The Chessmen – Peter May

In this final book of the Lewis trilogy ex-DI Fin Macleod stumbles over another historic crime scene, but this one is connected to his personal, rather than the island’s past.

Again the device of relating past and current events in parallel is used to good effect as the connected narratives unfold. We learn a bit more of Fin’s youth, particularly his college and university days and circle of friends there, who he needs to track down to quiz about the mystery. But its solution may have dire implications for their present lives.

Fin’s investigations take him into the rain and wind swept moors and mountains, lovingly described, while his introspections continue to confront his personal issues and relationships.

The writing is as tight and compulsive as the first two books (The Blackhouse & The Lewis Man), but the historic context grips less – the chessmen are peripheral and the other back story is less revealing of Hebrides culture. May was wise to keep it to a trilogy; the impact of landscape and lifestyle loses some impact with familiarity and the Isle of Lewis was in danger of rivalling Midsomer as a murder hotspot.

Despite these minor reservations, The Chessmen is well worth reading in its own right and a must to complete the trilogy, enabling the reader, along with Fin, to achieve some sort of closure.

The Big Ask – Shane Maloney

The tone of the book is set right way by the author in his dedication “to Christine, Wally and May – they know where I live” and his disclaimer that includes “there is no such place as Melbourne. The Australian Labour Party exists only in the imagination of its members”. His hero Murray Whelan then takes up the cudgels of wit relating a tale with a deft balance of action, suspense and humour.

Whelan is political aide (AKA fixer & spin doctor) for the Melbourne minister for transport, which pitches him into the tough world of road hauliers and their bosses. Australian state politics and union relations is murky business that soon spills over into crime and corruption, for which Whelan is only partially suited.

As the thickening plot drags him deeper into the doo-doo he talks a good game, but his combat skills reflect his career choice, and instead he has to rely on his well-honed aptitude for scheming to pursue personal and professional survival.

It’s the one-liners that lift the book above the norm for the genre. Whelan could be one of Raymond Chandler's or Dasheill Hammett's PIs, having the same dry depreciating delivery, albeit with an antipodean twang, whether describing an adversary – “eyes set like raisins in a stale fruit cake” – or his own increasingly tenuous situation – “so far out on a limb I could’ve got a job as a ring-tailed possum”.

The ‘film noir’ content is handled lightly to produce a well plotted, enjoyable, quick read that would provide superior airline or train journey fare.

The Scramble for Africa – Thomas Pakenham

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey.

In the decades prior to the 1870s the only European interest in and knowledge of the African continent was some coastal areas and the banks of a few navigable rivers, with contact limited to minimal trade (once that in slaves was outlawed) and staging posts on the way to India and the East.

Then David Livingstone, emerging from years in the interior, reported that although the Europeans weren’t taking slaves, the Arabs were, and slavery within the continent was rife. In his view Africa needed three things – Christianity, commerce and civilization – and many in positions of influence agreed with at least one of those.

As the missionaries and explorers heeded his call and pushed inland, European traders followed uncovering new potential, and as the value of their business grew so did their demands for governments back home to protect their interests.

Treaties and alliances proliferated; soldiers and guns followed to enforce them; spheres of influence developed; and once one power claimed territory as their own the others followed suit in order not to miss out. And the undignified, unwarranted, scramble unfolded to the bitter end of an almost total carve-up of the continent.

The above is of course a vast over-simplification of fifty years of tumultuous upheaval across a vast area, and even Pakenham’s 700 pages do not claim to be the full story. But his account comprehensively builds up the big picture from a myriad of detailed incidents that bring the human element into the tortuous march of history, and say much about the motives and methods of those involved.

The trials and tribulations of the explorers, the missionaries, the natives, the traders and the soldiers are recounted alongside the strategic aims and machinations of the politicians and the lobbyists in the capitals of England, France, Germany, Italy and, more sinisterly, in the court of Leopold II, King of the Belgians.

I am not qualified to comment on the historical accuracy or interpretations put forward, but as a general reader I found the book excellent; clearly written, informative, interesting, at times fascinating, with perhaps the biggest achievement being able to focus on one theatre of operations at a time while linking it to the wider continental, European and global context.

The Good Lawyer – Thomas Benignio

We are sometime in the 1980’s and Nick Maninno is a young lawyer starting out at the bottom defending prospective felons for the Legal Aid Society in the South Bronx. He’s good, but his growing reputation includes success with “sicko sex cases” with the latest not guilty verdict leaving a villain still on the streets, the victim suicidal and Maninno with his head in his hands.

His new batch of cases includes more promising, if high profile, material – a school aide accused of molesting three boys, and a janitor arrested for a series of rapes and murders. Maninno is convinced of the innocence of both and sets to work.

 he legalese flows thick and fast and Nick’s personal life gives him some potential conflicts of interest to deal with: his girlfriend, as well as being old-money rich and beautiful, is an assistant district attorney; and his Uncle Rocco is big in the New York mafia.

The plot becomes complex with interconnection between cases and even links to Uncle Rocco’s shady past. The cast list resembles a Dickens novel with lawyers, judges, clerks, policemen, witnesses, gangsters, crime reporters and even a mysterious stunning blonde. Their coming and going enables Benignio to mess with the head of the reader who doesn’t know which of these will prove significant later down the line as the plot twists and turns.

It’s a fast-paced page-turner and, with Maninno straying from the courtroom into vigilante territory, there is action as well as argument. Credibility is stretched at times (as is standard in the genre) despite the book being ‘inspired by a true story’.

It made for a fine thriller but I would have enjoyed it more if I had known more, or cared less about trying to follow, the intricacies of the US criminal justice system.

Two for Sorrow – Nicola Upson

Read as part U of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

Very limited choice for U, but this looked a meaty crime thriller with one or two unusual features.

The Review

As the book opens in 1930’s London, Josephine Tey, an author, is drafting chapters for her latest book, not her usual detective novel but an account of a real crime from 30 years previous involving some notorious ‘baby farmers’ and the impact on those who were present at their execution in Holloway Gaol.

At the same time she is, rather reluctantly, caught up in the glamorous whirl of London society, for her centred on the splendid Cowdrey Club which provides a pied-a-terre for independent, professional women such as her and also supports the adjacent college of nursing.

Conveniently for a crime writer she is pally with Inspector Penrose of the Yard; he clearly holds a torch for her, as do a couple of her lady friends, but she’s keeping all (and I mean all) her options open. In the meantime it’s all very genteel with afternoon tea, visits to the theatre and dress fittings for a gala ball at the club, until a shockingly contrasting crime is perpetrated and Penrose’s investigations unearth a possible connection to Tey’s work in progress.

Is it just coincidence (unlikely) or is the aftershock of the 30-year-old crime still reverberating a generation later? Penrose does the detecting while Josephine’s concern is sorting out her own personal life.

It’s a clever, pleasingly complex, crime novel given depth by the inclusion of accurate period detail (the baby farmers, the execution, the Cowdray Club and even Josephine Tey all existed as portrayed). Upson unpicks her tangled threads with a nicely paced precision, punctuated with occasional, unexpected, intrusions of violence and passion, to arrive at a satisfying ending not without a surprise or two along the way.

Read another?

This is the third book featuring crime novelist Josephine Tey’s adventures, and frequent references in this book to past events has made me curious for the full back story; and there is nothing in this one to put me off seeking out ‘An Expert in Murder’ or ‘Angel with Two faces’.

The Man Who Cycled The World – Mark Beaumont

Mark Beaumont had done a few long distance rides, including Land’s End to John O’ Groats while still at school and Sicily to Innsbruck during his pre-university gap year, and as his degree course neared its conclusion the idea of cycling round the world began to take hold. But not just cycling, racing to set a new record.

On graduating he spent 31 days cycling 2,700 miles around Scandinavia and the Balkans, leading him to believe 100 miles a day was a sustainable pace; at that rate the 18,000 mile ‘True Circumnavigation of the Globe by Bicycle’ looked possible in 180 days. Adding a day off per fortnight for rest, recuperation and intercontinental transfers would still total only 195 days, some 81 days less than the existing Guinness world record.

Though looking physically feasible the logistical planning and securing financial backing for the trip would be as big a challenge, but within 12 months he was sufficiently prepared to set off from Paris with loaded bike and a mobile phone his only contact to his ‘base camp’ operated by his mother, Una, in Scotland.

This pre-race stage is covered only briefly in the book which soon dives into the realities of the ride with three main themes emerging.

First there’s the day by day grinding out of the miles – the route, the road surface, the terrain, the weather, the mileage and the time, the condition of the bike, the wear and tear on the body (particularly that bit in most contact with the bike), getting enough to eat and finding somewhere to sleep – which all combines to give a real feel for the scale of the task and respect for the physical and mental effort involved.

Secondly the unfolding cultural diversity is related; he’s racing not touring so there’s no time to seek out universal truths, he just shares his experiences, acknowledging the narrowness of his perspective.

The third strand is dealing with the bureaucratic and organisational frustrations of international travel, particularly border crossings, intercontinental flights (with a bike), and the mobilisation of help in far flung places for a moving target (tracked by GPS) from a network of friends of friends, embassy contacts, and the global cycling community (often supplemented by random acts of kindness by strangers met en route). This is all coordinated by Una at base camp, whose short postscript gives a flavour of her vital if virtual involvement in the journey.

It’s an enjoyable read if you, like me, are an enthusiastic armchair explorer / adventurer. I took my time, reading a few pages a day, making it almost a real time experience, so that when the 18,000 miles (or nearly 600 pages) were completed (no spoiler here – the title does that) the sense of achievement and feeling of elation were easy to share.

Galapagos – Kurt Vonnegut

The first thing to get out of the way is that the story is narrated from one million years in the future by the disembodied spirit (ghost) of Leon Trotsky Trout (Vonnegut aficionados will make the connection to Kilgore Trout) who died shortly before the events he wishes to relate took place.

Bear with me; the million year perspective is necessary as a central theme is evolution, which takes this sort of time frame to operate. But this is no overblown epic as most of the action occurs over a few days in 1986 around the planned departure date of the SS Bahia de Darwin on the “Nature Cruise of the Century” to the Galapagos Islands.

That things do not go according to plan for the captain and would-be passengers (a strange but interesting mix) is due to a man-made crisis and potential catastrophe inevitable, according to Trout with the benefit of his million year hindsight, as the human brain had got just too big and clever for the good of the species.

His (Trout speaking for Vonnegut) hypothesis is that brain development, having given an evolutionary advantage for millennia is now (1986) doing the opposite, evidenced by irrational and short term attitudes to war, crime, economics, climate change, etc. An evolutionary correction is overdue; and when it arrives, those aboard the Bahia de Darwin heading for the Galapagos may be the raw material on which it has to work.

Those who have read the classic Slaughterhouse 5 will recognise the style and structure; easy conversational narrative, looking backwards and forwards in time, with regular excursions to fill in back stories of more or less relevance to the tale. The frequent references to events yet to happen are at first intriguing, then teasing, but by the end were in danger of becoming irritating.

Based on my sample of two books, read 40 years apart, Vonnegut (who died in 2007) was a writer with something to say, be it idiotic or idiosyncratic, who said it with wit and style. Slaughterhouse 5 has never left my consciousness, and I’ve a feeling Galapagos will stick too.