Exit Music – Ian Rankin

There is a week and a half to go before DI Rebus takes his pension and bows out of the Lothian and Borders Police. His session with DS Siobahn Clarke handing over unfinished business is interrupted by a call to Raeburn Wynd and a dead body.

It is an exiled dissident Russian poet in the city to launch a new collection. Is the murder political, or just another mugging gone too far? Once Rebus gets involved more possibilities emerge as he sees (or imagines) connections to the Edinburgh overworld and underworld he knows so well. There are Russian investors in town, high-rolling bankers looking for profit, and politicians in the Scottish Parliament happy to facilitate where it suits their cause. With money and sleaze around, who better to insinuate himself into the mix than big Ger Cafferty, Rebus’s criminal nemesis.

Rebus’s (soon to be Clarke’s?) team is augmented by an ambitious but green PC eager to get a taste of life in CID. Problem is that he is from a criminal family – Rebus put away his granddad, and his brother is a drug dealing acolyte of Cafferty. Watch your back, John.

Rebus and Clarke build theories on the inter-connections. Clarke investigates conventionally, while Rebus, as ever, just pokes important people with a stick until something incriminating pops out.

Ian Rankin is comfortable in this skin. The prose rolls off the page with characteristic mixture of fluency and grit peppered with trademark references to Edinburgh geography, history, and culture both high and low.

As a finale, it is a worthy exit; case closed though some personal issues remain unresolved at retirement. We know now that Rebus returns for more, but for me this seventeenth, the planned end, will suffice, and ticks one off the book-et list.

The Satsuma Complex – Bob Mortimer

 Gary, 30, a legal assistant, living in a one-bed London flat, is a bit of a loner, though by circumstances rather than by choice. For months, his neighbour was simply ‘dog woman’ – not that she resembles one, but because she has a pooch. But recently she has become Grace, the dog Lassoo, and Gary happily runs errands for her - getting pies, toileting Lassoo – and pops in for a chat.

His only other confidante is a squirrel on the estate with which he has imaginary conversations when he has something on his mind.

Gary’s mundane life changes one evening when a work contact, Brendon of ‘Cityside Investigations’ invites him out for a pint at his local. Before they can finish one drink, Brendon takes a phone call and says he has to rush off on business. Also in the bar, sat alone reading a book, is an attractive brunette. She and Gary exchange pleasantries at the bar, then he joins her at her table. They get on well, have a few more drinks, then after a trip to the bar Gary returns to find her gone, though her book remains. It is called, The Satsuma Complex.

The story spirals out with disappearances, reappearances, deaths, policemen, and gangsters. Gary and Grace stumble through clues and crises trying to make sense of events. Gary is a low key hero, torn between his attraction for the brunette and his natural desire not to get involved in anything unpleasant or dangerous.

It is an easy read. Bob Mortimer’s familiar voice comes through strongly in Gary, but also permeates the narrative and to some extent the other characters, who all seem to share his distinctive conversational style. But the plot works, the characters are engaging, and interest is maintained to the end.

Colditz – Ben Macintyre

Colditz Castle was used, as most people know, by Hitler’s Germany to house Allied prisoners of war in the Second World War. And not just any prisoners, those who were serial escapers or were considered to be prize specimens due to their social connections, were gathered here, all the bad eggs in one basket.

This account, published 2022, takes a holistic look at the place and all those in it – prisoners, guards, and even the residents of the adjacent town. It also takes the opportunity afforded by a distance of seventy years to take a refreshingly independent view free from the shadow cast by the conflict, and for that matter the 1970s television series.

Though other ranks and nationalities get a mention, inevitably it is the British officers who feature most. After all, these are the people who kept diaries, wrote letters home, and penned memoirs afterwards. Their escape attempts, opportunistic or meticulously planned, done from a sense of duty or from personal desperation, are faithfully related along with the German countermeasures led by the anglophile Reinhold Eggers who moved up the ranks to become head of security at the camp. That the camp was under the auspices of the German Army rather than the SS or Gestapo, made such a game of cat and mouse possible.

Macintyre’s style is very readable, and he skilfully uses the chronological structure to show the changing mood in the camp from the bad boy club and jolly japes in 1941 fuelled by red cross parcels, through growing futility and boredom, to the underfed tension and desperation in 1945 as the German army retreated in the face of the Allied advance. Both prisoners and guards feared for their fate as the crazed Nazis in control the uncontrollable made life and death decisions on a whim.

All in all a well-balanced account of one of the oddities of World War Two.

Lessons – Ian McEwan

The novel opens in 1986 with Roland Baines halfway through his life and coming to terms with his wife walking out on him and their baby son. His first task is to convince the police that he has not killed her, or maybe that is second after the demands of the seven month old infant.

