The Red House – Mark Haddon

The Red House, tucked away in the Welsh border hills, is a holiday cottage where a week’s vacation without TV, internet or mobile phone reception can seem a long time.

For this week the visitors are the families of semi-detached siblings Angela and Richard, who have only been in each other’s company for one afternoon in the last fifteen years - at their mother’s recent funeral.

Angela brings husband Dominic, teenagers Alex and Daisy, and eight year-old

Benjy; Richard brings second wife Luisa and step-daughter Melissa, sixteen going on twenty-one. They all bring their secrets and hang-ups, destined to spill out in the struggle between good intentions and bad behaviour. By the end of the week things – relationships, attitudes, even lives - have been changed if not resolved.

Haddon speaks for all eight characters, giving a multi-faceted account of the week. It works well, giving each a distinctive and authentic voice; in particular he captures the adolescent psyche convincingly (not surprising from the author of ‘A Curious Incident …’). The only discordant notes are the occasional flights of fancy he indulges in when setting a scene.

Solar – Ian McEwan

Michael Beard, physicist, a Nobel Prize winner twenty years ago for his ‘Beard Einstein Conflation’, has carved himself a comfortable career lending (more accurately hiring) his name and reputation to academic institutions and research projects in the UK and abroad.

As the book opens in 2000 his latest sinecure is Head of the National Renewable Energy Centre where he turns up a couple of times a week to see and be seen by the researchers. A throwaway line of his has sent them down a blind alley of domestic wind turbine development, but one researcher, Tom Aldous, has a better idea – improving solar – which he badgers Beard to take a look at (in vain).

Beard has other priorities. A serial womaniser on his fifth marriage he finds himself for the first time on the receiving end of infidelity. When he returns home from an incident packed sojourn in the Arctic Circle, events conspire to produce a farcical situation with a potentially serious outcome, but he uses his sharp wits to turn it into an opportunity to move on in both his personal and professional life.

The book fast-forwards to 2005 to get an update on both these. He’s left the Centre under a bit of a cloud but is working with commercial partners making great strides in solar power. Romantically he is in a new relationship which he thinks is nearing its sell by date until Melissa drops a bombshell.

Another five year jump to 2010 and, on the eve of the public launch of the new technology in the heart of New Mexico, some of Beard’s chickens hatched in 2000 and 2005 are coming home to roost. Can his nimble footwork carry the day or will he crash and burn?

The use of three snapshot periods enables McEwan to tell the story while lingering over some well-constructed comic set pieces. Beard – clever but a bit pompous, overweight, aging but still a charismatic presence – is a fine butt for the humour.

The author’s prose is a precise and flowing as ever, the scientific context is handled lightly and confidently (who knows how plausibly), and the unfamiliar humour sits comfortably within, producing an entertaining and enjoyable read.

Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill

Judas Coyne, heavy metal rock star, past his prime and sole surviving member of his self-destructing band, now lives in comfortable seclusion on his ranch with his latest Goth rock-chick, Georgia, and his two German shepherd dogs, Angus & Ben.

At his ranch Judas has assembled a private collection of macabre items, so when his PA Danny spots a ghost for sale on an internet auction site, Judas just hits the ‘buy now for $1,000’ button to seal the deal and enhance the collection. The ghost is purported to be that of Craddock McDermot, deceased spiritualist stepfather of the vendor, and what arrives in a heart shaped box is his favourite suit to which his spirit is expected to be attached.

And it is, but the initial curiosity value soon turns to unease, discomfort, fear and dread as the ghost not only materialises but shows he can still use his powers of hypnotic persuasion to manipulate the living to do his will.

Danny does a runner but Georgia hangs on in. It is not her real name; Judas re-christens his procession of trophy girlfriends after the states he picks them up in. Her predecessor was Florida who when dumped and sent back home killed herself. Thinking back Judas recalls that she had a step-daddy, and the penny drops that he has been targeted for revenge from beyond the grave.

