The Five – Hallie Rubenhold

The Five are the five women murdered in the Whitechapel area of London between August and November 1888. They are known collectively as the victims of Jack the Ripper and are generally dismissed as ‘just prostitutes’ who if not asking for their fate, put themselves in harm’s way through their choice of lifestyle.

Hallie Rubenhold dismantles this misconception, victim by victim, by forensic examination of their lives and times. One by one, she tells their stories, cradle to grave, and it is often the early years that set them on a track to their tragic end in a late-Victorian world where working class women had few options. Employment in service, marriage, childbirth, and household drudgery was as good as it got. To lose a job, or worse a husband, or a husband’s job, invited financial hardship and homelessness. To ease the pain and drudgery with a sip of medicinal gin was often the start of a slippery slope to addiction, disownment, and ruin.

This broad trajectory was followed, in various forms, by Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes, who all struggled through to their mid-forties before they were killed. None of these were actively involved in the sex trade. They were, however, homeless and formed transitory relationships with men – how else to get protection on the street, a bed for the night and something to eat? Between such times they were on their own and resourceless. But for the Victorian police and press, no distinction was made between women who walked the street at night because they had nowhere to sleep and those who did so to drum up trade. Only the last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, killed aged twenty-five, was an acknowledged sex worker.

The book gives a fascinating and highly readable insight into the social conditions in parts of late nineteenth century London, where poverty, drink, and homelessness characterised most lives. The lives of the Five are placed in this historical context and given a sympathetic airing as human beings, flawed certainly, but no less deserving to be seen and known in life as much as in death.

The Girl with All the Gifts – M R Carey

Ten-year-old Melanie lives in a post-apocalyptic England that is all she has known. The end of the world that the surviving grown-ups knew came twenty years ago in the form of a virulent fungus that attacks the human brain and central nervous system. The hi-jacked body becomes zombie-like, with hunger for the flesh of the uninfected. Hence their name – the hungries. Anyone bitten but not killed becomes a new host, so picture a cross between athlete’s foot and a vampire!

The uninfected humans that survive, manage as best they can. Some, the ‘junkers’, follow an itinerant life, scavenging food, shelter, and technology from the remains of civilisation. Others are more proactive and have retreated into a fortified enclave, the Beacon, where they work to find a solution to eradicating the hungries. As part of that effort, an outstation has been established to enable scientists to research the precise effect the fungus has on the brain. This is where Melanie comes in.

Some post-apocalyptic children like her are clearly infected but have not yet developed the zombie-like symptoms. A sample has been rounded up in the hope they could provide a clue to researchers, who have two approaches. Educational psychologist, Helen Justineau, gives them lessons to assess their capacity to learn, which is impressive. Neurosurgeon, Caroline Caldwell, removes their brains and slices them up for analysis. The security of the base is the responsibility of Sergeant Parks who must be alert to the threats from hungries and the junkers outside the fence, and of the children whom he regards as the enemy within.

Melanie is seen as a vulnerable child by Justineau, a dangerous animal by Parks, and a specimen by Caldwell. When the base is attacked and overrun, the four escape in a damaged Humvee vehicle and attempt to make it to the Beacon. Mutual loathing, distrust, fear, and incomprehension have to be managed in the face of the existential threat all around.

The narrative is shared between the main protagonists, which gives differing perspectives and depth. The post-apocalyptic landscape is vividly portrayed and once the premiss is accepted, the outcomes are credible enough. Though majoring in tension and action, there are enough ethical issues thrown up to make this more than just a very good thriller.

My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

Korede, the narrator, is a nurse, well versed in the cleaning properties of bleach and not fazed by handling the dead. That makes her the ideal person for her sister, Ayoola, to call when she has stabbed her boyfriend to death. It’s self-defence, she claims; again. In fact, he is the third, but when Korede tells Ayoola that this qualifies her as a serial killer, it is like water off a duck’s back. She’s right back on Instagram. It is left to Korode to do the worrying for both of them.

It is a responsibility she is accustomed to both while their abusive father was alive and since he died leaving their mother drifting in denial. When Ayoola goes astray, she shrugs and looks pretty, and Korede gets the blame for letting her get in trouble.

That is why Korede likes to keep home and work separate. In the hospital she is respected, if not liked, for her total professionalism. She is comfortable with that; except she would like Dr Tade Otumu to like her a bit more for herself as well as her work ethic. She holds a torch for him but realises she lacks the obvious feminine charms that her sister has in abundance. Lacking any other confidante, she unloads her romantic and criminal troubles onto the patient in room 313, Muhtar Youtai. He is in an irreversible coma and so in no position to judge her.

All seems fine, if not ideal, until two things happen. First, Ayoola turns up at the hospital for a social visit; Dr Otumu is smitten. Second, Muhtar Youtai miraculously exits his coma with perfect recall of Korede’s one-sided conversations. That all makes Dr Otumu a prospective corpse, and the sisters in danger of a life sentence.

The first person, present tense narrative gives the prose a pleasing immediacy, and the short chapters hurry it along too. The location is Lagos, and though the action mainly takes place indoors at the hospital or at home, the subsidiary characters bring in the flavour of the Nigerian setting.

It is good, dark humour that also has something to say on the nature of sisterhood.

Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

The tall figure of Olive Kitteridge, retired teacher of mathematics in Crosby, Maine, stalks the pages of this book. Sometimes she takes centre stage but as often she hovers in the background or just makes a cameo appearance in the loosely connected episodes.

Taken together, the chapters weave a portrait of contemporary lives in New England, with relationships to the fore. Olive’s role as wife, mother, mother-in-law (from hell), friend, ex-teacher, hostage, and airline security risk are all explored through gems of narration shot through with humanity, sensitivity, and understated humour.

Nothing much happens, but events and incidents that are small in the grand scheme of things are shown to be major in the impact they have on the individual. Olive’s character – spikey, self-reliant, and dismissive of the failings of others – is a delight.

A wise and insightful read.

The Accidental Footballer – Pat Nevin

Pat Nevin is known as a maverick in the world of football. Though a mercurial winger of great skill, he had no intention of becoming the professional footballer he did. From a working class Glaswegian family passionate about education, he did well at school while playing football for fun and was well into a university course happily playing part-time for Clyde when the big boys, recognising his talent, came knocking.

He would have preferred that it was Celtic, but that never happened and instead he got an offer from Chelsea (then in the English second division) that was too good to refuse. The money was one thing, and the opportunity to experience the London music scene was another draw, and he could always finish his degree later.

He never got back to his studies (an honorary degree was eventually awarded). Though now a professional footballer, he refused to conform to the norm, maintaining his passion for music and the arts in the face of bemusement from most of his teammates. The autobiography, covering his childhood, adolescence, and career at Chelsea, Everton, and Tranmere Rovers, not to mention Scotland, is peppered with visits to gigs and shoulder rubbing with DJs, musicians, and artists.

But the sporting career remains the centrepiece and it is an off-centre look at the world of professional football at a turning point in the game. The Premier League is established, the old drinking and laddish culture is being threatened by more forward-thinking coaches, and the wages are spiralling.

Clearly not ghost-written, Nevin did not even have an agent, this is a genuine first-hand account of those times. What it lacks in polish it makes up for in authenticity; and while there is inevitably a tendency to brag and namedrop, that is offset by the odd dose of self-depreciation.

