Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope

Young Irishman Phineas Finn went to London to study for the Bar, but having achieved admission his professional progress seems to be sluggish. Not so his social life, based around membership of the Reform Club, where he rubs shoulders with the sons of the aristocracy and young Members of Parliament. One of these, fellow countryman Barrington Erle, suggests he stands for his local constituency of Loughshane in the coming General Election.

To his good fortune Loughshane is a ‘pocket borough’, in this case in the pocket of the Earl of Tulla, an old family friend who has just quarrelled with the sitting member and is only too glad to turf him out and put in Phineas, who thus becomes, at 24 years old, an Irish Member in the Mother of Parliaments.

It is eighteen-sixty-odd and turbulent times in politics with voting reform and ‘the ballot’ the big issue between the Whigs and Tories. But Finn’s induction into the political world is more social than political as he is befriended by the influential Standish family – the earl of Brentford (a Whig grandee), his daughter Lady Laura and son Oswald (aka Lord Chiltern).

He goes hunting with Chiltern and gets closer to Lady Laura, but she is pursued by the landed Mr Kennedy, so he transfers his attention to the Standish’s close friend Violet Effingham, who is half-committed to Oswald, while Phineas himself is eyed up by the rich and mysterious Madame Max Goesler, herself courted by the aged but active Duke of Omnium. And there is the girl back home, Mary Flood Jones, who simply, and perhaps hopelessly, just holds a candle for Phineas.

These are not so much love triangles as interlocking polygons that provide multiple moral dilemmas for Phineas to negotiate; at the same time he has to wrestle with his conscience as his first steps in a government career are threatened by opposition motions he feels honour bound to support.

The book is long but never heavy, and I like Trollope’s style as he takes the reader into his confidence while he speculates on his characters’ motivations and thoughts. It is just a good read with a likeable, but all too human, hero whose interests the reader cannot help taking to heart.

The Descendants – Kaui Hart Hemmings

Matt King is a descendant of one of Hawaii’s oldest landowning families, with a key say on the dissolution of a trust and release of assets (land ripe for development) that would make him and a lot of his cousins richer. But his mind is necessarily on other things.

His wife, Joanie, is in a coma following a power-boat accident. She has lived life to the full, building a successful career, managing the home and bringing up two daughters, while Matt has kept his head down working as an attorney. So with Joanie in hospital, he is pitched out of his comfort zone and into a temporary role as a lone parent.

Except it may not be temporary; prognosis is not good. And while he comes to terms with the possibility of losing his wife, recent doubts on her fidelity emerge from the back of his mind, strengthen and drive him to seek out the potential lover who, he feels, should be given an opportunity to say a fond farewell.

Then there are the kids, the in-laws, and the friends to deal with; but in the emotional turbulence he draws his young daughters closer and discovers strength in them, and himself, previously unknown.

It sounds dour and depressing but the writing (Matt’s narrative throughout) has a light touch and there is much humour (some, but not all, black); and with the dying woman emerging as no saint there is no tendency to weep buckets as she expires.

In the background the question of the land remains. Will Matt’s new-found connection to his next generation make him re-consider the sell-off favoured by his fellow descendants?

The bright and, lush Hawaiian location provides an interesting counterbalance to the tragic circumstances, and the issues raised are addressed without cloying sentiment, making this an original and finely written novel. [Now of course a well-received film with George Clooney in the lead].

Scaredy Cat – Mark Billingham

Two murders committed on the same London night. There are striking similarities – young female victims, targeted at a railway station, and both strangled; but there are significant differences too – the stations far apart, and while one victim was brutally slain the other was despatched almost gently; at one site a chocolate wrapper casually discarded, at the other, tears were shed.

Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is on the case and, in one of his moments of perspicacity, floats the hypothesis – two killers working in tandem, but who and why?

Thorne’s intuitive approach to policing (guesswork and following hunches) predictably upsets his superiors and alienates all but his closest colleagues, and frankly gets him nowhere. All he can do is wait until they kill again and hope this time they make a mistake and get caught.

More deaths and a lucky break lead Thorne into a high risk strategy, higher than he realises as the ensuing game of cat and mouse becomes more personal.

Billingham’s writing is assured and deft as he builds the tension, teasing the reader with snippets of the (still unknown) murderers’ thoughts. Light relief is provided by Thorne’s interplay with his gay pathologist friend, but more dangerous undercurrents are at play between members of his investigating team.

More of a crime thriller than a crime solver – there is precious little detection but plenty of criminal violence – the pages turn well enough and the outcome is eagerly sought, but after reading Sleepyhead last year and now Scaredy Cat I think I have had enough of the grumpy DI Thorne for now.

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson

When Bill Bryson moved back to the USA he found a path on the edge of his New Hampshire town that turned out to be part of the Appalachian Trail that runs from Georgia in the south through thirteen or so states to Maine in the far north.

At 2,100 miles this long distance trek is equivalent to eight Pennine Ways but despite having little hiking experience Bryson is drawn to the challenge and he rashly announces his intention to walk it to friends and family.

Reality dawns as he researches the challenge and enumerates (in one of the funniest couple of paragraphs I’ve ever read) the perils of the wilderness he will be exposed to – roughly categorised under fierce beasts (mammals, reptiles and insects), extreme weather and dangerous vegetation.

Then comes the, equally funny, kitting out stage; and the search for a walking companion that results in the unlikely candidature of the even less prepared Stephen Katz.

