The Herd – Emily Edwards

Elizabeth Chamberlain and Briony Kohli became friends at university, an attraction of opposites with Elizabeth outgoing and popular, and Briony quiet and content to stay in the background. The friendship survived career moves and marriages, and now they have both settled in well-to-do Farley, in houses opposite on Saints Road.

Elizabeth has the better house, full of designer chic, but husband Jack struggles in his city job to finance the lifestyle. Briony’s house is less showy but there are no money worries as husband Ash sold his business for a packet and still picks up lucrative consultancy work. And now they both have daughters. Elizabeth’s six-year-old Clemmie and Briony’s four-year-old Alba have become fast friends. Perfect. Perfect?

The fly in the Chamberlain ointment is that Clemmie had fits as a baby and as a result is unable to be vaccinated against the usual childhood risks of MMR, polio, and meningitis. No problem; as long as all her friends are vaccinated there’s herd immunity, right? Elizabeth won’t take any risks though. Ahead of Clemmie’s birthday party she e-mails the other parents, please confirm your child is up to date with their vaccinations (subtext: if not don’t come).

The wasp in the Kohli jampot is that Briony is a closet anti-vaxxer. Understandable due to what happened to her older brother, who developed a fever after a jab and has been institutionalised since, a blight on her childhood and a guilt-ridden burden to her mother, who since has campaigned on the issue.

No spoilers, but the plot develops as expected, with tragic consequences that explode the friendship and pitches the families into a legal battle. The story arcs steadily from mundane domestic niceties, through the tension of polite conflict, then harsh recriminations, to end in a dramatic courtroom climax.

It is a page-turner that gives a sympathetic (if not necessarily even) airing to both sides of the vaccination issue. The narrative switches between the parents and is interspersed with anonymous observations from the courthouse. A decent enough read, though maybe one to be avoided (or not) by those who have children due for their jabs.

The Fraud – Zadie Smith

A rich tapestry of a novel set in nineteenth century England; consider the threads, the characters:

Central – Mrs Eliza Touchet, abandoned and quickly widowed at age 24, rescued from penury by her husband’s young literary cousin, William Harrison Ainsworth. Over the coming decades, she rescues him right back.

Adjacent – The same William Ainsworth, would-be literary giant who rubs shoulders with, and hosts dinners for, the likes of Dickens and Thackery, but whose prolific output rarely gains the critical recognition he craves.

Fleeting – Anne Frances Ainsworth the attractive but unappreciated wife of the author and mother of his four children, who calls in Eliza Touchet for help running the house. She introduces Eliza to the Abolitionist cause, and shares her passions, before departing all too soon leaving Eliza holding the fort.

Intrusive – Sarah, ex-housemaid, now the new Mrs Harrison thanks to bearing William’s child. Her obsession with the Tichborne Claimant case draws Eliza into its murky controversy.

Eccentric – The said Claimant, lately returned from Australia to claim a fabulous inheritance. Whether it is the shipwrecked Sir Roger Tichborne (as Sarah believes) or a fraudulent ex-Wapping butcher, Arthur Orton, the courts will decide.

Charismatic – Andrew Bogle, slave in a Jamaican sugar plantation, then servant of the master back in England, who knew the young Sir Roger as a visitor to the big house and supports his candidature, whose dignity and colourful backstory fascinates Eliza Touchet.

Woven together these strands, going backwards and forwards in time, give a vivid picture of Eliza Touchet’s life and times from literary London to exploitative Jamaica. The subject matter is serious, but Smith narrates with a wry humour and a style that whips along using short chapters to keep the 450 pages turning rapidly.

The Twyford Code– Janice Hallett

Here is the set-up. Professor Max Mansfield, an academic, receives a package from Inspector Waliso, containing the transcript of some two hundred audio files retrieved from an old i-phone. The enclosed letter asks if he will assist their murder investigation by reviewing the transcript.

We then get the transcript, garbled in places and with phonetic misinterpretations. As well as phone calls and conversations, many recordings are in diary form, spoken by Steven Smith, an ex-con seeking reconciliation with his estranged son as well as an explanation for a schooldays incident that left him scarred.