For those of his generation, an interesting read.

The Castaways – Lucy Clarke

Sisters Lori and Erin have only had each other to rely on for a long time. For a while Lori had a husband, Pete, but now he has gone off with her best friend, Zoe, so it is just the two of them again.

To ease Lori’s pain, Erin books a holiday for the two of them in Fiji. The resort is on a remote part of the archipelago, so there is an overnight stopover on the main island, and it is there that their lives fracture. There is a row; Erin storms off and stays out all night. In the morning, at the airport, Lori waits in vain for her sister to reappear in time for the flight. Her calls to Erin’s phone are unanswered and Lori takes off without her.

It is a small plane - pilot, flight attendant, and half a dozen passengers – and the weather closes in after take-off. No spoiler (look at the title), the plane crashes miles off course on a deserted island and the survivors must, well, survive as best they can as they wait for a rescue that shows no sign of coming.

Two years on, Erin, back in London, still has no news of her sister. Two years of obsessive research, badgering officials, and self-destructive, guilt driven behaviour (drink and men) has left her none the wiser. Until the pilot turns up alive, if unwell, in a Fijian hospital. Erin picks up the new lead and flies to Fiji.

From the start, the story unfolds in two timelines. Erin, in the now, and Lori in the then. Erin’s first person narrative has a breathless immediacy. Lori’s third person narrative, two years in arrears, is more measured but no less dramatic. The technique works very well as the two narratives converge to reveal not only how the castaways fare but also how their concealed backstories drive their seemingly erratic behaviour before, during and after the crash.

The sisterly bond is well dealt with, covering both the attachment and tensions of such a relationship. The traumatic separation and its aftermath have both women questioning and reassessing how they feel, which adds an extra dimension to the thriller aspect of the tale. And thriller it is -  the outcomes for both Lori and Erin are in the balance right to the end.

Garnethill – Denise Mina

Maureen’s affair with Douglas Brady was as good as over before she found his butchered body in her flat. It is an inconvenient time for her lover to die, as Maureen has just received confirmation that the woman that he was cheating on with her, is in fact his wife. The timing not only means Maureen cannot confront him with his duplicity, but it also looks like a motive for murder, at least in the eyes of DCI Joe McEwan.

He has questions, but Maureen, like most residents of Garnethill, distrusts the police and says as little as possible. There are people in her life who would not welcome involvement with the law. Instead, she decides to find out for herself who killed Douglas, and why.

And so, we enter Maureen’s world: her dysfunctional family – alcoholic mother, absent father, social climbing sisters, and supportive, albeit criminal, brother; her friends – Liz at work, gay Benny, and motorcycle-leathers-clad Leslie who volunteers at the women’s refuge; her fellow clients at the Rainbow Centre, damaged and vulnerable, and the psychotherapists who work there (now one fewer following Douglas’s demise).

Hampered by these anarchic characters, excessive alcohol, and harassment from the police and Douglas’s mother, who happens to be an MEP, Maureen makes slow but steady progress in unmasking the killer and their motive.

To focus a crime novel on neither the perpetrator nor the detective is a little unusual. Is Maureen a suspect, witness, or victim? She presents a complex character, possibly unreliable, as she carries the burden of the narrative. Resolving her wider issues are as important as solving the crime, though the two inevitably intertwine.

The Glasgow setting is atmospheric and seems authentic. The characters are colourful, and the pace is good, bordering on frenetic. By the end relationships are reappraised, and reckonings doled out, making for a satisfying read.

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The book-packing journey visits Japan, which has to mean Murakami and Norwegian Wood.

The narrator, Toru Watanabe, hears the strains of the Beatles hit, Norwegian Wood, and his mind is transported back 18 years to 1969 when he was a student in Tokyo. He was a bit of a misfit, scarred by the suicide of his close schoolfriend Kizuki.

At college he befriends Nagasawa, a party animal and insatiable womaniser, despite having a perfectly lovely girlfriend. Over the course of the academic year, Watanabe acts as his wingman, picking up his leavings, but also meets three other, more interesting, young women.

Naoko is his dead friend’s girlfriend (ex now!). She and Watanabe wander the streets of Tokyo seeking meaning in the absence of their common soulmate. Hatsumi is Nagasawa’s girlfriend, who tolerates his misbehaviour. This mystifies Watanabe, who sympathises with her and would like to offer a better option. Midori is a student on one of his modules. She, too, has her own boyfriend, but likes hanging out with Watanabe.

Stuff happens as Watanabe ricochets between the three girls. They mainly talk about relationships and feelings, but as they get closer, things develop. Watanabe is not shy when it comes to describing the sex, such as it is. The clinical fashion of such description may be a cultural thing, or a translation problem, though the otherwise the prose is easy on the eye.

Things get serious, so it is not a tale of fun, games, and student high jinks. The opposite in fact, and a narrative hook is how bad can things get before they get better. The other hook is will Watanabe be able to find a happy ending.

The Tokyo and wider Japan background, while not intrusive, provides glimpses of local colour. But this is all about Watanabe, and his inner monologue.

The Loney – Andrew Michael Hurley

The Loney is a stretch of the Lancashire coast, sparsely populated, where strangers stand out. It is Easter weekend, and a group of visitors descend on The Moorings, an old, neglected house available for let. The group have been here before, it is a regular event, the faithful of St Jude’s church on a pilgrimage of sorts that will take in a visit to a local shrine.

It is not exactly Lourdes, but Mary Smith holds out hope for a cure to her teenage son’s mutism. Her faith is not shared by her other son, the unnamed narrator of the tale, who finds himself the de facto minder of his brother. And for this trip, there is a new vicar, Father Bernard, the old one, Father Wilfred, having recently died a death no-one talks about.

This main strand of the narrative is told in retrospect, the boy now a man in a time when a news item causes him to look back with concern. His recollections go back to this fateful weekend, and beyond to earlier times when he and Andrew were even younger, and Father Wilfred ruled the vicarage.

Things happen. Strange things happen, incompletely explained, but believable, nevertheless. The atmospheric setting clings to the page, and the interplay between the genteel but warring pilgrims is delicious. More sinister are the few residents of the Loney who slip in and out of the mist, by turns threatening and friendly. Are they intent on harm or good? And if good, at what price?

Where, how, and why each strand of the story will pan out keeps the pages turning right to the end.

Summerwater – Sarah Moss

Midsummer’s day, the longest of the year, stretches ahead for the holidaymakers at Summerwater, a small collection of lodges and caravans in the forest beside the loch. Idyllic? Less so in the gentle but incessant Scottish rain.

What to do on such a day? As it progresses, we sample the thoughts of those in temporary residence. Justine sneaks out for an early run, leaving Steve snoring. Retired couple David and Mary, regulars at the camp, share space but little else during their rainy-day routine of drive, teashop, return. Josh and Milly, young lovers still in bed, give not a jot for the weather as they strive for simultaneous orgasm, though Milly’s mind wanders. Children Lola and Jack are persuaded outdoors by their mum, to splash in puddles and throw stones into the lake. Teenagers Becky and Alex are too old for such distractions, squabbling works for Becky but Alex heads off with his kayak, defiant of the poor conditions on the lake. Claire keeps a close eye on her two toddlers, obsessively cleaning the caravan, and even when husband Jon offers to take them off for an hour, she cannot relax.