Finally they set off from Springer Mountain in Georgia and predictable but laugh out loud incidents come thick and fast – it’s the way he tells it that creases me up. How far they get is less important than what they discover and who they meet on the trail, and how they face up to moments of real danger.

Among the humour are ironic, but serious, points made about the plight of the environment and the American way of life (largely incompatible concepts), but at the end of the day it is the Bryson humour that makes this such an excellent read.

Pigeon English – Stephen Kelman

Eleven year old Harrison Opoku, recent arrival from Ghana, lives in London with his mother and older sister, while his father, grandma and baby sister remain in Africa awaiting their opportunity to join them. From his high-rise flat Harrison tries to make sense of his new unfamiliar surroundings, sometimes in conversation with a persistent pigeon that visits his balcony.

At school he has his own mixed group of friends but there is also the pull of the cool but dangerous Dell Farm Crew; and there is Poppy Morgan who exerts an altogether different and novel attraction.

When a boy is stabbed to death outside the off-licence, Harrison and his best friend Dean decide to investigate using CSI techniques gleaned from Dean’s favourite TV show. Their unsubtle efforts, though not remotely in danger of detecting anything, could draw some unwelcome attention from those with something to hide.

Kelman captures the wonder of a young boy for whom life’s possibilities, good and bad, are just opening up. The clarity with which he sees events contrasts amusingly with his naivety in interpreting some of the unfolding facts of life. Can he learn quickly enough to survive?

Although written from a young boy’s perspective, the novel has adult themes and a dark edge of reality. As for the pigeon, I’m not sure I got its symbolism, but its interventions were minimal and didn’t detract from my enjoyment.

The End of the Shelf

No individual review this week but a retrospective on the completion of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey.

It took about four years to move alphabetically through the local library stock, choosing a book from an author new to me. It has been a worthwhile exercise and I have read and enjoyed books that otherwise I would probably not have considered, with only two or three where I wished I had chosen better.

The objective of increasing variety, getting out of any reading rut, has been achieved. My partiality for male authors was less pronounced with a 15:11 ratio (compared with 75:6 for the three years 2008 to 2010); and though a majority of books were set in the UK (15) and USA (5), there were six located around the world (Argentina, Iceland, Japan, China, Mongolia and Greece) with others making excursions to Hawaii, Malaysia, Nigeria, Arabia and France.

In terms of genre, the main fare was 20^th and 21^st century fiction (10) and crime/thrillers (5) but historic fiction, humour, ghost/horror, short stories and biography were all represented. Two gaps were science fiction (surprisingly as I used to read a lot) and westerns (less surprisingly as I’ve only ever read one, two if you count The Sisters Brothers).

Two of the ‘new to me’ authors (Chris Cleave and David Mitchell) impressed me sufficiently to read further works; and I would happily read more by at least ten of the others.

So overall it was a successful and enjoyable journey that I will consider doing all over again.

The Bull of Mithros – Anne Zouroudi

Read as part Z of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey.

Chosen because

As to be expected the choice in the Z section was small, but this novel seemed inoffensive enough – a Poirot-esque detective, an idyllic Greek island setting, and not too thick.

The Review

Mithros is an obscure little Greek island with its only claim to fame being the small ebony bull with gold horns, recently discovered and more recently lost, with now only a replica available for the tourists to see.

Around the time of the disappearance a violent robbery and a tragic death occurred, and seventeen years later the victim of the theft and the friends of the deceased remain on Mithros, now men of standing and influence within the tight knit community.

Then two newcomers arrive. One is pitched off a boat and has to swim ashore with nothing but his shorts; he wants to leave but lacks the means, even ID, to do so. The other man has both a name – Hermes Diaktoros – and transport – a smart yacht with a small crew to minister to his sophisticated needs; but once he sniffs out a mystery he is in no hurry to leave, preferring to investigate.

Despite his lack of credentials, he uses his charm and urbanity to wheedle information out of the residents and his sleuthing powers to work out the connections between current events, the tragedy of seventeen years previous, and the disappearance of the ancient Bull of Mithros.

The island characters are fleshed out nicely, but Diaktoros remains an enigma, moving unhurriedly in the Mediterranean heat to his conclusion. Similarly the book’s pace is slow but engaging, and would make for a good holiday read for those with time to kill in a resort such as Mithros.

Read another?

There are another six ‘mysteries of the Greek detective’ out there somewhere, but I’ll not be looking out for them.

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth – Chris Hadfield

On 20 July 1969, like countless other nine-year-old boys, Chris Hadfield watched on TV as Neil Armstrong descended to the surface of the moon, and decided he wanted to be an astronaut. Unlike most, the desire continued well beyond the school summer holidays.

He studied hard, joined the Air Cadets, took a degree in mechanical engineering at military college, trained to fly fighter planes and became a test pilot. All with an eye on his ultimate goal, made even more unlikely by his Canadian nationality. However in 1991 the Canadian Space Authority put out an advert, “Wanted: astronauts”, just two actually, but Hadfield applied along with 5,329 other hopefuls.

He made it, and went on to make three space flights: two on the space shuttle for short stays first at the Russian MIR space station (1995) and at the incipient International Space Station (ISS) in 2001; and then in 2012 a final trip to spend five months in command of the ISS from where he boosted the profile of the mission with his Space Oddity video that went viral on the internet.

As well as giving a first-hand account of space travel, Hadfield spreads a little homespun wisdom – applying lessons learnt in the unforgiving environment of space to life on Earth. Much is counter-intuitive: how to be a zero (not a hero); the power of negative thinking (what is the next thing that can kill you); and valuing the small personal wins as just much as the big public achievements.

