The Last Thing to Burn – Will Dean

Jane (her name is not Jane) lives on a farm in the east of England. The farm belongs to Lenn, her husband (he is not her husband) and it stretches across the flat fenland to a far horizon. She would leave if she could; if her ankle had not been smashed and wrongly reset, if the consequences for her sister would not be so disastrous.

Thanh Dao (her real name) was trafficked to the UK from Vietnam and is held captive on the farm by Lenn who through violent coercion and psychological control extracts wifely duties – domestic and sexual - from her. One by one, Thanh Dao’s meagre possessions are burned in the Rayburn stove as punishment for transgressions, loosening her grip on her identity, pushing ever closer to becoming Jane.

Will Dean paints a horrific picture as he introduces these domestic arrangements on the farm. The contrast between Thanh Dao and Lenn’s perspectives is chilling. It is impossible not to share Thanh Dao’s suffering and hopelessness. But not quite hopeless. She grasps at straws, we root for her, even as they slip from her grasp. And when things cannot get worse, things get worse.

The narrative, carried by Thanh Dao, is riveting and while the spotlight is unrelentingly shone on modern slavery, the characters, even the despicable Lenn, are nuanced. Tension builds to a fine climax, the last thing that could be burnt is unthinkable, but not impossible.

Just Like You – Nick Hornby

Lucy and Joseph are both single, attractive Londoners, but that is where the common ground ends. Lucy is forty-two, white, separated with two young sons, and as head of English at a secondary school, one of the liberal Remainers that abound in that part of the capital. Joseph is twenty-two, black, an aspiring (but as yet unpaid) DJ with a portfolio of part time jobs and a bed at home with a mother of Lucy’s age. His not-at-home dad is a rampant Brexiteer.

One of Joseph’s jobs is a Saturday shift serving in the high street butcher’s frequented by Lucy. Mutual unacknowledged attraction develops over the pork chops, but when they get chatting, Lucy mentions she needs a sitter for the boys. Joseph volunteers, and the die is cast.

Hornby cleverly steers a credible course for the unlikely lovers. Playful intergenerational banter develops into flirtatiousness, and then mutual attraction is finally declared. Both realise taking it further should be a non-starter, and both try dabbling elsewhere, but resistance is futile. They get it together.

There is fun for the reader, if not the characters, as they sample each other’s lifestyle and enter each other’s social circles. Can the romance survive outraging the norms of society?

As ever, Nick Hornby is assured in his depiction of how men and women interact. Even in this case, with so little in common, the dialogue is natural even when it is awkward. Issues raised are not shied away from but are dealt with in a balanced way and with a light touch that make for a positive and enjoyable read.

The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson turns his attention to the English language that he uses to such great effect, its history, development, spread and usage. He mines a vast volume of other people’s research and picks out the tasty titbits for easy and entertaining consumption.

He covers how words originated and points out that many basic terms in widely different languages can be traced back to a common root. The links between speaking, pronunciation, writing, and printing are explored as language becomes formalised, regulated, subverted, and adapted by turn.

Having covered the basics of language he focuses on English and how it has become used, and misused, as a global means of communication. There are reasons for its popularity; despite its inconsistencies it has a simplicity and adaptability not found in many other tongues.

The subject is a gift for Bryson’s ability to combine jaw-dropping facts with well-chosen absurdities. The result is not a scholarly work but a riot of factoids and anecdotes, any page of which would provide enough material for erudite dinner party small talk or amusing pub group trivia.

When We Were Orphans – Kazuo Ishiguro

 The book opens in London in 1930. The narrator, Christopher Banks, is by then a famous consulting detective moving in the best social circles. On selected dates, over a period of years, he gives a rambling account of his day that, in a series of nested flashbacks, harks back to events of the previous week, month, even years. These mainly feature his encounters with the attractive socialite, Sarah Hemmings, and memories of his childhood in Shanghai.

It was in Shanghai that he became an orphan, of sorts. First his father, then within weeks his mother, disappeared. Both were embroiled in the opium trade, his father as an executive of a dubious trading company and his mother as an agitator for reform. Their disappearance is a case he knows he must turn his attention to one day.

In 1937 he finally makes the trip to a Shanghai on the front line in the Sino Japanese war, complicated by the stirrings of communist revolt and the gathering storm clouds that will soon break as the Second World War. So there are bigger problems to deal with than some long lost geriatrics. Diplomatic missions are in place, including one led by Sarah Hemming’s new, but old, husband, Sir Cecil Medhurst. That means Sarah is in town, and the friendship is renewed.

For three quarters of the book the pace is steady, the language formal, and emotions restrained, as befits an educated English gentleman. Then in Shanghai, all that is blown to the winds in an action packed finale, as the competing demands of Sarah Hemmings, the diplomatic mission, and the quest to find his parents finally crack his composure and reserve.

