The Best a Man Can Get – John O’Farrell

Michael Adams loves his bachelor lifestyle sharing a South London flat with three other ‘lads’ that also serves as a studio for his work producing music for advertising jingles. He also loves his wife and two kids at his home north of the river, which he frequents as often as his ‘work’ (or laddish distractions) allows. Neither household is aware of the other – yet.

But burning the candle at both ends is difficult to sustain and Michael’s best of both worlds is in danger of turning into his worst nightmare.

Rich comedic veins are mined with skill and a commendable avoidance of cliché. But it’s not all played for laughs. As Michael’s troubles grow he has to re-examine his core values and reconsider exactly what is meant by the best a man can get.

Good for a laugh and good for a relaxing read.

The Bone Clocks – David Mitchell

This book is best described as a linked series of six novellas, spaced about a decade apart, with a new first person narrator each time.

1984: Troubled teenager Holly Sykes (treated as a child for hearing ‘radio voices’ in her head) runs away from home in Gravesend and encounters a mix of folk: some normal like Ed Brubeck, a boy from school who gives her practical help and advice; some weird like Esther Little, who seems to know her already and imparts an enigmatic message; and some positively paranormal, though that encounter is immediately redacted from her conscious memory. Her week of rebellion ends when a domestic crisis, little brother Jacko going missing, calls her home.

1991: Hugo lamb, Cambridge undergraduate, clever and he knows it, is in with the posh set, whose members he sees as fair game for his exploitative schemes. While skiing with his rich chums in Switzerland he learns that a scam back home has had unforeseen consequences that make a return unwise, but his companions abroad are also in trouble locally so he seeks refuge with a barmaid he has been targeting with limited success – one Holly Sykes. Sparks fly as estuary girl with attitude meets posh boy with class and charm, snowed-in together in her bedsit. But posh boy has also met some strange characters with a bizarre but tempting future to sell. Which way to go?

2004: It is Sharon Sykes wedding bash in Brighton. Sharon is Holly’s younger sister but the narrator is Ed Brubeck, now Holly’s partner and father to her daughter Aoife. Ed’s a war correspondent in the Middle East and while he recounts the events of the wedding he also reflects on his recent traumatic posting. Then a home based trauma occurs – Aoife goes missing (an echo of Jacko’s disappearance) and it needs one of Holly’s unconscious psychic utterances (a radio voice) to direct the search, during which reference is made to something called The Script.

2015: Our next narrator, for a five year span, is Crispin Hershey, author, living a literary globe-trotting existence on the back of his first novel, well received but not matched since. He’s bitter, cynical and not above taking revenge on a critic he blames for his decline. At conventions around the world he repeatedly bumps into Holly Sykes, now a successful author herself with a book about her ‘radio voices’ experiences. Crispin is at first dismissive of her credentials, but after experiencing one of her psychic episodes first hand comes to respect, indeed love her in his own curmudgeonly fashion. He also has brushes with someone trying to warn him about his part in The Script; when he brushes them off it doesn’t end well.

2025: At last someone who knows what The Script is – Marinus is an ‘atemporalist’ and through his narrative all the weird stuff becomes clearer. It is all part of the centuries old conflict between the good and the evil of their kind, which seems to be building to a cataclysmic clash. Holly Sykes, visiting New York, is an unknowing pawn in the end-game, which game will end with few survivors.

2043: Holly survived, but to what end? Eighteen years later it is a world much changed and in a ‘post-darkening’ decline, sans oil, sans internet, and running low on food and essential medicines. Back at the ancestral smallholding in rural Ireland she ekes out an existence, caring as best she can for her two grandchildren – Aoife’s daughter Lorelei and Rafiq an adopted refugee boy – for whom the future looks bleak. Is this really the end that The Script demanded?

The book is a tour de force. Six hundred pages, six novellas, intriguingly linked, covering six decades with six very different narrators (even the one repeated individual is a different person sixty years on). Around the gripping storylines is perceptive detail of past and present times and speculative ideas on where current trends may lead, chillingly, in the future.

As well as links between the novellas the author reintroduces characters from earlier books: Hugo Lamb is Jason Taylor’s big boy cousin in Black Swan Green; and Marinus has a bit part in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

The paranormal element intrudes only slightly into five of the six episodes, barely affecting the mainstream stories (while subtly laying down a breadcrumb trail towards the future); the other episode is full-on fantasy but easily manageable even for someone generally unfamiliar with that genre.

Another typically genre-defying David Mitchell novel of great worth delivered with trademark fluency and style.

White Teeth – Zadie Smith

White Teeth provides a lively insight into inter-generational multicultural working class life in London between the late seventies and early nineties through the lives of three families connected by marriage, friendship and shared experience. At the kernel is the unlikely friendship of Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal forged, as we soon learn, at the end of World War II.

But the book starts on New Year’s Day 1975 when Archie’s suicide attempt fails and turns instead into an engagement and subsequent marriage to Clara Bowden, many years his junior and the daughter of an immigrant West Indian Jehovah’s Witness.

Samad also marries a considerably younger woman, Alsana, and the two ex–comrades spend many an evening discussing life at O’Connell’s snooker club, its Irish heritage maintained by definitely un-Irish host Abdul-Mickey. Their parallel lives continue to echo with both producing offspring. The Jones union is blessed with daughter Irie; the Iqbal’s produce twin boys, but Magid’s and Millat’ differing personalities belie their physical similarity.

As the younger generation gains adolescence an altercation at school brings Josh Chalfen into their ambit; and with him his super-parents Joyce and Marcus. The Chalfens are high achievers (she a horticulturalist, he a geneticist) with an unshakeable belief in their approach to parenting, which they freely exercise on Irie, Magid and Millat.

The interference is not universally appreciated, and when Marcus’s latest research project becomes controversial, it produces a catalyst for conflict. Battle lines are drawn and forces converge towards a potentially life changing climax.

The book sprawls deliciously over 500 pages, giving each character time and space to develop and interact (dipping back into prior generations to give even more context). There is comedy in the detail and pathos in the larger themes as cultures clash, generations battle and ideologies strive for supremacy, sometimes within the same character.