From there the narrative spills out forwards and backwards, sporadically chronicling Roland’s life of paths chosen and opportunities missed. Prominence is given to pivot points that he realises shaped him and his place in the world: an unsettled childhood; a relationship with his school piano teacher; meeting, marrying, and losing Alissa; then his love and ongoing care for his son. Everything revolves around and comes back to those things.

Slow, languorous Ian McEwan prose makes the five hundred or so word-packed pages a pleasure to read, get immersed in, and ponder. There are instances of passion, tension, and humour set against the background of key world events of the period, from the aftermath of the Second World War, through the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall, to Brexit and COVID.

Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara is an AF – an artificial friend, solar powered hence sensitive, almost obsessed, by the movement of the sun and the effects of its rays.

At first, she is in the store window from where she hones her understanding of humans by close observation of scenes in the street. At last, she is acquired for a young girl. Josie is thrilled with her AF and Klara is even happier to have been chosen. But Josie is a sickly child, seemingly adversely affected by being ‘lifted’ – gene edited to boost her intelligence and learning capacity.

Klara, who narrates, slowly gets to grips with her new household – Josie, the working mother, the absent father, the housekeeper … and the boy next door. He and Josie are firm friends, but he has not been lifted so his prospects are limited. Stuff happens; the strange near-future world makes for an intriguing backdrop, and Klara’s otherness gives a skewed perspective on events.

There are multiple threads weaved into the narrative: Klara’s conviction that the sun is all powerful and can cure Josie (mimicking religious faith?); the extent to which an artificial object like Klara can equal a human as a receptacle for care and love (like a superior pet); the risks and rewards of gene editing; and the life cycle of consumer goods, even ones as treasured as Klara (remember Woody’s fate in Toy Story).

So, Klara, composite friend, priest, pet, and appliance. Her story makes for a thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

Becoming – Michelle Obama

This autobiography of the former FLOTAS takes the reader from her humble beginnings on Chicago’s South Side to the opulence of Washington DC’s White House.

It is a strength of the book, and of the lady, that she lets neither of these extremes define her. She is her own woman. Supported by a close knit family unt, Michelle Robinson does well at school and defies the odds by landing a place at Harvard, then a job back in Chicago with a prestigious law firm. She is given the job of mentoring a new intern named Barack Obama, and the rest is history.

But it is her history here – how she became herself, how she overcame setbacks, coped with work and then an increasingly politically distracted husband, and two daughters, both in the run up to the presidential election and during the two terms in office.

It is told in a straightforward fashion, chronologically ordered, and not over-stuffed with name-dropping. She gives credit to her role models and takes deserved pride in becoming one herself.

It is interesting for its unique perspective and insight into American society and politics in the years spanning the millennium.

The Corpse Bridge – Stephen Booth

The Corpse Bridge provides a crossing over the River Dove for a couple of ‘coffin roads’, old footpaths that facilitated the final journeys of the dead of remote villages, in this part of rural Derbyshire, to the burial ground at the parish church. When a body is discovered at the bridge, DS Ben Cooper is sent to investigate.

The body has been in the water overnight, so forensics are scarce, but the appeal for witnesses generates a handful of responses from people who were in the vicinity, and from locals who knew the deceased woman. Items of evidence turn up that indicate strange things were afoot that night, which after all, was Halloween.

DI Cooper and his team, supplemented by a rival DS, Diane Fry, follow leads, grill people of interest, speculate on motives an, in the case of Cooper and Fry, annoy each other, before it all gets resolved. There is clearly history between Cooper and Fry, indeed it turns out this is the fourteenth book in the series, but it reads fine as a stand alone piece.

Booth works hard to give a sense of place, invoking all aspects of the Derbyshire Dales landscape, both natural and man-made. It adds interest to the tale but with much zipping about by Cooper, maybe a map would have helped. The wide cast of both suspects and police officers gives little scope to develop characters in depth, though maybe in the case of the police team this occurs slowly throughout the series.

As a crime novel it works well enough but, unless its geographical setting strikes a chord, there is nothing to make it stand out in an overcrowded genre.

Holy Island – L J Ross

DCI Ryan is taking a break, on garden leave after a traumatic last case. He is on the idyllic Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, semi-attached to the Northumberland coast by a causeway covered twice daily by the tide. Then a body is discovered, laid out on an altar stone in the grounds of the ruined priory. The tide is in, and with no local police, DCI Ryan feels obliged to get back in the saddle and take charge.

There is potentially a ritualistic element to the killing, and against Ryan’s wishes an expert from Durham University, Dr Taylor, is sent in to assist. But when Ryan meets the attractive Anna Taylor, he is more than happy to tolerate her presence. For Anna it is also a chance to return to her childhood home where complicated baggage remains.

Ryan has to manage his demons, marshal his meagre resources, overcome the locals’ closing of ranks, and manage his romantic feelings for Anna, while solving the crime (which soon multiplies into crimes as further deaths occur).

