Broken, by Don Winslow.

            What an absolute pleasure it is to read this latest  by Don Winslow, because the quality of his writing is so reliable.  The reader knows that there’ll be no slacking off because the author is bored with his characters or fed up with the plot – in these five short stories, the opposite is true as Mr Winslow thrills, charms and horrifies us with the richness and humour of his prose and the harsh and terrible reality of criminal greed and corruption, especially among those who paint themselves whiter than us all.

            ‘Broken’ is first, telling the story of a Police family:  Mum Eva operates the department switchboard, her husband has recently retired from the police and she has two sons who have taken his place;  son Andy is a high-flying Drug Squad detective, and younger brother Danny is a patrolman.  Danny is ‘The Nice One’.  The sensitive one.  And he is the one who is kidnapped from his patrol car, tortured and murdered because brother Andy sent the wrong message to a drug dealer.  Eva and her family want – need revenge, and she instructs Andy accordingly.  Danny is avenged, but nobody feels better for it:  as she knows all too well, 'it don’t matter how you come into the world, you leave it broken'.

            The next three stories are gems, comparatively gore-free and full of sly or laugh-out-loud humour;  with continuing characters,  con-men and thieves of varying intelligence, but the story that will stay with me permanently is ‘The Last Ride’, the story of Good Ole Texan Boy Cal Strickland, not much motivated to do anything except his job as a Border Guard – until he becomes incensed at the new law that came in via the new President (Hell, Cal voted for him!) that separates asylum-seeker refugees from their children, resulting in parents being deported, and their children permanently lost in ‘the system’.  This doesn’t sit at all well with Cal, particularly when he comes across a little 6 year-old Honduran girl in a cage:  WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HIS COUNTRY??!!

            And Cal is so horrified by her circumstances that he, a law-abiding (former) Trump supporter, decides to take the law into his own hands, and attempt to return the little girl to her deported Mum – knowing that should he be successful, his life as he knows it will be over, for no-one humiliates Washington and gets away with it.

            Mr Winslow is an enormously powerful writer and he demonstrates with every new novel that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.  This is a mighty book.  SIX STARS.

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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins.

Young Adults.

          The acclaimed author of ‘The Hunger Games’ Suzanne Collins has done it again:  created another heart-stopping episode in her Dystopian fantasy series of America ‘After the War’, this time giving her millions of fans (including me!) a forerunner to Katniss Everdeen’s heroic exploits for her people in the first trilogy.

            In this prequel we follow the teenage life of President Snow – hard to believe such a man was ever a young man with normal hopes and dreams, but as a teenager, Coriolanus Snow (Ms Collins has a lot of fun with Latin names for her characters here) is no different from his other classmates at the Academy, an elite school in the Capitol, famed for producing future leaders – and he has a shameful secret:  despite living in a penthouse in one of the most desirable apartment buildings in the city, he, his Grandmother and cousin Tigris are struggling to put food on the table;  their family’s former rich holdings were all destroyed in the war, and Tigris has had to work long hours at menial work to keep the household afloat.  The Snows could not bear the humiliation and shame of their neighbours learning of their dire straits, so try to keep up appearances, and Coriolanus is very accomplished at presenting himself as that which he is not – rich.

            A prize-winning opportunity arises with the introduction of ‘mentoring’ tributes for the latest Hunger Games, providing back-up and support for whomever is chosen for Mentors to sponsor.  Initially Coriolanus is hugely disappointed in Lucy Gray Baird, his tribute from District Twelve – she doesn’t look like she’d last five minutes up against all the other desperate youngsters, though most of them do look half-starved and ill.  Oh well, time will tell, and it does:  readers are treated to another horrific, hair-raising and tragic account of the Hunger Games, resulting in victory for Lucy Gray, and humiliating disgrace for Coriolanus who, instead of realising his ambition of going to university, is shipped off to District Twelve as a lowly PeaceKeeper.

            And his rich, would-be friend Sejanus goes too, but for entirely different reasons:  he wants to escape from the Capitol, that hotbed of privilege and corruption, and join rebels that surely hide in District Twelve.  He wants to live a peaceful, honourable life some day. 

            Ms Collins brilliantly conducts us all yet again through a tightly plotted and suspenseful adventure that juggles ambitions, excuses and rationalisation with morals, principles and ideals:  guess who comes out on top?  SIX STARS  

Magpie Lane, by Lucy Atkins.

            A Scottish Nanny is being interviewed by two detectives in the university city of Oxford:  they wish to know her version of events leading up to the disappearance of her eight-year-old charge, Felicity, the daughter of a new, hugely influential and charismatic College Master.  What is the child like?  Has she many friends?  Does she ‘get on’ with her new, pregnant stepmother, glamorous Mariah?  Is she still grieving for her mother, dead for four years?  For Felicity suffers from a number of psychological problems, not least ‘selective mutism; she communicates with no-one except her father – and that seldom because of the demands of his job and social life.