It was an acclaimed debut novel when published in 2000 and still reads fresh and relevant today.

The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins

The girl is Rachel, divorced, dissatisfied and drinking to excess; the train is a commuter bone shaker – the 8:04 into London or the 17:56 back. During a regular but unscheduled stop at signals Rachel habitually gazes out of the carriage window at the lives of those whose houses back onto the line just there.

Two houses hold particular interest for her. At one she is enthralled by a couple (she christens them Jason & Jess) living the idyll – morning coffee on the terrace, sharing a glass of wine in the evening, always touching each other, and to all appearances clearly in love. At another house, a few doors down, she used to live but it is now the home of her ex-husband with his new wife and baby.

Rachel begins the narrative in an almost diary fashion, musing on the events of her day, how she feels and reflecting (bitterly) how she got into her current state; though in all aspects she is hampered by alcohol induced memory gaps. But what becomes clear is that something is happening with ‘Jess’ – Rachel sees her kissing another man, then she disappears from view.

Not just from Rachel’s view either – a missing persons case is reported in the local paper. The search is on for Megan Hipswell, who is clearly ‘Jess’ in real life.

Now Megan’s voice is heard, but her narration, in similar diary format, begins a year earlier. It alternates with Rachel’s, but while Rachel’s moves forward day by day Megan’s skips weeks and months progressively catching up to what became a fateful day.

Rachel can’t help getting involved, her voyeurism somehow entitling her to befriend Megan’s husband Scott (the real ‘Jason’), which in turn brings her back into the ambit of ex-husband Tom and his wife Anna. This brings a third narrator, Anna, into the mix, and the story bounces between the three women, revealing some tangled history while bringing out some clever nuances in perspective.

The action, plot and reveal is good enough for any thriller, but the unusual construction and the forensic unpicking of the protagonists’ lives (the real ones behind the outward impressions) lift the book well above the norm.

Highly recommended.

Running For Their Lives – Mark Whitaker

In this dual biography Mark Whitaker relates the lives of Arthur Newton and Peter Gavuzzi; names not as well-known as maybe they deserve to be given their incredible achievements as long distance runners.

Arthur Newton was born in Britain but settled in Natal, trying to make his fortune farming, but having invested time and money improving the land he fell foul of the South African government’s plans to separate farmland into racial divides. His land was in the wrong place, became worthless and the compensation offered derisory. He hit upon a novel idea to publicise his grievance – become famous; the means to fame would be as a runner and the competition he targeted was the 54 mile Comrades (double) Marathon from Durban to Maritzburg.

He worked out his own training regime and running strategy, and despite starting the race as a thirty-nine year old unknown, won it by a clear half hour. This and other successes did little to move forward the farm dispute, and even taking his campaign back to Britain to set a new world record for 50 miles, was to no avail. Back in Natal he gave up the battle and, penniless, walked to Rhodesia. There he got back on the road and broke the 100 mile record, beating a relay team of four athletes.

His farm gone and his days as a top class runner numbered (he was by now 45) he had little choice but to make a move from amateur to professional and entered a bizarre race set up by American impresario CC Pyle. The course across the USA from Los Angeles to New York had athletes running an average 40 miles a day for eighty-four days. Amazingly there were 199 entrants for the ‘Transcontinental’.

Among them was Peter Gavuzzi, until then a steward on a Cunard liner who maintained his fitness by running laps of the deck. Lured by the prize money he, along with the others set off over mountains, through deserts, as much part of a travelling circus as a race. Running together, hours ahead of most, they formed an unlikely friendship – Newton older, middle class, articulate, Gavuzzi young, working class and deferential – sharing a love of running and the necessary embracement of solitude that few others understood.

Professional running, particularly road running, was not a commercial success, depending on novelty as much as performance – Newton & Gavuzzi raced in six day snowshoe marathons and against horses – so when both eventually retired it could have been to obscurity. Yet both men’s later lives contained incident of note.

Gavuzzi was caught on the wrong side of the English Channel when Nazi Germany invaded France, and spent years as a prisoner of war. Newton’s war was a longer and personal one against the athletics establishment. He was convinced his unconventional training theories would benefit British runners but he was barred from engaging with them (officially at least) due to his ‘professional status’.

Newton and Gavuzzi (happily returned from France) got belated recognition in the post-war years as interest in athletics increased in the publicity spotlight of a burgeoning Olympic movement and the race for the four minute mile. But that same Olympic movement, by capping their distance races at a mere 26 miles also rendered Newton’s records at 50 and 100 miles obsolete, and the likes of him and Gavuzzi to relative obscurity.

So the book does a great service in retelling the story. Its tangential departures into early South African politics, American sporting showmanship, Second World War internment, and the amateur versus professional Olympic controversy adds context and depth to the world these two, otherwise unexceptional, men found themselves living through.

The Revenant – Michael Punke

After losing both his career and his fiancée (the back story revealed early) Hugh Glass finds himself in St Louis with no clear idea of his next move. He joins an expedition up the Missouri River in the employ of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

It is the 1820’s and west of the Mississippi is hotchpotch of dangers. The native American Indians are subdued but unreliable, some keen to trade, others keen to kill; the winter in the Rockies is severe; and the grizzly bears roam wild and free.

While out scouting Glass comes across a she bear with cubs. She goes for him and though he puts a shot in her chest it doesn’t halt the charging beast and Glass has his arm and back clawed and his leg badly bitten before the bullet takes effect and reduces the bear to a lifeless mass on top of him.

Found by the main group and inexpertly patched together Glass hangs on to life but he slows down progress, dangerous with the hostile Arikara tribe in the vicinity. Two volunteers agree to stay put, the expectation being to bury him when he finally expires; young Jim Bridger out of gratitude for Glass’s past kindnesses, the mercenary John Fitzgerald out of greed for the promised extra pay and with an eye to inheriting Glass’s rather fine rifle.

When Glass inconveniently fails to die he is abandoned, left with only his clothes and blanket; Fitzgerald making off with his rifle, powder and flint, and Bridger with his hunting knife. Glass still refuses to give up the ghost and instead begins to crawl.

