A Beginner’s Guide to Murder – Rosalind Stopps

Three elderly (though they turn out to be spritely) ladies, acquainted through their Pilates class, are taking a post-session cup of coffee in a café when the door bursts open and a distressed teenage girl enters. She asks for help, someone is after her, so she heads for the washroom. Just in time, as an older man comes in asking after ‘his daughter’. He is clearly a nasty piece of work (they subsequently christen him the toad). The ladies feign ignorance and see him off the premises, then spirit the girl, Nina, away.

Thus, Meg, Grace, and Daphne form a band and make a pact to protect Nina at all costs – which may, they realise, extend to eliminating the toad entirely – murder if necessary.

As their amateur efforts (which alternate between protecting and rescuing the girl) ensue, the back story and unsavoury exploitation of Nina is revealed. The back stories of the ladies are not so much given as hinted at, enough though to join the dots and realise this quest has given them new purpose and sorely needed bonds of friendship.

As they pursue the aim of eliminating the toad, they pick up other odd characters that help, or try to, including an incompetent hit man and woman (on which point, is that all there is to a beginner’s guide to murder – hiring an assassin?).

The story is carried forward in the four points of view – Meg, Grace, Daphne, and Nina – which gives some variety of narrative, but not much as while the three old ladies’ histories are different, they tend to waffle on in similar style. It’s all a bit twee, which given the horrific experience of Nina, jars somewhat.

If darkly comic was the aim, it falls short in both. Sex slavery is difficult to joke about, and the murderous plans of the three sweet old ladies (despite murky deeds in their past) lack both credibility and grit.

Act of Oblivion – Robert Harris

It is the year 1660, and after the eleven years under the Protectorship of the recently deceased Oliver Cromwell, the monarchy has been restored in the person of Charles II. And there are scores to be settled. Under the Act of Oblivion, those who were directly involved in the execution of Charles I are to pay with their lives.

Fifty-nine ‘regicides’ signed the King’s death warrant and forty-six are accounted for (executed, awaiting execution, or otherwise dead) leaving thirteen still at large. Among those are Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe, now fled to America where they hope the puritan colonists will shelter them.

Back in London, Richard Naylor, clerk to the Privy Council, reports to the Lord Chancellor that his network of spies and informants have tracked Whalley and Goffe’s departure. His zeal in tracking them down is more than professional, he has an old, bitter score to settle. Cue a hunt as Naylor uses the power of the new king to flush out and pursue the two colonels across New England.

The action alternates between America, where Whalley and Goffe struggle to keep undercover in the sparsely populated wilderness, and London, where their families remain hidden in the teeming city.

It is a long 550 page read, but it covers a lot of ground going forward – including the fire of London and a plague or two – and some history flashbacks as Naylor recollects the Civil War from a Royalist viewpoint and Whalley pens a memoir of his time in his cousin Cromwell’s New Model Army. However, the pages fly by easily with Harris’s fluent prose and narrative flair all the way to an exciting and uncertain climax.

In summary, a good story, based on fact, well told.

Violeta – Isabel Allende

In 2020 Violeta Del Valle is one hundred years old and dying as the coronavirus pandemic rages worldwide. She finds it oddly appropriate, as she was born during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1920. The story of her life is related in an extended autobiographical account addressed to Camilo (whose identity is revealed about halfway through the book).

Violeta’s childhood is spent as the spoiled daughter of a wealthy businessman in Santiago, Chile, but when the business fails and her father dies shamefully, her family choose to exile themselves in the far southern wilderness of the country. From there, she and her brother start to rebuild.

We get Violeta’s perspective of growing up, getting on, surviving life’s knocks, and growing old in twentieth century Chile. Over the years she gets through a few relationships and sees the carnage wreaked on the country by a succession of regimes, dictatorships, and brief periods of democracy. Her business acumen, in partnership with her brother, gives her some financial independence and protection that helps her manage her less successful personal and family life.

The twin tale of Violeta’s life and her country’s trials carry the reader effortlessly forward, keen to discover the next development. Allende skilfully conveys how a life story is a succession of lives lived in changing contexts, be they personal, political, economic, or cultural. The sixteen-year-old is different at thirty-six, fifty-six, seventy-six. Different priorities, different loyalties, different abilities, but at heart the same core values and underlying personality.

A thoughtful, interesting, and insightful read.

Great Rides According to G – Geraint Thomas

Geraint Thomas, or ‘G’ as he is known in the cycling fraternity, here shares some of his favourite rides with the reader. Of course, as he is a winner of the Tour de France, these are not Sunday afternoon pedals for the family, but challenging routes for the enthusiastic amateur or aspiring professional.

And be prepared to ship your bike around the world. After a couple of settlers in his Welsh homeland, he is off to exotic locations in Italy, Spain, Monaco, Tenerife, California, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In each location we are treated to undulating roads, steep ascents, great views, treacherous descents and, universally, a plethora of coffee shops and cafes. It seems a pro-racer’s training schedule includes obligatory coffee at the start, during, and towards the end of each route.

Well that bit sounds good to me; it is the cycling in between where I would struggle. Which is why the book makes pleasant armchair reading, imagining the ride, enjoying G’s descriptions of the terrain, landscape, and yes, the coffee. Anecdotes are told, and names such as Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish, are dropped. The odd non-cycling sporting icon gets a mention too.

G’s style is relaxed and conversational, so reading the slim volume is as easy as the flat 2km stage from the front gate to the newsagent’s and back.

The Pier Falls – Mark Haddon

This collection of nine not so short stories showcases Mark Haddon’s talent and imagination.