The holidaymakers watch each other through condensation clouded windows, speculating on each other’s lives while examining and comparing their own.

But there is one more caravan. The noisy one with visitors, loud music, and drinking. Foreigners. Romanians, thinks Jon; Bulgarians, is Steve’s guess; Ukrainians, says Becky, and at least she has spoken to them. As night finally draws in, and the party starts again, more than one of the natives think enough is enough, and head over to have a word.

The tight, insightful prose draws in the reader. There is fascination in the minutiae of the relationships and the inferences they generate. The changing perspectives are handled well and provide a slow burning fuse to a worthy denouement.

The Last House on Needless Street – Catriona Ward

Let’s start with the occupants of the eponymous dwelling: Ted Bannerman, his cat Olivia, and sporadically his daughter Lauren. Apparently, that is, as from quite early on it is clear that nothing can be taken at face value with these unreliable narrators, that include the cat.

More reliable, you would think, is the woman who comes to rent the house next door, presumably the penultimate house on Needless Street. It is from Dee’s third person perspective that we learn of events at the nearby lake many years ago, when her sister Lulu went missing never to be found, dead or alive, since. Dee reckons Ted Bannerman is responsible, and she is out to prove it. As her narratives progress, further details of Lulu’s disappearance are revealed, along with Dee’s efforts to find her.

As for Ted, Olivia, and Lauren, clues as to their involvement can be inferred (rightly or wrongly). More importantly, clues to their relationships are not so much revealed as scattered around for the reader to make of what they can. What is for sure is that the trio don’t get on well.

The psychological tension is built up, but the drive to turn the pages is not so much to do with the prose or the narrative as to finally rationalise the weirdness of the book and move on. To be fair, the denouement has its merits in terms of plotting, and just about justifies the effort in getting there.

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

The tragic story of Afghanistan between 1960 and 2003 is told through the lives of two women.

Mariam, born out of wedlock and branded a ‘harami’, lives with her damaged mother in a ramshackle hut on the outskirts of Herat. Her father, already with three wives and ten legitimate children, does visit once a week to receive adulation from young Mariam and abuse from her mother. When the mother dies, Mariam assumes she will be taken in. Wrong. Aged fourteen she is married off to Rasheed, a shoemaker thrice her age, and is shipped off 650km to Kabul. Imagine her new life – no need, Hosseini tells it as it is.

Bigger events are at play as in 1978 the communist revolution takes place. The same year, down the road from Mariam’s house, Laila is born. She has a progressive father and benefits from the new regime’s programme of secular education (including for girls) for a while at least.

But not everyone in the country approves of the changes. They see the Russian support as invasion, communism as an atheistic attack on their religion, and call for Jihad. Laila’s older brothers answer the call, only to fall before the Russians are driven out. She barely knew them, but has a surrogate brother in schoolfriend, Tariq. As the friends gain puberty, friendship develops to love.

As the Russians pull out, Hell descends on Kabul as rival warlords fight for supremacy and control. People die and disappear. Laila needs a lifeboat and the shoemaker up the road, Rasheed, now in his sixties, makes her an offer she is in no position to refuse. Thus, Mariam and Laila are forced into an uncomfortable menage a trois.

The harsh realities of life in Kabul and a common violent enemy in their shared husband, pushes them into a mutual dependency that develops into trust and sisterly support. And that bond is tested, as events spiral, and conditions deteriorate in the city.

It is told with passion, pace, and prose that lays bare the horrors yet ennobles the struggle of the women. Tragic, yes; uplifting, maybe; thought-provoking, definitely.

Heroes – Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry retells the stories of the Greek heroes in his inimical style. And these are mortals, not gods, so their foibles are fair game, enabling Fry to tease out their personalities as well as their activities. The focus is mainly on the macho exploits of Perseus, Heracles, Orpheus, Jason, Oedipus, and Theseus, but in a nod to gender equality, Atalanta (a match for most of them) gets an airing.

The tales all tend to involve destiny, uncertain parenthood, great deeds, loves loved greatly but easily gotten over, fierce monsters of legendary descent, and the odd benign creature such as a winged horse or golden-fleeced ram. The gods, of course, are ever present in the background, begetting, seducing, challenging, tormenting, and otherwise interfering with their mortal puppets as they jostle for position in the Olympian pantheon.

It is tremendous fun and very illuminating as Fry expertly treads the fine line between easy-flowing prose and scholarly erudition. Footnotes give an option for more of the latter.

Just splendid as both an introduction to the Greek heroes and as a refreshing refresher.

The Bell in the Lake – Lars Mytting

In the beginning there were two bells, the Sister Bells, so called as they were cast in memorial to conjoined twins, Halfrid and Grunhild Hekne. The girls, despite their situation, managed well enough with the rigours of rural Norwegian life and excelled at weaving where their four arms moved in perfect harmony to produce beautiful tapestries. They fell ill and died young, expiring at their loom, working on one last masterpiece, completed by Grunhild with Halfrid dead beside her.

That was two hundred years before the story begins, on New Years Day 1880, when the Sister Bells call the faithful of Butangen to mass. Among them is young Astrid Hekne who, while resigned to her family’s subsistence level existence, has broader horizons. Better educated than most and fuelled by her reading of the parson’s discarded newspapers, she longs to travel. She also longs for the new parson, a young priest named Kai Schweigaard. He has feelings for her, too, but with the church mission and a fiancé back in civilization, they must be repressed. Anyway, he has work to do - the ancient stave church is cold, draughty, and too small. It needs replacing.

Fortunately, it has historic value. Some well-connected Germans wish to relocate it in Dresden as a cultural icon. Enter young architectural student, Gerhard Schonauer, to record its structure and supervise its dismantling, storage, and export.

We have a love triangle. Astrid obviously attracts both men with her good looks and feisty demeanour. She reciprocates their tentative attentions, but it is complicated. Their shared mission to remove the old church, and more importantly the bells forged for her ancestors, is anathema to her.

It is slow burning and moody with repressed emotion. The landscape and the turning seasons form more than a backdrop; folk in Butangen live and die by the weather. As the snow melts, and the sap rises, things begin to move. Astrid has a plan to save the bells, but can she get her suitors to cooperate? There again, maybe the bells have a plan for Astrid.

There is resolution of sorts, but as one story ends, green shoots of another couple emerge. As the first volume of a projected trilogy, it may take some time and lots more pleasurable reading before the final fate of the Sister Bells are known.

Playing Nice – JP Delaney

The set-up is a nightmare scenario. Pete Riley has got back from depositing two-year-old Theo at nursery when two strangers knock on his door. One introduces himself as Miles Lambert, the other is a private detective, and they have news for him.  The boy he just dropped off is not Pete’s son, but Miles’s, and here is the DNA test to prove it.

Shocked Pete’s first thought is that partner Maddie had played away, but no. It seems two premature babies were mixed up at the intensive care unit, the error coming to light after recent genetic tests on the other boy, David. It is now clear that Miles is Theo’s father, and Pete’s son is David.

The one crumb of comfort is that Miles and Lucy seem a nice couple, eager to discuss and agree a way forward – do we swap, do we keep, do we share? But appearances can be deceptive. As the narrative is carried forward by Pete and Maddie it is interspersed with extracts from court papers that indicate any resolution is anything but amicable.

