The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry

The New Year (sometime in the nineteenth century) starts for Cora Seaborne with the funeral of her husband. Her grief is outweighed by relief and a sense of release from his oppression. Sill young, responsible only for a son in tow, she now has freedom and the means to follow her own interests.

But this Victorian heroine defies the stereotype. She is robustly independent with an enquiring mind and an interest in the natural world and, plain rather than pretty, she dresses for practicality and comfort. Not that Cora is unattractive; she already has an admirer in London surgeon Dr Luke Garret, and also a close relationship with her companion (and boy’s nanny) Martha.

When Cora, out walking the Essex coast, meets the Reverend William Ransome, Rector of Aldwinter parish, their differences of philosophy, hers scientific, his spiritual, clash but there is soon a respect, and then more, between them.

The attraction of Essex for Cora is not only the sea air and Will Ransome; there are rumours of unnatural happenings and possible sightings in the salt marshes of a creature that some think is supernatural. Cora dismisses that theory and dreams of discovering a new species; Will is also keen to rationalise the mystery which is starting to undermine his parishioners’ faith in him and his religion.

The story moves through the months of the year, centred on London, Colchester and Aldwinter, each atmospherically depicted and populated with minor characters of relevance and interest. The search for the eponymous reptile becomes less important than each character’s search for their own truth. And what will that mean for Cora and Will (and Will’s wife Stella and their children)?

The prose is well written and has an unusual (in a good way) style; description of place is evocative; the complexities of emotions and relationships are not overplayed but subtly put out there to be inferred.

So while not your standard Victorian melodrama it is a well written, insightful story featuring flawed but very human characters.

The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood

Tony, Charis and Roz have more in common than their regular ladies-who-lunch date. More even that they were at college together, a long while since, where their paths rarely crossed. The glue that binds them is Zenia, who was also at college and who did cross all three of their paths, separately, and not in a pleasant way.

However having some time since attended Zenia’s funeral, she is far from their minds as they lunch at the Toxique in downtown Ottawa; until she walks into the restaurant, studiously ignoring them as she passes. The girls scatter in confusion.

Back at their respective safe havens of home, each of them looks back on Zenia’s impact on their lives. These are not thumbnail sketches to serve the plotline but in each case a full rounded life story is unfolded. Any one of them would make a novel in its own right; such is Atwood’s consummate skill in story-telling, use of prose, characterisation and nuance.

Back to the present, the girls reconvene to compare notes and discuss who has found out what about their un-deceased ‘friend’ and her Lazarus trick; more importantly they need to decide what to do about it.

No more need be said here, no spoilers given. It is a rich and satisfying read; its length (550 pages) is immaterial as it is one of those books where the urge to get on and enjoy it is tempered by never wanting it to end.

The Dead Women of Juarez – Sam Hawken

Read as leg 4 (Juarez, Mexico) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

Ciudad Juarez on Mexico’s northern border is where ex-boxer Kelly Courter now calls home. He fled his real home in the US as a last desperate act in a downward spiral from potential contender to drugged-up punch bag with a felony charge hanging over his head.

Here across the border he ekes out a living in the ring as ‘white meat’ for up and coming local fighters, and out of the ring as gofer and accomplice to Estaban, a small time drug pusher. The good news is he’s off the drugs and has a good ‘friends with benefits’ relationship with Estaban’s sister Paloma. He’d like to cement that further and has upped his training and cut down the drinking. But Paloma has other priorities; she is deeply involved with a support group for women whose daughters, sisters or mothers are ‘missing’ – among the scandalous hundreds in the city who have been taken, raped and murdered over recent years.

More professionally involved with the ‘feminocidios’ is Rafael Sevilla of the State Police; he’s also involved with policing the drug-dealing ‘narcotraficantes’, so Kelly’s on his radar - more as an informer than a target.

So far, so atmospheric, with plenty of local colour, poverty, exploitation, petty crime and sex for sale in the heat and dust of the city. Then the book explodes in a frenzy of violence. The feminocidios strike near to home; the city police investigation is lazy, ham-fisted, brutal and possibly corrupt. Sevilla’s response is to work alone to find the truth and seek some small justice for the dead women of Juarez.

This is a thriller not for the faint-hearted. The few sex scenes are explicit if not erotic; the violence is more pervading and is described in disturbing detail. This is one Mexican city not on my holiday list. However the read moves quickly with short chapters, morphing midway from Kelly’s narrative to Sevilla’s, and building to an action-packed climax.

How well it serves in bringing the (true) dead women scandal to the world’s attention is uncertain, but the attempt is to be applauded.

The Program – David Walsh

David Walsh is the Sunday Times journalist who refused to accept that Lance Armstrong raced clean and made it his business to prove it. Walsh had been covering the Tour de France since 1982 and when he first met Armstrong in 1993 he was immediately impressed by the 21 year-old Texan’s force of personality and ambition to win.

The next four years were significant for both Walsh and Armstrong. Armstrong battled with and overcame cancer while Walsh was sickened by the revelations of widespread doping in his favoured sport of cycling. So, in 1999 when Armstrong returned to what was meant to be a cleaned-up Tour, and produced barely credible performances, Walsh smelt a rat.

Armstrong won that Tour, and then the next six, and while most journalists lapped up the story – cancer survivor overcomes odds for sporting success – Walsh became an increasingly lone voice in questioning its validity. He didn’t just question, he investigated and turned up evidence and witnesses; he also uncovered intimidation and cover-up.

In 2005, Walsh and like-minded French journalist Pierre Ballester published the detailed allegations in a book.  ‘LA Confidential’ could only be published in France due to Armstrong living up to his name with strong arm legal moves that threatened to sue any English language publisher. Armstrong rode out the storm and retired with his record (and prize money) intact. It would take another seven years and the testimony of team-mate Floyd Landis for Walsh’s position to be vindicated.