There is a variety of settings from the deceptively mundane – a south coast pier, a country cottage, a housing estate – to the startlingly exotic – a deserted island, the Amazon jungle, the planet Mars.

Ditto the characters who feature – men and women, young and old, rich and poor. As in life, they are people ordinary in one sense yet unique in others. Haddon places them in unusual situations that have some commonality; they are generally in jeopardy, which makes for tense and entertaining reading.

The prose flows well, the present tense narration giving an immediacy to the events. It is just as well that the length of the pieces enables them to be read in a single sitting of under an hour.

The collection is highly recommended. If you think short story collections are not for you, this anthology could change your mind.

Snap – Belinda Bauer

Eleven-year-old Jack Bright’s life turns when his mother’s car breaks down on a west country motorway. She leaves Jack and his two younger sisters in the car while she goes in search of the nearest emergency phone. She never returns, at least alive. Jack’s dad cannot cope and leaves home. Jack is now in charge, he keeps their parentless status a secret, manages to put food on the table, by burglary.

Catherine While’s life is due to change as the end of her pregnancy nears. Husband, Adam, is over the moon but somewhat over-solicitous. He travels for his job, so Catherine is used to being home alone. It doesn’t bother her – until a serial intruder starts to leave her cryptic messages. She doesn’t phone the police or tell Adam for fear of him becoming even more protective.

DI John Marvel is new to the west country. He’s a Londoner but has been shipped out to Somerset from the Met after a botched case. His interest is in solving murders, but they are fewer and further between out here in the sticks. Instead he is handed the ‘Goldilocks’ burglaries case, so called because the perpetrator tends to steal food and sleep in empty beds before trashing the joint.

It's all connected of course, but very cleverly with sufficient side plots to distract from and obscure the outcome. The writing is pacy with wry observations, and the characters stand out, even the minor ones such as Jack’s sisters and Marvels’ colleagues.

It is nicely entertaining. Bauer comes (as she often does) at the crime novel from an unusual angle, avoiding the stereotyping that prevails in most of the genre.

Birnam Wood – Eleanor Catton

Birnam Wood is the name of a radical gardening collective set up by Mira Bunting but run on a strictly democratic and not for profit, basis. They take over abandoned, neglected, or donated spaces and grow produce for sale, barter, charity, or personal consumption. When a landslide in a national park in New Zealand’s South Island isolates an unused farm, Mira sees an opportunity to scale up Birnam Wood’s operations.

The farm owners, Owen and Jill (soon to be Sir and Lady) Darvish, are safely out of the way up north in Wellington, but when Mira arrives to surreptitiously scope the project, she finds an aeroplane on the airstrip; and the pilot finds her.

He turns out to be Robert Lemoine, an American entrepreneurial billionaire, who is negotiating for the purchase of the land. He’s an odd one, hard to trust, but seems happy to tolerate, even encourage Mira’s project. Mira needs to convince the rest of the group that this is Birnam Wood’s future. Her trusty lieutenant, Shelley Noakes, is in favour, but opposed is Tony Gallo, just back in town. He and Mira have history - unfinished business from when Tony left for the States a few years previously.

Tony’s interest in Birnam Wood is more political than horticultural; his ambition is to be an investigative journalist, and he smells a story in the offing.

The actual story, or stories unfold: Mira, Shelley and Tony a potential love triangle; Mira, Shelley and Robert ditto; Robert Lemoine and Owen Darvish, who is shafting whom in the deal; Lemoine and Darvish ripe for Tony Gallo’s probing; and what is billionaire Lemoine really up to?

All is revealed. Catton’s prose is wordy but never dull, and the pace picks up as motives emerge, distrust spreads, and tension rises to an exciting climax.

Mourning Ruby – Helen Dunmore

It’s a bit of a jigsaw of a novel, centred on Rebecca, who generally narrates but not strictly chronologically, some key episodes in her life so far (she is about forty?)

To begin with: a baby in a shoebox, she is left outside the kitchen of an Italian restaurant to be adopted and brought up in full knowledge of her abandoned status. Later, a young adult, she shares a flat with Joe with whom she forms a strong but platonic bond. He introduces her to Adam, a doctor, who she marries and with whom she has a baby girl, Ruby. No spoiler, Ruby dies young; Rebecca struggles to cope.

While that is going on, Joe is writing a masterpiece about Stalin, or more accurately his wife, and relates much of it to Rebecca. Later, Joe moves on to writing a novel set in the first world war, in which the lead characters (William and Florence) seem to mirror him and Rebecca. Joe sends Rebecca chunks of manuscript, reproduced at length.

Somewhere in between is the life story of Rebecca’s employer, Mr Damiano, hotel proprietor and one time circus performer and creator of a ‘Dreamworld’ attraction.

Confusing? Not really. Each segment makes for pleasant enough reading, but with only Rebecca linking it all, there is no real cohesion. It might even have worked better as four short stories. I struggled to see how Rebecca’s life was impacted in any way by Stalin’s wife, Mr Damiano’s circus, or Joe’s unfinished war novel.

But maybe I missed something?

Lucy by the Sea – Elizabeth Strout

In this novel Elizabeth Strout returns to one of her oft-visited characters, Lucy Barton, and follows her through the Covid19 pandemic.

At the outbreak, or just before, she is living alone in her New York City apartment – alone as her second husband, David, has not long since died. She remains on friendly terms with her first husband, William, and it is he, a scientist, who alerts her to the imminent danger and by force of personality whisks her off to a coastal property that he has rented in Maine.

