When the Apricots Bloom – Gina Wilkinson

The book-packing journey reaches the Middle East with this novel set in Baghdad in 2002, where the story centres on the lives of three women and their relationship.

Rania Mansour is an artist, granddaughter of a sheik - not that that counts for much in the new Iraq ruled by clerics and the mukhabarat (secret police) thugs. She finds herself in gentle decline, selling off the family assets to maintain the appearance of a lifestyle. She has a teenage daughter, Hannan.

Huda’s origins are humbler. Though she and Rania were friends as girls they have since moved in different circles. She has a husband, Abdul Amir, and a thirteen-year-old son, Khalid, and works at the Australian Embassy.

Ally, ten years younger than Rania and Huda, is the wife of Tom Wilson, Deputy Ambassador at the Australian Embassy, but (keep this quiet) she is American by birth and cub journalist by previous profession. Either of these facts could get her thrown out of the country, or worse. But she has a personal reason for her risky presence in Baghdad – to find out about her mother’s life there before she married, had Ally, and died young.

The shadow of Saddam Hussein lies heavy on the land. Rania and Huda have their own reasons to live in fear. Huda is instructed to befriend Ally and pump her for diplomatic titbits; Rania is commissioned to paint a portrait of the glorious leader. Worse for both is the potential fates of their children – Khalid to be conscripted into a brutal cadet force, and Hannan to be ‘spotted’ and ‘taken in’ by Saddam’s notoriously lecherous son, Uday.

It is Ally who brings Rania and Huda back together when she requires Huda to accompany her on a visit to Rania’s gallery. It turns out there is a reason why the childhood friends are now distant, but as things progress needs must that they forget their differences and work together on an audacious plan to save their children.

It is atmospheric and menacing. The point of view switches between the women as each of them work to their own goals, weighing up the amount of trust they can give and receive. Thus, Wilkinson sensitively illustrates the dilemma of everyday life in Iraq (or any totalitarian state) – to accept the wrongs of the regime and survive, or work against them and risk ruin, torture, or death.

A decent, if workmanlike, read.

The Chemical Detective – Fiona Erskine

Dr Jaq Silver, industrial chemist specialising in explosives, and a keen skier, is in her element. Her new job with Snow Science is based in the snow-covered Slovenian mountains. Being far from England, and Teesside in particular, is a bonus, enabling unhappy memories to be left behind (though not for long). Alright, her boss is a dick, but aren’t they always? She’ll put up with that and enjoy the skiing and the party life that surrounds it.

But then a delivery from Teesside arrives at the Snow Science complex, and when Jaq takes the routine quality control samples, something doesn’t look right. From then on, an avalanche of events carries her on a breathless charge criss-crossing Europe, sometimes in pursuit of a lead, often fleeing a villain or two. Sexy men are involved, for good or ill. A back story begins to be revealed (but not in full – a sequel is likely) involving marital break-up and professional blame shifting.

In addition to Jaq’s point of view, the reader gets to see what the other characters are up to. To name but three: Boris, long haul lorry driver with villainous aspirations; Frank Good, the inappropriately named chief executive of Teesside based chemical firm, Zagrovyl; and Paul Polzin, international fixer nicknamed the Spider for his ability to spin webs of deceit.

Erskine peppers the narrative with scientific method and titbits, which works okay given her heroine’s occupation, but it is the exploits that stretch credibility. Any film adaptation would need Tom Cruise in drag to do them justice. The plot is complex, held together with coincidence, leaps of faith, and an alarming lack of common sense in Jaq. But we get there in the end.

And by the end I was glad it was all over.

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

Self-proclaimed (and accurately) as a brief history of mankind, this book seeks to explain how homo sapiens came to dominate the world, before even more briefly speculating on how sustainable that dominance may be.

Interestingly, it identifies four key developments that marked seismic shifts in history. First, and most important, was a ‘cognitive’ revolution in which Sapiens came to recognise, value, and label in language intangibles (things we cannot touch or see - the products of imagination) that we now take for granted. Second came the agricultural revolution, whereby for the first time Sapiens gathered in greater numbers than could be individually known to each other, requiring social organisation and cooperation (voluntary or coerced). The third development was the unification of the world when its disparate parts became connected, enabling global trade in goods and ideas, not to mention conquest and exploitation. Fourth came the scientific revolution whereby the pursuit of knowledge and the admission of ignorance became something valuable, something to enhance rather than threaten those in power.

As we are taken through these stages, insights come in a steady stream, blindingly obvious – except you had never looked at it like that. Too numerous to mention individually but each a building block in Harari’s analysis.

Despite the enormous concepts in play – religion, economics, money, war, empire, ideologies – the prose is clear, concise, and very readable. Though sure in his own mind, Harari persuades rather than harangues. He admits the possibility of doubt but provides the evidence to put it in its place of low probability.

A most satisfying read with so much food for thought that you can dine on it for weeks after and digest its truths slowly.

Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart

The book opens with fifteen-year-old Shuggie Bain living hand to mouth in the South Side of Glasgow in 1992, but swiftly rewinds ten years to place him in his family home in the Sighthill area of the city.

It is a blended, multi-generational family shoehorned into a high rise flat. Shuggie’s mother, Agnes Bain, is the lynch pin: Lizzie and Wullie Campbell are her parents, and it is their flat; taxi driver Shug (Hugh) is her second husband; teenagers Catherine and Leek (Alexander) are the leftovers from her first marriage; and Shuggie (little Hugh) is the product of Shug’s loins. The household shows the strains inherent in the situation with fraught relationships and alcohol the go-to remedy.

Big Shug finally has enough. He relocates his family (stepchildren included) to a housing scheme in the Glasgow hinterland, built to house miners who are now jobless, hopeless, and invisible. Agnes is dismayed, and immediately the family begins a slow disintegration that lasts seven years. Agnes’ drinking gets worse, and the slow motion car crash of her life begins in earnest.

Shuggie grows up in the chaos, not helped by his self-awareness, reinforced by his neighbours and peers, that he is ‘not normal’. Despite the neglect by Agnes and abuse from the rest of the world, he remains good-natured and develops a creditable self-sufficiency.

Although Shuggie has the title role, he shares the spotlight with his mother. Agnes is a mass of contradictions: obsessive about keeping up appearances when sober but grossing out when drunk; her love for Shuggie is evident but her neglect is shocking. Only Shuggie sticks with her, to his cost.

The writing treads the fine line between harrowing and heart-warming. It is insightful on alcoholism and a testimony on how some communities were affected by the de-industrialisation wrought by the Thatcher years. That the author emerged from a similar upbringing to produce a fine book like this, gives us hope for Shuggie too.