The direction of travel is worryingly clear from clues that pepper the narratives, as each innocent action (and some engineered situations) are noted, documented, and misinterpreted in the court papers. It is excruciating and all too plausible. The characters of Pete, Maddie, Miles, and Lucy are developed and laid bare for scrutiny; none are saints, but some flaws are more forgivable than others.

The story races along, driven by the need for resolution, but what would constitute a satisfactory ending for all involved, especially the kids? That we get one of sorts, is a relief after being put through such an emotional wringer.

Recommended, but not to parents of children under three with no confirmatory DNA evidence to hand.

Exit – Belinda Bauer

Exit exists to ease the passing of those with terminal illness who do not want to linger until it takes its natural course. Actually, it more speeds up than eases the passing, by making available a cylinder of nitrous oxide (undetectable after death) with a tube and breathing mask attached. These are already in place when the volunteer sitters, the Exiteers, arrive to provide company in the final moments and to clear away the suicidal evidence.

That it is all legal does not mean it can be done openly. There are the feelings of the relatives to protect, and the insurance pay-outs to preserve, so it is all done in the clients’ homes with no witnesses. Discretion is the watchword, and the Exiteers are careful to maintain anonymity even among themselves by the use of false names.

But when ‘John’ (real name Felix) is paired in an assignment in Bideford with young rookie ‘Amanda’, disaster strikes. First, an instinctive intervention by Amanda means they have overstepped the legal mark. That is manageable, thinks Felix, no harm done, except, second, it is the wrong person they have helped into oblivion. Third, it appears, someone has spotted them entering the premises and a police car is approaching, siren blaring.

Felix, law-abiding for all his seventy-five years, is prepared to accept responsibility, even if it means jail. But not just yet, he needs to make arrangements for his dog, make sure Amanda is not implicated, and warn his handler, so he does a runner. It takes time to put his affairs in order, during which it begins to dawn on him that some things don’t add up. He needs to investigate, then he can present the police with a full confession and clear explanation.

Meanwhile the police are now investigating an unexplained death and are on Felix’s track. Will they get to him before he gets to the truth?

It is a fine mixture of black humour and pathos – Felix’s motivation for becoming an Exiteer is his own grief at losing loved ones. Plotting and characterisation are convincing enough but expect more cosy crime than Devon noir.

Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan

The book-packing journey reaches Asia, touching down in Hong Kong in the form of a girl called Ava.

Unhappy in Dublin, Ava has decided to try elsewhere. On completing her finals, she blows her savings on a flight to Hong Kong and a month’s rent on a room. She gets a low-paid job as a TEFL teacher, imparting the mysteries of the English language to schoolchildren. It pays the rent but covers precious little else.

She meets Julian in a bar. His job as a banker funds a spacious apartment and an expensive lifestyle, which Ava has no qualms about freeloading into. The relationship develops, but it is complicated. Not even Ava and Julian are sure what it is. They jog along.

When Julian is posted back to Europe for a few months, Ava stays in his apartment. She makes friends with Edith, full name Edith Zhang Mei Lang, a Hong Kong local but schooled in England and a Cambridge graduate. Not even her pay can match Hong Kong rents, so she lives at home with her family. That means she can enjoy living the high life in the city bars and clubs, as can Ava, who still has access to Julian’s credit card. They have fun. The relationship develops, but it is complicated. Not even Ava and Edith are sure what it is. They jog along.

With Julian due back to the island, Ava must examine her attachments to her two friends, while taking account of economic realities. Does she have to pick one and ditch one, or can she somehow manage the situation?

Ava’s narration is quirky, maybe it is the Irish accent coming out or just her off-kilter way of expressing herself. It is peppered with references to social media; Ava uses draft texts and Instagram posts to articulate her thoughts but deletes rather than sends them. The Hong Kong location seems more incidental than intrinsic to the story, so there is no real sense of place.

The book is probably not aimed at my demographic, so I found it interesting rather than engaging, providing an insight, bewildering rather than empathetic, into how relationships are managed in that generation.

The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett

 Bennett makes what he can from the curious premiss of the Queen stumbling over the travelling library van in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and, out of politeness, borrowing a random book. Out of good manners she returns it a week later having read very little of it.

The queen is not a big reader, but again feels obliged to pick up a new title. This one is more to her taste, and she borrows another the next week, and a couple more the week after. So it develops. And it seems that the Queen’s new-found love of reading has consequences for those around her. Books are foisted on relatives, flunkeys, advisors, even the Prime Minister and visiting dignitaries.

It allows Bennett to have great fun airing (presumably) his opinions on books and writers while disparaging the great and the good for their literary shortcomings.

Using such an exalted lead character is an interesting departure from his usual viewpoint that delights in normality and the significance of the everyday experience. Or maybe not, even the Queen has a routine of sorts, a private life of sorts, and like everyone else, a desire once in a while to lose herself in a book.

Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood

Snowman, the last human alive on the planet (as far as he knows), spends most of his time contemplating Oryx and Crake. One was a lover, the other a friend. The genesis of their endangered species pseudonyms is the ‘Extictathon’ computer game monitored by MaddAddam, a shady on-line community populated by a brilliant elite.

Crake, in real life, is, or was, a gene-manipulating genius, responsible for both the pandemic that killed off the world population and the super-vaccine that enabled Snowman’s survival. The pandemic was unintentional; saving Snowman was an act of both friendship and necessity – Crake needed someone he could trust to look after his experimental project that produced a new species of human with undesirable qualities removed from their genetic make-up. They are known as the crakers.

While the crakers revere Crake as the creator, they love Oryx, who was their minder, mentor, and mother figure until she was wiped out by Crake’s pandemic. Now only Snowman remains for them, a poor sort of holy ghost of the trinity, channelling made up messages. He whiles away his time overseeing the crakers, his charges; cursing Crake, his friend; and missing Oryx, his lover.

The narrative slowly unfolds the history of Snowman, Crake, and Oryx in parallel with Snowman’s trials and tribulation in the post-apocalyptic world. Told at the individual rather than the global level, the decline and fall of western-led civilisation convinces. Incidental detail on life and death in a pandemic is all too familiar in Covid-19 times.

It is an engaging, if bleak, story where the main hook is ‘how did it get to here?’. The answer comes in trademark Atwood style with dry wit and caustic swipes at current societal trends.

There are two more books in the MaddAddam trilogy; watch this space.

The Quarry – Iain Banks

Kit, eighteen years old and at the high functioning end of the Asperger’s spectrum, lives with his dad, Guy, in an old and deteriorating house on the edge of a northern moor. The large garden backs onto a quarry. A palpable sense of ending haunts the place. Guy is dying, and the house is under sentence too, going through compulsory purchase, destined to be consumed by the expanding quarry.

Arriving for a long weekend are Guy’s old college friends. They all studied at the local university, film and media undergraduates, and shared accommodation at this same house. They are here to say goodbye, relive old times, and incidentally to track down an old video they made twenty years ago that is at least embarrassing and at worst career threatening.

Current careers in law, media, computing, and care reflect journeys taken and movements in political outlook. But some things never change, the drugs and drink are back on the table. Under their influence, old rivalries and recriminations are aired.