Over the course of the pandemic, with its isolating and disinfecting protocols, social distancing, and paranoia (justifiable as friends and acquaintances succumb to the virus), her relationship with William and daughters Chrissy and Becka change. While contact with William is necessarily close, her previous close contact with the girls now becomes unavoidably remote. We see through her eyes, and her anxieties, changes for William (who discovers a half-sister) and the girls (whose domestic relationships are put under pressure).

Lucy narrates throughout, in a somewhat quirky style, more conversational than written, that treats the reader as a close confident. It engenders a genuine buy-in to the outcomes. The setting of coastal Maine is vivid, and the pandemic context is now a quaint but potent reminder of those strange times.

Pre-knowledge (I had none) of the earlier Lucy Barton novels does not hinder enjoyment. The occasional references back are slotted in seamlessly with scant but sufficient detail that, if anything, entices the reader to go back for more. Which I will do, having thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Small Pleasures – Clare Chambers

It is June 1957 and for Jean Swinney, features editor, columnist, and general dogsbody at a provincial newspaper, it seems a day like any other. However, a letter from a reader will lead to far reaching consequences.

The letter refers to a mention in the paper of a scientific study of parthenogenesis (the ability of females to reproduce without the involvement of a male) in some lower order animals. The correspondent, Gretchen Tilbury, claims it happened to her some ten years ago. Jean is despatched to investigate the potential ‘virgin birth’ story.

Naturally and professionally sceptical, Jean nevertheless is drawn to Gretchen and her family: daughter Margaret who is the spit of her mother; and husband Howard, an older man who met and took on the single mother soon after the birth. The family are delightful and accommodate Jean’s attention, which gives her a welcome respite from her spinsterish home life restricted by the needs of her infirm and determinedly dependent mother.

The narrative unfolds unhurriedly as Jean investigates the claim, becomes increasingly embraced by the Tilburys, and struggles with her mother’s demands. Though easy paced, it is always engrossing due to the punchy writing style (from Jean’s point of view throughout) and authentic period detail.

Slowly, cracks appear in the smooth running, ordinary lives of Jean’s and the Tilburys. Things happen, pasts emerge, characters fill out, and tension grows to a fine climax.

This is an excellent novel, refreshingly free from graphic crime and violence, yet full of jeopardy, mystery, moral dilemma, and pitch perfect prose. A delight.

Mythos – Stephen Fry

In this precursor (in both senses) of Heroes, Stephen Fry starts right at the beginning of the Greek mythology with the creation out of Chaos of primordial deities, such as Gaia and Ouranos, and with clarity moves through the early orders of Titans to arrive at the more familiar Olympians. These are the six offspring of Kronos and Rhea – Zeus, the eldest, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hades, and Hestia.

Zeus, having overthrown the Titans decides that six Olympians are not enough so he co-opts Aphrodite and goes about fathering another five – Ares and Hephaestus by Hera, twins Artemis and Apollo by the nymph Leto, and Hermes who actually springs from his cleaved head (immediately healed). As you might imagine, Fry has great fun relating all this.

However the mischief really starts when Zeus finds Olympus has become boring and decides to create a diversion in the form of humans. The rest, literally, is history.

But the exploits of men and women are mainly for the Heroes volume. Here it is the interaction of the gods that take centre stage. And fill it with wonder and chaos, rivalry and revenge, trickery and treachery, using humans as disposable proxies in their attempts at one-upmanship. Fry relates it all with gusto, humour, and erudition. Scholarship and etymological links are provided in copious footnotes that reward perseverance with the small print.

A wonderful laying out of Greek mythology made relevant by a modern viewpoint and a highly entertaining narrator.

Pity – Andrew McMillan

For brothers Brian and Alex, born and bred in Barnsley, career choices were few and like their father they went down the pit. Until there weren’t any pits anymore.

Nowadays the jobs on offer to the next generation – Alex’s son Simon, and his boyfriend Ryan – are different, reflecting the new economy. Ryan is a security officer at the main shopping mall. Simon works at a call centre while pursuing supplementary careers as a drag queen and provider of pay-to-view on-line gay porn (some of which is graphically shared with the reader).

This short novel delivers three connected narratives. In the here and now, Simon and Ryan’s relationship is examined along with attitudes towards it from the locals. At the same time, but with flashbacks to the past, Brian is participating in a study project conducted by some university academics keen to assess the town’s collective memory of its mining past. They may be keen, but Brian and the other locals are lukewarm but appreciative of the tea and biscuits. The third strand goes back another generation and uses repetition and evocative prose to give a taste of the miner’s daily grind.

The mix of styles – novelistic, academic, poetic – each expertly crafted, and the use of short chapters, ensure interest is maintained to the end with each strand having a resolution of sorts.

Verity – Colleen Hoover

Lowen is a struggling author, behind on her rent and facing eviction, when an opportunity presents itself. A famous, successful, and wealthy writer, Verity Crawford, has been badly injured in a car accident and is unable to continue a hugely popular and remunerative series of novels. The publishers and Mr Crawford need a reliable and discreet ghostwriter to pick up the threads, decipher Verity’s notes, and finish the books.

 Lowen is dubious but two things propel her to at least take a look at the job. First, she is homeless and there is a residential element, at least initially, to the task. Second, Jeremy Crawford is handsome and seems to find her attractive too. She moves in to find the household includes a young son and a daytime nurse/housekeeper. She also discovers that two earlier twin daughters have died in separate tragic circumstances and that Verity is not just injured, she is bedridden and unable to communicate – the lights are on, but nobody is at home.

 Where does this leave Jeremy Crawford? Two daughters dead and a wife as good as. Surely in need of comfort, if Lowen can overcome her scruples and the overshadowing presence of Verity upstairs.

