Middle England – Jonathan Coe

The book opens with Benjamin Trotter returning to his home in the Midlands after his mother’s funeral. He has his father with him, and, as the evening progresses, they are joined by a succession of close friends and relatives who turn up uninvited, concerned at his quiet departure from the wake. That is in 2010, and the cast assembled form the core of characters that will take the reader through the events of the ensuing decade with all its challenges.

They are a diverse bunch, though a couple were at grammar school with Benjamin - an owner of a garden centre who gives a businessman’s perspective and a newspaper columnist who provides an insight into the political machine. From the family is Benjamin’s sister, Lois who is a university librarian, and her daughter, Sophie.

Sophie brings the younger generation into the picture. Her best friend, Sohan, is gay and of immigrant stock. Sophie, herself, in a reaction against her previous relationships with liberal metropolitan academic types, starts one with a working guy in Birmingham. His mother is far to the right and employs a Polish cleaner. Throwing in a couple more friends from Benjamin’s schooldays, Charlie Chappell, the children’s entertainer, and Jennifer Hawkins, Ben’s first failed attempt at coupling, provides additional scope for comedy.

The interplay between this panoply of characters and the significant events of the decade – the London Olympics, the US presidential election, the EU referendum, three general elections, and Brexit - paints a broad but vivid picture of Middle England in the 2010s. Each viewpoint is given respect, placed in real life context, with mouthpieces that articulate the debates of the day: immigration v racism; political correctness v equality of opportunity; and taking back control v cultural isolation. The destructive nature of the arguments takes its toll, but is there some hope for reconciliation at a personal level?

Difficult as the task is, the book successfully and entertainingly achieves its aims of reflecting life in middle England in a turbulent decade.

The Birthday Boys – Beryl Bainbridge

In June 1910 Captain Scott’s latest expedition sets off from Cardiff on the Terra Nova.

Its destination is Antarctica, its purpose to be the first to reach the South Pole. The book consists five sequential narratives, one each from the five men destined to make the final push for the pole.

First off is petty Officer ‘Taff’ Evans with his account of a wild send-off at Cardiff. A month later in July 1911 ‘Uncle Bill’ Wilson tells of a hazardous expedition en route, undertaken to collect specimens from the remote South Trinidad Island. A gap of nine months ensues before Scott himself, ‘the owner’, takes up the story of the error-strewn landfall on Antarctica (by now March 1911) and establishing bases. A fourth voice, that of Lieutenant ‘Birdie’ Bowers, describes a risky midwinter sortie in July 1911 to collect penguin eggs. Finally, ominously dated March 1912, ‘Titus’ Oates relates the final, fateful, journey alongside the four previous narrators whom by now we know well.

In fabricating these voices and linking them together, Beryl Bainbridge presents a most human account of their endeavour. The conflicts, disagreements and resentments are presented alongside the respect, camaraderie, loyalty and love. Heroic failure is made understandable if not sensible.

Is it bravery, patriotism or thirst for adventure or knowledge that drives their quest, or some compulsion to test themselves to the limit, inexplicable to most people? Whatever, it makes for gripping reading as each episode raises the stakes and shortens the odds on survival. Even the celebrations in Cardiff put Taff Evans at risk, of his job if not his life.

A clever idea very well executed.

The Hunting Party – Lucy Foley

This is a classic murder mystery with an added twist as not only is the identity of the murderer kept from the reader until the end, but also that of the victim.

The set-up is a group of nine young, well-heeled members of the metropolitan elite who book a remote highland hunting lodge to see in the new year in splendid, champagne fuelled isolation. They are not completely alone, there is a few staff and another party of two elsewhere on the estate.

Now to the form and plot, which complement each other cleverly. There are four female narrators (three guests and the manager) and another point of view over the shoulder of the male gamekeeper. They pass the baton to and fro to tell the story, but in two timelines. One starts on the discovery of the body on the second day of the new year, the other flashes back three days earlier to the day before New Year’s Eve when the party arrived.

Both strands move steadily forward, alternating to build up to twin climaxes of revealing the crime and unmasking the perpetrator.

It all works very well. The split timeline is effective, and the sliced narration provides a varied perspective on current events and private insights into long simmering hidden passions, resentments and most importantly, motives (of both guests and hosts).

And, of course, it snows to increase the isolation, ramp up the tension and provide a stark backdrop to the unfolding drama.