Kit, the narrator, looks on with interest as aspects of his father’s life, before fatherhood, are revealed. He would like one thing in particular to be revealed – the identity of his mother. One of the visitors may know something; it could even be one of the three women.

From the chequered past with its secret film, the bitterness of the present situation of Guy’s illness, and the uncertainty of Kit’s parentless future, Banks weaves a well-crafted portrait of changing relationships full of sharp dialogue and touching emotion.

 

The Last Thing to Burn – Will Dean

Jane (her name is not Jane) lives on a farm in the east of England. The farm belongs to Lenn, her husband (he is not her husband) and it stretches across the flat fenland to a far horizon. She would leave if she could; if her ankle had not been smashed and wrongly reset, if the consequences for her sister would not be so disastrous.

Thanh Dao (her real name) was trafficked to the UK from Vietnam and is held captive on the farm by Lenn who through violent coercion and psychological control extracts wifely duties – domestic and sexual - from her. One by one, Thanh Dao’s meagre possessions are burned in the Rayburn stove as punishment for transgressions, loosening her grip on her identity, pushing ever closer to becoming Jane.

Will Dean paints a horrific picture as he introduces these domestic arrangements on the farm. The contrast between Thanh Dao and Lenn’s perspectives is chilling. It is impossible not to share Thanh Dao’s suffering and hopelessness. But not quite hopeless. She grasps at straws, we root for her, even as they slip from her grasp. And when things cannot get worse, things get worse.

The narrative, carried by Thanh Dao, is riveting and while the spotlight is unrelentingly shone on modern slavery, the characters, even the despicable Lenn, are nuanced. Tension builds to a fine climax, the last thing that could be burnt is unthinkable, but not impossible.

Just Like You – Nick Hornby

Lucy and Joseph are both single, attractive Londoners, but that is where the common ground ends. Lucy is forty-two, white, separated with two young sons, and as head of English at a secondary school, one of the liberal Remainers that abound in that part of the capital. Joseph is twenty-two, black, an aspiring (but as yet unpaid) DJ with a portfolio of part time jobs and a bed at home with a mother of Lucy’s age. His not-at-home dad is a rampant Brexiteer.

One of Joseph’s jobs is a Saturday shift serving in the high street butcher’s frequented by Lucy. Mutual unacknowledged attraction develops over the pork chops, but when they get chatting, Lucy mentions she needs a sitter for the boys. Joseph volunteers, and the die is cast.

Hornby cleverly steers a credible course for the unlikely lovers. Playful intergenerational banter develops into flirtatiousness, and then mutual attraction is finally declared. Both realise taking it further should be a non-starter, and both try dabbling elsewhere, but resistance is futile. They get it together.

There is fun for the reader, if not the characters, as they sample each other’s lifestyle and enter each other’s social circles. Can the romance survive outraging the norms of society?

As ever, Nick Hornby is assured in his depiction of how men and women interact. Even in this case, with so little in common, the dialogue is natural even when it is awkward. Issues raised are not shied away from but are dealt with in a balanced way and with a light touch that make for a positive and enjoyable read.

The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson turns his attention to the English language that he uses to such great effect, its history, development, spread and usage. He mines a vast volume of other people’s research and picks out the tasty titbits for easy and entertaining consumption.

He covers how words originated and points out that many basic terms in widely different languages can be traced back to a common root. The links between speaking, pronunciation, writing, and printing are explored as language becomes formalised, regulated, subverted, and adapted by turn.

Having covered the basics of language he focuses on English and how it has become used, and misused, as a global means of communication. There are reasons for its popularity; despite its inconsistencies it has a simplicity and adaptability not found in many other tongues.

The subject is a gift for Bryson’s ability to combine jaw-dropping facts with well-chosen absurdities. The result is not a scholarly work but a riot of factoids and anecdotes, any page of which would provide enough material for erudite dinner party small talk or amusing pub group trivia.

When We Were Orphans – Kazuo Ishiguro

 The book opens in London in 1930. The narrator, Christopher Banks, is by then a famous consulting detective moving in the best social circles. On selected dates, over a period of years, he gives a rambling account of his day that, in a series of nested flashbacks, harks back to events of the previous week, month, even years. These mainly feature his encounters with the attractive socialite, Sarah Hemmings, and memories of his childhood in Shanghai.

It was in Shanghai that he became an orphan, of sorts. First his father, then within weeks his mother, disappeared. Both were embroiled in the opium trade, his father as an executive of a dubious trading company and his mother as an agitator for reform. Their disappearance is a case he knows he must turn his attention to one day.

In 1937 he finally makes the trip to a Shanghai on the front line in the Sino Japanese war, complicated by the stirrings of communist revolt and the gathering storm clouds that will soon break as the Second World War. So there are bigger problems to deal with than some long lost geriatrics. Diplomatic missions are in place, including one led by Sarah Hemming’s new, but old, husband, Sir Cecil Medhurst. That means Sarah is in town, and the friendship is renewed.

For three quarters of the book the pace is steady, the language formal, and emotions restrained, as befits an educated English gentleman. Then in Shanghai, all that is blown to the winds in an action packed finale, as the competing demands of Sarah Hemmings, the diplomatic mission, and the quest to find his parents finally crack his composure and reserve.

It is not a difficult read. Ishiguro’s prose is easy on the eye, though the nested flashbacks demand attention and the odd ruffling back of pages to keep track. However, Banks is a hard character to empathise with, and the whole orphans thing (Sarah is one too, and Banks randomly adopts one of his own) seems rather spurious.

The Naming of the Dead – Ian Rankin

It is summer 2005 and DI John Rebus is one book away from retirement. With most of the City and Borders Police preoccupied with security for the G8 summit down the road at Gleneagles, Rebus and DS Siobahn Clarke are assigned to a routine mission to check out some evidence relating to a recent murder.

The victim was a rapist not long since released from prison; the evidence is a missing part of his jacket. And the site, a clootie well where people leave clothing of the dead for good luck, reveals more evidence relating to two other unsolved murders. These victims too were sex offenders, an excuse for the forces concerned to give the cases low priority. To Rebus a murder is a murder, no matter how unsavoury the character of the victim. He and Siobahn get stuck in, ignoring instructions to keep it all low key during the summit.

Edinburgh is in turmoil with thousands coming to protest, demonstrate, or just enjoy the festival vibe and hear the bands invited to perform. In addition to the great unwashed, the rich and the powerful are in town to press the flesh and do deals – international politicians, business leaders and, to keep an eye on them all, Special Branch. There is also a local power struggle going on with veteran villain Big Ger Cafferty locking horns with self-appointed man of the people, Councillor Gareth Tench.

When, to top it all, a local MP goes over the parapet at Edinburgh Castle, Rebus reckons it was no accident, nor suicide; the only question in his mind is who pushed him, and why.

So, old crimes, new crimes; old foes to rub up against and new enemies made among the visitors. Its chaotic, but Rebus thrives on it and as usual muddles through a twisted but clever plotline.

Good atmosphere, snappy dialogue, and for a change a little bit of detection gets done.