Such humility comes through the writing. It is no breast-beating self-promo, more a homage to teamwork and mutual support, quite eye-opening in revealing what an astronaut does for the long months and years when not in space. The chronology jumps around a bit in the middle section as the different flights are used to illustrate his themes, but his final trip to the ISS pulls the narrative back together to conclude an interesting read.

The Accidental Apprentice – Vikas Swarup

It all starts when salesgirl Sapna Sinha is approached out of the blue by billionaire industrialist V M Acharya with a bizarre proposal that she allows herself to be assessed as his potential successor as CEO of the massive ABC Group.

He explains he distrusts conventional recruitment methods and will judge her fitness for the role through seven unspecified tests. It sounds bonkers to her, but there is a

hefty up-front payment on offer just for agreeing to take part. And recent events put her in desperate need of funds (she is the family’s sole breadwinner) so why not humour the old man?

Sapna’s life moves from the ordinary to the extraordinary as she finds her everyday life suddenly presenting her with a succession of situations that require: leadership, integrity, courage, foresight, resourcefulness and decisiveness. It seems impossible that all these have been set up by Acharya, but how else to explain the chain of events?

Sapna’s testing adventures take place against a backcloth of modern India with all its contradictions. And as the seventh test arrives, her suspicions that not all is as it seems strengthen in a hectic and dramatic climax.

The author’s Q & A (retitled Slumdog Millionaire after the film was made) is a hard act to follow and for me this fell short of the mark. Where in Q & A the coincidences were unlikely but believable, here it all seems too contrived to really buy into.

Nevertheless it rattles along well and takes pot shots at some unsavoury aspects of India – corruption in public office, exploitation of child labour, the cult of celebrity, forced marriage, and political patronage all come in for a bashing.

And the finale, unexpected twists and all, is quite exciting so still well worth a read.

The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins

This is the 2006 thirtieth anniversary edition of the 1976 book that broke new ground both in genetics and in popularising science.
Dawkins argues that the key unit in determining successful survival and reproduction, and so behaviour, is not the individual but the each gene carried in the cells of the organism – what he calls the replicators.

It’s complicated, even though Dawkins simplifies and exemplifies, which makes it a challenging read. His breezy style lightens the load but I found I needed to read it in small stints, inevitably over an extended period, to retain enthusiasm.

I have read more readable popular science, Isaac Asimov and Bill Bryson come to mind, but their purpose was to inform and explain whereas here Dawkins is seeking to persuade. Hence he is a little hectoring and comes across as a bit of a show-off.

Still the main thrust of the argument is hammered home and is plausible enough; but in the absence of detailed knowledge of the field, or any alternative hypothesis considered, the reader has to take it or leave it.

It is worth reading to see what the fuss is (or was) about, and to tick off a book that finds its way on to many a reading list, but neither a page-turner nor a life-changer for me.

One for the Money – Janet Evanovitch

Stephanie Plum is a New Jersey girl (woman really) who is out of work, out of luck, and running out of furniture to sell to pay the rent, buy food and keep up payments on the car.

Desperation drives her to her cousin Vinnie’s office initially for a filing job, but instead she seizes the opportunity of a week’s trial as a ‘recovery agent’, chasing down and bringing in those who have skipped bail. She’s seduced by the 10% commission; however what seems like easy money turns out to be anything but.

There’s big money on the head of Joseph Morelli. He’s a cop wanted for murder, with whom she has had a couple of brief, well-spaced but memorable encounters. Her pursuit of him provides a steep learning curve as a bounty hunter and leads her into situations embarrassing, painful, terrifying and eventually deadly.

As befits her New Jersey persona, Stephanie narrates it all with great self-deprecating wit and humour that moves the story along at a fast pace. It either got better or I took time to get into it, but either way by the end I was, by turns, laughing, wincing or worrying for her.

Evanovitch is now up to number 21 in the Stephanie Plum series so it must be a winning formula, but this is the first one, that set it all off, and understandably so.

Renegade – Robyn Young

Read as part Y of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey.

Chosen because

None of the few books in the Y section leapt out at me, but they did include a few from Robyn Young’s two historical trilogies, “Brethren” and “Insurrection”. Although not my usual fare, the spirit of the A to Z journey demands trying new authors and unfamiliar genres, so I selected the second book of the second trilogy (which also happened to be the least voluminous at a mere 400+ pages).

The Review

The Insurrection trilogy centres on Robert the Bruce, contender for the Scottish throne, which (depending on your view of 1300 AD politics) is vacant and/or subservient to that of England. King Edward (not called the Hammer of the Scots for nothing) has a mission in life, just about accomplished, to unite the four ‘home’ countries under his single rule.

In Renegade, Robert Bruce is playing a dangerous game. He yearns for a free Scotland, preferably under him as king, but to get there he has to play the long game, biding his time and bowing the knee to Edward while the various factions north of the border resolve themselves.

The nominal king, John Balliol is in France seeking backing for his reassertion of independence; the Earl of Buchan a.k.a. ‘The Black Comyn’ harbours hopes of his own, and is a sworn blood enemy of the Bruces; and William Wallace, Braveheart himself, is still on the loose creating mayhem with his battle-axe.

Dissimulation, treachery, armed combat, life in court, and personal anguish, mix to form a frantic picture of Robert’s world, against which he pursues his ambition.