As the transcript progresses, both of Smith’s quests unravel in both sense of the word, as events, characters, theories and conspiracies emerge that leave the reader, not to mention Smith, a little bewildered. At least until the denouement sheds more light.

The rat-a-tat of short transcripts makes for quick and compulsive reading, at least to start with. But things don’t quite add up, don’t make complete sense, so there is a temptation to bale out. However, perseverance gives some reward.

That the narrative comes exclusively from Smith makes the novel a tad one-dimensional, over-dependant on one unsavoury character. As such it suffers in comparison with Hallett’s earlier (and better) The Appeal, which presented evidence from multiple sources and an occasional recap by the legal eagles reviewing it.

In conclusion, it is clever, possibly too clever by half, but with little else to recommend it in terms of characterisation, atmosphere, and empathy.

Staring at the Sun – Julian Barnes

This compact novel of under 200 words was written in 1986, which is relevant for the current day reader forty years on. It is in essence the life story of Jean Serjeant from a teenager in 1940 to her centenary in, well, about now, requiring Barnes to envisage a future we are in.

The novel falls into three broad sections. The first covers Jean’s early sheltered experiences influenced by two older men. Her Uncle Leslie is a bit of a chancer who clears off to America to avoid the call-up, while ‘Sun-up’ Prosser is a RAF pilot billeted with the Serjeant household, currently grounded, who beguiles Jean with his tales of flying his Hurricane.

The middle section deals with Jean’s marriage and subsequent twenty years of childless dissatisfaction and mild abuse that takes an unexpected turn with the birth of her son, Gregory. Her life suddenly broadens, and she discovers things about herself and the wider world.

The final section shifts the focus to Gregory, now approaching sixty, and his interaction with the ‘General Purposes Computer’ – developed by the government to enable all citizens to access all information in a conversational style (a pretty good approximation to current AI). Gregory is a troubled soul and uses GPC as a counsellor of despair, posing questions of life, death and religion. His mother provides more prosaic advice.

The writing is wordy but eminently readable (typical of its period) and is lifted by the effective repetition or echoing of seminal moments from Jean’s early life (Uncle Leslie’s pithy phrases, Sun-up Prosser’s mysticism, a picture on her bedroom wall) and later travels to see the wonders of the world.

A book of its time but no less interesting for that.

The Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Nora Seed has had a bad day, a bad few weeks actually, but thing come to a head when her cat dies, she’s sacked from her job in the music shop, and her one and only piano pupil gives her up. Her estranged brother doesn’t want to know, and her only real friend has moved to Australia and isn’t responding to her messages. She now has no purpose, even the old guy next door is getting his medication delivered so she is no longer needed to pick it up from the pharmacy.

What is the point? There is no reason to go on like this. As midnight approaches, she swallows tablets, washes them down with wine, composes a note.

Instead of death she finds herself in limbo – in the Midnight Library attended by someone who looks like, and is, her old school librarian, Mrs Elms. Mrs Elms explains. Nora has another chance, chances even, at life. The books on the shelves each represent a version of her life in which she made a different decision (yes, we are in parallel universes territory).

Nora chooses a what if moment, opens the book and is transported to the current time in that life where the alternative decision was made. If she likes it, she can stay; if not, she will at some point return to the library. How many goes can she have? More than enough as it turns out as she samples lives lost through taking one path over another.

It is easy reading with playful short cameos of what might have been, though with each iteration, questions of credibility intrude. Haig, as ever, shares his mental health insights and brand of wellbeing philosophy, which for me became a little wearing. The ending, by the time it comes, is rather predictable.

A pleasant enough read but falling short of expectations raised by his previously enjoyed books - The Ridleys and The Humans.

Should We Stay or Should We Go – Lionel Shriver

It is 1991, and Cyril and Kay Wilkinson are in their early fifties, he a GP, she a nurse. They have been to the funeral of Kay’s father, dead after ten years of physical and mental decay that has drained both their financial and emotional reserves. And there are still three aged parents left.

As NHS professionals they acknowledge the load also placed on the health services, and the national finances, by such a lengthy demise. They resolve to not be such a burden to the nation, nor their three children. They make a pact – to end their lives voluntarily when Kay (the younger by a year) reaches the age of eighty, when they judge life tips from worth living to the downward slope into dotage. Cyril immediately obtains the means to fulfil their intentions, which is henceforth stored in a black soapbox at the back of the fridge.

