Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

The tall figure of Olive Kitteridge, retired teacher of mathematics in Crosby, Maine, stalks the pages of this book. Sometimes she takes centre stage but as often she hovers in the background or just makes a cameo appearance in the loosely connected episodes.

Taken together, the chapters weave a portrait of contemporary lives in New England, with relationships to the fore. Olive’s role as wife, mother, mother-in-law (from hell), friend, ex-teacher, hostage, and airline security risk are all explored through gems of narration shot through with humanity, sensitivity, and understated humour.

Nothing much happens, but events and incidents that are small in the grand scheme of things are shown to be major in the impact they have on the individual. Olive’s character – spikey, self-reliant, and dismissive of the failings of others – is a delight.

A wise and insightful read.

The Accidental Footballer – Pat Nevin

Pat Nevin is known as a maverick in the world of football. Though a mercurial winger of great skill, he had no intention of becoming the professional footballer he did. From a working class Glaswegian family passionate about education, he did well at school while playing football for fun and was well into a university course happily playing part-time for Clyde when the big boys, recognising his talent, came knocking.

He would have preferred that it was Celtic, but that never happened and instead he got an offer from Chelsea (then in the English second division) that was too good to refuse. The money was one thing, and the opportunity to experience the London music scene was another draw, and he could always finish his degree later.

He never got back to his studies (an honorary degree was eventually awarded). Though now a professional footballer, he refused to conform to the norm, maintaining his passion for music and the arts in the face of bemusement from most of his teammates. The autobiography, covering his childhood, adolescence, and career at Chelsea, Everton, and Tranmere Rovers, not to mention Scotland, is peppered with visits to gigs and shoulder rubbing with DJs, musicians, and artists.

But the sporting career remains the centrepiece and it is an off-centre look at the world of professional football at a turning point in the game. The Premier League is established, the old drinking and laddish culture is being threatened by more forward-thinking coaches, and the wages are spiralling.

Clearly not ghost-written, Nevin did not even have an agent, this is a genuine first-hand account of those times. What it lacks in polish it makes up for in authenticity; and while there is inevitably a tendency to brag and namedrop, that is offset by the odd dose of self-depreciation.

For those of his generation, an interesting read.

The Castaways – Lucy Clarke

Sisters Lori and Erin have only had each other to rely on for a long time. For a while Lori had a husband, Pete, but now he has gone off with her best friend, Zoe, so it is just the two of them again.

To ease Lori’s pain, Erin books a holiday for the two of them in Fiji. The resort is on a remote part of the archipelago, so there is an overnight stopover on the main island, and it is there that their lives fracture. There is a row; Erin storms off and stays out all night. In the morning, at the airport, Lori waits in vain for her sister to reappear in time for the flight. Her calls to Erin’s phone are unanswered and Lori takes off without her.

It is a small plane - pilot, flight attendant, and half a dozen passengers – and the weather closes in after take-off. No spoiler (look at the title), the plane crashes miles off course on a deserted island and the survivors must, well, survive as best they can as they wait for a rescue that shows no sign of coming.

Two years on, Erin, back in London, still has no news of her sister. Two years of obsessive research, badgering officials, and self-destructive, guilt driven behaviour (drink and men) has left her none the wiser. Until the pilot turns up alive, if unwell, in a Fijian hospital. Erin picks up the new lead and flies to Fiji.

From the start, the story unfolds in two timelines. Erin, in the now, and Lori in the then. Erin’s first person narrative has a breathless immediacy. Lori’s third person narrative, two years in arrears, is more measured but no less dramatic. The technique works very well as the two narratives converge to reveal not only how the castaways fare but also how their concealed backstories drive their seemingly erratic behaviour before, during and after the crash.

The sisterly bond is well dealt with, covering both the attachment and tensions of such a relationship. The traumatic separation and its aftermath have both women questioning and reassessing how they feel, which adds an extra dimension to the thriller aspect of the tale. And thriller it is -  the outcomes for both Lori and Erin are in the balance right to the end.

Garnethill – Denise Mina

Maureen’s affair with Douglas Brady was as good as over before she found his butchered body in her flat. It is an inconvenient time for her lover to die, as Maureen has just received confirmation that the woman that he was cheating on with her, is in fact his wife. The timing not only means Maureen cannot confront him with his duplicity, but it also looks like a motive for murder, at least in the eyes of DCI Joe McEwan.

He has questions, but Maureen, like most residents of Garnethill, distrusts the police and says as little as possible. There are people in her life who would not welcome involvement with the law. Instead, she decides to find out for herself who killed Douglas, and why.

And so, we enter Maureen’s world: her dysfunctional family – alcoholic mother, absent father, social climbing sisters, and supportive, albeit criminal, brother; her friends – Liz at work, gay Benny, and motorcycle-leathers-clad Leslie who volunteers at the women’s refuge; her fellow clients at the Rainbow Centre, damaged and vulnerable, and the psychotherapists who work there (now one fewer following Douglas’s demise).

Hampered by these anarchic characters, excessive alcohol, and harassment from the police and Douglas’s mother, who happens to be an MEP, Maureen makes slow but steady progress in unmasking the killer and their motive.