Three Things About Elsie – Joanna Cannon

 Florence Claybourne’s residency at the Cherry Tree Accommodation for the Elderly has been ticking along nicely. She has her own flat, and her lifelong friend, Elsie, for company. But now there are problems. Her memory is not so good and sometimes her thoughts come straight out of her mouth when they would be better to stay in her head. She is due an assessment that could mean goodbye to cheery Cherry Tree and hello to grim Greenbank, where those needing higher levels of support are, in Florence’s view, incarcerated.

To top it all, a new resident has arrived, who calls himself Gabriel Price. But Florence knows that is not his real name; he is Ronnie Butler, a man dead sixty years. She recognizes him, recognizes the scar she gave him, recognizes the man she saw drown in the canal.

Gabriel / Ronnie shows no sign of recognizing Florence, but as evidence of her own erratic behaviour begins to mount – a lost book turning up in the fridge, her kitchen cupboard full of Battenburg cakes, an iron left dangerously on – she knows he is behind it all somehow.

Florence and Elsie recruit fellow resident, Jack, whose son acts as taxi driver, to help investigate Gabriel Price and prove he is really Ronnie Butler. Ronnie Butler who, by drowning in the canal left unanswered questions concerning the violent death, that same night, of Elsie’s sister Beryl.

The story unfolds in three time frames. In the here and now, Florence is lying prone on the floor of her flat, hoping someone will find her before it is too late. While there, she relates the events of the last month and the investigation into Gabriel Price. Assistant manager, Miss Ambrose, and handyman, Simon, also contribute to that narrative. Her thoughts also drift back to the distant past, to the night Beryl died, and Ronnie ended up in the canal.

Relationships within the closed world of Cherry Tree are well portrayed, and sub-plots involving minor characters provide pleasurable diversions. And those three things about Elsie? Read, discover, enjoy.

Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healey

 Maud knows Elizabeth is missing, it is written on a scrap of paper, and that is how Maud remembers things now, her head being unreliable for that purpose. She tells her daughter, Helen, and the police, but no-one does anything about it.

Maud has to rely on herself to find Elizabeth, but it is hard to investigate when she cannot remember clues and her mind keeps slipping back seventy years to another disappearance, that of her sister, Sukey.

Sukey disappeared just after the war and never turned up again. She was not long married to Frank, who was a bit of a chancer mixed up in the black market. Did he do something to her? Could it have something to do with the young lodger, Douglas, who clearly held a torch for her? Or did the madwoman down the street do her in for no reason at all?

The stories of the missing Elizabeth and Sukey unfold in tandem, often mixed up in Maud’s mind, though her recollections of Sukey are the more reliable. It is Maud’s long-suffering daughter who must cope with Maud’s twin concerns, one real but historic and the other current but unsubstantiated.

Maud’s narrative gives an insight into what it may be like (who can tell how accurate) to have dementia, by turns funny and frightening. The seamless transitions from present to past to present again, losing and regaining names, locations, and the plot generally, all has an authentic feel that generates sympathy, for both Maud and Helen.

It is uncertain to the end whether either disappearance will be resolved. And if one is, will Maud even realise?

The Dry – Jane Harper

 The book-packing journey reaches Australia and the remote community of Kiewarra.

Kiewarra has not seen rain for two years, but it has not seen Aaron Falk for longer than that, twenty years in fact, until he turns up for the funeral of his boyhood pal, Luke Hadler. Luke, wife Karen, and son Billy are all dead, shot, apparently in a murder - suicide tragedy with Luke the perpetrator. The big question is why?

Easier to answer is why Aaron Falk has been away for twenty years. He and his father were run out of town following the drowning of Ellie Deacon, a girl young Aaron was seeing at the time. He has been ‘allowed’ back for the day of the funeral to pay his respects. But when Luke’s parents ask Aaron to ‘look into things’, after all he is a police detective in Melbourne, he hangs around and starts making enquiries.

Kiewarra is a powder keg in more ways than one. It is bone dry; farms are parched, and people are fractious and worried for their livelihoods. Secrets, and favours owed, are concealed in a web of deceit and mistrust. Falk’s probing is unwelcome but throws up new possibilities in the Hadler case, even suggesting links back the suspicious death of Ellie Deacon.

Despite the wide horizons of the outback, the atmosphere is small-town claustrophobic. The plot is cunning as characters mislead and clues misguide Falk right to the end. Tension mounts and the powder keg threatens to blow.

Once Upon a River – Dianne Setterfield

 The river is the Thames, specifically between Cricklade and Oxford. Midway down that stretch is the Swan Inn where on midwinter’s eve the regulars – the bargemen, the gravel-diggers, and the cress-growers – gather to tell and listen to stories in the days when entertainment had to be self-generated.

The gathering is rudely interrupted when a man, battered and bloodied, bursts in, dripping wet, with a similarly drenched, unconscious child in his arms When he then collapses, the local freelance nurse, Rita Sunday, is sent for. The man’s identity is revealed by a business card his sodden wallet. He is Henry Daunt, pioneering photographer. As he remains unconscious, and the child says nothing, her identity is open to speculation.

It could be Daunt’s daughter. But she is of an age consistent with a baby girl snatched from the big house two years earlier. Within a day another candidate emerges. A destitute abandoned mother has hung herself and her daughter, last seen being held on a bridge over the river, is missing. Then a crazed woman turns up claiming the child is her sister.

Though Daunt recovers and confirms it is not his child, that still leaves three rival claims. Anthony Vaughan, from the big house, needs to believe it is his snatched daughter, Amelia; Robert Armstrong, father-in-law of the suicide, hopes it is his never-seen grandchild, Alice; and crazed Lily White is convinced it is her sister, Ann, drowned twenty years since, finally given back up by the river.

The good guys, Rita Sunday, Henry Daunt, Robert Armstrong, and Anthony Vaughan band together to determine the truth. In doing so, dark deeds are uncovered. For those who witness life and death by river, the supernatural cannot be discounted.

The light gothic style flows as well as the river that forms the dramatic, ever-present backdrop. The main characters have a surprising depth to them, which sees them struggle not so much with physical foes as with conflicting emotions. Some, at least, will have hopes dashed, but hopefully all will get closure.

Alice in Exile – Piers Paul Read

 When Alice Fry meets Edward Cobb at a society party in London in 1913, there is a spark between them that reaches across a divide in class and outlook. Cobb is landed gentry, heir to the baronetcy at Nester Park, and an army officer. Alice thinks herself a modern woman, studying at university, in sympathy with the suffragist movement and sharing the socialist ideals of her publisher father.

Opposites attract; the relationship develops. Cobb takes advantage of Alice’s liberated views on sex before marriage. Alice allows herself to appreciate the high life at Nestor, where she meets and challenges the entrenched views of the political elite. On an outing to the Epsom Derby (the Cobb’s have a stud and a horse running) Alice meets a Russian aristocrat, Baron Rettenberg. He is a connoisseur, and not just of horseflesh.

When Alice’s world, including her prospective marriage to Cobb, collapses in scandal and misfortune, Rettenberg swoops in with an offer of a post as governess to his two youngest children – in Russia. For Alice it would be a welcome bolthole, so she accepts and goes with him into self-imposed exile at the Baron’s Soligorsk estate.

The years that follow are tumultuous for the whole continent with the outbreak of the First World War and the rolling revolutions in Russia. Edward Cobb is mired in the slaughter of the Western Front. The Rettenbergs must navigate the changing currents of the Russian Empire’s descent into chaos. Cobb comes to realise what he has lost in Alice; Rettenberg, increasingly relying on her for practical and emotional support, sees that, in Alice, he may gain more than a quick conquest. As for Alice, she concentrates on what is necessary to survive.