 Things happen to spook Lowen, cause her to suspect Verity’s incapacity. She discovers a draft autobiography that reveals uncomfortable details of her and Jeremy’s marital (and detailed sexual) relations and of the daughters’ demises. It gives her all sorts of moral dilemmas to resolve against a background of increased attraction between her and Verity’s husband.

 The present tense, first person narrative gives a fine urgency to proceedings. Jeopardy and tension abound. How far can the reader rely on Lowen’s self-serving narrative, or on the husband’s version of events, or on the son’s occasional curve ball revelations, or for that matter on Verity’s written testimony? Whose is the truth, where, so to speak, is the verity?

It is a promising set-up. The wife upstairs enables Hoover to generate a Du Maurier’s Rebecca-like atmosphere, but that is swiftly overridden by the rather prurient autobiography and antics of Lowen and Jeremy that seem increasingly unlikely and turn the novel more into a bonkbuster than a blockbuster.

The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins

Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins sets about religion with relish in this polemic destruction job. He is convinced, and seeks to convince, that religion, all religion, is a delusion – a persistent false belief held in the face of contradictory evidence.

He first deals with God, dismantling all ‘proofs’ offered by apologists. While conceding the notion of using the term for the creative force that set the universe in motion (‘Einstein’s God’), he dismisses any notion of a supernatural being continuing to run things on a daily basis, answering prayers, rewarding the good (or faithful) with heaven, and the bad (or disbelievers) with damnation.

Having disposed of God, religion, as set out in scriptures, is an easy target, rife as they are with immorality, contradiction, and poor role models. Of particular resonance is the section on how morality has changed over time, diverging from the word of God which is set (sometimes literally) in stone.

All jolly stuff, but Dawkins gets serious, pointing out the harm caused by according religion a privileged place in society, protected from challenge by ‘good taste’ or the law of blasphemy. This allows it to freely foment division, discord, hostility, terrorism, and war. As for religious education in schools (or families) - in his view that constitutes child abuse, harming the mind and critical faculties of the young.

For me he is preaching tom the choir, so I found it both great fun and reaffirming a devout atheism. For agnostics, it may tip them over to the light side. As for those bound by religion, with faith being based on belief not reason, it is more likely to antagonise than convert.

Bournville – Jonathan Coe

On 8 May 1945, eleven-year-old Mary Clarke sits with her family to listen to Winston Churchill proclaiming Victory in Europe. She lives in Bournville, midlands home of the Cadbury chocolate factory where many of family work. The snapshot of the day gives a flavour of the times and introduces the family whose life will be followed over the next eight decades.

Not so much followed as periodically visited to join them on a further six days of national celebration or significance: the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II; the 1966 World Cup final; the investiture in 1969 of the Prince of Wales, his wedding in 1981 to Diana, and her funeral in 1997; ending with the COVID-laden 75^th anniversary of that VE Day in 2020.

The theme, of course, is change. Change in society, its material context and more importantly its attitudes. But through all that change the thread of family runs strong even when events and differences stretch relationships to breaking point.

Coe’s prose is easy on the eye but very effective in getting over the subtleties of relationships and developing characters whom we see born, grow, age, and die as the generations pass. Bournville remains the spiritual home to the family and the book ends there as it started, fittingly and quite movingly, with Mary, now 86, socially distancing and reduced to communicating with her family via Skype.

Great Circle – Maggie Shipstead

This is an epic novel (all but defying a concise review) narrating the life story of Marian Graves from an inauspicious beginning to her tilt at circumnavigation of the world by flying a longitudinal ‘great circle’ over both poles.

Marian and her twin brother Jamie are born in 1914 to a self-destructive mother and a taciturn father who captains a transatlantic liner. The whole family is on board when a German shell cripples the ship. Mrs Graves goes down willingly with the boat, but Captain Graves, defying convention and inviting opprobrium, gathers his babes in arms and jumps aboard a lifeboat. That leads to a prison sentence and an end to his career. Meanwhile, Marian and Jamie are dumped into the care of an uncle living in rural Montana. They grow up in benign neglect, forming a friendship with local Huckleberry Finn type, Caleb.

A chance encounter with the Flying Brayfogles, a barnstorming aerobatic duo, gives young Marian an urge, a lust, a compulsion to fly aeroplanes. The book goes on to cover her against-the-odds battles to fly. Sacrifices need to be made as her life lurches from bad decision to crisis to disaster while still making progress in her ambition. Smuggling, freighting in Alaska, and delivering WW2 warplanes in Europe lead eventually to the attempt on the great circle.

Interspersed in the historical tale is a first person narrative from Hadley Baxter, a young out of favour actress, who is cast to play the lead in a movie of Marian’s life story, albeit based on the fragments and misinformation available to the scriptwriters. This false perspective, moving in parallel to the main story adds depth and enables a clever denouement, almost providing alternative endings to the story.

The epic scale (600 pages) allows Shipstead to wander off-piste to provide light touch information about early aviation, and to follow episodes in Jamie’s, Caleb’s, and Hadley’s lives, before homing back on to Marian. Hadley Baxter’s delivery may grate, while being ‘in character’, but this is outweighed by the main narrative style which breezes along nicely.

Reservoir 13 – Jon McGregor

A teenage girl goes missing in Northern England while out walking on the moor with her family. They have been holidaying over New Year at a village, and the locals inevitably join in the search. But she cannot be found.