Thirty years later, both in reasonable health though carrying the average deficiencies of their ages, push is approaching shove, and the black soapbox in the fridge is looming large. Time to review matters – should they go as planned, or should they stay?

Shriver then plays with the possibilities – second thoughts, disagreement, stubbornness, third party interventions – and in a series of alternative endings, maps out potential outcomes. That these take place in post-Brexit, post-Covid, Britain adds to the fun.

Darkly humorous and deftly executed, it articulates questions we need to address about quality of life and responsibility for care as the population ages. It is a book brilliantly conceived, thought provoking throughout, and written with fluency and commendable conciseness.

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell

It starts with an eleven-year-old boy, Hamnet, desperately seeking help for his twin sister, Judith, who has suddenly fallen ill with a fever. It is 1596 in Stratford-upon-Avon, and their father is away in London, their mother is tending her beehives across town, their elder sister and grandma are out; and their drunk of a grandfather refuses to be disturbed.

Cut to fifteen years earlier, and the father is a callow, though well-educated, youth giving lessons in Latin to two sons of a gentleman farmer. Neither tutor nor pupils are concentrating; the tutor is more interested in the person crossing the farmyard with a hawk on their wrist.

The two narratives play out, the earlier one building through courtship, pregnancy, marriage and family life to catch up with the later, culminating in a deathbed vigil. The aftermath provides a third, uninterrupted narrative going forward.

The writing is lyrical, moving when necessary. The familial relationships – husband/wife, mother/children, son/father, wife/mother-in-law, brother/sister – are portrayed through subtle but telling scenes, with words not said but meaning clear.

Part one, with the split narrative, is enjoyable reading, even the tension filled climax. Part two is more difficult due to the overwhelming sadness but remains compulsive.

Interestingly, no surnames are used, and the main man – tutor, husband, father of the twins – gets not even a first name. But we know who he is and, by the end of the book, possibly why he wrote a play called Hamlet.

Girls Who Lie – Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir

We are back in Akranes for book two of the Forbidden Iceland series, and Elma and Saevar have a new case, a new body, and a new mystery to clear up. The body has been found in a cave on a remote hillside and though it has been there a while, it is identified as Marianna Borsdottir, a woman who went missing some months previously.

The missing person investigation then was low key. The woman had mental health issues and a history of dropping off the radar for days at a time, even leaving her young daughter home alone on such occasions. That, and an ambiguous note scribbled on the back of an envelope, led police to favour suicide as the explanation. But now the body has turned up, and this was no suicide, it was murder.

Not exactly a cold case, then, more lukewarm, and Elma and Saevar must try to piece together Marianna’s last movements six months after the event. Who to talk to? Her daughter, Hekla, now a sulky teenager placed with foster parents? Those foster parents, Bergrun and Finnar, who first stepped in on one of Marianna’s earlier episodes and have since become a ‘support family’ for Hekla? The boyfriend, Solvi, who was scheduled to meet Marianna the day she disappeared? Work colleagues? Marianna was a bit of a loner and no-one knows anything, and progress is frustratingly slow.

As is Elma’s love life. Though she’s getting it on with the guy next door, that’s going nowhere. It’s Saevar who piques her interest, and he’s recently split up from his girlfriend - but is it wise to date a fellow officer?

It rocks along nicely. The narrative hook is whodunnit, and there are enough twists and turns, misdirection, and revelations to make it interesting to the end. Interspersed with the investigation are snippets from an un-named narrator that gives the reader insights unavailable to Elma (this seems a bit of a trademark device of Aegisdottir).

An atmospheric Icelandic noir with a personable lead and twisty plot, what’s not to like?

The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith

It was already a memorable day for twenty-five-year-old Robin Ellacott – her boyfriend Matthew proposed at midnight – but to top it off, she is sent by Temporary Solutions to a new assignment at what turns out to be her dream job working for a private detective. That private detective is Cormoran Strike whose day is a bad as Robin’s is good – assaulted and thrown out in the early hours by long term, on/off girlfriend Charlotte, and now saddled with a new temp on a contract he thought he’d cancelled and definitely can’t afford.