It is a well crafted novel written with clarity that gives credibility to the love triangle and generates empathy with the characters. The historical context provides an interesting and vividly drawn backdrop to events. The resolution remains in doubt to the end, and possibly beyond.

Into the Silence – Wade Davis

 This comprehensive account of the first attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain deals with more than just the mechanics of the expeditions of 1921, 1922, and 1924. The subtitle, ‘The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest’ could also have included a reference to Tibet, as both its landscape and culture feature large.

Davis lays some solid foundations ahead of the main action, reprising the history of Tibet and its relations with the British Raj in India. Similarly, the World War 1 experiences of expedition members are covered in detail, along with their feelings of disassociation with the post-war Britain they return to. Davis cites this as a motivating factor, driving some to seek adventure, endurance and even danger, abroad. And what offered more than the ascent of Everest?

The first expedition in 1921 broke new ground in exploring the (to them) largely unknown regions of West Tibet and enabling some detailed reconnaissance of the approaches to the mountain. By the time an accessible route was determined, adverse weather caused the exhausted and depleted climbers to withdraw.

A year later, lessons learned on the importance of physiology, the second expedition included younger climbers, with only George Mallory returning for another go. In addition, oxygen cylinders and masks were brought, controversially as some considered its use as cheating. While Mallory set a new height record unaided, it was eclipsed days later by George Finch using the breathing apparatus. Close, but no cigar; weather and the death of seven porters in an avalanche on the high slopes ended the expedition.

Two years on, Mallory and several of the class of 1922 returned with better oxygen gear and, in Mallory’s case, an acceptance of its necessity at extreme altitude. They got higher than before. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit? Nether returned to tell the tale, and it was seventy-five years before one of their bodies (Mallory) was found.

The nearly six-hundred-page read is a fitting tribute to the early explorers. Maps are provided to enable the reader to follow their footsteps across the roof of the world, and there are some photographs, though these are frustratingly in random, rather than chronological, order.

The words, however, are excellent, placing the expeditions in historical, geographical, and cultural context It reveals the men as well as the mission, with plenty of first-hand testimony from diaries and letters. Altogether, an epic book worthy of its epic subject matter.

The Testaments – Margret Atwood

 In 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale gave a harrowing account of one woman’s fate in the patriarchal society of Gilead, following its takeover of much of the United States. In this sequel, published twenty-five years later, a broader view emerges with the testaments of three women, none of them handmaids, dated probably twenty-five years after the events of the previous book.

Agnes Jemima is the privileged daughter of Commander Kyle and his current wife Tabitha. That Agnes’s birth mother is not Tabitha is nothing unusual in Gilead, but neither was she conceived by a handmaid, so Kyle may not be her father (he certainly shows no fatherly affection). She recounts her upbringing and ‘education’ that prepares her for an early marriage and life as a Commander’s wife. Not a prospect she relishes.

Daisy is almost sixteen and is not in Gilead but across the border in Canada. She thinks she is the daughter of Neil and Melanie who run a second-hand clothes shop in Toronto. But her parentage is also a lie. And the shop is just a front for the Mayday operation, set up to assist runaway handmaids and other fugitives from Gilead. When Neil and Melanie’s cover is blown, Daisy is whisked off by Mayday into hiding.

The third, most damning, testimony is from one of the Gilead Aunts, those in charge of the education (and subjugation) of the female population, particularly the daughters of the elite. They also train and oversee ‘Pearl Girls’ missionaries to undertake good works and conversions abroad, including Canada. However, Aunt Lydia is not just an Aunt, she is one of the founding Aunts at the top of the organisation and as such is the confidante of Supreme Commander Judd. Her testimony goes way back to her ‘recruitment’; it witnesses the rise of Gilead and foresees its fall. She wants to have her say for posterity.

The three narratives, convincingly written, unfold in turn and converge to a fitting climax. Atwood is strongest on the oppressive setting and chilling detail of Gilead, and if the coming together of the storylines is a little contrived, it is forgivable in bringing Gilead back to our attention in a world in need of reminding what could happen.

A Silent Death – Peter May

 John Mackenzie is a highly intelligent crime solver with zero emotional intelligence. Having got up the nose of his bosses at the Met, he has just been shipped off to the National Crime Agency. Having got up the nose of his wife, he has also been shipped out of the marital home and is living in a dodgy bedsit with limited access to his two children. In his spare time, he collects Open University degrees and learns foreign languages.

It is his fluency in Spanish that lands him with his first mission with the NCA, a simple job of jetting off to Spain to pick up a villain apprehended there. Twenty-four hours, max, his new boss says.

By the time the plane lands, the villain has escaped, and Mackenzie has been seconded to help track him down. Despite his less than endearing personality he teams up effectively with a young female uniformed office, Christina Sanchez Pradell, who has been assigned to provide legitimacy to his activities.

Her current situation and backstory frame most of the narrative. It was she that arrested the villain, so he is out for revenge on her. So, while Mackenzie and Christina hunt for him, he is waging a vendetta against her nearest and dearest – husband, son, and a particularly defenceless deaf/blind aunt.

It is set almost exclusively in Andalusia in the south of Spain, with plenty of local colour and an exciting climax atop the Rock of Gibraltar. No spoiler here, but the title does hint at the ending. The prose is pacey and though three of the main characters (Mackenzie, Cleland the villain, and Aunt Ana) are unconventional and interesting, it is hard to empathise with them. Christina, you feel for.

For me, this fell short of the high standard set by May’s Isle of Lewis trilogy, but still provided a diverting (99p Kindle) read.

Doggerland – Ben Smith

 The old man and the boy inhabit a rig in the North Sea, from where they service the giant wind turbines that stretch as far as the horizon. But the boy is no longer the boy he was when he was brought aboard to fulfil his absconded father’s contract; he is a young man.

And not all the wind turbines turn anymore. They are failing faster than the old man and the boy can repair them with the limited spare parts brought by the sporadic supply boat. Ultimately, that’s not their problem, so they carry on their monotonous existence. The boy, self-motivated by his interest in the engineering, does what he can to keep occupied. The old man is more interested in dredging the seabed for relics. Relics of what? the boy wonders.

There are more fundamental unknowns for the boy. What lies beyond the wind farm? Is there still a shoreline? And what happened to his father?

The book majors on the interaction between the old man and the boy, whose incarceration together makes for a complex relationship. There is a mutual dependency that is tested by life’s irritations, the rigours of their lifestyle, the generational divide, and competition for priority use of the single maintenance launch. It is the boy’s means of reaching turbines in need of attention, and the old man’s means of dredging. When left alone on the rig, the boy dwells on his missing father and researches the maintenance log for answers. He spots some correlations and clues, so the possibility of discovering his father’s fate arises.

The world conjured up – the giant engineering pitted against the remorseless sea, wind, and rain; the ever turning blades of steel against the grey limitless sky – is bleak but engrossing. The characters are convincing and the outlook for both is uncertain to the end. For once, the blurb on the cover is accurate: The Road meets Waiting for Godot.