What follows is a story of survival over the stacked odds of climate, starvation, wild beasts, and wilder Indians; and of revenge on the two miscreants not so much for the abandonment but for the theft of his only means of self-support. Hugh Glass will survive (the included map gives that away) so the real tension is in the pursuit of Bridger and Fitzgerald.

It is a well written yarn, based on elements of truth, which make it authentic in its setting and detail - a western with a difference and a pretty good read.

The Road to Reckoning – Robert Lautner

New York 1837, and twelve year old Thomas Walker’s father’s business, supplying spectacles, is not going well as the US economy sags. However John Walker gets wind of a new invention by one Samuel Colt – a factory produced (so cheap) hand gun with a revolving chamber that gives “five pistols in each hand” – and decides to take the job selling them.

But the market for such weaponry is in the wilder west – Illinois & Indiana – so equipped with an order book, a dozen samples, and a working wooden replica, father and son set off by wagon as travelling salesmen dealing in death and destruction.

At an early stop at a frontier town called Milton, the sales pitch to a storekeeper is interrupted by a drifter emerging from the bar, who ridicules the claims made (and the wooden toy) and forces father and son into a humiliating exit from the store and the town.

But there is no escape; as they camp that night their tormentor, and three henchmen, arrive to continue the discussion. John Walker again attempts to walk away but pays the price of a bullet in the back (no spoiler here – it is only page 30).

The men take the money and guns but leave Thomas with the wagon, horse, wooden gun and order book, which he gathers up and leaving his father’s corpse under a blanket returns to Milton.

His one aim is to get back home and to that end he latches on to ex-ranger Henry Stands who is heading that way. Reluctantly at first, Stands takes charge of him, and just as well as the murderous gang realise Thomas’s testimony could get them hanged, and so are in pursuit.

Adventures ensue with young Thomas also at danger from religious do-gooders and a reclusive mountain man who is rather too welcoming.

Related by the now mature Thomas looking back, the prose reflects a mid-western slow drawl that adds authenticity at some cost to fluency. But at just a couple of hundred pages that is no drawback to a very readable western.

A Burnable Book – Bruce Holsinger

London 1385, and at Moorfields outside the walls of the medieval city a young woman of quality is pursued, caught and brutalised, the attacker demanding “doovray leebro” after each beating. The book he seeks is not given up; the woman dies without revealing what she knows but not before calling out a cryptic couplet.

Nearby, hidden and paralysed with fear, another woman of lower rank (it is hard to get lower) listens to the words, intended she feels for her, as she clutches to her chest a cloth-wrapped parcel thrust at her by the fleeing gentlewoman moments earlier.

Though the book disappears into London’s seedier quarter its rumoured existence, loss and contents preoccupy the rich and powerful in King Richard II’s court – nobles, lawyers and the clergy all want to get their hands on it. Why? – It is a book of prophecies that foretell the death of thirteen kings of England starting with William the Conqueror. Twelve are already deceased (in the mode foretold) leaving Richard as the thirteenth, alive for now but not for long according to the book.

So is it a prophecy or a plot; and if a plot would not such forewarning foil it? However in the paranoid world of fourteenth century politics there is what the nineteenth century would term a catch 22: to admit to knowledge of the plot is proof of involvement and so treasonable. So although everyone but the king knows of the book no-one dare tell him.

It falls to John Gower, poet, dealer in confidential information, and general fixer to track down and recover the toxic volume, helped or hindered by his friend (and better poet) the renowned Geoffrey Chaucer. But the Moorfields murderer is also on the trail and as the book passes from hand to hand mayhem and violence follow.

Holsinger populates his novel with a mixture of historic and fictional characters and furnishes it with authentic-seeming details of medieval city life – from high court politics to the sex trade in the stews. His use of (possibly fictitious) vernacular, liberally in the latter context, cleverly obviates the need to use the more familiar (and offensive to some) nouns and verbs.

The novel rattles along for 450 pages alternating between Gower’s first person narrative and third person accounts covering the other characters’ movements. In addition to history and murder a subtler theme of deception is woven into the work giving it a flavour of a John le Carre thriller. The ending has a twist or two and ties up all loose ends satisfactorily.

It is a good enough book not to burn, particularly if historical fiction is your thing.

The Big Short – Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis worked briefly, incompetently (in his view), yet successfully, trading stocks and bonds for a Wall Street broker in the early 1980’s. He left and wrote an exposure of the folly he found there in his book “Liar’s Poker”, fully expecting the unsustainable industry he had been a part of to crash sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately for us all it took a full two decades of even more ballooning business in “financial derivatives” before the bubble burst. In The Big Short he describes that crash of 2008 from the viewpoint of those few traders who not only foresaw the collapse but decided that money, big money, could be made from it.

The how is complicated, but Lewis builds up the reader’s knowledge logically, explaining the nature of “sub-prime” home loans (those not 100% backed by the property value but predicated on the lender’s ability to pay at least the interest or to repay the loan from the later sale of the house on an assumed rising market). The industry then went on to package those dubious base products into mortgage bonds and sold them on to largely unsuspecting investors who relied on “triple A” ratings awarded by agencies such as Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s who either did not know or did not care about the inherent fragility of the underlying loans. In another spiral of self-deception those mortgage bonds were subsequently lumped together into vast “collateralised debt obligations” (CDOs) and sold on yet again.

That this became a sort of pyramid selling (or in US terminology - a Ponzi scheme) became apparent to a few perceptive but maverick dealers who decided they could profit from “shorting” the market. Shorting involves finding a way to profit from the fall in value of a stock or any financial product (the reverse of the normal investment process of picking stocks whose value will rise). In the case of financial derivatives such as the CDOs, the method was a “credit default swap”, effectively insuring against the fall in value of the product. For a relatively small annual premium there was the potential for huge gains, particularly as the US economy stalled, home owners lost jobs and property prices fell.

And a key element of this was that you could insure products you didn’t even own - it was betting pure and simple.