But things immediately look up. A client, no less, appears and is happy to spend big to ‘get justice’, to prove his sister, a famous model, dead three months following a fall from her balcony, did not jump but was pushed. Strike is doubtful; it was a high-profile death, and the police investigated thoroughly before concluding suicide. But the brother insists it was murder and has money to back his beliefs. So Strike takes the much-needed cash and gets to work.

The plot develops, expands, draws in a wide range of characters, leads one way then another, before concluding cleverly. In the process, Strike’s back story emerges – unconventional childhood, university dropout, a career in the military police cut short by injury and disfigurement, and of course the stormy relationship with the lovely, if unstable, Charlotte. As for Robin, she turns out to be a natural, not only efficient but resourceful, and within days more of an assistant than a secretary.

“Robert Galbraith” handles the convoluted plot and the large cast of characters with consummate skill (what else to expect from she who must not be named) making this a good page turner (all 550 of them). More Strike novels follow, and the two leads certainly seem to have the depth of character and potential to carry the story further.

Dubliners – James Joyce

Read, or rather completed, as it has been dipped in and out of for literally years, as part of the Book-et List reading journey.

Dipping in and out is no problem as Dubliners is a collection of character sketches set in the city. Each is well crafted but inconsequential, as the characters are everyday folk going about their everyday business or pleasure. The settings seem authentic and atmospheric but are probably appreciated better by those who know the city and its folk first hand, than by those looking in from over the water.

Will this taste of Joyce tempt me into one of his novels? I think it unlikely.

A Terrible Kindness – Jo Browning Wroe

In October 1966 the country is shocked by the Aberfan disaster. The Welsh village primary school is engulfed by a slag heap avalanche. Fatalities number over a hundred, mainly young children. Rescue workers pour in but there is a more macabre need too – undertakers, child size coffins, embalmers.

William Lavery answers the call. Newly qualified and not much over a decade older than some of the dead schoolchildren, he heads to Wales, does a job, does it well, but not without emotional cost.

And he’s not in the best shape, emotionally, anyway, revealed as the novel rewinds to his childhood and the early death of his undertaker father. His dad’s twin brother, uncle Robert, provides a substitute father figure going forward, but that is resented for many reasons by William’s mother, Evelyn. William must cope with this tug of love, compounded by the competing future career paths they represent – a place in the family funeral business or in music, as his exquisite singing voice has earned him a place as a chorister at a Cambridge college.

Despite, or because of, his emotional vulnerability he attracts strong friendships – Martin, a boy in the Cambridge choir, and Gloria, the daughter of the family with whom he lodges in London – but fails to capitalise on the goodwill. Bust-ups occur and he retreats into his profession, more comfortable with the dead than the living.

The novel goes forward from Aberfan, and we hope that William can get over it, and himself, to find happiness or at least inner peace.

The writing is fluent and to the point, following William throughout. The settings – Aberfan, Cambridge, London – are convincing and the characters are well drawn. The embalming scenes are informative without erring into the graphic.

The unusual context, and the clever twists and turns, ensure interest is maintained to the end.

 

In The Woods – Tana French

When a call comes into the Dublin Murder Squad that some archaeologists have found a body, detectives Ryan and Maddox are on hand to field the case. Against expectations, the body is not one long-dead they have unearthed, but one freshly laid out on the alter stone at the excavation site at Knocknaree. The victim is quickly identified as a young local girl, Katy Devlin.

So, no cold case this. But there is one, still unsolved, associated with Knocknaree where in 1984 three local children went into the adjacent wood and only one returned, bloodstained, traumatised, and amnesiac. The returnee was young Adam Robert Ryan, who subsequently moved to England, losing his Irish accent before coming back unrecognised to join the Dublin police as plain Rob Ryan. And now he finds himself on the new case, filled with opportunities to stir his reluctant memory into life.

His fellow detective, Cassie Maddox, is the only one who knows his past, but they are a tight platonic partnership, so she goes along with his unwise decision to continue on the case.