In the aftermath, once the police and media (but not the girl’s family) have left, feelings and emotions in the locals remain high – anxiety, fear, sympathy, curiosity, mistrust, and suspicion. McGregor gives snapshot observations of, and conversations between, the villagers. There are no introductions to these characters, they pop up in context then the narrative cuts away to another resident in another part of the village, or to the natural environment around it, which continues oblivious to the human drama.

The year progresses, marked by its traditional milestones – Spring, Easter, the well-dressing, an annual cricket match, midsummer, mischief night, the bonfire, Christmas, and back to New Year. In parallel, the natural world marks time – migrating birds returning, fox cubs are born, vegetation blooms, badgers mate, leaves fall, weather happens.

McGregor takes us through the next year in the same vein, then the next, and the subsequent ten or so in the same style. The centrality of the missing girl fades, but our familiarity and understanding of the village life grows. The fly on the wall point of view is surprisingly effective. We soon feel as involved in village life as is the publican, vicar, potter, newspaper editor, farmers, gamekeeper, school caretaker, and the rest. Then there are the children, contemporaries of the missing girl who, unlike her, grow up into young adults under our watch.

It is a beautifully written, engrossing account of a village, and of lives lived in rhythm with the beat of the natural world around it.

Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann

If the title is odd, the subtitle is more telling – Oil, Money, Murder, and the Birth of the FBI.

The oil comes from beneath the land owned by the Osage tribe. The American Indians, shunted from state to state to make room for the white settlers, in 1870 ended up in this rocky, sterile, and unwanted region of what became Oklahoma.

As for the money, in a shrewd or lucky move, the rights to any subterranean minerals on the reservation were retained collectively by the tribe, to be distributed via ‘headrights’ that could not be bought or sold, only inherited. It turned out there was oil under those sterile soils, and as the volume and price of oil increased in the early 1900s, the headright owners became some of the wealthiest citizens of the United States. Except they were not really full citizens, many designated as financially incompetent to manage their own wealth and placed by the paternalistic federal government under the financial guardianship of mainly white, professional, men. Good intentions maybe, but the result was exploitation on an industrial scale, with many making a good living from the ‘Indian Business’.

But for some this was not enough. A combination of rampant greed and racist resentment led to a trail of killings as a way to funnel the headright income away from the Osage. Execution style shootings, poisoning, a couple even blown up in their house, but no culprits, only inadequate inquests, sketchy investigations, and spurious explanations.

Law enforcement was patchy in those days, less so in the Indian reservations, and largely left in the hands of the local worthies – lawyers, doctors, businessmen – who were most at benefit from the old Indian Business and now from the new rash of dying Osage. When some Osage used their money to bring in private investigators, any who got close to the truth were warned off or died in mysterious circumstances, including falling from a moving train.

Eventually the federal government took notice and J Edgar Hoover, who was establishing a federal bureau of investigation, saw the opportunity to bolster its credentials. A Texan named Tom White was brought in along with a host of undercover agents, and eventually under his persistence the grizzly truth (or part of it) was laid bare.

David Grann skilfully picks through the sorry tale. Tom White’s piecing together of the evidence and unmasking the network of conspirators is contextualised with interesting historical asides and Grann’s own recently researched information, to provide a gripping, if socially uncomfortable, read.

Exit Music – Ian Rankin

There is a week and a half to go before DI Rebus takes his pension and bows out of the Lothian and Borders Police. His session with DS Siobahn Clarke handing over unfinished business is interrupted by a call to Raeburn Wynd and a dead body.

It is an exiled dissident Russian poet in the city to launch a new collection. Is the murder political, or just another mugging gone too far? Once Rebus gets involved more possibilities emerge as he sees (or imagines) connections to the Edinburgh overworld and underworld he knows so well. There are Russian investors in town, high-rolling bankers looking for profit, and politicians in the Scottish Parliament happy to facilitate where it suits their cause. With money and sleaze around, who better to insinuate himself into the mix than big Ger Cafferty, Rebus’s criminal nemesis.

Rebus’s (soon to be Clarke’s?) team is augmented by an ambitious but green PC eager to get a taste of life in CID. Problem is that he is from a criminal family – Rebus put away his granddad, and his brother is a drug dealing acolyte of Cafferty. Watch your back, John.

Rebus and Clarke build theories on the inter-connections. Clarke investigates conventionally, while Rebus, as ever, just pokes important people with a stick until something incriminating pops out.

Ian Rankin is comfortable in this skin. The prose rolls off the page with characteristic mixture of fluency and grit peppered with trademark references to Edinburgh geography, history, and culture both high and low.

As a finale, it is a worthy exit; case closed though some personal issues remain unresolved at retirement. We know now that Rebus returns for more, but for me this seventeenth, the planned end, will suffice, and ticks one off the book-et list.

The Satsuma Complex – Bob Mortimer

 Gary, 30, a legal assistant, living in a one-bed London flat, is a bit of a loner, though by circumstances rather than by choice. For months, his neighbour was simply ‘dog woman’ – not that she resembles one, but because she has a pooch. But recently she has become Grace, the dog Lassoo, and Gary happily runs errands for her - getting pies, toileting Lassoo – and pops in for a chat.

His only other confidante is a squirrel on the estate with which he has imaginary conversations when he has something on his mind.

Gary’s mundane life changes one evening when a work contact, Brendon of ‘Cityside Investigations’ invites him out for a pint at his local. Before they can finish one drink, Brendon takes a phone call and says he has to rush off on business. Also in the bar, sat alone reading a book, is an attractive brunette. She and Gary exchange pleasantries at the bar, then he joins her at her table. They get on well, have a few more drinks, then after a trip to the bar Gary returns to find her gone, though her book remains. It is called, The Satsuma Complex.