The Guest List – Lucy Foley

 Jules and Will are getting married. They are both attractive, and successful in self-made careers that benefit from a high social media profile. So the wedding has to be a bit special.

Wedding planner, Aoife, has the perfect venue, a folly that she and her husband have renovated, located on an otherwise deserted island off the west coast of Ireland. It is exclusive, romantic, and available at a discount. The premium guests arrive the day before. They include Johnno, Will’s old school friend and best man; Olivia, Jules’ half-sister and sole bridesmaid; and Hannah, the plus one to the bride’s oldest friend (and possibly ex-lover).

These six characters narrate events over the weekend, in two timelines: Now – the wedding reception; and Earlier – beginning the day before as they all arrive. And these events involve divulgence of secrets, recriminations over past misdeeds, settling of scores, a power cut and, yes, murder in the dark. Who is dead, and who done it, is revealed late and in fine style.

The set up is the same as Foley’s previous debut hit, The Hunting Party, but why change a winning formula that, on this evidence, can take at least one encore. The characterisation is good, the prose is pacey, and the plot complex enough to keep the reader guessing to the climactic end.

The Accidental – Ali Smith

 The Smart family are on an extended summer holiday in Norfolk. Twelve-year-old Astrid is not impressed, everything about the cottage and its locality is, in her words, substandard. The views of her seventeen-year-old brother, Magnus, are not known; he is not speaking to anyone and has mainly withdrawn into his bedroom. Mother, Eve, spends all day in the summer house struggling with her writer’s block. And stepfather Michael, his academic career mired in gross moral turpitude, is concerned with his latest trade of grades for sex.

Into this dysfunctional menage comes, uninvited, Amber MacDonald. She falls between the Smart generations, charming them all despite her penchant for saying it how it is. Eve assumes she is one of Michael’s ‘special’ students; Michael assumes she is one of Eve’s fans. By the time they realise their mistakes, the cuckoo is well established in the nest.

Astrid sees a role model; Magnus has a reason to come out of his funk; Michael senses a possible new conquest; and Eve sees a lost soul to save. They are all wrong, but Amber’s intervention changes the family dynamic; for better or worse is a moot point.

The structure is unconventional with each of the family taking a turn to be centre stage in the narrative, their four streams of consciousness flowing in distinctive styles, appropriate to the character. Their secrets are revealed to the reader. With Amber as catalyst, will they be spilled to the rest of the family?

The unusual structure and the idiosyncratic characters, not least Amber, make for an interesting and entertaining read.

Crown & Country – David Starkey

 A history of England through the monarchy is the book’s sub-title, which accurately describes the content of this jaunty march from the end of Roman rule to the golden jubilee of Elizabeth II.

Covering twelve hundred years in five hundred pages makes for a relatively whistle stop journey. While sacrificing detail and complexity it gains in the coherence and visibility of broad themes and key points when the nature of monarchy and governance change.

The emergence of the first Saxon kings; the Norman conquest and its aftermath; the power struggle with the barons and the great charters; Henry VIII’s break with Rome; religious conflict, leading to the interregnum and, later, the installation of Dutch and German princes as kings as Parliamentary power grew; all feature large.

In the early and middle centuries, the centrality of the monarchy to the political life of the country is evident, as (mainly) kings take taxes and make war as they please, so much is covered. In the later centuries, as Parliament takes control of finance and policy, important political events are less central to the narrative and the account inevitably become more personal.

But that is fine, other histories fill that gap. This book does what it says on the cover and does it well in a relaxed and readable style.

Us Against You – Fredrik Backman

This, the sequel to Beartown, takes up the story soon after the climactic end of its predecessor. The survivors, mostly damaged, take up their fractured lives and try to regain normality.

That seems futile for the Andersson family, as each member looks to their own escape. For father, Peter, it is to save the ice hockey team from extinction; for mother, Kira, it is immersion in her career; for daughter, Maya, it is her music; and for young Leo it is a drift into moodiness and vandalism.

New characters join the cast: duplicitous local politician, Richard Theo; leader of the local hooligan ’Pack’, Teemu Rinnius; and new A team coach, Elizabeth Zackell, unconventionally female, if not feminine. Theo finds a new team sponsor but sows discord; Zackell ruffles feathers and invites prejudice; Rinnius glowers in the shadows, self-appointed guardian of the team’s identity. Peter Andersson flounders, trying to square their irreconcilable demands.

The youth team players, Benji, Bobo, and Amat, graduate to the A team, and prepare for season defining games against deadly local rivals, the team from Hed.

Love and loyalties are tested; trusts are betrayed; rivalry descends into hatred and violence, stoked for political purposes; tolerance is tested, and insecurity is rife, as the war for control of the club’s soul is fought alongside more personal battles.

As in Beartown, the present tense narration builds tension, and the Scandi-forest atmosphere and memorable characters make the story compulsive reading.

Review of 2020 Reading Year

 Reading was boosted by the lockdown and 39 books were read, almost half by ‘new to me’ authors. Last year’s gender imbalance was corrected with female authors edging it this year by 20 to 19 and smashing the highlights reel 7 to 3. Though the reading groups closed down in March, two of their five choices make the best-of list. The ‘bookpacking’ reading journey remained stranded in Africa where only one book was added, albeit a cracker.

My ten best reads of the year include regular stalwarts Atkinson and Atwood but mainly were from new-to-me authors. (Month of full review in brackets.)

 

The Museum of You – Carys Bray: Touching tale involving a father and young daughter who are dealing with the loss of a wife and mother in different ways; laced with humour and pathos. (March)

 

Five Quarters of the Orange – Joanne Harris: Sumptuously written twin tracked narrative about a woman running a café in rural France and her childhood exploits under WW2 occupation. (March)

 

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing – Mary Paulson-Ellis: Another twin tracked story in which a down-at-heel heir hunter unravels an inheritance that goes back to WW1, balancing the comic present with the tragic past. (April)

 

The Martian – Andy Weir: Compulsive and inspirational tale of an astronaut marooned on Mars, using his wits, scientific knowledge, and determination to survive the hostile environment while Earth scrambles to rescue him. (May)

 

The Wall – John Lanchester: Post Brexit, post climate change Britain is protected from immigrants by a wall around the coast, patrolled by young conscripts; dystopian and all too believable. (May)

 

Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood: Fictionalised account of the life of 19^th century Canadian Grace Marks; her emigration from Ireland, her involvement in and conviction for murder, her imprisonment, and subsequent attempts to free her; cleverly and ambiguously told. (June)

 

Born to Run – Christopher McDougall: Fascinating account of the barefoot, ultra-long distance running Tarahumara people of the Mexican Sierra Madre, incorporating nuggets of physiology, anthropology, history, and bonkers feats of endurance. (July)

Big Sky – Kate Atkinson: The latest Jackson Brodie novel meets its high expectations with a cast of brilliant characters, a serpentine plot, and trademark dark humour, all set on the beautiful North Yorkshire coast. (August)

The Wych Elm – Tana French: A young man relates, none to reliably, how a violent robbery sets off a chain of life-changing events that make him re-evaluate relationships; a slow burner that keeps giving to the end. (October)

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver: Four daughters of an evangelical preacher posted to Congo in 1959 relate, in contrasting styles, how their changed lives move from exasperation and humour to desperation and peril as colonial rule is overturned. (November)