It is an enjoyable enough read that is more of an adventure story than a history lesson. But as ever with historical fiction I find it hard to disassociate the fiction from the history, continually wondering which incidents (and characters) are fact and which made up (or interpolated); particularly, as in this case, when my knowledge of the period is sketchy or flawed. Helpfully, in an afterword, the author makes it all clear.

Read another?

Inevitably as part of a trilogy the reader is left hanging, so the temptation is there to find out what happens in the third volume "Kingdom".

Das Boot (The Boat) – Lothar Gunther Buchheim

Buchheim served in a German U-boat in the Second World War and while this book is fiction the events portrayed were all witnessed by him, one of the minority of U-boat crew who survived.

It’s a single voyage, related by a naval war correspondent on board as an officer, who gives a holistic, fly on the wall, view of the boat and the crew of fifty-one men. There is the frantic drinking and whoring prior to departure; the mind-numbing tedium of weeks spent ‘frigging around’ in search of convoys, mere specks in the enormity of the Atlantic Ocean; followed by the tense torpedo attacks and the nerve-shredding dodging of depth-charge retaliation.

The action, or inaction, is interspersed with thoughts of the lives left behind, and observations on the practicalities of crowded living in a storm-tossed tin can for months on end. There are interesting insights into the intricacies of keeping the craft afloat or submerged and, when submerged, level; a lasting image is the need when crash diving for all hands to rush to the front of the boat to help its downward trajectory.

It is a long read (500+ pages) and between the bursts of activity the pages turn slowly; when the action starts they fly. Thus is the submariners’ experience authentically shared with the reader, right up to the life and death dash for home at the end.

The Perfect Murder – Peter James

This is one of the Quick Read series where well known authors produce short fast-paced novellas to engage readers new to reading or just to them. I fall into the latter category and picked this as a first taste of Peter James.

Victor and Joan Smiley have been married for twenty years, and it is clear that despite keeping up appearances they have both had enough and want rid of their spouse. Just leaving or divorcing doesn’t seem an option, maybe smacking of failure, so instead each secretly plans to kill the other.

Who will strike first and how will it pan out?

Finding out is entertaining enough and Peter James keeps the twists and turns going right to the end.

It is light reading, as intended, but good fun and it has put his full size detective fiction on my radar. 

Stonemouth – Iain Banks

Stewart Gilmour returns to Stonemouth on the North East coast of Scotland five years older, a bit wiser, but only a little less terrified than when he fled the town a week ahead of his scheduled, but aborted, wedding day.

The reason for his hasty departure and exile becomes clear as he edges his way back into town. The gang boss he offended has apparently been persuaded, reluctantly, to allow him back for the weekend to attend a funeral; but that does not mean he will be made welcome, especially by his ex-fiancée’s troop of brothers who revel in their reputation for intimidation and violence.

As Stewart picks up the threads of his former social scene, it prompts remembrances of times past that cumulatively flesh out and reveal his current predicament. The back story and the tension filled funeral weekend move forward seamlessly to a fitting climax.

Here Banks is back where I prefer him, in Crow Road territory, mixing romance, mystery, violence, humour and I suspect a bit of his own personal philosophy, to great effect. We will get no more, as he died last year, but this penultimate novel is one to savour.

Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

Set in the turbulent reign of Henry VIII this lengthy tome (600+ pages) follows the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell from humble origins to the right hand of the King.

A talent for everything he puts his mind to – fighting, languages, trade, banking and the law – makes him a useful man to have around. As Cardinal Wolsey’s fixer he comes to the notice of the Court and his political astuteness enables him to survive his patron’s downfall and demise, ruined by an inability to get the King his divorce from Queen Katherine.

That task eventually falls to Cromwell, and a way is found to pave the way for Anne Boleyn to marry Henry, become his queen and give him a (disappointingly female) child. Cromwell’s sure tread between the King, his two queens, his nobles, other European powers, the Pope’s clergy and Lutheran reformers is deft but deadly, as those who oppose his schemes end up, after due legal process, impoverished, broken or just plain dead.

But it’s by no means all high politics, Cromwell’s private life and personal motivations form much of the story; and the ability to separate these from business may be the key to his success.

The style is distinctive, unusual in its relentless delivery of Cromwell’s thoughts, words and actions; but there are gaps, lacunae, for the reader to infer events and motives. Wits also need to be sharp to unpick the often ambiguous use of the personal pronoun; ‘he’ is usually, but not always, Cromwell even in a sentence that starts by featuring someone else. And of course being medieval everyone has at least two names, one personal (generally Thomas or Mary) and one titular (Duke of this or Lady that).

Another poser is the title of the book; Cromwell never gets to Wolf Hall (home of the Seymours) though he is on his way there as the book ends, so the follow-up ‘Bring up the Bodies’ now becomes a must read.

None of the above detracts from, and some may add to, the excellence of the Man Booker prize winning novel. It is compulsive reading throughout and highly recommended.

The Universe versus Alex Woods – Gavin Extence

Alex Woods is ten years old when he has his first brush with the universe, in the form of a meteorite that crashes through the roof. There are immediate and longer term consequences that lead indirectly to his involvement in the vandalisation of Mr Peterson’s back garden.

The reclusive Isaac Peterson is not impressed, and neither is Alex’s mother who insists her son makes reparations. Thus begins an unlikely friendship between the two loners across several generations.

As things are settling down for Alex the universe (or fate) strikes back with some devastating health news for his friend. How he (now a teenager) comes to terms with the potential effects provides the meat of the novel.