The story spirals out with disappearances, reappearances, deaths, policemen, and gangsters. Gary and Grace stumble through clues and crises trying to make sense of events. Gary is a low key hero, torn between his attraction for the brunette and his natural desire not to get involved in anything unpleasant or dangerous.

It is an easy read. Bob Mortimer’s familiar voice comes through strongly in Gary, but also permeates the narrative and to some extent the other characters, who all seem to share his distinctive conversational style. But the plot works, the characters are engaging, and interest is maintained to the end.

Colditz – Ben Macintyre

Colditz Castle was used, as most people know, by Hitler’s Germany to house Allied prisoners of war in the Second World War. And not just any prisoners, those who were serial escapers or were considered to be prize specimens due to their social connections, were gathered here, all the bad eggs in one basket.

This account, published 2022, takes a holistic look at the place and all those in it – prisoners, guards, and even the residents of the adjacent town. It also takes the opportunity afforded by a distance of seventy years to take a refreshingly independent view free from the shadow cast by the conflict, and for that matter the 1970s television series.

Though other ranks and nationalities get a mention, inevitably it is the British officers who feature most. After all, these are the people who kept diaries, wrote letters home, and penned memoirs afterwards. Their escape attempts, opportunistic or meticulously planned, done from a sense of duty or from personal desperation, are faithfully related along with the German countermeasures led by the anglophile Reinhold Eggers who moved up the ranks to become head of security at the camp. That the camp was under the auspices of the German Army rather than the SS or Gestapo, made such a game of cat and mouse possible.

Macintyre’s style is very readable, and he skilfully uses the chronological structure to show the changing mood in the camp from the bad boy club and jolly japes in 1941 fuelled by red cross parcels, through growing futility and boredom, to the underfed tension and desperation in 1945 as the German army retreated in the face of the Allied advance. Both prisoners and guards feared for their fate as the crazed Nazis in control the uncontrollable made life and death decisions on a whim.

All in all a well-balanced account of one of the oddities of World War Two.

Lessons – Ian McEwan

The novel opens in 1986 with Roland Baines halfway through his life and coming to terms with his wife walking out on him and their baby son. His first task is to convince the police that he has not killed her, or maybe that is second after the demands of the seven month old infant.

From there the narrative spills out forwards and backwards, sporadically chronicling Roland’s life of paths chosen and opportunities missed. Prominence is given to pivot points that he realises shaped him and his place in the world: an unsettled childhood; a relationship with his school piano teacher; meeting, marrying, and losing Alissa; then his love and ongoing care for his son. Everything revolves around and comes back to those things.

Slow, languorous Ian McEwan prose makes the five hundred or so word-packed pages a pleasure to read, get immersed in, and ponder. There are instances of passion, tension, and humour set against the background of key world events of the period, from the aftermath of the Second World War, through the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall, to Brexit and COVID.

Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara is an AF – an artificial friend, solar powered hence sensitive, almost obsessed, by the movement of the sun and the effects of its rays.

At first, she is in the store window from where she hones her understanding of humans by close observation of scenes in the street. At last, she is acquired for a young girl. Josie is thrilled with her AF and Klara is even happier to have been chosen. But Josie is a sickly child, seemingly adversely affected by being ‘lifted’ – gene edited to boost her intelligence and learning capacity.

Klara, who narrates, slowly gets to grips with her new household – Josie, the working mother, the absent father, the housekeeper … and the boy next door. He and Josie are firm friends, but he has not been lifted so his prospects are limited. Stuff happens; the strange near-future world makes for an intriguing backdrop, and Klara’s otherness gives a skewed perspective on events.

There are multiple threads weaved into the narrative: Klara’s conviction that the sun is all powerful and can cure Josie (mimicking religious faith?); the extent to which an artificial object like Klara can equal a human as a receptacle for care and love (like a superior pet); the risks and rewards of gene editing; and the life cycle of consumer goods, even ones as treasured as Klara (remember Woody’s fate in Toy Story).

So, Klara, composite friend, priest, pet, and appliance. Her story makes for a thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

Becoming – Michelle Obama

This autobiography of the former FLOTAS takes the reader from her humble beginnings on Chicago’s South Side to the opulence of Washington DC’s White House.

It is a strength of the book, and of the lady, that she lets neither of these extremes define her. She is her own woman. Supported by a close knit family unt, Michelle Robinson does well at school and defies the odds by landing a place at Harvard, then a job back in Chicago with a prestigious law firm. She is given the job of mentoring a new intern named Barack Obama, and the rest is history.

But it is her history here – how she became herself, how she overcame setbacks, coped with work and then an increasingly politically distracted husband, and two daughters, both in the run up to the presidential election and during the two terms in office.

It is told in a straightforward fashion, chronologically ordered, and not over-stuffed with name-dropping. She gives credit to her role models and takes deserved pride in becoming one herself.

It is interesting for its unique perspective and insight into American society and politics in the years spanning the millennium.

The Corpse Bridge – Stephen Booth

The Corpse Bridge provides a crossing over the River Dove for a couple of ‘coffin roads’, old footpaths that facilitated the final journeys of the dead of remote villages, in this part of rural Derbyshire, to the burial ground at the parish church. When a body is discovered at the bridge, DS Ben Cooper is sent to investigate.

The body has been in the water overnight, so forensics are scarce, but the appeal for witnesses generates a handful of responses from people who were in the vicinity, and from locals who knew the deceased woman. Items of evidence turn up that indicate strange things were afoot that night, which after all, was Halloween.

