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.