The Testaments – Margret Atwood

 In 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale gave a harrowing account of one woman’s fate in the patriarchal society of Gilead, following its takeover of much of the United States. In this sequel, published twenty-five years later, a broader view emerges with the testaments of three women, none of them handmaids, dated probably twenty-five years after the events of the previous book.

Agnes Jemima is the privileged daughter of Commander Kyle and his current wife Tabitha. That Agnes’s birth mother is not Tabitha is nothing unusual in Gilead, but neither was she conceived by a handmaid, so Kyle may not be her father (he certainly shows no fatherly affection). She recounts her upbringing and ‘education’ that prepares her for an early marriage and life as a Commander’s wife. Not a prospect she relishes.

Daisy is almost sixteen and is not in Gilead but across the border in Canada. She thinks she is the daughter of Neil and Melanie who run a second-hand clothes shop in Toronto. But her parentage is also a lie. And the shop is just a front for the Mayday operation, set up to assist runaway handmaids and other fugitives from Gilead. When Neil and Melanie’s cover is blown, Daisy is whisked off by Mayday into hiding.

The third, most damning, testimony is from one of the Gilead Aunts, those in charge of the education (and subjugation) of the female population, particularly the daughters of the elite. They also train and oversee ‘Pearl Girls’ missionaries to undertake good works and conversions abroad, including Canada. However, Aunt Lydia is not just an Aunt, she is one of the founding Aunts at the top of the organisation and as such is the confidante of Supreme Commander Judd. Her testimony goes way back to her ‘recruitment’; it witnesses the rise of Gilead and foresees its fall. She wants to have her say for posterity.

The three narratives, convincingly written, unfold in turn and converge to a fitting climax. Atwood is strongest on the oppressive setting and chilling detail of Gilead, and if the coming together of the storylines is a little contrived, it is forgivable in bringing Gilead back to our attention in a world in need of reminding what could happen.

A Silent Death – Peter May

 John Mackenzie is a highly intelligent crime solver with zero emotional intelligence. Having got up the nose of his bosses at the Met, he has just been shipped off to the National Crime Agency. Having got up the nose of his wife, he has also been shipped out of the marital home and is living in a dodgy bedsit with limited access to his two children. In his spare time, he collects Open University degrees and learns foreign languages.

It is his fluency in Spanish that lands him with his first mission with the NCA, a simple job of jetting off to Spain to pick up a villain apprehended there. Twenty-four hours, max, his new boss says.

By the time the plane lands, the villain has escaped, and Mackenzie has been seconded to help track him down. Despite his less than endearing personality he teams up effectively with a young female uniformed office, Christina Sanchez Pradell, who has been assigned to provide legitimacy to his activities.

Her current situation and backstory frame most of the narrative. It was she that arrested the villain, so he is out for revenge on her. So, while Mackenzie and Christina hunt for him, he is waging a vendetta against her nearest and dearest – husband, son, and a particularly defenceless deaf/blind aunt.

It is set almost exclusively in Andalusia in the south of Spain, with plenty of local colour and an exciting climax atop the Rock of Gibraltar. No spoiler here, but the title does hint at the ending. The prose is pacey and though three of the main characters (Mackenzie, Cleland the villain, and Aunt Ana) are unconventional and interesting, it is hard to empathise with them. Christina, you feel for.

For me, this fell short of the high standard set by May’s Isle of Lewis trilogy, but still provided a diverting (99p Kindle) read.

Doggerland – Ben Smith

 The old man and the boy inhabit a rig in the North Sea, from where they service the giant wind turbines that stretch as far as the horizon. But the boy is no longer the boy he was when he was brought aboard to fulfil his absconded father’s contract; he is a young man.

And not all the wind turbines turn anymore. They are failing faster than the old man and the boy can repair them with the limited spare parts brought by the sporadic supply boat. Ultimately, that’s not their problem, so they carry on their monotonous existence. The boy, self-motivated by his interest in the engineering, does what he can to keep occupied. The old man is more interested in dredging the seabed for relics. Relics of what? the boy wonders.

There are more fundamental unknowns for the boy. What lies beyond the wind farm? Is there still a shoreline? And what happened to his father?

The book majors on the interaction between the old man and the boy, whose incarceration together makes for a complex relationship. There is a mutual dependency that is tested by life’s irritations, the rigours of their lifestyle, the generational divide, and competition for priority use of the single maintenance launch. It is the boy’s means of reaching turbines in need of attention, and the old man’s means of dredging. When left alone on the rig, the boy dwells on his missing father and researches the maintenance log for answers. He spots some correlations and clues, so the possibility of discovering his father’s fate arises.

The world conjured up – the giant engineering pitted against the remorseless sea, wind, and rain; the ever turning blades of steel against the grey limitless sky – is bleak but engrossing. The characters are convincing and the outlook for both is uncertain to the end. For once, the blurb on the cover is accurate: The Road meets Waiting for Godot.