Lewis, in his attractive breezy style, concentrates as much on the personalities of those maverick dealers involved in this “Big Short” as the technicalities, which makes it an entertaining as well as informative read. Their stories, as outsiders betting against the received wisdom (or foolishness) of a seemingly rich and all-powerful business, has a David and Goliath quality. They emerge not as villains who caused the crash, but clear-sighted individuals whose initial warnings were ignored and who decided if the financial world was going to hell in a handcart they would at least make a bob or two out of the wreckage.

An Expert in Murder – Nicola Upson

Crime novelist and playwright Josephine Tey is travelling from her Inverness home to London where her latest play “Richard of Bordeaux“ is nearing the end of its successful West End run. She meets on the train young Elspeth Simmons who is an admirer of the play and has tickets for a show; the two pass a pleasant journey, sharing a meal, and agreeing to meet again.

Though they alight together Elspeth realises she has left a bag on the train and goes off to retrieve it, promising to meet Josephine at the theatre the following night. It is an appointment she cannot keep; back on the train she meets with a grisly end.

Enter Archie Penrose, detective inspector, called in to investigate the murder, who finds the corpse not splayed in disarray but carefully arranged in a theatrical tableau clearly full of meaning. What is the meaning is unclear, but its theatrical nature fills him with concern not only for the victim but also for Josephine, for whom he thinks the attack may have been intended.

Archie’s protective instinct is clearly based on more than just professional regard for Josephine. They are old friends (their history emerges later) and Josephine is lodging with her friends, his cousins, the Motley sisters. They are theatre set designers and with most of the other characters also involved in the dramatic arts (actors, directors, producers, even stage managers) the scene is firmly set for the whodunit.

It is a well-crafted tale with a few red herrings to negotiate before a clever, unpredictable reveal. The setting gives an insight into the theatre world of the late 1930’s, both luvvy and seedy. The writing style is articulate without being wordy; with enough inconsequential detail to add authenticity and atmosphere without becoming overblown. The plot is as complicated as necessary for the genre, but can be followed with minimal turning back of pages. And don’t be misled by the gentile nature of the lead characters; there is violence, gore, action and tension.

This is (I think) the first of Upson’s “Josephine Tey” novels (Tey was a real author, in the mould of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers). It is the second I have read and enjoyed, though I did prefer “Two for Sorrow” [reviewed Nov 2013].

The Game of Our Lives – David Goldblatt

The game is football, association football to be clear, and the English game to be specific. In seven extended essays Goldblatt surveys the game as it stands in 2014, placing it in the context of its own history and more interestingly as a mirror reflecting wider social change.

Thus he argues how the moneyed Premiership has emerged inevitably from globalisation and deregulation; and describes how the consequent commercialisation of the match day experience as a packaged product has undermined but not yet destroyed the deep-seated tribal passions.

The third essay provides a whistle-stop tour of English clubs, region by region, concentrating on relationships between the clubs and their communities; too brief to be anything but an entertaining aide-memoire to those already familiar with their football, and in my view too superficial in dismissing owners, managers and players as mainly useless.

Later the ‘national’ concept of the English game is discussed relative to the other ‘home nations’ (contrast is drawn to other sports where it is the UK or Great Britain that represents national feeling); and the governance of the game gets a good pounding for its amateurishness and unpreparedness for the modern world.

Chapters on race and gender complete the book, setting out how attitudes within the game have both reacted to and shaped changing social norms. These may be the most interesting for general readers, or those more interested in sociology than football.

The mix of football and sociology works well, but the articulate Goldblatt’s prose makes no concessions to those who follow their sport in the Mail or the Mirror - this is more for Guardian readers out there. The points are well made, evidence is painstakingly referenced, and he clearly has mastery of his subject; but he mainly sets out the problems without offering suggested solutions.

An academic and though-provoking read for those with a sociological interest, delivering a comprehensive version of what its subtitle promises: “the making and meaning of English football”.

Life After Life – Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson loves playing with time. Most straightforwardly her Jackson Brodie books use teasing flashbacks to enhance the narrative, while her debut novel ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ was full of inter-generational echoes. In Life After Life it gets more complicated.

Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 but dies immediately as the doctor, held up by the snow, fails to arrive in time to deal with a tangled cord. Then Ursula Todd is born on 11 February 1910 and the doctor, held up by the snow, arrives just in time to deal successfully with a tangled cord and present a healthy baby to mother Sylvie.

Thus Ursula begins a lifetime (or several) in which she grows, succumbs to perils, regresses to 11 February 1910, grows again, survives perils, only to meet new ones. The perils are both personal – a beach, a high window, puberty, domestic violence – and epic – two world wars and their aftermath.

Though Ursula experiences discomforting feelings of déjà vu and premonitions of danger, it is only in later cycles that a more conscious realisation dawns and provides tempting opportunities to ‘put things right’.

In less assured hands the repetition could be wearing, but here nuanced variations and filling of gaps make for an enthralling account of Ursula’s life and times. The Todd family members and their relationships are wholly believable; the period pieces, particularly the London blitz, have authenticity; and even the surprise appearance of a dark figure from history does not seem out of place.

It is not a quick read at 600 pages, particularly as there is a temptation (to which I gave in) to read several of them more than once to check whether it is your memory or Atkinson that is playing tricks. Within those pages are comedy (Ursula has a dry wit), tragedy (people die, often more than once), and no little history – a veritable Shakespearean canon in the one brilliant volume.

Joyland – Stephen King

Devin Jones looks back on the summer of ’73 with mixed feelings. Twenty-one, two years into college in New Hampshire, with a steady (if unconsummated) relationship with girlfriend Wendy, he finds himself abandoned for the summer when she goes off to work at some dream job with a friend. On a whim he answers an advert for summer help at Joyland, a North Carolina coastal amusement ride park, successfully interviews and moves south for the season.

The location is idyllic (it’s a stroll along the beach from his seaside town digs to the park); the work is hard, particularly “wearing the fur” in a hundred degree heat as the park’s mascot “Howie the Happy Hound”, but fun - ensuring the visitors have an enjoyable day. He makes good friends with the other casuals, including Tom & Erin at his digs, but the regular ‘carnie’ folk are a mixed bunch, some suspicious, some supportive, some hostile and all unconventional.