            Dee is eager to answer their questions accurately;  the sooner they can find her damaged little girl, the better – but she gradually sees that the questions take a sinister turn, one slanted by Felicity’s parents to portray Dee as having a negative influence on the child, innocently caused by  gradually winning Felicity’s trust with affection and support, virtues spectacularly lacking in the little girl’s life.  Felicity now ‘speaks’ to Dee reasonably often, even less to her father, and never to Mariah:  it’s painfully clear where her loyalties lie.

An added and frankly eerie complication is that the ancient house they have been allocated seems to have more than its fair share of Things That Go Bump In The Night, and Mariah’s attempts to redecorate in cool Nordic colours (she’s from Denmark) horrify the other Oxford Dons, stout supporters of 400 year old traditions:  could they have given this illustrious position to someone Gravely Unsuitable?

Ms Atkins takes us on an intimate tour of the great city, bastion of all that is noble in Western thought, ‘of history, literature, philosophy, politics, art and scientific discovery’, but she cleverly presents quite a different side to those who frequent its dreaming spires:  lofty thought still descends regularly into dog-eat-dog rivalry, arrogance and ignoble disapproval.  This is no place for Felicity’s spectacularly dysfunctional family, still less for her, and the new information that a child may have been murdered in Felicity’s bedroom a century before fills Dee with dread: are they haunted, and where is her poor, damaged, mute little girl?

Ms Atkins has created an intelligent and fascinating mystery, with strong, credible characters and a pace that doesn’t falter;  add to that a wealth of intriguing historical details about Oxford luminaries of the past, and we have the perfectly written ingredients for a great reading experience.  FIVE STARS         

Crooked River, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

            I have been languishing on my chaise-longue (not really:  I don’t have one), in a decline because I have been deprived for too long of the latest adventures of fearless, resourceful and brilliant FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast – what have Preston and Child been doing?  Having a holiday?   At the very least they should have been satisfying their legions of fans with a bloodthirsty new mystery that only that silver-haired, silver-tongued and silver-eyed polymath could solve.  The wait has been disappointingly long:  I shall say nothing more, except that it’s about time!

            Our hero and his mysterious ward Constance Greene (she wears a lot of organdy;  he wears a white silk suit, making him resemble an Albino Drug Lord) are enjoying a luxurious vacation on an unnamed island off the coast of Florida, when they are visited by his new superior ADC Walter Pickett:  Pendergast’s help and input are needed ASAP as dozens of shoes of the same variety have drifted onto the shore of two of Florida’s most charming off-shore island tourist beaches.  This would be minor news – but for the fact that each shoe is filled with a foot, amputated in the crudest possible fashion.  Needless to say, Pendergast’s curiosity is indeed aroused and he swings into action, first recruiting FBI Agent Coldmoon, his colleague from ‘Verses for the Dead’.  Agent Coldmoon is vacationing too, and is most reluctant to be involved – unless he’s an equal partner:  none of this junior colleague shit – he wants recognition for nearly getting totalled in the Everglades.  It’s time to acknowledge his talent.

            Well, if that’s the price, so be it.  Agent Pendergast knows how and when to relent:  as we all know, there are many different ways to skin a cat, and he, Coldmoon and Constance are launched on another hair-raising, bloodthirsty quest for answers, including the fact that whatever knowledge they glean is available also to a very formidable enemy:  everything they find out has been hacked. 

            As the mystery gradually reveals itself the danger multiplies ten-fold, with Pendergast’s life within an inch of being snuffed out (again!), but Coldmoon demonstrates his worth as a true partner, and Constance appears as the Cavalry – in the nick of time, naturally, slaying all before her.  What a woman!  And where did she learn to operate (let alone carry – she’s a slight wee thing!) a military machine gun?  Well, as we all know, all things are possible in a Pendergast adventure;  the trick is to make it believable – and above all, entertaining:  Preston and Child are masters at it.  FIVE STARS.

The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel.

This is the final volume of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of novels recounting the tempestuous partnership between Tudor King Henry VIII and his utterly devoted ‘Fixer’, Thomas Cromwell – Cromwell, who rose to Lord Privy Seal, and whose power, with the king’s approval, became so great and all-encompassing that Henry’s nobles feared that such a base-born yokel would eventually become a danger to them and their own dreams of glory:  such delusions of grandeur so far above his station have to be stopped!

The story opens where ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ finished, with the beheading of Anne Boleyn, that incestuous, adulterous whore, leaving Henry free to make plans to wed young Jane Seymour, who will surely give him a son to ensure the Tudor Succession.  His daughters Mary and Elizabeth have been declared bastards, and Mary has been coerced into renouncing her Catholic faith (on pain of death, Cromwell makes clear) so that her father may renounce Roman beliefs, establish the Church of England – and plunder the treasure and lands of the Monasteries and Abbeys.  The wealth pouring into the king’s treasury is enormous, but a large proportion must be spent arming England against its Catholic enemies;  Cromwell has never been more busy, lining his own pockets handsomely along the way – naturally.

In this mammoth last episode, Ms Mantel relates the facts of history in ways that make them all seem new;  each character is beautifully drawn, especially Henry, that Monarch who believes utterly in his divine right to have that which no-one else does, and Cromwell is always there to execute his wishes – never mind that foreign diplomats regard Henry as ‘a man of great endowments, lacking only consistency, reason and sense’:  with Cromwell behind him (in the shadows) the end will always justify the means.