It is a bitter sweet tale, heart-warming and shot through with enough black humour to steer clear of mawkishness. Instead it is genuinely moving with a lump in the throat and a tear on the cheek climax.

Gavin Extence writes it well, combining some coming-of-age anxiety and humour with Kurt Vonnegut philosophy while addressing a sensitive subject with intelligence and respect.

Out of the Ashes – Tim Albone

Read as part of the sport reading journey

Taj Malik Alam and his family left Afghanistan in 1995 to live, with tens of thousands of their country folk, in a refugee camp near Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan. Two years later, as an impressionable twelve year-old boy he was infected with a love of cricket as the 1997 Cricket World Cup came to India & Pakistan, with England playing Sri Lanka at Peshawar itself.

Refugee camp cricket was a bit different, played on dirt tracks amid the detritus of the camp, using tennis balls wrapped in gaffer tape and bats that were often just bits of spare wood.

When in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Americans drove the Taliban into the hinterland, Taj returned to Kabul with an ambitious mission – to bring cricket into his homeland, use it a force for cohesion within the divided land, and create a national team that could help integration with the wider world, projecting a positive image of the war-torn country. And not least, being Afghan, to win everything in sight!

It’s a tall order; few in Afghanistan have even heard of the sport and those that have mistrust it as a foreign, or even worse Pakistani, aberration. Nevertheless through sheer persistence, cheek and daring Taj begs, borrows or cons land, equipment and cash out of government and the wider cricket world, and recruits sufficient players with natural ability, increasing skill but minimal experience, to embark on a remarkable journey.

The target is the Cricket World Cup, the fifty over competition in which the test match playing nations are joined by a few minnows who have to fight their way through qualifying rounds. For the Afghans, new boys initially ranked 90^th in the world, this would mean winning through four tournaments against well established, better resourced countries from all around the world.

As big a challenge as the cricket is the culture shock awaiting the internationally isolated Afghans in the varied and sometimes glamorous locations – Jersey, Tanzania, Argentina, South Africa and Dubai – where the lifestyle is often at odds with their background of poverty and strict Muslim law.

Tim Albone chronicles the adventure through the matches, management disputes and political intrigue with a calm and assured style - this story needs no hyperbole, and the Afghan players are excitable enough. His open access to the squad provides the inside track on extraordinary events.

I’ve followed cricket off and on since boyhood but this book opened up previously unknown strata of the international game with tiny nations or tiny minorities of huge nations competing to claw their way up the hierarchy to have a day in the world spotlight and a shot at the big boys. It’s refreshing and inspiring.

The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M Cain

Frank Chambers is a drifter, but when he bums a meal at Nick Papadakis’ diner and filling station in the Californian sticks he accepts the offer to stay around and work his keep.

Instrumental in his decision is a glimpse of the Greek’s attractive young wife, Cora, and it’s not long before the two of them are thick as thieves. But it’s not robbery they have in mind.

To say more would be a spoiler as passionate, violent and duplicitous events unfold towards an uncertain end; all narrated by Frank in no-nonsense fashion as suits his character and the 1930’s period.

It’s a short and punchy novella from a writer of pedigree, every bit as good as the classic film it inspired.

Racing Through the Dark – David Millar

Read as part of the sport reading journey

David Millar was near the very top of the professional cycling pantheon when he was exposed as a user of performance enhancing drugs in 2004. Nothing unique there, but this Millar’s tale contains no lame apologies, excuses, or shifting of the blame. Instead it is a searing indictment of the sport at the time and no-holds-barred confession of his place within it, wrapped in the personal story of his rise, fall and redemption.

We learn of his early years and the emergence of his prodigious talent leading to an ambition to turn pro. Given a chance he proves his worth and is soon witnessing the secret rituals of ‘recovery’, ‘preparation’, and other dark arts, which he abhors and refuses to countenance.

But his resistance is worn down through the pressures of performance and the responsibilities of team leadership, and when he succumbs, briefly, the performances improve marginally but his enjoyment and self-respect plummet. His resolve to quit the doping and race clean again comes too late and he’s busted, sacked, and suspended from the sport, missing out on the Athens Olympics and spiralling into self-loathing, depression, debt and dependency on a few long-suffering friends.

His rehabilitation is centred on re-entering the sport as an evangelist for clean racing, making him less than popular with some but earning the respect of others. For him it now becomes more about taking part than winning, but the old talent and determination are still there, and will out.

The book has many strengths apart from the doping exposé; giving an insight into the mentality of the sporting success, the physicality and excitement of road racing, the glory of winning, and when you can’t win, the importance even when losing of gaining the respect of your opponents and more crucially of yourself.

As an avid Tour de France follower (normally on TV but this year roadside on the Cote de Grinton Moor) I found nothing here to undermine my admiration of the riders and enjoyment of the spectacle. It was only a shame David Millar was omitted from the 2014 line up in this, his retirement year.

The Cobra – Frederick Forsyth

The drug-related death of one of the White House staff prompts the President to ask the question – can the cocaine industry be destroyed?

The report that comes back says maybe; but only if a certain Paul Devereaux is given free reign (and a budget of $2 billion) to plan and implement a strategy. It’s agreed and “The Cobra” builds his team of experts and armoury of ships, planes and weaponry.

When he is ready the Cobra strikes, and shipments of Columbian pure are intercepted with stealth, secrecy and scant regard for former niceties of international law – neatly sidestepped by re-defining cocaine trafficking as terrorism enabling the rules of warfare to apply instead.