To focus a crime novel on neither the perpetrator nor the detective is a little unusual. Is Maureen a suspect, witness, or victim? She presents a complex character, possibly unreliable, as she carries the burden of the narrative. Resolving her wider issues are as important as solving the crime, though the two inevitably intertwine.

The Glasgow setting is atmospheric and seems authentic. The characters are colourful, and the pace is good, bordering on frenetic. By the end relationships are reappraised, and reckonings doled out, making for a satisfying read.

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami

The book-packing journey visits Japan, which has to mean Murakami and Norwegian Wood.

The narrator, Toru Watanabe, hears the strains of the Beatles hit, Norwegian Wood, and his mind is transported back 18 years to 1969 when he was a student in Tokyo. He was a bit of a misfit, scarred by the suicide of his close schoolfriend Kizuki.

At college he befriends Nagasawa, a party animal and insatiable womaniser, despite having a perfectly lovely girlfriend. Over the course of the academic year, Watanabe acts as his wingman, picking up his leavings, but also meets three other, more interesting, young women.

Naoko is his dead friend’s girlfriend (ex now!). She and Watanabe wander the streets of Tokyo seeking meaning in the absence of their common soulmate. Hatsumi is Nagasawa’s girlfriend, who tolerates his misbehaviour. This mystifies Watanabe, who sympathises with her and would like to offer a better option. Midori is a student on one of his modules. She, too, has her own boyfriend, but likes hanging out with Watanabe.

Stuff happens as Watanabe ricochets between the three girls. They mainly talk about relationships and feelings, but as they get closer, things develop. Watanabe is not shy when it comes to describing the sex, such as it is. The clinical fashion of such description may be a cultural thing, or a translation problem, though the otherwise the prose is easy on the eye.

Things get serious, so it is not a tale of fun, games, and student high jinks. The opposite in fact, and a narrative hook is how bad can things get before they get better. The other hook is will Watanabe be able to find a happy ending.

The Tokyo and wider Japan background, while not intrusive, provides glimpses of local colour. But this is all about Watanabe, and his inner monologue.

The Loney – Andrew Michael Hurley

The Loney is a stretch of the Lancashire coast, sparsely populated, where strangers stand out. It is Easter weekend, and a group of visitors descend on The Moorings, an old, neglected house available for let. The group have been here before, it is a regular event, the faithful of St Jude’s church on a pilgrimage of sorts that will take in a visit to a local shrine.

It is not exactly Lourdes, but Mary Smith holds out hope for a cure to her teenage son’s mutism. Her faith is not shared by her other son, the unnamed narrator of the tale, who finds himself the de facto minder of his brother. And for this trip, there is a new vicar, Father Bernard, the old one, Father Wilfred, having recently died a death no-one talks about.

This main strand of the narrative is told in retrospect, the boy now a man in a time when a news item causes him to look back with concern. His recollections go back to this fateful weekend, and beyond to earlier times when he and Andrew were even younger, and Father Wilfred ruled the vicarage.

Things happen. Strange things happen, incompletely explained, but believable, nevertheless. The atmospheric setting clings to the page, and the interplay between the genteel but warring pilgrims is delicious. More sinister are the few residents of the Loney who slip in and out of the mist, by turns threatening and friendly. Are they intent on harm or good? And if good, at what price?

Where, how, and why each strand of the story will pan out keeps the pages turning right to the end.

Summerwater – Sarah Moss

Midsummer’s day, the longest of the year, stretches ahead for the holidaymakers at Summerwater, a small collection of lodges and caravans in the forest beside the loch. Idyllic? Less so in the gentle but incessant Scottish rain.

What to do on such a day? As it progresses, we sample the thoughts of those in temporary residence. Justine sneaks out for an early run, leaving Steve snoring. Retired couple David and Mary, regulars at the camp, share space but little else during their rainy-day routine of drive, teashop, return. Josh and Milly, young lovers still in bed, give not a jot for the weather as they strive for simultaneous orgasm, though Milly’s mind wanders. Children Lola and Jack are persuaded outdoors by their mum, to splash in puddles and throw stones into the lake. Teenagers Becky and Alex are too old for such distractions, squabbling works for Becky but Alex heads off with his kayak, defiant of the poor conditions on the lake. Claire keeps a close eye on her two toddlers, obsessively cleaning the caravan, and even when husband Jon offers to take them off for an hour, she cannot relax.

The holidaymakers watch each other through condensation clouded windows, speculating on each other’s lives while examining and comparing their own.

But there is one more caravan. The noisy one with visitors, loud music, and drinking. Foreigners. Romanians, thinks Jon; Bulgarians, is Steve’s guess; Ukrainians, says Becky, and at least she has spoken to them. As night finally draws in, and the party starts again, more than one of the natives think enough is enough, and head over to have a word.

The tight, insightful prose draws in the reader. There is fascination in the minutiae of the relationships and the inferences they generate. The changing perspectives are handled well and provide a slow burning fuse to a worthy denouement.