He is soon intrigued by two mysteries. First the ‘Horror House’ dark ride is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a girl found murdered therein a couple of summers earlier, the crime still unsolved. Second, more personal, involves a disabled boy and a young woman whose opulent beach house he passes each morning and evening; the boy waves, the woman doesn’t. Their names, he later discovers, are Annie and Mike Ross, mother and son.

The narrative (it is Devin looking back) and the mysteries unfold over the long hot summer. Devin’s emotional highs and lows would be at home on the ‘Delirium Shaker’ – Joyland’s roller coaster – as dumped at long distance by Wendy he finds himself attracted to both digs-mate Erin and the distant Annie. At work his performances in the fur (and competence in first aid) make him a hero with the kids, but the harsh realities of Mike’s condition are a constant worry. Then Erin’s digging into the unsolved murder provides both danger and the opportunity to unmask the killer. As the southern end-of-summer heat builds to thunderstorms, so his summer of adventure builds to an exciting climax (or two).

Stephen King is of course a master of storytelling and I particularly like his shorter and less supernatural work such as this. Strong on character, plot, tension and atmosphere this is an exceedingly good read.

The Last Battle – Cornelius Ryan

The third book in Cornelius Ryan’s World War Two reportage trilogy (following on from the better known ‘The Longest Day’ telling the story of the D-day landings and ‘A Bridge Too Far’ which covered the ill-fated attempt to take Arnhem) takes for its subject the final days of the war in Europe, leading to the fall of Berlin.

As in the previous volumes, events unfold through the lives and experience of the survivors – named British, American, Russian and German soldiers, politicians and diplomats, and also the (mainly German) civilians caught in the crossfire. Ryan weaves their testimony, acquired through numerous interviews, with military and governmental records of the time to produce a coherent and compelling narrative.

The result is a riveting read. Although the outcome of the battle is history, how it unfolded, how the key strategic and political decisions were arrived at, and the effects of these on individuals, be they combatants or civilians, ensures interest is maintained to the bitter end.

Light is shed for example on why the Western Allies left Berlin to the Russians, what the fate was of ordinary Berliners once the defences were breached, and on Hitler’s mind set and actions during those last days in the bunker.

Troop manoeuvres and combat are covered, but the main thrust is not military tactics but the impact on individual men and women. Like any cross section, these individuals include heroes and cowards, saints and villains, as well as those who just kept their head down or took their own lives in despair.

A good book in its own right and a fitting final volume to the trilogy.

Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan

Clay Jannon, late web-master of the recently defunct NewBagel Company, is pounding the streets of San Francisco in search of new employment when he spots a sign in the window of a bookshop: “Help Wanted, Late Shift, Specific Requirements, Good Benefits”.

Inside it is dark, cavernous with shelving stacks disappearing into the gloom above and beyond. Behind the desk is an old man, thin, grey but with sparkling blue eyes, Mr Penumbra himself. The interview, conducted immediately, is short and unconventional and sees him installed on the night shift (10 till 2).

Purchasers are few and far between, and stocks for sale are limited to a few bookcases front of house; but there are a select band of ‘members’ who borrow volumes from the ‘waybacklist’ housed on those vertiginous shelves. Other than being punctual for his solo shift there are two other golden requirements: he must not read any of the books, and he must record all transactions in detail – including the customers’ physical appearance and state of mind.

All very strange, but it pays the rent on a flat-share, and with plenty of time on his hands overnight, he passes it working on a couple of techie projects: a computerised 3D model of the bookstore to enable ‘data visualisation’ and a small scale hyper-targeted advertising application to snare any potential customer passing by. The latter, completed first, lures in a young woman via her smartphone. She is unimpressed with the bookstore but clocks the 3D model on his laptop and takes a professional interest.

The relationship develops, both personally (she is cute) and professionally (she is a Google programmer) and when they apply cutting edge techniques and geeky networks to the mystery of the waybacklist and its users, things get interesting. A secret society is unearthed and powerful reactionary forces are unleashed.

But it is not too heavy or scary, more light and frothy. Clay’s friends, joined in the enterprise, are bright, witty young things showing a frighteningly comprehensive (real or fictional) knowledge of IT and a belief that all problems are solvable. The older generation pitch in with some OK - ‘old knowledge’ – wisdom, but this is a book that looks forward not back.

It is written for the young but can still be enjoyed by an oldie like me.

The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

With the blurb including the phrase “a Dickensian dazzler” the expectation was for a nineteenth century setting in smoky London town, so it was a surprise to be pitched instead into twenty-first century New York.

The narrator is Theo Decker, thirteen as the story opens, and on his way with his mother (currently his only parent) to a school disciplinary meeting. They are early, it starts to rain, and they pop into the art gallery to shelter, taking the opportunity to have another peek at their favourite work – the Goldfinch, barely more than a miniature, painted by a Dutch master, and priceless. On the back of such a coincidental chain of circumstance, disaster strikes, leaving Theo bereft of his dear mother but in secret possession of the painting.

To whom will his care be entrusted? Initially it is the family of his geeky friend Andy Barbour, in their swish Park Avenue apartment, where he gets a taste of the high life and refined society. But it is temporary and when his absentee father turns up to claim him he is whisked off to Las Vegas where the paternal business of gambling is based. There, left to his own devices, he is befriended by the other loner on the school bus, Boris Pavlikovski, similarly neglected by his Russian/Ukrainian mining engineer father. The two boys largely fend for themselves; largely with alcohol and drugs.

His third “loco parentis” is Hobie, surviving partner of Hobart and Blackwell, dealers in and restorers of antique furniture, befriended due to Blackwell having perished in the same disaster that claimed Mrs Decker. Hobie’s workshop provides a retreat when the Barbours get too overwhelming and an escape when his Las Vegas life finally runs off the rails.

While Theo’s care is fragmented and chaotic, his care of the painting is meticulous and of course unknown; his ownership (and the circumstances of it) having an importance to him that far outweighs its monetary value.