The final stage of the plan, as supplies get scarce, injects the venom of misinformation into the paranoid underworld of the drugs barons, fomenting civil war and bloodletting.

The violation and violence gets increasingly difficult for the political masters in Washington and London to stomach; can they see it through or will they pull the plug on Devereaux? Can they trust the Cobra to deliver to their agenda, and are they powerless to prevent him achieving his own?

It is typical Forsyth; all high tech gadgets and high powered facts and figures that convince (rightly or wrongly) that he’s found stuff out and he’s letting you into the know. The narrative moves quickly and smoothly to a tense finale, but I find it difficult to identify with the protagonists, whose every plan runs smooth and whose tricks and cons play out to perfection.

My reality is somewhat different with cock-up and confusion reigning supreme, but some may be comforted by the fiction of masterful organisation portrayed here.

Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken relates the extraordinary life story of Louis Zamperini, born early in the twentieth century in the USA of Italian stock. Any of several incidents in Zamperini’s life would be considered remarkable; that he went from on to another through a chain of, mainly, misfortune makes for a story barely believable.

His wild youth was diverted from delinquency by the discovery of a talent and love for running, which he pursued, becoming a top college athlete and a young pretender at the Berlin Olympic of 1936. Great things were expected at the Helsinki Games scheduled for 1940…

Helsinki of course never happened, with Europe plunged into war, and by 1942 Louis was in the US Air Force, risking life and limb as bombsight operator on a B24 in the Pacific. And then he was literally in the Pacific as the B24 ditched with only Louis and two crewmates alive to scramble aboard the inflatable life raft.

An incredible number of weeks later, after surviving storms, hunger, thirst, punctures, sharks and a strafing Japanese Zero fighter plane, they spot land in the form of a small island and start to row ashore.

Frying pans and fire have nothing on this – it is a Japanese base and what follows are two years of “life” as an unofficial prisoner of war (eventually declared dead by the US authorities). Moved from camp to camp, each more brutal than the last, he ends up in mainland Japan, and US air strikes soon make it clear the way the war is going. But is that good news or bad for the PoWs – will it result in liberation, execution or (an option unknown to them) nuclear incineration.

Hillenbrand tells the story brilliantly, her meticulous research producing a balanced mix of personal detail and historical context; eschewing sensation for clear reportage, which allows events to speak for themselves and so have even more impact. It is a good approach; Zamperini’s powers of survival need no exaggeration.

Following on from her earlier “Seabiscuit”, the excellence of the book is no surprise; the only surprise is that I had never heard of the remarkable Louis Zamperini before now.

The Redbreast – Jo Nesbo

Shooting an American secret service agent during a joint operation, however understandably, would not normally be a good career move for DS Harry Hole of the Oslo police; but as part of the smoothing over of the incident he finds himself now a DI seconded to the Norwegian intelligence service.

There he is assigned to monitoring neo-Nazi activity and filtering information referred from the regional police. Neither excites him until he reads of the discovery of unusual spent ammunition cartridges which, to him, point to the importation of a deadly rifle and a potential assassination threat.

While Hole follows his enquiries, the reader gets to follow an old man, unwell but on a mission, and with bitter memories of his time in World War II, when his country rapidly capitulated to Nazi Germany and when his countrymen split three ways: those who stood by in silence, those who resisted, and those who collaborated and joined the German army to fight the Russians.

Harry sees a link between the rifle, through the neo-Nazis, to the old wounds of Norway under Quisling, but it’s tenuous and obstacles appear within the forces of law and order – is this legitimate prioritisation or something more sinister?

The old soldier’s back story and Harry’s investigation unfold in tandem, pleasingly complex with blind alleys and red herrings, building tension as the truth dawns and time becomes of the essence.

This is my first Jo Nesbo / Harry Hole thriller and I was impressed with every aspect. Well written (and translated), well plotted with slowly developing reveals, unobtrusive glimpses of Hole’s personal life, and an interesting historical context. It is long (600+ pages) but reads less than that and is never dull.

I will be back for more.

The Monkey King – Timothy Mo

In 1950’s Hong Kong, Wallace Nolasco’s marriage to May Ling was arranged solely to satisfy the needs of the respective parents.

Mr Nolasco senior, respected but impoverished school teacher, had only his Portuguese name to pass on (the genes long lost in decades of intermarriage with the Cantonese) so sought a dowry and prospects for his son; Mr Poon, successful but miserly businessman, needed to get his daughter (by his second concubine) off his hands and a ‘Mecanese’ hybrid was an acceptable compromise between an unattainable high ranking Cantonese and an undesirable Chinese of lower rank.

So Wallace is thrust into the already crowded Poon household comprising in addition to May Ling, Mr & Mrs Poon, their spinster daughters, their son and his wife and sons, and a couple of servants (‘amahs’) who rule the kitchen and perform domestic duties without grace.

There is a complex pecking order and Wallace’s place initially is firmly at the bottom. Undaunted he uses his ingenuity to create alliances, gain favour, and climb, step by step, through the family rankings until he becomes more use than ornament to Mr Poon in his business dealings in the city.

Life in the Poon household, and later in a remote New Territories village (where Wallace is exiled temporarily due to a need to lie low) is told with a deadpan humour that is more wry than laugh out loud. The trials and tribulations, petty victories and manoeuvrings are played out against the strange exotic world of the colony adjacent to the newly Red China.