The pair work their systematic way through the police procedural, the routine enlivened by their banter and gallows humour. But progress is slow and unrewarding due to inconclusive forensics, alibis galore, multiple but weak motives, and unreliable witnesses. On top of that, Rob Ryan’s echoing past affects his judgement and leads to some bad decisions that threaten the case.

Will they find Katy’s killer? If they do will the case withstand Rob’s tainted approach? And can he, in the process, crack the twenty-year-old mystery of his friends’ disappearance and his own, guilt-ridden, survival?

Tana French keeps the pot simmering along for the best part of 600 pages, unfolding each thread with deft mastery of plot and character. There are more novels about the Dublin Murder Squad, and I wouldn’t rule out another dip in.

A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles

The gentleman in question is Count Alexander Ilych Rostov, who in June 1922, aged thirty-three, is residing in suite 314 of the Hotel Metropol in Moscow.

Two things to note. First, though this is post-revolutionary Russia, the Hotel Metropol retains its luxuriant style due to its proximity to Red Square, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Kremlin – after all, the comrades deserve some comfort, fine dining, and somewhere impressive to hold their interminable congresses. Second, though the Count’s title is redundant, he survives in this new proletariat world thanks to his historical support of the pre-revolutionary cause of reform.

But goodwill doesn’t last forever, and Rostov is called before a tribunal. He escapes with his life but at the cost of house arrest. He can return to the Metropol but never leave it; one step outside and he will be shot. And suite 314 is out of the question, it is a monastic cell in the attic from now on.

Rostov is, though, a gentleman, respected by the staff who continue to treat him with guest-like courtesy. He takes as his motto that a man must master his circumstances otherwise be mastered by them.

Those circumstances go on for over thirty years, during which time he: forges close friendships, then working relationships, with the Maître D’ and chef of the restaurant; has romantic liaisons with a leading actress in residence; befriends a precocious nine-year-old girl then, years later, assumes guardianship of her five-year-old daughter; agrees to assist a high-ranking party official to understand western culture; and befriends a American general, later diplomat, and supplies him with gossip on the party hierarchy.

The years pass surprisingly quickly - where is it going and how will it end are the hooks - though it takes the best part of 500 pages to arrive at a climax of sorts. Rostov, who carries the whole narrative, is a philosopher as well as a gentleman, and though he is confined to the hotel, the whole world enters its lobby, so it is never dull.

Phosphate Rocks – Fiona Erskine

An abandoned fertiliser factory at Leith docks is being demolished when a grisly discovery is made - human remains, but encased in a carapace of hardened phosphate rock that also encompasses the chair on which, and the table at which, the body is seated. And, it turns out, on the tabletop, an eclectic collection of objects.

DI Rose Irvine gets the job of finding out who it is and when and how they died. Her best chance, she is told, is to talk to a long-term employee, now retired, John Gibson. When he is brought in and the case explained he is nonplussed. But then DI Irvine presents him with the tray of objects, now cleaned of the phosphate, and his memory kicks in.

One by one, over the course of several days, he links each object to the history of the factory, to those who worked there, those who visited (in official capacity or otherwise), and the chemical processes that were carried out.

The structure of the novel is thus set. The objects’ stories are interspersed with lessons in chemistry explaining how to make various key components of the fertiliser industry – sulphur, potash, ammonia, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, etc. Possible identities emerge, are eliminated, are narrowed down, until a conclusion is reached.

Erskine is, or was, an industrial chemist and the novel unashamedly leans heavily on both memoir and an evident passion for chemistry, which creates an authentic and atmospheric setting for the mystery.

Some could find this mix clunky, but it worked for me.

The Manningtree Witches – A K Blakemore

Essex, 1643, the English civil war rumbles on in the background but at the coastal town of Manningtree it is the effect of growing Puritan power that threatens at a local level.

If the religious doctrine is of God’s goodness, how to explain bad fortune? – a child dies in infancy, a hen stops laying, a cow runs dry, a ship is lost at sea. Clearly the work of the devil and his handmaidens, who must be found among the single, the widowed, the unprotected women of the community. Women like young Rebecca West, nineteen or so, attractive and still not wed; like her widowed mother, Anne; and like the old crone, Mother Clarke, whom they keep an eye on.