Judas, Georgia and the dogs (who seem to offer some protection) go on the run which turns into the road trip from (or rather to) hell, during which there is death and destruction, slashing and shooting, blood and gore, as they follow a high risk strategy to end their nightmare.

I am no connoisseur of the horror genre but this seemed good to me with convincing descriptions of the unearthly and the terror produced; the action only pausing briefly to take a breath before taking the next ramp up in the spiral of fear.

Started Early, Took My Dog – Kate Atkinson

Here, Jackson Brodie, itinerant and now semi-retired private investigator, washes up in Yorkshire. He has just the two cases on the go and one is into his own missing ‘fake’ second wife, Tessa, who has gone off with most of his money. On the plus side he has gained a son, now confirmed as his, though resident with mother Julia, who filled much of the gap between Jackson’s first wife (Josie) and Tessa.

Jackson, a bit of a loner, often finds himself having imaginary conversations with Josie and Julia, although he soon widens this circle to include ‘Jane’ his satnav voice and a small dog that he unexpectedly acquires.

But his professional case is the current focus - an antipodean request to trace a woman’s origins. Adopted in Leeds 35 years ago, she cannot find any record of her birth or adoption, so has asked Jackson to investigate.

As to be expected in the Jackson Brodie novels (and it is a great strength) he does not hog the spotlight; there is an ensemble of interesting, wonderfully filled out characters who criss-cross the stage taking the reader off in seemingly diverse directions albeit with a common theme emerging of losing and finding.

A big presence, in all ways, is Tracy Waterhouse. She has lost her sense of purpose having retired from the police force and taken up a job as head of security at a shopping mall in Leeds; and not lost, but missing, is someone or something to love, which leads her into a risky and impulsive action.

What aging actress Tilly Squires is losing is her mind, as creeping dementia causes her to drift between the past and the present, and between her TV role and reality.

And then there is Barry Crawford, ex-colleague of Tracy’s, nearing retirement himself and in a different way to Tilly, nearing the end of his tether. He’s effectively lost his family with his grandchild killed, his daughter in a two year coma, his son-in-law serving a two year sentence for the drunk driving that caused both, and a wife with whom he has no relationship other than sharing an address.

When Jackson Brodie comes asking questions about a baby who materialised from nowhere in 1975, Crawford realises that a secret he helped to bury 35 years ago could be found and blow up in some important faces.

Kate Atkinson weaves these threads (and more) together with great dexterity, mischievous wit, sly social comment and comic observation. I also love, in a self-torturing way, how the characters bump into each other, blissfully unaware of each other’s identity and how intertwined their lives have, or will, become. It is difficult to avoid shouting helpful comments at the page.

How it all turns out remains a hook right to the end; and though with Atkinson the dénouement is never simple, it is always satisfying. 

Resurrection Men – Ian Rankin

This is the thirteenth novel featuring DI Rebus of the Lothian and Borders police, and one too many of his insubordinate outbursts has resulted in him being closeted with a group of other mavericks at Tulliallen Police College on a course designed to bring them back into line. As part of this they have to work together on the resurrection of a cold case - the murder in Glasgow six years previous of low life Eric Lomax.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Siobhan Clarke is part of the team investigating the recent murder of art dealer Edward Marber. Newly promoted to DS, she is keen to make an impression but being Rebus’ protégée comes with its problems – including a propensity to put herself in dangerous situations.

A third case emerges when Rebus gets hauled out of class by colleagues from the serious crimes squad who want to use his (too) close relationship with gangster Big Ger Cafferty to turn one of his underlings whose son has been arrested. And then a fourth thread emerges as Rebus suspects some of his fellow ‘resurrection men’ at Tulliallen are hiding past misdemeanours.

As connections grow between the cases and the personnel involved, Rebus uses his intuition and a poke a beehive with a stick approach to flush out the truth, catch the villains and gain some posthumous payback for the victims.

All the usual action, angst and animosity are here, put together with Rankin’s crisp dialogue and choice turns of phrase that give his books an appeal beyond their genre.