Written before Mo’s brilliant ’Sour, Sweet’, The Monkey King is engaging enough but lacks the contrasts – light and dark, East and West - of the later work.

Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai – Ruiyan Xu

Read as part W of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

The only X on the shelf and an intriguing title.

The Review

Li Jing is a success, running his own financial investment business in Shanghai, married to the attractive and intelligent Zhou Meiling with whom he has a young son.

Then, in a gas explosion, a shard of glass pierces his head and incapacitates the part of his brain that processes language into speech. As a result he can no longer speak his native Chinese but can utter a few words of the English he knew as a child in America, not used since.

This “Broca’s aphasia” is rare and a specialist neurologist, Dr Rosalyn Neil, is flown in from America to join the medical team treating Li Jing. She is glad to make the trip, leaving behind a recently failed marriage, but finds the culture shock (convincingly described) a struggle until some ex-pats take her in tow.

What follows, slowly but never dully, is an exploration of the importance of spoken language and the feeling of impotence that results from its loss. The effect on Li Jing’s business, built on his ability to charm his contacts and clients, could be catastrophic but it his relationship with Meiling that suffers most. His inability to communicate with her as of old, contrasts starkly with the growing ease with which he can connect, using his improving English, with Rosalyn.

Of course those who speak the same language (Rosalyn and her fellow westerners, Meiling and her father-in-law) often fail to communicate too, so this is not all about a rare medical condition but also about a general malaise.

Li Jing’s inexorable drift on the tide of language from east to west is told with empathy from all points of view by Ruiyan Xu (herself a mixture of the two cultures) to produce a thoughtful book that may lack action but is not without tension of the will he won’t he, will she won’t she, kind.

Read another?

Probably not – intense emotion is all very well but I like some light relief and a bit more to be happening in my books.

Red Mist – David Tomlinson

Louis Case’s size, strength and way with words suited his career choice of minder, but his anger management issues less so, and throwing a client out of a sixteen storey window brought it to a premature end and earned him a sabbatical at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

On release he finds therapy in painting pottery and leaning to play the guitar (in neither of which has he any talent) but when his music teacher, Clarissa Glendenning, is killed in a hit and run the old instincts take over and he plans retribution.

Moving swiftly and violently through his criminal and dodgy police contacts he tracks down the perpetrator while simultaneously putting on a memorial concert for Clarissa, performed by her hapless pupils (she seemed to specialise in teaching the talentless and the tone deaf). The climax of both the hunt and the concert involve significant spillage of blood.

Red Mist is short, concisely written, with some choice turns of phrase. The violence is mitigated by the black humour that courses through the book’s (well-opened) veins. I enjoyed it and recommend it as a good short read.

Tiny Sunbirds Far Away – Christie Watson

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey.

Thirteen year-old Blessing’s privileged life in the well-heeled Ikeja suburb of Lagos comes to an abrupt halt when her mother finds her father ‘on top of another woman’. It is he that has the good job, money and position so Mama packs up Blessing and her elder brother Ezikiel, and heads back to her parent’s village deep in the (Niger) delta.

Blessing’s new life in her grandparents’ compound lacks the home comforts she is used to – electricity, running water, flush toilets, TV, and air-con, but in time she finds new emotional ties and cultural values that compensate.

But life on the delta is hard for her and her family. Little money means no electricity, sporadic schooling, basic food and the risk of running out of medication for the asthmatic and nut allergic Ezikiel (who goes hungry with virtually everything cooked in nut oil).

Mama’s search for work brings her into contact with the white oil-workers and executives, and her earnings grow suspiciously. Ezikiel takes a different view of the oil industry and leans towards the rebel groups that infest the riverbank. As for Blessing, she is taken under her grandmother’s wing and becomes her apprentice in her role as birth assistant (midwife).

It is through this role that she discovers the horrors of ‘cutting’ (female circumcision or female genital mutilation); seeing the traumatic effects on affected women come home to roost during childbirth.

Against this political, economic and cultural turbulence, home life goes on with relationships ebbing and flowing (much like a West African version of The Archers) until some climactic events shift it into a higher state of being. The outcomes stay uncertain to the end, but a plausible and satisfying resolution ensues.  

The book is well written, giving what seems a fairly balanced picture of Nigeria at the time (1990’s?); maybe a touch long, with for me too much detail on the pain, joys and drama of giving birth. But these are minor quibbles and do not detract from a good and, for me, unusual read. 

Toast – Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater has written about cooking and eating for many years but here he looks back at the food and drink he grew up with to lure the reader into a nostalgic account of the tastes he enjoyed or endured as a child of the fifties and sixties – such as tinned ham, Instant Whip and sherbet fountains.

This alone would be entertaining, particularly if like me you are of that generation. But Slater uses his remembrance of food past as a framework to support his account of growing up through at first oblique, then more direct, references to his parents, siblings and other adults he encounters, all seen through the perspicacity of youth but interpreted with the wisdom of experience.

The connection between food and feeling is well established, and the subtitle of the book – the story of a boy’s hunger – surely relates to an emotional rather than nutritional shortfall in his upbringing. Not that he is angry or bitter, more regretful in hindsight of opportunities missed to give and receive love surely felt but rarely shown.

The writing is good with entertaining turns of phrase and brutal honesty in parts. A nice feature of the writing is the way the language matures subtly as the narrator moves through adolescence, making it seem more contemporaneously written than it actually is.

It’s a fine book, the description of the foodstuffs brought back memories I could taste and his childhood memories are both painful and funny (Adrian Mole-like) and the two strands are bound together without artifice to give an unusual and rewarding read.