Having survived a traumatic childhood and adolescence, stability beckons – as a respected partner in Hobie’s business and engaged to a Barbour girl – but someone is on his case, digging up his past and making waves.

Dealing with it makes the upheavals of his youth seem child’s play; he is soon embroiled with the big boys (including, for good or bad, his old friend Boris) who deal not in dodgy furniture but drugs, guns and, tellingly, stolen art.

So not that Dickensian, except Theo could easily be a modern day David Copperfield or Pip of Great Expectations, also orphans left to grow up in an unfamiliar world buffeted by adults who are kind, cruel and indifferent (some of them all three). These characters that surrounded Theo (more than mentioned above), and in some way define him, are well drawn and pleasingly complex.

It is as long as a Dickens novel at 850 pages, but the prose is easy on the eye, making each of them a pleasure to read.

Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 into a family well-connected to the Thembu royal house of the Xhosa nation that had for centuries inhabited the Transkei region of South Africa. His early childhood mirrored that of countless previous generations, centred on subsistence farming in the rural hinterland, and was largely unaffected by the white dominated government.

But at seven years old, as befitted his station in life, he was kitted out in a cut-off pair of his father’s trousers and sent off to school to commence a British style education, on the first day of which he was allocated a British name – Nelson.

Though not a brilliant student he was studious and hard-working, and so progressed through the black education system via boarding school to university. It was there that early brushes with the relatively benign white establishment started to build a consciousness of an ingrained assumed superiority among the whites.

While questioning that oppression he also found himself at odds with the traditional tribal authority that among other things threatened him with an arranged marriage. In limbo between out-dated tribalism and stifling white supremacy, he ran away to the city – Johannesburg – to make his own way in the world as best he could.

With a good (for a black) education he found work as a lawyer’s clerk, eventually gaining sufficient qualifications to take on his own cases, often fighting for the rights of those suffering from the discriminatory race laws. More significantly he found like-minded political thinkers in the African National Congress, through whose ranks he rose.

What followed - demonstrations, arrests, banning orders, internal exile, trials, prison and long-delayed release – is familiar; but it is no less interesting as it reveals its gradual imposition on a man trying to balance his love for and need to support his growing family with his deep felt duty to his people.

Written with simplicity of style, clarity of moral purpose, and self-effacing modesty, the book reads less that its 600 pages and places on record the life of an extraordinary man whose remarkable ability to embrace his oppressor and gaoler enabled the rainbow nation to survive a transition from apartheid to inclusive democracy that few would have believed possible.

White Nights – Ann Cleeve

In this, the second of Ann Cleeve’s “Shetland” series, the year has turned and it is midsummer in the northern isles, which means long days and “white nights” during which darkness never really falls. Even for locals like police detective Jimmy Perez it is unsettling; for visitors off the newly docked cruise liner it is a tourist attraction to be experienced.

An alternative attraction is the Herring House gallery at the remote Biddista hamlet where an exhibition by the owner Bella Sinclair and fellow artist Fran Hunter (now an item with Perez) is on offer. However the gala opening is disrupted when a stranger throws a wobbler, claiming memory loss and leaving in apparent confusion. He is later found hanging from the roof of the boathouse on the beach.

Suicide by a crazed mainlander? Perez has his doubts, and the post mortem confirms murder – but who is he, why did he come to Shetland, was his distress real or an act and, most importantly, whodunit?

Again Perez is joined in the investigation by Roy Taylor from the mainland and once more they work in uneasy alliance to solve the riddle, Taylor digging into the stranger’s ID and background while Perez seeks to find his local connection to the tight knit highland community.

There is an initial lethargy to the proceedings, reflecting the white nights’ mood of the island, but this gets ramped up as the investigation unearths events long buried but not forgotten.

The plot is tight and twisting with a pleasing but fathomable complexity typical of the author; Perez’s romance moves on but does not intrude; and the topographical detail remains authentic, but subtly different under those long days and short white nights of the “summer dim”.

The Journal of Dora Damage – Belinda Starling

Dora Damage was a bookbinder’s daughter before she became a bookbinder’s wife so she’s steeped in the trade and can tell that her husband’s business is on the decline. He’s not well, struggling with arthritic hands and painful joints, so she needs to help; but in nineteenth century London the guild rules are strict and use of un-apprenticed, non-union, and heaven forbid female, workers risks exclusion from the market.

However behind closed doors who is to say who has produced the goods, and her clandestinely backed notebooks, with their feminine finish, prove popular with the ladies and earn a crust or two. But when one publisher discovers her secret, instead of exposing her, he uses it to persuade her to exercise her skills on books of a disreputable nature for a group of wealthy men with unconventional tastes.

Thus she is drawn into the fringes of an unfamiliar society of free-thinkers and liberals, rubbing shoulders with men of influence and ladies of leisure. As a favour (not to be refused) to one of the ladies she takes on a freed Negro slave to help in the workshop, which increasingly becomes a model of equality and diversity with the boss man disabled, the apprentice gay, and a newly appointed servant girl pitching in when needed.

Dora’s troubles (she also has a young daughter who fits) and travails are related first hand in her journal with candour and they chronicle her developing confidence and capability in a man’s world. Her emancipation, and that of the other equally down-trodden characters, is the real story and a quite uplifting one it is too. The period detail is atmospheric and the bookbinding techniques and materials exude a convincing authenticity.

The volume I read was hardback, nicely bound of course with appropriately patterned endpapers, tooled spine, period dust jacket and ribbon bookmark. Its format and content provide a fitting and lasting legacy of the young author who died shortly after she finished writing this, her first, and sadly only, book.

Someone to Save You – Paul Pilkington

Dr Sam Becker is driving along a country road when a girl dashes into his path, flags him down and pleads for help – her family’s car has crashed down an embankment and is straddling a railway line, with a train on the way. His rescue efforts are only partly successful but he still emerges as a wounded hero.

However some things do not add up: why was the driver handcuffed to the steering wheel; why was the baby in the boot; why did only the girl get out; and why has she now disappeared?

Sam has other pressing issues on his mind just now. He is in fierce competition with a colleague for a consultant’s job at the hospital, and the man who murdered his kid sister fifteen years ago has just been released from prison and is still claiming innocence.

