The New Machiavelli – H G Wells

Read as part of my ‘book-et list’ in homage to HG whose science fiction and romances lit up my adolescent reading half a century ago. This book falls in the latter category and is set in 1900s London.

The story is simple enough, narrated in the first person by Richard Remington. His childhood, schooling, and university leads to a growing interest in becoming a mover and shaker in society. Moving in political circles, he meets and marries Margaret Seddon, gets into parliament, and seems set for a glittering career. One of his staunchest supporters is young Isabel Rivers.

However, Remington’s mission to improve the lot of mankind, or at least Imperial Britain, goes beyond the narrow party-line parameters. Frustrated and disillusioned, he finds comfort in Isabel’s like mind, then in her comely body. It is Edwardian London and a scandal such as this would mean the end of his political career. So, a choice must be made. Respectability, Margaret, and high office; or passion, Isabel, and obscurity.

It is a wordy 400 pages, though the words are well put together. To be honest, it is a little dull. The affair is hardly racy, and the politics of 1906 are remote. The social attitudes that Remington rails against, which I suspect was the purpose of the book, are largely long gone.

So, thanks HG for the good stuff of my youth; but I missed nothing here.

Everyone in My family has Killed Someone – Benjamin Stevenson

Ernie Cunningham is the narrator, an expert in crime fiction, as a critic that is. And, as author of a ‘how to write crime fiction’ guide, he knows the rules, knows Robert Knox’s 1929 ten commandments. So, when he puts pen to paper to relate this personal murder mystery, he promises to abide by them in the solving, while also revealing just how everyone in his family has killed someone.

He points out early that they are not a family of psychopaths. Killed does not necessarily mean murdered, though neither does it preclude it. The plot reveals are central to the narrative, and as I don’t do spoilers this review is restricted to setting the scene and introducing the characters.

The scene first, Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat, the highest drive-in accommodation in Australia. It is the antipodean winter, and a snowstorm is on the way. Arriving from all quarters for a reunion is the Cunningham family along with attached or semi-detached partners.

Looking from Ernie’s point of view, he expects hostility from his brother, Michael (just out of prison after a stretch for murder), his mother, Audrey, and sister-in-law, Lucy. Ernie gave evidence in Michael’s trial, and Audrey and Lucy bear a grudge. He is also expecting grief from his almost-ex-wife, Erin, and his Aunt Katherine and her husband Andy. Only his stepsister, Sofia, daughter of Marcelo (Audrey’s second husband), will be glad to see him.

So why meet up? It’s mandatory, a family edict to welcome Michael’s release. And for Ernie it is a matter of closure and returning the 267,000 dollars in cash his brother left in his care.

A body is found, things happen, deaths occur, back stories emerge revealing the trail of more deaths that have led to this, whatever this really is! All related by Ernie in deadpan humour  and playful tension, taking the reader by the hand through a convoluted but perfectly reasoned plot.

An unusual murder mystery faithful to Knox’s rules.

Missing You – Harlen Coban

Centre stage in this thriller is Kat Donovan, New York detective, fortyish, single, and likes a drink. She is third generation NYPD, and it did not end well for the previous two. Grampa shot himself and dad was rubbed out by the mob. This latter still rankles. Though the perp is serving life, Kat never understood the motive nor the exact circumstances.

Three things happen. One, the perp is dying, and Kat extracts an inadmissible retraction of his confession, setting her off on an unofficial re-investigation of the shooting. Two, her friend Stacy reckons Kat needs to get laid so signs her up for a dating website, on which she stumbles over her long lost, long dumped, boyfriend, Jeff, and discovers her long-buried feelings remain an itch to be scratched. Her on-line approach is rebuffed but she’s a detective, right, so she’ll find him ‘IRL’. Three, a young lad called Brandon turns up at the station to report his mum as missing, gone off with a new boyfriend but now uncharacteristically unresponsive to his calls.

Quite a workload for Kat, but as we follow her high energy investigations it is no surprise to discover links between the threads. Particularly as her PoV narration is interrupted with disturbing scenes from a remote location where carefully selected rich folk (like Brandon’s mum) are held and tortured until they provide access to their financial assets.

The plot lines are skilfully drawn with a good scattering of reveals and surprises. The characters though are secondary, and only towards the end, as Kat makes some personal discoveries, are we drawn to her. But then we return to the action and an exciting climax.

It all makes for a fair enough, page turning, thriller.