DI Cooper and his team, supplemented by a rival DS, Diane Fry, follow leads, grill people of interest, speculate on motives an, in the case of Cooper and Fry, annoy each other, before it all gets resolved. There is clearly history between Cooper and Fry, indeed it turns out this is the fourteenth book in the series, but it reads fine as a stand alone piece.

Booth works hard to give a sense of place, invoking all aspects of the Derbyshire Dales landscape, both natural and man-made. It adds interest to the tale but with much zipping about by Cooper, maybe a map would have helped. The wide cast of both suspects and police officers gives little scope to develop characters in depth, though maybe in the case of the police team this occurs slowly throughout the series.

As a crime novel it works well enough but, unless its geographical setting strikes a chord, there is nothing to make it stand out in an overcrowded genre.

Holy Island – L J Ross

DCI Ryan is taking a break, on garden leave after a traumatic last case. He is on the idyllic Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, semi-attached to the Northumberland coast by a causeway covered twice daily by the tide. Then a body is discovered, laid out on an altar stone in the grounds of the ruined priory. The tide is in, and with no local police, DCI Ryan feels obliged to get back in the saddle and take charge.

There is potentially a ritualistic element to the killing, and against Ryan’s wishes an expert from Durham University, Dr Taylor, is sent in to assist. But when Ryan meets the attractive Anna Taylor, he is more than happy to tolerate her presence. For Anna it is also a chance to return to her childhood home where complicated baggage remains.

Ryan has to manage his demons, marshal his meagre resources, overcome the locals’ closing of ranks, and manage his romantic feelings for Anna, while solving the crime (which soon multiplies into crimes as further deaths occur).

The plot rattles along, bumping over a few ‘as if’ moments. The procedural element is strong and remarkably efficient in getting evidence processed and paperwork completed in no time at all. There are false leads and unreliable witnesses to contend with, and those pesky tides, before a climactic resolution in the castle on the hill.

But is it resolved? An epilogue hints not quite – and this is just the first of twenty and counting DCI Ryan books each centred on a Northeast landmark. The sites may be iconic, but based on this read I am not sure if the books will be able to make the same claim.

Still Life – Sarah Winman

The book-packing journey arrives in Italy at the back end of the Second World War.

Outside Florence, Private Ulysses Temper (Temps to his friends) and Captain Darnley have a brief encounter with 64-year-old Evelyn Skinner, who is assisting the Allies locate and identify looted art. Darnley won’t survive the war, but Temps will, despite numerous wounds and a dangerous impulsive rescue of an old man (Arturo) from his roof high above a Florence square.

Demobbed back in London, he finds his wife Peggy has had an affair with a long gone American GI and is with child. They remain amicable and Temps bonds with ‘the kid’, settling into a desultory life with mates Cressy, Piano Pete, Col, and Claude - Col is landlord of the Stoat and Parrot, of which Claude is the garrulous parrot.

Nine years on from the war, word arrives from Florence that Arturo has died and left his apartment to the soldier who rescued him. Temps ups sticks, and sets off to Italy to accept his inheritance, accompanied by the kid, mate Cressy, and Claude the parrot. Cressy has cash from an outrageous bet to invest and they develop the property into a pension for visiting tourists.

The narrative meanders down the next twenty-five years, set mainly in Florence with interludes in London with Peggy and Col, who now and then visit Florence. Meanwhile, Evelyn’s life goes forward in parallel, occasionally brushing up with the other characters without making a connection; her back story emerges. Personal dramas unfold, a highlight being the cataclysmic flood of Florence in 1966.

Descriptions of Florence and its art abound, giving a strong sense of place. The characters are endearing (save the parrot), and their relationships well drawn. Spending time with them makes for pleasant enough reading.

Emily Noble’s Disgrace – Mary Paulson-Ellis

It starts in Portobello, Edinburgh’s seaside, in 2019, at a disused boarding house. It is years since proprietor Isabella Dawson last had a paying guest, at least two years as that is how long her body has lain undetected in the upstairs bedroom. As well as being a recluse, she was a hoarder, and with no relatives to be found, the Office for Lost People get involved and engage specialist cleaners to clear the place.

Enter the first narrator, cleaner Essie Pound, who sifts through the old possessions with an acquisitive eye for the curious rather than the valuable. As she uncovers elements of Isabella Dawson’s life, she also reveals her own uncomfortable back story.

Later in the book a second narrator, or point of view, that of PC Emily Noble, is introduced. She is trying to work her way back into favour after making a couple of mistakes in her short career in the force, one professional and one personal, which just adds to the baggage she carries from traumatic childhood. She gets given many a rubbish job, and her latest directs her attention to the old boarding house.

Essie and Emily, unknown to each other, have a lot in common. Their pasts give them both issues and now each, independently, rummages in the debris of Isabella Dawson’s life, peeling back the generations and cycles of birth, death, comings together, splittings apart, and unsolved disappearances. If only they compared notes …

It has a feel of a Kate Atkinson, but not so well done (no shame there!). Attention is needed to keep track of the plot threads that deliberately mirror or echo each other, but that is rewarded with a satisfying denouement.

A good companion piece to the previous and excellent Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, and the heir hunter himself makes a cameo appearance here. (As does Margaret Penney of the Office for Lost People, who featured in Paulson-Ellis’s first novel – The Other Mrs Walker – which I now feel obliged to read).

This Boy – Alan Johnson

This initial autobiography from the ex-Labour MP and cabinet minister covers his childhood and adolescence spent in the poorer parts of West London between 1950 and 1968. And poverty is one of the main themes, an ever-present fact of life, though one to be met as a challenge and if not overcome, then something not to be overcome by.

With a father rarely around and neglectful in supporting the family, Alan Johnson’s upbringing fell to the two women of the household – mother, Lily, and older sister, Linda. Lily’s work ethic kept them afloat, and as her health failed the precociously capable Linda took on responsibilities beyond her years.

This is no pity memoir. The financial and material situation was often dire, but Johnson still enjoyed life on the streets of pre-gentrified Notting Hill and Chelsea. He endured school, progressing despite himself, but learned more from his part time jobs earning coppers to spend on watching QPR and buying records.

Simply and effectively written, the book is a tribute to the two women in his early life, who ensured he had a safe and loving home in which to thrive. It provides a valuable first hand historical record of the times, with plenty of nostalgia for those of his vintage, and eye-popping detail for those of later generations who may think life is tough now.

The Mirror and the Light – Hilary Mantel

The third volume of the Wolf Hall trilogy covers Thomas Cromwell’s final years in the service of King Henry VIII from 1536 to 1540, beginning with the aftermath of the execution of Anne Boleyn, in which he (Cromwell) had a leading role. 

There is quickly a new queen, Jane, and he must adapt to the new court packed with Seymour relatives and acolytes. New alliances must be forged, and old Boleyn and Howard contacts severed. But he is a consummate political mover and soon he is again Henry’s go-to man of business.

He continues to rise, picking up new responsibilities, titles, and real estate much to the envy and disgust of those who disparage his lowly birth. His entourage rise too – nephew Richard Cromwell, ward Rafe Sadler, and even young son Gregory all get positions of power.

It all looks good, and the queen even produces the much needed male heir – but then fails to survive the ordeal. The king is advised to marry again and sire a spare or two. Enter Anne of Cleves.

But it is not a match made in heaven, and Cromwell is tainted by his part in arranging the union. His enemies conspire, he loses the king’s ear, and it is only a matter of time before he finds himself following in the footsteps of the many he led to the Tower.

It is masterfully told, albeit at excessive length, rich with detail and nuance, and at the end, quite moving. It is also a big read off my book-et list.

The Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles

It is June 1954 and Emmett Watson’s return from a youth offenders’ institute to his home in Morgen, Nebraska is not a happy one. He is glad to be reunited with his younger brother, Billy, and to see girl next door, Sally, but his father has died, the farm is being repossessed, and everyone in town remembers and won’t forgive why he was sent down.

But Emmett has a plan to take his two remaining assets – his 1943 powder blue Studebaker Land Cruiser and $3,000 in cash that his father has hidden away from the creditors – to California where population is booming and opportunities beckon. That chimes with Billy; the route to the west is along the Lincoln Highway, the first road to fully cross America and the way taken by Emmett and Billy’s mother when she quit the marital home many years previously. Billy thinks they will find her at the end of the road.

Emmett’s best laid plans are immediately derailed as two pals from prison, Duchess and Woolly, turn up. They are absent without leave, and their arrival sets in motion a sequence of events that send Emmett the wrong way along the eponymous highway, towards New York.

The roller coaster journeys of Emmett, Billy, Duchess, and Woolly (not always together) provide for rollocking, overlapping adventures told from the four perspectives (supplemented by a few other points of view). It leads to a fitting, un-signposted climax.

It is written with style and a feel for the period. The characters are nicely drawn, and the multiple perspectives propel the reader over the miles and the 500+ pages. But don’t expect these mates to ever get to the planned San Francisco destination before the end.

Review of 2023 Reading Year

A steady return of 33 books read in the year, not bad as the average length was 400 pages. This year only a narrow majority (17 to 16) were by ‘new to me’ authors. The gender balance evened this year to a 55:45 preference for male authors, and the males again dominated the best reads list by 6 to 3. The reading group picked a few ‘already reads’ so provided only 4 new titles (including 1 best read) while the ‘bookpacking’ reading journey became becalmed in eastern Europe with just two books completed.

My nine best books of the year are: (Month of full review in brackets.)

 

The High House – Jessie Greengrass: Dystopia in microcosm as three young adults narrate how they came to survive the coming environmental catastrophe of hugely rising sea levels. (Feb)

 

The Reindeer Hunters – Lars Mytting: The second in the Bell in the Lake trilogy maintains the high standard, as another generation carry the story of life in rural Norway into the early twentieth century; old secrets unfold, and new dangers threaten. (Mar)

 

Origins – Lewis Dartnell: Perceptive non-fiction that with clarity sets out how geography and geology shaped human development. (Mar)

 

Rubbernecker – Belinda Bauer: Fast paced and unusual thriller in which characterisation is equal to the clever plotting. (Mar)

 

The Siege of Krishnapur – J G Farrell: Set in 1857 as the British Raj is under pressure in India, the novel recounts (surprisingly amusingly) how the rigid structures of that society fare under existential threat. (Apr)

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr: Three narratives centuries apart, featuring five characters who begin as strangers, are weaved together to produce a fabulous, richly satisfying novel. (Jul)

 

The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave: Set in 1617, the novel builds on the true story of a storm that wrecked a fishing fleet and killed every man from a remote Norwegian village. The women who decide to make their own living find themselves subject to accusations of (and trials for) witchery. (Aug)

An Officer and a Spy – Robert Harris: A masterful take on the Dreyfus Affair – a miscarriage of justice that gripped France from 1895 to its conclusion a decade later. An interesting and engaging novel written with style and clarity. (Sep)

 

Eden – Jim Crace: This garden has walls, whether to keep people in or out is moot. Inside the Angels rule and men and women are immortal; outside the people are free but destined to age and die. When one person goes over the wall, the whole community – men, women, and angels - is at risk of disintegration. (Nov)