So when more strange things start to happen to him, Sam can’t decide who is behind them – his work rival, the ex-con with a sense of injustice, or someone displeased with his intervention on the railway line. Whoever it is has got some imagination, and a twisted sense of purpose.

Fortunately, with time off work to recuperate mentally from the train crash and with his wife away on business, he has time to pursue his tormentor; or is he just being led by the nose to a sticky end?

The events, characters and inter-relationships are convoluted and to me somewhat contrived, more to perplex the reader than to serve a coherent plot. This makes the reading quite fun in a mind-blowing way but on reaching the conclusion there remained unanswered questions in my mind.

It is a pacey read that uses chapter-ending cliff-hangers to keep you interested and turning those pages.

The Axeman’s Jazz – Ray Celestin

It is 1919, the Great War is over, and the servicemen are returning. New Orleans is a melting pot of colours, creeds and ethnicities – Negroes, Creoles, Sicilians and Irish all have their place, their culture and segregated communities. The one area they mix in freely is the Old Town where jazz music is emerging, drink is flowing and illicit sex is for sale.

The shadow over them all is a serial killer on the loose whose modus operandi is brutal, bludgeoning his victims with an axe, always left at the scene, always accompanied by a different tarot card inserted into the gaping wound. So far the dead have all been Italian shopkeepers so the involvement of the local mafia, the Family, is suspected, whether as target, perpetrator or both.

Three people are on the Axeman’s trail: Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot is given the unenviable task of leading the police investigation; Luca D’Andrea, ex-detective, ex-con (just released after serving five years for his corrupt mafia connections) is commissioned by the head of the Family to find out who is targeting his organisation; and Ida Davis, aspiring Pinkerton detective (though currently their office girl on the spot), wants to solve the case to prove she is worthy of promotion to an operational role.

Each has a different way into the web of clues and deception. Talbot can use official police files and intelligence; Luca has access to the Sicilian underworld; and Ida, helped by talented young cornet player Lewis Armstrong (who maybe became Louis Armstrong), can engage with the black community inaccessible to the others. Of course they each have their personal issues to resolve as well. Much more than justice depends on the outcome of the chase.

More people get hacked to death before the three pursuers (largely working in ignorance of each other) start to close in. The climax is heightened when the rain begins to fall and a hurricane blows in. Who, if anyone, will catch the Axeman; how will the aftermath of the chase change their lives?

It is a good atmospheric read to find out. The three pronged investigation is an interesting and (for me) novel approach in the genre; however keeping track of which of them knows what and when is a challenge. The immersion in the location is total and the research seems meticulous (the events are based on fact – a serial killer did terrorise New Orleans in 1918-19) so this would be a great book to read while visiting the Big Easy. And it is a pretty good one even if stuck at home.

Manhood for Amateurs – Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is best known for his offbeat novels – such as ‘The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay’, and ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’ – but here he is in self-reflective mode as he sets out his thoughts on the male condition.

The sub-title says it all – the pleasures and regrets of a husband, father and son. And in a sequence of forty or so short essays he covers a lot of ground, extrapolating from his own experiences to reach conclusions, or inconclusive bewilderment, as appropriate.

Although he’s Jewish (albeit secular) and American, his experiences resonate with this British, slightly older, atheist – maybe because I too am a son, husband and father. Even where the common language divides our nations (a murse turning out to be a man’s purse, i.e. a manbag) the observations are spot-on.

To give a flavour he writes of childhood passions (Lego & comic books) and adult dilemmas (what to do with your children’s all too prolific but largely bad artwork); first loves and lasting loves; and the pains and pleasures of growing up and growing old.

The style is understated and the humour wry and self-depreciating, earning this volume a deserved and not inappropriate permanent place on the bookshelf next to the similarly gifted and perceptive Alan Bennett and Bill Bryson.

The Vesuvius Club – Mark Gatiss

This tale of derring-do is narrated by Lucifer Box – artist of repute, well known dandy about late Victorian / early Edwardian London, and less well known secret agent of HMG, reporting to head of service, one Joshua Reynolds RA.

His new assignment is to investigate the deaths on consecutive days of two eminent scientists in Naples, which were swiftly followed by the demise of the local British diplomat, Jocelyn Poop.

A trip to Naples for Box then, but before he can set off other distractions crop up: the delightful Miss Bella Pok who comes for art lessons but seems interested in more; the disappearance of Mrs Midsummer Knight in which a friend is implicated; and the strange goings-on at Tom Bowler & Co, purveyor of superior funerals, that involve unorthodox practices that threaten to provide additional custom.

Notwithstanding those distractions, Box finally gets to Naples and discovers, mainly through the obliging (in more ways than one) Charlie Jackpot, vital clues that lead to the mysterious and exclusive Vesuvius Club. The club resembles a circle within Dante’s vision of hell with all types of debauchery and excess on display but, behind and below this show, even worse is being planned, constructed and set in motion. Box’s ingenuity, cool head and strong thighs will be needed to prevent death and destruction.

Gatiss was of course instrumental in the creation of the cult TV series “The League of Gentlemen” and has put his talents to use in this self-confessed ‘bit of fluff’. It reads as a cross between Rider Haggard and Terry Pratchett – a fiendish plot with villains and heroes (equipped with outlandish names) peppered with witty asides and naughty nuances.

A diverting bit of fluff, just right for that flight or train journey.

The Eustace Diamonds – Anthony Trollope

In this, the third of the “Palliser” novels, the focus of attention is Lady Elizabeth Eustace, “Lizzie” to her friends, who are few and diminishing. She is young, clever and attractive, which helped her make the advantageous match with the hard-living Lord Eustace for whom she rapidly produced an heir before being predictably, and non-too sorrowfully, made a widow; thus adding rich and available to her already considerable charms.

As for the diamonds, they constitute a fabulous necklace in the possession of Lady Eustace – but are they hers or do they belong to the estate, held in trust for the heir? She claims her husband gave them to her to keep; the estate solicitor says prove it, and in the meantime hand them over. For Lizzie, possession is ten tenths of the law and she holds them close.