There arrives in town one Matthew Hopkins, Cambridge graduate, devout Puritan, and on a mission to root out witchcraft. It is not long before neighbour disputes crystallise into accusations of curses laid and evil eyes cast, which Hopkins is all too ready to take up as evidence of devilment. Not that evidence is necessary – false witness, forced confession, and revealed bodily imperfections are enough to be detained and sent for trial.

Rebecca is one of those seized, incarcerated, and interrogated by Hopkins. She narrates most of the story in language and prose that richly describes events, characters, the Essex landscape, and then Colchester gaol. Possibly a bit too rich for one of her class and education; but get past that and enjoy the writing.

How will it end for Rebecca? Hopkins would like her to confess so he can ‘save her’ – maybe for himself. So that’s one option for Rebecca, though barely more palatable than the noose. That narrative hook, as well as the quality of writing keeps the reader engaged to the last.

And Away … – Bob Mortimer

In 2015, fifty-six-year-old comedian and national treasure, Bob Mortimer is diagnosed with blocked arteries, requiring open heart surgery. The planned tour of Reeves and Mortimer has to be postponed, and the subsequent surgery and recuperation lead Bob to reflect on his life, on how he got here.

Thus we get his autobiography, spliced with his recovery process. Born and raised in Middlesbrough, the youngest of four brothers, the early loss of his father leads to a special bond with his mother. His upbringing on Teesside involves getting into scrapes with his mates but he progresses well enough at school to get a place at university and then law school, to become a qualified and practicing solicitor.

That fledgling career takes him to London where a chance encounter leads him to see a one-man show in a room above a pub in New Cross – Vic Reeves Big Night Out. Ther show invites audience participation, and the rest is show biz history.

It is an engaging account of how a shy boy from Middlesbrough became a successful performer on stage and TV simply by being himself. Mortimer is modest and unassuming, bemused by his success but grateful for that sliding-doors moment that transformed his life from a dead-end job in the law to part of a manic comedy duo. The book goes on beyond his operation to include the Gone Fishing series with Paul Whitehouse.

It is an easy read and rings true, and even those ‘would I lie to you’ incidents seem to have happened (mostly).

Review of the Reading Year 2024

 2024 was a good year for the quantity of books read - 38 - if not outstanding for quality, impacted by some iffy reading group titles and some injudicious 99p buys on Kindle. There were slight majorities for authors new to me (55%) and for male authors (57%), though male authors managed to provide a clean sweep of the picks of the year - see below.

This year brought to an end the Bookpacking reading journey, which staggered to a halt in Iceland after  seven years and 21 books set across the world. Attention now turns to the Book-et List, which in 2024 knocked off only the final (original) Rebus novel, leaving ten of the planned fifteen to go at.

There are seven best books of the year for 2024, which are (month of the full review in brackets):

The Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann. A fascinating and harrowing exposure of a scandal, long-forgotten in the US, whereby the Osage tribe were systematically controlled, exploited, and murdered for their oil-based riches. (May 24)

Reservoir 13 - Jon McGregor. A beautifully written, engrossing account of the rhythm of lives lived in beat with the natural world around it, as a rural community comes to terms with a tragedy on its doorstep. (May 24)

Bournville - Jonathan Coe. From VE Day in 1945 to its seventy-fifth anniversary in Covid hit 2020, seven decades of change in English society, told in seven snapshots of the same extended family, narrated with style, wit, and no little pathos. (May 24)

Pity - Andrew McMillan, Another book addressing generational change, set in a mining community in Barnsley, and told sparingly using a clever mix of writing styles. (June 24)

Mythos - Stephen Fry. The Greek myths given a retelling in the author's inimitable style mixing erudition and wit to great effect, (June 24)

The Pier Falls - Mark Haddon. A collection of not-so-short stories that showcase the author's talent and imagination, with a pleasing variety of settings and characters that only have one thing in common - jeopardy. (August 24)

The Wager - David Grann. A revelatory and gripping account of an ill-fated voyage, part of a British naval expedition to round Cape Horn in the 1780s, which ended in shipwreck, survival (of some), and recrimination. (November 24)