The plot rattles along, bumping over a few ‘as if’ moments. The procedural element is strong and remarkably efficient in getting evidence processed and paperwork completed in no time at all. There are false leads and unreliable witnesses to contend with, and those pesky tides, before a climactic resolution in the castle on the hill.

But is it resolved? An epilogue hints not quite – and this is just the first of twenty and counting DCI Ryan books each centred on a Northeast landmark. The sites may be iconic, but based on this read I am not sure if the books will be able to make the same claim.

Still Life – Sarah Winman

The book-packing journey arrives in Italy at the back end of the Second World War.

Outside Florence, Private Ulysses Temper (Temps to his friends) and Captain Darnley have a brief encounter with 64-year-old Evelyn Skinner, who is assisting the Allies locate and identify looted art. Darnley won’t survive the war, but Temps will, despite numerous wounds and a dangerous impulsive rescue of an old man (Arturo) from his roof high above a Florence square.

Demobbed back in London, he finds his wife Peggy has had an affair with a long gone American GI and is with child. They remain amicable and Temps bonds with ‘the kid’, settling into a desultory life with mates Cressy, Piano Pete, Col, and Claude - Col is landlord of the Stoat and Parrot, of which Claude is the garrulous parrot.

Nine years on from the war, word arrives from Florence that Arturo has died and left his apartment to the soldier who rescued him. Temps ups sticks, and sets off to Italy to accept his inheritance, accompanied by the kid, mate Cressy, and Claude the parrot. Cressy has cash from an outrageous bet to invest and they develop the property into a pension for visiting tourists.

The narrative meanders down the next twenty-five years, set mainly in Florence with interludes in London with Peggy and Col, who now and then visit Florence. Meanwhile, Evelyn’s life goes forward in parallel, occasionally brushing up with the other characters without making a connection; her back story emerges. Personal dramas unfold, a highlight being the cataclysmic flood of Florence in 1966.

Descriptions of Florence and its art abound, giving a strong sense of place. The characters are endearing (save the parrot), and their relationships well drawn. Spending time with them makes for pleasant enough reading.

Emily Noble’s Disgrace – Mary Paulson-Ellis

It starts in Portobello, Edinburgh’s seaside, in 2019, at a disused boarding house. It is years since proprietor Isabella Dawson last had a paying guest, at least two years as that is how long her body has lain undetected in the upstairs bedroom. As well as being a recluse, she was a hoarder, and with no relatives to be found, the Office for Lost People get involved and engage specialist cleaners to clear the place.

Enter the first narrator, cleaner Essie Pound, who sifts through the old possessions with an acquisitive eye for the curious rather than the valuable. As she uncovers elements of Isabella Dawson’s life, she also reveals her own uncomfortable back story.

Later in the book a second narrator, or point of view, that of PC Emily Noble, is introduced. She is trying to work her way back into favour after making a couple of mistakes in her short career in the force, one professional and one personal, which just adds to the baggage she carries from traumatic childhood. She gets given many a rubbish job, and her latest directs her attention to the old boarding house.

Essie and Emily, unknown to each other, have a lot in common. Their pasts give them both issues and now each, independently, rummages in the debris of Isabella Dawson’s life, peeling back the generations and cycles of birth, death, comings together, splittings apart, and unsolved disappearances. If only they compared notes …

It has a feel of a Kate Atkinson, but not so well done (no shame there!). Attention is needed to keep track of the plot threads that deliberately mirror or echo each other, but that is rewarded with a satisfying denouement.

A good companion piece to the previous and excellent Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, and the heir hunter himself makes a cameo appearance here. (As does Margaret Penney of the Office for Lost People, who featured in Paulson-Ellis’s first novel – The Other Mrs Walker – which I now feel obliged to read).

This Boy – Alan Johnson

This initial autobiography from the ex-Labour MP and cabinet minister covers his childhood and adolescence spent in the poorer parts of West London between 1950 and 1968. And poverty is one of the main themes, an ever-present fact of life, though one to be met as a challenge and if not overcome, then something not to be overcome by.

With a father rarely around and neglectful in supporting the family, Alan Johnson’s upbringing fell to the two women of the household – mother, Lily, and older sister, Linda. Lily’s work ethic kept them afloat, and as her health failed the precociously capable Linda took on responsibilities beyond her years.

This is no pity memoir. The financial and material situation was often dire, but Johnson still enjoyed life on the streets of pre-gentrified Notting Hill and Chelsea. He endured school, progressing despite himself, but learned more from his part time jobs earning coppers to spend on watching QPR and buying records.

Simply and effectively written, the book is a tribute to the two women in his early life, who ensured he had a safe and loving home in which to thrive. It provides a valuable first hand historical record of the times, with plenty of nostalgia for those of his vintage, and eye-popping detail for those of later generations who may think life is tough now.