The dispute divides society opinion and provides complications for Lizzie as she casts her net for a fresh husband. First choice is her cousin Frank Greystock but, while he supports her claim to the necklace and could do with her money, he is otherwise engaged to the sweet but penniless Lucy Morris. Second choice, Lord Fawn, is initially keen but then unwilling to be compromised by the dispute. Others hover on the fringes, both fascinated and worried by the dangerously feisty widow.

Around the central bone of contention Trollope weaves his usual narrative of social niceties, gossip and innuendo, spiced up here and there with larceny as the criminal fraternity get wind that the diamonds are being hauled around the country in a strongbox as part of Lizzie’s entourage. Other side plots abound to give variety and light relief, particularly Lizzie’s relations with Mrs Carbuncle, symbiotic to begin but increasingly acrimonious.

Perhaps longer than necessary, it remains a pleasant read provided you have the time to enjoy the unhurried prose. What drive the reader on are the questions – who will end up with the diamonds and who will end up with Lizzie?

I Am Pilgrim – Terry Hayes

The man with the code name Pilgrim, Scott Murdoch to use one of his better names, is a one-time ace undercover agent for a branch of the US state security that polices, among others, the CIA. As the cold war gave way to the war on terror, he quit the service and penned, under a pseudonym, a seminal text book on investigative technique that, while not being a best seller, was admired by his peers.

The publication also had a couple of unwanted consequences. First a New York detective, Ben Bradley, recuperating from his experiences on 9/11, reads it and as a therapeutic exercise tracks down not only the author’s real identity but his location too – quite a shock for Scott Murdoch who thought his current cover was impenetrable.

But Ben is a good guy, a hero, so becomes a trusted friend, who calls on Murdoch’s expertise in particularly interesting or tricky cases. One such case – at the Eastside Inn – gives rise to the second consequence. A murder has been committed and the techniques in his text book have been used to remove nearly all evidence. All that can be retrieved is a fragment of a phone number and a library ticket, used once to borrow that book.

In parallel to that of the Pilgrim we get the story of the Saracen (a name subsequently bestowed by Murdoch). Born in Saudi; his radicalisation supercharged by the unjust execution of his father, he goes to Afghanistan to sign up and fight as a mujahedeen, and to learn from experience that ultimate victory against the enemy could only come from a lethal strike at the heart of America.

So his long game plan begins, which if it comes to fruition spells death and destruction in the US on an unimaginable scale. It is only late in the day that a scrap of intelligence alerts the powers that be, who then haul Scott Murdoch in from retirement as the only man for the job – as Pilgrim.

Over 900 pages the various stories play out: Murdoch’s theories on the Eastside Inn murder; his back story as an agent and his new mission as Pilgrim; and Saracen’s obsession, ruthlessly pursued, to destroy the western hegemony over his native region. Inevitably the strands converge, intertwine and crash towards a climax.

Though lengthy, the prose is pacey, fortunately leaving little time to ponder credibility. Action, tension and ingenuity abound; though worryingly the quest to save the west seems to hinge mainly on coincidences to give Pilgrim his breaks.

Of its type it is good, very good.

The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

At the end of World War two, in Pennsylvania USA, Holden Caulfield is at Pencey Prep School, but not for much longer. This is his account of the night he walked out and how he spent the following few days.

He is due to get expelled at the end of term but he doesn’t give a toss, and decides to take off early (before the letter home reaches his parents) and head for New York and just “take it easy for a few days” before heading home.

Easy doesn’t come easy to Holden; aggravation does. He gets into a scuffle before he even leaves the college, then once in the Big Apple he has bother with cabbies, barmen, an ex-girlfriend, and even a prostitute and her pimp.

Through it all we get his commentary on events, coloured by some back history details. In his version everyone else is a “phoney” while he is merely being himself - obnoxious, pretentious or honest but misunderstood? Is his behaviour a cry for help, a desperate search for an anchor to halt his hedonistic, self-destructive drift – a catcher in the rye to stop him going over the cliff?

The writing is convincingly smart-arsed adolescent and to me portrays well a loner who really wants to belong but can’t dissemble the way society demands. If I had read it (as I should have) in my late teens I may have been able to identify more with Holden Caulfield, but now in my dotage I just wanted to give him a shake and tell him to get over himself.

Review of 2015

Bibliodyssey managed to continue to produce a post most weeks in 2015, including reviews of 48 books read, my choices only slightly skewed by attempting, and with a few minutes to spare achieving, the Popsugar reading challenge for the year. From the titles reviewed the following dozen are picked out as the books of my reading year and so are particularly recommended (full review in bracketed month).

General Fiction:

Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill (May) – Well constructed horror where the action only pauses to heighten the next twist in the spiral of terror.

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart – Peter Swanson (Aug) – Impressive debut novel where a blast from the past puts the hero in unfamiliar and violent territory.

A Day at the Office – Matt Dunn (Sep) – Frothy and funny account of Valentine’s Day as experienced by six work colleagues each with issues to resolve.

Raven Black – Ann Cleeves (Oct) – Atmospherically set in Shetland where the local DI tries to unravel two murders, one current and one historic.

Books for serious readers:

Bring up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel (Feb) – Thomas Cromwell’s career continues in this follow-up to Wolf Hall, equally brilliant and with less confusing pronoun usage.

Started Early, Took My Dog – Kate Atkinson (May) – Richly layered mystery featuring the familiar but still incompletely charted Jackson Brodie.

Harvest – Jim Crace (Jun) – Lyrical tale set in a village undefined in space and time as the microcosm undergoes seismic change.

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell (Aug) – Ingeniously strung together set of six stories written in different styles/genres to produce a masterpiece of writing.

Short Stories:

Stone Mattress – Margaret Atwood (Aug) – Mature work from the author, with the focus on men and women in their later, but darkly fascinating, years.

Nonfiction:

The Railway Man – Eric Lomax (Apr) – Understated but heartrending account of one man’s PoW experience and its legacy of withdrawal, rediscovery and redemption.

Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi (Dec) – Graphic (literally) account of a spirited young girl’s experience of growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran.