When the Lights Go Out - Carys Bray

 A domestic drama played out against a background of global catastrophe. The latter, in the shape of global warming, increasingly affects the suburban life of Emma and Chris, married with teenage sons, Dylan and James. Emma does what she can, what's practical, to mitigate climate change - repairs, reuses, recycles. But Chris sees that as fiddling while Rome burns. He sees the bigger, overwhelming picture and has to convince people that radical action is the only way. That takes time and effort, but he has that to spare as his garden maintenance business is being ruined by winter flooding and summer droughts.

The marital tension increases as Christmas approaches and Chris's widowed mother moves in when her mobile home finally succumbs to the bad weather. Her blind faith in religion is a long-standing bone of contention with Chris, exacerbated now by its irrelevance to what he sees as the end of the world. For Emma, having the mother-in-law staying is, if not the last, then the penultimate straw.

With Chris's sister and family also due for dinner, it makes for a houseful on Christmas Eve. But they can cope, until the power goes off, the lights go out, a rabbit gets sick, and more ...

Bray does the domestic drama pretty well with understated words heavy with unspoken meaning. Chris and Emma are both engaging and demand empathy even in their conflict. The rain sodden backdrop is bleak in more ways than one, contributing to the mood of impending disaster.

While not a comforting read, it is well constructed and draws the reader forward to its climax.

Shrines of Gaiety – Kate Atkinson

It is 1926, and Nellie Coker emerges from a short stay at Holloway prison to take back control of her nightclub empire. Out in force to greet her are her brood of six. Eldest is son, Niven, semi-detached from the family business, his outlook on life shaped by his years in the trenches. Then come three girls, young women now. Edith is her mother’s capable lieutenant, whereas Betty and Shirley are her projects, improved by college education and destined to marry well. Younger son Ramsey suffers from his place in the pecking order, ahead only of teenager Kitty, who borders on the feral.

The Coker clubs are in Soho, a magnet for girls whose actress ambitions have been downgraded to hostesses paid by the dance. A recent recruit, runaway from York, is fifteen-year-old Freda Murgatroyd and her friend Florence. Sent south in pursuit is family friend Gwendolen Kelling, spinster librarian, whose enthusiasm for life has been on hold until now, when newly parentless and in possession of an inheritance, she is more than ready to go to London and take up the challenge.

Then there are the police. Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher, sent to Bow Street to clean up the rife corruption, embodied, he suspects, by Inspector Maddox and Sergeant Oakes. He also has a rash of disappearances of young girls to deal with, some of whom end up hauled dead from the Thames.

Quite a cast of characters, and Atkinson sets out to ensure paths are crossed, connections made, and alliances forged. Deals are made, and renegued upon. As they all jostle for attention, drifting in and out of prominence, it is a challenge to keep track. Even 500 pages seems insufficient to give them each their head, or indeed to come to a neat conclusion.

The character sketches are of trademark quality, and the 1920s period is convincing. But against the high bar of expectation a Kate Atkinson novel generates, this falls a little short.

The Creak on the Stairs – Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir

The book-packing journey staggers to a finish in Iceland in this Scandi-style crime novel.

Police detective Elma, after a few years working in Reykjavik CID, has returned to her hometown of Akranes, to the west of the capital. It is a knee jerk response to the breakdown of a relationship, but she has steered clear of her parents’ house, opting for a smart but soulless apartment in town. And now her transfer has come through and she starts her new job with the local police investigating a body on the waterfront near the lighthouse.

Cue a police procedural as Elma works with fanciable colleague, Saevar, to identify the woman (a stranger), work out what she was doing in town, and find out who done it. Cue also Elma’s attempts to find her feet back in the family fold, and to explore new, potentially romantic, relationships.

The setting is reliably atmospherically Iceland – dark nights, falling snow, and thick clothing. The plot is satisfyingly intricate with the case having possible links to a thirty-year-old unsolved death. Relevant flashbacks are teasingly eased into the main narrative as it progresses. The characters are lightly sketched, presumably leaving scope for development as the series (this is the opener) moves forward.

Though a resolution is reached in respect of the crime, elements of a full reckoning remain outstanding. A reason, along with the quality of writing, to move on to book two, and maybe tie up those loose ends.