The Mirror and the Light – Hilary Mantel

The third volume of the Wolf Hall trilogy covers Thomas Cromwell’s final years in the service of King Henry VIII from 1536 to 1540, beginning with the aftermath of the execution of Anne Boleyn, in which he (Cromwell) had a leading role. 

There is quickly a new queen, Jane, and he must adapt to the new court packed with Seymour relatives and acolytes. New alliances must be forged, and old Boleyn and Howard contacts severed. But he is a consummate political mover and soon he is again Henry’s go-to man of business.

He continues to rise, picking up new responsibilities, titles, and real estate much to the envy and disgust of those who disparage his lowly birth. His entourage rise too – nephew Richard Cromwell, ward Rafe Sadler, and even young son Gregory all get positions of power.

It all looks good, and the queen even produces the much needed male heir – but then fails to survive the ordeal. The king is advised to marry again and sire a spare or two. Enter Anne of Cleves.

But it is not a match made in heaven, and Cromwell is tainted by his part in arranging the union. His enemies conspire, he loses the king’s ear, and it is only a matter of time before he finds himself following in the footsteps of the many he led to the Tower.

It is masterfully told, albeit at excessive length, rich with detail and nuance, and at the end, quite moving. It is also a big read off my book-et list.

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

It is June 1954 and Emmett Watson’s return from a youth offenders’ institute to his home in Morgen, Nebraska is not a happy one. He is glad to be reunited with his younger brother, Billy, and to see girl next door, Sally, but his father has died, the farm is being repossessed, and everyone in town remembers and won’t forgive why he was sent down.

But Emmett has a plan to take his two remaining assets – his 1943 powder blue Studebaker Land Cruiser and $3,000 in cash that his father has hidden away from the creditors – to California where population is booming and opportunities beckon. That chimes with Billy; the route to the west is along the Lincoln Highway, the first road to fully cross America and the way taken by Emmett and Billy’s mother when she quit the marital home many years previously. Billy thinks they will find her at the end of the road.

Emmett’s best laid plans are immediately derailed as two pals from prison, Duchess and Woolly, turn up. They are absent without leave, and their arrival sets in motion a sequence of events that send Emmett the wrong way along the eponymous highway, towards New York.

The roller coaster journeys of Emmett, Billy, Duchess, and Woolly (not always together) provide for rollocking, overlapping adventures told from the four perspectives (supplemented by a few other points of view). It leads to a fitting, un-signposted climax.

It is written with style and a feel for the period. The characters are nicely drawn, and the multiple perspectives propel the reader over the miles and the 500+ pages. But don’t expect these mates to ever get to the planned San Francisco destination before the end.

Review of 2023 Reading Year

A steady return of 33 books read in the year, not bad as the average length was 400 pages. This year only a narrow majority (17 to 16) were by ‘new to me’ authors. The gender balance evened this year to a 55:45 preference for male authors, and the males again dominated the best reads list by 6 to 3. The reading group picked a few ‘already reads’ so provided only 4 new titles (including 1 best read) while the ‘bookpacking’ reading journey became becalmed in eastern Europe with just two books completed.

My nine best books of the year are: (Month of full review in brackets.)

 

The High House – Jessie Greengrass: Dystopia in microcosm as three young adults narrate how they came to survive the coming environmental catastrophe of hugely rising sea levels. (Feb)

 

The Reindeer Hunters – Lars Mytting: The second in the Bell in the Lake trilogy maintains the high standard, as another generation carry the story of life in rural Norway into the early twentieth century; old secrets unfold, and new dangers threaten. (Mar)

 

Origins – Lewis Dartnell: Perceptive non-fiction that with clarity sets out how geography and geology shaped human development. (Mar)

 

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer: Fast paced and unusual thriller in which characterisation is equal to the clever plotting. (Mar)

 

The Siege of Krishnapur – J G Farrell: Set in 1857 as the British Raj is under pressure in India, the novel recounts (surprisingly amusingly) how the rigid structures of that society fare under existential threat. (Apr)

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr: Three narratives centuries apart, featuring five characters who begin as strangers, are weaved together to produce a fabulous, richly satisfying novel. (Jul)

 

The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave: Set in 1617, the novel builds on the true story of a storm that wrecked a fishing fleet and killed every man from a remote Norwegian village. The women who decide to make their own living find themselves subject to accusations of (and trials for) witchery. (Aug)

An Officer and a Spy – Robert Harris: A masterful take on the Dreyfus Affair – a miscarriage of justice that gripped France from 1895 to its conclusion a decade later. An interesting and engaging novel written with style and clarity. (Sep)

 

Eden – Jim Crace: This garden has walls, whether to keep people in or out is moot. Inside the Angels rule and men and women are immortal; outside the people are free but destined to age and die. When one person goes over the wall, the whole community – men, women, and angels - is at risk of disintegration. (Nov)