The Adversary – Michael Walters

Read as part W of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

This one leapt off the shelf due to its mix of a familiar genre (crime) in an unfamiliar and intriguing setting (Mongolia).

The Review

With press reports that the Ulan Baatar police are failing to take seriously a missing persons case, Doripalam, Head of Serious Crimes Team, steps in to add some high-profile policing. A good job too (although a little late) as when he arrives to interview the mother of the missing teenage boy he finds only her brutally murdered body in her ransacked ger (a Mongolian tented dwelling).

It’s almost a welcome distraction from a recently collapsed trial at which a notorious but untouchable crime boss, Muunokhoi, walked free when some prosecution evidence was exposed as faked.

Tunjin is the culpable detective, immediately suspended, but his life is more at risk than his career as Muunokhoi is not the forgiving and forgetting type; so Tunjin’s off on the run.

Investigating the whole mess is Nergui, ex-head of Serious Crimes and now upstairs in the Justice Ministry. His exact brief is unclear but his agenda is less so – he and Muunokhoi have history, and this is personal.

The story unfolds as a three-hander with Nergui, Doripalam and Tunjin working in loose concert via politics, policing and personal enterprise against an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful opponent, who for the first time appears uncharacteristically to be panicking. Someone has something he fears could expose him – is it to do with the missing boy or something the attractive female judge, Sarangarel Radnaa, knows from a previous life?

The action is pretty relentless, switching between the three viewpoints and taking us from the high society and mean streets of UB out to the nomadic settlements of the limitless steppes. The body count rises as the forces of good and evil converge for a final climactic showdown.

There are some thoughtful interludes; Nergui and Doripalam care about their country and provide some insights into modern day Mongolia, with the previous Soviet and current decadent Western capitalist influences both grafted onto bedrock of tradition and culture suited to neither.

Read another?

Nergui and Doripalam make a good team; this is their second outing and I will certainly look out for “The Shadow Walker”.

The Old Ways – Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane takes us walking across a variety of landscapes (even seascapes) following some ancient ways, which for him are windows on the past with the personal history of all who use them trodden into the fabric of the route.

He also makes a close connection between walking and thinking, with the rhythm of the steps providing a stimulus for the mind to explore the inner self as the body treads new or familiar pathways.

More food for thought comes from people he shares part of his walks with, who too find meaning in meandering; and though most are living he also walks with the dead, reviewing the works of earlier writers who he feels offer insights into the paths he follows, the places he passes and the truths he seeks. Prime among these is war poet Edward Thomas, and a short poignant sketch of his final months is slipped in.

All these strands are layered on top of, or below, the physical landscapes described with an appreciative and knowing eye, where character, not beauty, is most valued.

The prose is both spare and poetic, in places mystical, in others prosaic, but always sumptuously readable. It may sound a bit of an oddity but it does work, and in it I found reassuringly complex reasons why I find such enjoyment in such a seemingly simple activity as walking.

The Honey Guide – Richard Crompton

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey.

Mollel is a Nairobi policeman, ex CID but now busted down to Traffic. He’s a Maasai and when a Maasai girl’s mutilated body is found in Uhuru Park his insider knowledge gets him in on the case.

The trail seems to lead to some high profile figures, and as this is December 2007 with a presidential election just days away, politics threatens to interfere with his pursuit of the murderer. And with politics in Kenya a violent sectarian business, his chief of police wants his men keeping order at the polls not stirring up more trouble.

Against the background of mounting tribal tension (mainly Kikuyu against Luo with the Maasai one of several minority players) Mollel ignores orders to desist and doggedly follows the evidence, on the way uncovering lies and corruption that seem endemic in the Kenyan capital. And of course, being a cop, he has his personal problems, struggling to come to terms with the recent death of his wife and taking on sole responsibility for a young son he can’t connect with emotionally.

The story is fast paced, action-packed and full of twists and turns, uncertain to the end. The setting feels authentic and Crompton slips in some insights into post-colonial East Africa and the Kenyan national psyche, where harmonious personal relations can all too easily be swept aside by tribal affiliations and mutual suspicion based on past misdeeds.

An enjoyable read and for crime aficionados a refreshing change from regional British sleuths or Nordic noir.

The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hester Prynne is with child, but has been without visible husband for too long to account for her condition, and in seventeenth century puritan New England this is not just embarrassing, it is a heinous sin.

Worse, she will not disclose the father so has to face the ignominy alone and her penance includes the wearing of bright red A (for adulteress?) on her clothing – the scarlet letter.

At the point of her denouncement her long lost husband turns up but decides to keep stum about their relationship, and swears Hester to secrecy with the threat of revealing the identity of father of her child, which he has cleverly deduced.

Time passes. Hester gains some acceptance in society and daughter Pearl thrives in a wild and woolly way. But the male members of the triangle decline; one into a guilt-induced despair and the other into a self-consuming obsession of revenge served ice cold.

This American classic is a slow burner, so slow at the beginning that it is a wonder it ignites at all, with the ‘Custom House’ introductory irrelevant and not very interesting. Once the story proper starts there is power, created by the ponderous, repetitive, overblown prose, and a growing, not tension, but pressure. This builds like a boil on the back of an adolescent’s neck, and similarly you know the outcome will be messy and painful but bring eventual relief.

I’m glad I can now say I’ve read it, but my recommendation is only embark on it if you seek similar satisfaction - and skip that introductory.