Until it doesn’t:  Jane Seymour dies giving birth to the much-longed-for son, but the next marriage to Anne of Cleves, engineered by Cromwell to form an alliance with German Protestant princes is disastrously unsatisfactory, both to the ageing king, no longer the handsome man in his flattering portraits, and Anne, not the beauty that Holbein has painted.  Because Henry cannot and will not blame himself, the blame falls on Cromwell – who else?  With predictable consequences.

Ms Mantel’s talents are such that she evokes in effortless detail a time when the power-mad and the power-hungry jostled for favoured positions with the Supreme Power – crushing the powerless along the way.  She was awarded the Booker Prize for ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring up the Bodies’:  (search drop box)  could she be lucky a third time?  SIX STARS 

           

 

It’s the School holidays, it’s winter and raining, so what better place to be than your library to choose some cool books to take home – like the one below!

Chase, by Linwood Barclay.           Juvenile fiction

            Linwood Barclay is very well known for writing excellent thrillers;  now, kids, your luck is in because this is his first book for children, and I am sure adults will find this story just as unputdownable as his new young audience.

(I certainly did!)

            Border Collie Chipper lives in a cage in ‘The  Institute’, a secret government facility that trains intelligent animals to be spies – after all, who would ever suspect a docile animal supposedly asleep within earshot of secret conversations in countries like Afghanistan and other places that are not US Allies?  He is also fitted with some very advanced and sophisticated software;  a GPS that tracks his whereabouts, plus tiny cameras in his eyes which give his handlers close-ups of who he’s close to.  He’s a million-dollar+ dog – until his in-born playfulness (he loves chasing squirrels, YEAH!) causes his minders to decide to cut their losses:  this dog, despite the millions spent on him, is too unreliable for field-work.  They’re going to put him down.

            And Chipper knows this.  He’s a very smart dog anyway, but two kind previous handlers have programmed extra information into him – like the urge to escape, and the intelligence to do it, AND a compulsion to find a young boy called Jeff Conroy, who badly needs his help, for Jeff is in great danger:  Chipper has to find him before the Institute finds him – no easy task.

            Meantime, Jeff is living with his Aunt Flo at her tourist fishing camp alongside Pickerel Lake.  Aunt Flo has taken Jeff in after the recent tragic accidental death of his parents:  there are two major disadvantages to this arrangement.  Aunt Flo is a neat freak and she works Jeff relentlessly.  She also hates dogs, so Jeff’s beloved companion Pepper has had to be rehomed.  Jeff doesn’t know who he loves and misses more – his parents or Pepper.  He certainly doesn’t care for Aunt Flo, but his life is about to change in the most dramatic way when Chipper eventually finds him – and so do the ruthless assassins from the Institute.

            Mr Barclay ramps up the action to a frantic pace;  he also ends the story with a huge question mark:  what will happen next??  For this is a start of a series ( I have book two, ‘Escape’ reserved already);  Chipper and Jeff are still in danger, especially from someone they trust absolutely, but the bond of love between dog and boy never wavers.  They will be friends for life.  FIVE STARS.  Great for ages 10+.                  

Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler.

            The only thing wrong with this book is its length:  it’s too short!  As always, Ms Tyler draws the reader effortlessly into her story of a very ordinary Baltimore man whom quite a number of us would regard as eccentric were it not for his innate decency, good humour and strength of character – which does not always come to the fore unless tested.

            Micah Mortimer lives, by his own choice, a fairly regimented life.  He jogs a certain route every morning starting at 7.15am;  he has different days and times for various chores in his apartment, and supports himself by fixing computer problems (He’s The Tech Hermit) and being the Go-To guy in his apartment building should anything need repairing.  In short, Micah fixes things but doesn’t create.  But that doesn’t matter – he’s happy enough with his life;  he has a ‘woman friend’ (he refuses to call Cass his girlfriend because she is a teacher in her late 30’s, hardly a girl);  they are very comfortable together and life is about as satisfying (and predictable) as one can expect.

            Until Cass could be evicted from her apartment, and expects Micah to invite her to move in with him, rather than face the alarming prospect of her and her cat (the cause of the eviction) being made homeless.  Micah does not react well, and before he can gather his wits and apologise for his insensitivity, his woman friend has opted out of his hum-drum little life.

            And that’s not all:  a rich-looking, preppy young man turns up on his doorstep, convinced that Micah is his birth-father.  The boy Brink (yes, that’s really his name) has fought with his parents and somehow connected dots – all the wrong ones – to arrive at the conclusion that he and Micah should bond and get to know each other.  The seas of Micah’s life, disturbed by hardly a ripple for years are suddenly at the mercy of a Force 10 gale, and he doesn’t know what to do – except try to fix it all.

            In prose beautiful and simple as breathing, Ms Tyler guides the reader through all attempts successful or otherwise that Micah makes to improve people’s situations – and his own.  Once again she has created characters unforgettable in their ordinariness, and once again we are charmed by her complete mastery of our emotions.  I didn’t want to let Micah go in just 178 pages:  give us more!  FIVE STARS.  (For being so short.)