is a vastly entertaining trilogy:  I was sorry to come to the end of both books and as before, am looking forward to reading the next episode – and sad that it will be the last.  Ms Weldon doesn’t always hit the jackpot with me, but with this charming series, all the bells are ringing!  Highly recommended.

The Phoenix Song, by John Sinclair.

When I was a child my father was an ardent communist, embracing that philosophy with all the zeal of the admirer from afar.  In fact, he was so enthralled by the concept of equality for all and the death of Capitalism that I was named after a Russian lady my parents met on a ship that called into Auckland during the war, and my elder sister was named after a fearless communist revolutionary, murdered in Berlin in 1918:  our humble origins transformed by lofty names! 

All things Soviet inspired him but he particularly admired Mao Zse Dong, and as we grew up my sister and I were browbeaten daily with endless examples of Mao’s pearls of wisdom.  We were exhorted to read ‘Soviet Union’ and ‘China Reconstructs’ - surely an awful exercise in boredom for anyone, let alone children – but it was unthinkable to  refuse:  we ploughed obediently through that propaganda, eyes rolling like religious martyrs but miraculously suffering no lasting damage to our ability to form our own opinions.

Imagine the nostalgia I felt when I read ‘The Phoenix Song’:  there were all the old fiery propaganda speeches, the same slavish, unquestioning belief in the new God of China Chairman Mao and his magical ability to solve China’s vast problems with rousing speeches and exhortations to take a ‘Great Leap Forward’.

The communist struggle is told by Xiao Magou, born in Harbin in 1942 and the daughter of one of Mao’s companions on the Long March, Comrade Lu, and a young medical student fostered by two refugees.  White Russian Jewish musicians Piroshka and Kasimir provide an island of love and security for Magou and her mother in anarchical times;  they tutor Magou in the violin and soon realise they are teaching a prodigy, and there begins the climb to fame for Magou as the face of the new China, a symbol of its rebirth, both musical and intellectual and a glorious example of the great communist ideal.  Until she is told, because of her fluency in Russian, to spy on her Russian tutors at the Shanghai Conservatory.

Magou reports faithfully everything she hears to her superiors, including the fact that the Russians are well aware that tens of millions have starved executing Mao’s grandiose plans for the Great Leap Forward:  the seeds are sown for her own disillusionment and rebellion, especially when her loyal parents are disgraced and excoriated as ‘rightists’.  Defection is inevitable.

Mr Sinclair is an elegant writer.  In the first half of the book He recounts with fast-paced verve and stark lucidity the tumultuous events of communist China’s beginnings;  his characters, particularly Magou’s loving music tutors, are beautifully drawn, and his knowledge and expression of music is breathtaking.  BUT.

I wish there wasn’t a but, but there is:  the story seems to get away from Mr Sinclair in the last third of the book;  Magou becomes no more than a colourless narrator of her own life and her defection – and destruction of her prized violin, given to her by her tutors – is the weakest part of the story.  The reader is also asked to accept that Magou, a virtuoso musician, never plays again after escaping communist clutches and ending up in New Zealand.  It was definitely a bridge too far for me, and about as believable as one of The Great Helmsman’s speeches.  What a disappointment, for in this reader’s humble opinion Mr Sinclair is a writer of great skill.  Perhaps in his next book he will exercise his talents for the entire story, not two thirds of it.