The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton

In Amsterdam, late in the year 1686, Nella Oortman arrives from her rural home to take up residence with her new husband. The unceremonious wedding, a month since, paired the eighteen-year-old girl with merchant Johannes Brandt, twenty years or so her senior, and now she has come to commence her wifely duties.

Johannes is out on business, so she is received, rather than welcomed, by his unmarried sister Marin, the manservant Otto, and the housemaid Cornelia. Nella takes refuge in her room. She waits nervously for her husband’s return but gets no more than a cursory acknowledgement. She waits at night for his attentions but gets none.

With Marin keeping house and Johannes distant, Nella is in limbo. All she gets from her husband is a cupboard-sized replica of her new home. Is it a toy for his child-bride or compensation for not allowing her to manage the real house? Whatever, it is beautifully made, and Nella contacts a miniaturist to enquire about furniture. Almost immediately exquisitely carved miniatures begin to arrive – items of furniture and doll-like figures that accurately and eerily reflect life in the real house.

As Nella settles in and begins to poke around her new home, she suspects that the household is not as stable or prosperous as it seems. Or that the stability and prosperity is fragile, teetering on some brink, held together by shared secrets and shared lies. Secrets and lies that she does not know, but the miniaturist seems to.

The writing is atmospheric and engrossing. Seventeenth century Amsterdam is revealed in all its period detail, its citizens treading a fine line between the twin drivers of puritanical god-fearing and capitalist profit-making.

As the narrative unfolds, over just a few months, Nella finds herself sucked from the household’s periphery to the centre of events. Events that lead to more than one climax. It makes for a dramatic and compulsive read.

The Searcher – Tana French

In coming to rural Ireland, Cal Hooper has put an ocean between himself and the life left behind – his job with the Chicago PD, an acrimonious divorce, and a grown up daughter he cannot connect with. On a whim he has bought a run down cottage in need of renovation, a bit like him.

He is an outsider in the close knit community, but he is slowly being accepted by his neighbour, Mart, the local shopkeeper, Noreen, and the regulars at Sean Og’s pub. But someone, he feels, is less welcoming and is spying on him at the cottage.

It’s a kid, it turns out, clearly troubled. But once trust of sorts is established, Cal is asked for a favour. The kid’s brother went missing a few months back and nobody is bothering to look for him. The police reckon he’s a bad un they are well rid of, his mother thinks he's gone off like his daddy did, and his friends all have different theories. To Cal none of it adds up. His professional interest is piqued, and his young friend’s concern leads him to investigate.

But when an incomer to the town like him begins to ask awkward questions, ranks are closed, and it is not answers that come his way so much as warnings off.

The steady rhythm of the book reflects the pace of life in the location. The relationship between the landscape, weather, and people is particularly well drawn. It is idyllic in a rough and ready way, which makes the menace, when it comes, all the more threatening. Without his gun, badge, and back-up, Cal has to rely on his wits, experience, and bluff to get to the bottom of things. On the way he earns a little about himself and his failed relationships.

The plot has twists and turns, there are hints of romantic interest, and a resolution of sorts by the end, which makes for an atmospheric, enjoyable, and satisfying read.

Anxious People – Fredrik Backman

This story is about … Well take your pick from the author’s many suggestions as it unfolds. Easier to say where it takes place – at an apartment viewing in suburban Sweden; and when – the day before New Year’s Eve; and under what circumstances – potential purchasers held hostage by a bank robber on the run.

Outside the siege is conducted by two beat policemen, Jim and Jack, who to complicate things are father and son. On the way from Stockholm HQ, but stuck in traffic, is a hostage negotiator.

The narrative has three elements. The main story unfolds in the apartment as the prospective purchasers, strangers to each other, become better acquainted whether they want to be or not. Outside, we get a taste of Jim and Jack’s relationship as both father / son and old cop / young cop tensions are played out. Within these strands, back stories emerge to provide context for the characters’ states of mind.

The third strand reveals early on that the situation is resolved without harm, to the hostages at least, comprising interspersed transcripts of their witness statements taken on their release. The interviews are conducted, less than expertly, by Jim and Jack, so give little away but serve to amuse and tantalise. It is also soon apparent that the perpetrator, the bank robbing hostage taker, is nowhere to be found. So not so much a whodunnit as a where’d they go.

Actual events in the apartment are revealed in a slow, teasing manner, and in the familiar Backman style where the author converses with the reader. Whether the reveals are tantalising as intended or tortuously frustrating depends on taste. Either way it is clever, with misleads and twists aplenty. But forget the plot, it is really about how folk, given the time and opportunity, can help each other through the difficulties life throws up. Do these hostages, and their captor for that matter, forced into close proximity for hours on end, take that opportunity or not?

So, it’s a clever, well-meaning, mildly amusing, mildly irritating, potentially Marmite of a book. And probably my last Backman for a while.