It is not a difficult read. Ishiguro’s prose is easy on the eye, though the nested flashbacks demand attention and the odd ruffling back of pages to keep track. However, Banks is a hard character to empathise with, and the whole orphans thing (Sarah is one too, and Banks randomly adopts one of his own) seems rather spurious.

The Naming of the Dead – Ian Rankin

It is summer 2005 and DI John Rebus is one book away from retirement. With most of the City and Borders Police preoccupied with security for the G8 summit down the road at Gleneagles, Rebus and DS Siobahn Clarke are assigned to a routine mission to check out some evidence relating to a recent murder.

The victim was a rapist not long since released from prison; the evidence is a missing part of his jacket. And the site, a clootie well where people leave clothing of the dead for good luck, reveals more evidence relating to two other unsolved murders. These victims too were sex offenders, an excuse for the forces concerned to give the cases low priority. To Rebus a murder is a murder, no matter how unsavoury the character of the victim. He and Siobahn get stuck in, ignoring instructions to keep it all low key during the summit.

Edinburgh is in turmoil with thousands coming to protest, demonstrate, or just enjoy the festival vibe and hear the bands invited to perform. In addition to the great unwashed, the rich and the powerful are in town to press the flesh and do deals – international politicians, business leaders and, to keep an eye on them all, Special Branch. There is also a local power struggle going on with veteran villain Big Ger Cafferty locking horns with self-appointed man of the people, Councillor Gareth Tench.

When, to top it all, a local MP goes over the parapet at Edinburgh Castle, Rebus reckons it was no accident, nor suicide; the only question in his mind is who pushed him, and why.

So, old crimes, new crimes; old foes to rub up against and new enemies made among the visitors. Its chaotic, but Rebus thrives on it and as usual muddles through a twisted but clever plotline.

Good atmosphere, snappy dialogue, and for a change a little bit of detection gets done.

Three Things About Elsie – Joanna Cannon

 Florence Claybourne’s residency at the Cherry Tree Accommodation for the Elderly has been ticking along nicely. She has her own flat, and her lifelong friend, Elsie, for company. But now there are problems. Her memory is not so good and sometimes her thoughts come straight out of her mouth when they would be better to stay in her head. She is due an assessment that could mean goodbye to cheery Cherry Tree and hello to grim Greenbank, where those needing higher levels of support are, in Florence’s view, incarcerated.

To top it all, a new resident has arrived, who calls himself Gabriel Price. But Florence knows that is not his real name; he is Ronnie Butler, a man dead sixty years. She recognizes him, recognizes the scar she gave him, recognizes the man she saw drown in the canal.

Gabriel / Ronnie shows no sign of recognizing Florence, but as evidence of her own erratic behaviour begins to mount – a lost book turning up in the fridge, her kitchen cupboard full of Battenburg cakes, an iron left dangerously on – she knows he is behind it all somehow.

Florence and Elsie recruit fellow resident, Jack, whose son acts as taxi driver, to help investigate Gabriel Price and prove he is really Ronnie Butler. Ronnie Butler who, by drowning in the canal left unanswered questions concerning the violent death, that same night, of Elsie’s sister Beryl.

The story unfolds in three time frames. In the here and now, Florence is lying prone on the floor of her flat, hoping someone will find her before it is too late. While there, she relates the events of the last month and the investigation into Gabriel Price. Assistant manager, Miss Ambrose, and handyman, Simon, also contribute to that narrative. Her thoughts also drift back to the distant past, to the night Beryl died, and Ronnie ended up in the canal.

Relationships within the closed world of Cherry Tree are well portrayed, and sub-plots involving minor characters provide pleasurable diversions. And those three things about Elsie? Read, discover, enjoy.

Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healey

 Maud knows Elizabeth is missing, it is written on a scrap of paper, and that is how Maud remembers things now, her head being unreliable for that purpose. She tells her daughter, Helen, and the police, but no-one does anything about it.

Maud has to rely on herself to find Elizabeth, but it is hard to investigate when she cannot remember clues and her mind keeps slipping back seventy years to another disappearance, that of her sister, Sukey.

Sukey disappeared just after the war and never turned up again. She was not long married to Frank, who was a bit of a chancer mixed up in the black market. Did he do something to her? Could it have something to do with the young lodger, Douglas, who clearly held a torch for her? Or did the madwoman down the street do her in for no reason at all?

The stories of the missing Elizabeth and Sukey unfold in tandem, often mixed up in Maud’s mind, though her recollections of Sukey are the more reliable. It is Maud’s long-suffering daughter who must cope with Maud’s twin concerns, one real but historic and the other current but unsubstantiated.

Maud’s narrative gives an insight into what it may be like (who can tell how accurate) to have dementia, by turns funny and frightening. The seamless transitions from present to past to present again, losing and regaining names, locations, and the plot generally, all has an authentic feel that generates sympathy, for both Maud and Helen.

It is uncertain to the end whether either disappearance will be resolved. And if one is, will Maud even realise?