The book is detailed and meticulously referenced and cycling insiders may be comfortable with the constant asides and shifts in timeframe, but I sometimes found them difficult to follow. To me the book is more about Walsh than Armstrong and the author’s search for the truth and his battles to get it published.

As a result I now know quite a lot about how Armstrong suppressed suspicions and bullied the cycling world, but not as much as I would like about how he managed to avoid getting caught by doping control.

Forces of Nature – Brian Cox (with Andrew Cohen)

In this book based on his recent TV series Professor Brian Cox (aided by the programme producer) sets out to answer some simple questions about our everyday experiences – the shape of a snowflake, the motion of the earth, the origin of life, and the colours of the rainbow.

Inevitably the answers are not so simple, involving atomic and molecular structure, relativity and space-time, the biochemistry of LUCA (our last universal common ancestor) and the nature of light and the electromagnetic spectrum. But in Cox’s capable hands the explanations are revealed to rest on simple foundations – universal laws of physics and chemistry.

I did not see the TV series and only acquired the book (a Christmas present) having browsed it in a shop and been pleasantly surprised at the apparent depth of science in the text. First impressions were confirmed by the reading; there is nothing dumbed down here, there are equations aplenty and all the concepts are painstakingly but elegantly explained. I almost, briefly, understood general relativity – but that point (event) in space time has now disappeared into my personal past.

The large format hardback edition is lavishly illustrated with colour stills from the programme, and only some feature Dr Cox looking butch and moody in scuba suit, pilot fatigues or mountaineering gear. Most of the others are stunning nature shots although not all seem relevant to the text. Similarly some of the diagrams and figures, despite looking nice, lack proper explanation.

But these are niggles, forgivable product design features, that do not detract from the quality of the writing that manages to be rigorous, informative and entertaining. The four sections – symmetry, motion, elements, and colour – hang together remarkably well with a tangible progression that leaves the careful reader feeling better informed and in awe at how scientists have decoded nature without detracting from its wonder.

Fleshmarket Close – Ian Rankin

In this, the fifteenth outing of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh based detective, Rebus and protégé Siobhan Clarke have been farmed out to the suburbs having lost their office space at their old St Leonards police station. Rebus feels sidelined, but at least it gives him freedom to operate as he does best – independently and unconventionally.

When a murder crops up in one of the outlying housing projects he is quickly on the scene. The estate has a high proportion of immigrants and asylum seekers, and the victim is one of them.

Meanwhile Clarke is contacted by the parents of a girl whose rape (and subsequent suicide) she had investigated some years ago; now the other daughter has gone missing.

Added to the murder and missing persons are two bodies found buried in a cellar in Fleshmarket Close, just off the Royal Mile. Both Rebus and Clarke attend but there is something fishy about the find as the bodies turn out to be just bones picked clean.

The three cases develop with the expected complexity, interweaving and connecting (or not) and with the expected complications for Rebus’s and Clarke’s personal lives (will a clinch in the previous book translate to more) and professional prospects (Clarke is on the way up, Rebus is treading water).

In these later Rebus books Rankin always injects some topicality and while this dates from 2004 the context of immigration still has resonance today. The issues are handled well enough – exposing prejudice and inhumanity – with Rebus characteristically cutting in his assessment of all those around him, be they do-gooder or bigot. While unable to do much to right all the wrongs he sees, he does what he can, while solving the crimes, to help those in need that cross his path.

Rankin rarely disappoints and this outing is well up to standard, benefitting from being a bit shorter (at 400 pages) and tighter than its immediate predecessors.

Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk – Ben Fountain

Read as leg 3 (Texas, USA) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

Billy Lynn and the rest of Bravo Platoon are nearing the end of their ‘victory tour’, their last engagement at Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, for the Thanksgiving Day game against the Bears.

The ‘engagement’ that got them here was a short, sharp and bloody firefight in Iraq, captured on newsreel footage which, being largely successful from the US viewpoint, has become an internet sensation at home and a totem for the war effort. Their reward is a short furlough back in the US – provided they perform in the media circus and accept their due as heroes of the nation.

Billy Lynn doesn’t feel like a hero, he didn’t exactly volunteer to serve, and the adulation is starting to wear thin.

There is a lot going on at Texas Stadium, a lot for Billy to process. Bravo now have an agent who is trying to cut them a film deal, promising big bucks but so far delivering nothing; their role in the half time show is vague and while it should include meeting the fabulously attractive cheerleaders, Beyoncé led Destiny’s Child will be on stage too; and the Cowboys owner has invited the platoon into his suite for hospitality among the rich and powerful, which takes them all far from their comfort zone.

Billy has two other preoccupations. He had twenty-four hours at home, down the road at Stovall, that reintroduced him to his family’s troubles and during which his sister Kathryn tried to persuade him to dodge his return to war; and now he’s besotted with one of the cheerleaders who to his surprise seems to reciprocate. More immediately he needs a drink and some pills for his headache.

Through the blur in his head the contradictions between his current treatment as a ‘hero’ and his previous as a ‘grunt’, a nobody, lead to half-formed questions about who he is actually fighting for; whose will the victory be? But though war is hell, and victory maybe hollow, could he walk away from his platoon, his comrades, his true loyalty?

The narration places the reader firmly in Billy’s consciousness, making the language authentic and providing a lot of buy-in to his situation and mindset.

Billed as “the Catch 22 of the Iraq war”, this takes a swipe less at the military than the civilian context of the war. There is humour but the out-loud laughs are fewer and the cynicism is more bitter – Billy is only nineteen so his eyes are just opening to the self-serving and exploitation that abounds.

Billy Lynn is a book of its time and one that deserves to be read and enjoyed on its own merits.