When the Apricots Bloom – Gina Wilkinson

The book-packing journey reaches the Middle East with this novel set in Baghdad in 2002, where the story centres on the lives of three women and their relationship.

Rania Mansour is an artist, granddaughter of a sheik - not that that counts for much in the new Iraq ruled by clerics and the mukhabarat (secret police) thugs. She finds herself in gentle decline, selling off the family assets to maintain the appearance of a lifestyle. She has a teenage daughter, Hannan.

Huda’s origins are humbler. Though she and Rania were friends as girls they have since moved in different circles. She has a husband, Abdul Amir, and a thirteen-year-old son, Khalid, and works at the Australian Embassy.

Ally, ten years younger than Rania and Huda, is the wife of Tom Wilson, Deputy Ambassador at the Australian Embassy, but (keep this quiet) she is American by birth and cub journalist by previous profession. Either of these facts could get her thrown out of the country, or worse. But she has a personal reason for her risky presence in Baghdad – to find out about her mother’s life there before she married, had Ally, and died young.

The shadow of Saddam Hussein lies heavy on the land. Rania and Huda have their own reasons to live in fear. Huda is instructed to befriend Ally and pump her for diplomatic titbits; Rania is commissioned to paint a portrait of the glorious leader. Worse for both is the potential fates of their children – Khalid to be conscripted into a brutal cadet force, and Hannan to be ‘spotted’ and ‘taken in’ by Saddam’s notoriously lecherous son, Uday.

It is Ally who brings Rania and Huda back together when she requires Huda to accompany her on a visit to Rania’s gallery. It turns out there is a reason why the childhood friends are now distant, but as things progress needs must that they forget their differences and work together on an audacious plan to save their children.

It is atmospheric and menacing. The point of view switches between the women as each of them work to their own goals, weighing up the amount of trust they can give and receive. Thus, Wilkinson sensitively illustrates the dilemma of everyday life in Iraq (or any totalitarian state) – to accept the wrongs of the regime and survive, or work against them and risk ruin, torture, or death.

A decent, if workmanlike, read.

The Chemical Detective – Fiona Erskine

Dr Jaq Silver, industrial chemist specialising in explosives, and a keen skier, is in her element. Her new job with Snow Science is based in the snow-covered Slovenian mountains. Being far from England, and Teesside in particular, is a bonus, enabling unhappy memories to be left behind (though not for long). Alright, her boss is a dick, but aren’t they always? She’ll put up with that and enjoy the skiing and the party life that surrounds it.

But then a delivery from Teesside arrives at the Snow Science complex, and when Jaq takes the routine quality control samples, something doesn’t look right. From then on, an avalanche of events carries her on a breathless charge criss-crossing Europe, sometimes in pursuit of a lead, often fleeing a villain or two. Sexy men are involved, for good or ill. A back story begins to be revealed (but not in full – a sequel is likely) involving marital break-up and professional blame shifting.

In addition to Jaq’s point of view, the reader gets to see what the other characters are up to. To name but three: Boris, long haul lorry driver with villainous aspirations; Frank Good, the inappropriately named chief executive of Teesside based chemical firm, Zagrovyl; and Paul Polzin, international fixer nicknamed the Spider for his ability to spin webs of deceit.

Erskine peppers the narrative with scientific method and titbits, which works okay given her heroine’s occupation, but it is the exploits that stretch credibility. Any film adaptation would need Tom Cruise in drag to do them justice. The plot is complex, held together with coincidence, leaps of faith, and an alarming lack of common sense in Jaq. But we get there in the end.

And by the end I was glad it was all over.

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

Self-proclaimed (and accurately) as a brief history of mankind, this book seeks to explain how homo sapiens came to dominate the world, before even more briefly speculating on how sustainable that dominance may be.

Interestingly, it identifies four key developments that marked seismic shifts in history. First, and most important, was a ‘cognitive’ revolution in which Sapiens came to recognise, value, and label in language intangibles (things we cannot touch or see - the products of imagination) that we now take for granted. Second came the agricultural revolution, whereby for the first time Sapiens gathered in greater numbers than could be individually known to each other, requiring social organisation and cooperation (voluntary or coerced). The third development was the unification of the world when its disparate parts became connected, enabling global trade in goods and ideas, not to mention conquest and exploitation. Fourth came the scientific revolution whereby the pursuit of knowledge and the admission of ignorance became something valuable, something to enhance rather than threaten those in power.

As we are taken through these stages, insights come in a steady stream, blindingly obvious – except you had never looked at it like that. Too numerous to mention individually but each a building block in Harari’s analysis.

Despite the enormous concepts in play – religion, economics, money, war, empire, ideologies – the prose is clear, concise, and very readable. Though sure in his own mind, Harari persuades rather than harangues. He admits the possibility of doubt but provides the evidence to put it in its place of low probability.

A most satisfying read with so much food for thought that you can dine on it for weeks after and digest its truths slowly.

Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart

The book opens with fifteen-year-old Shuggie Bain living hand to mouth in the South Side of Glasgow in 1992, but swiftly rewinds ten years to place him in his family home in the Sighthill area of the city.

It is a blended, multi-generational family shoehorned into a high rise flat. Shuggie’s mother, Agnes Bain, is the lynch pin: Lizzie and Wullie Campbell are her parents, and it is their flat; taxi driver Shug (Hugh) is her second husband; teenagers Catherine and Leek (Alexander) are the leftovers from her first marriage; and Shuggie (little Hugh) is the product of Shug’s loins. The household shows the strains inherent in the situation with fraught relationships and alcohol the go-to remedy.

Big Shug finally has enough. He relocates his family (stepchildren included) to a housing scheme in the Glasgow hinterland, built to house miners who are now jobless, hopeless, and invisible. Agnes is dismayed, and immediately the family begins a slow disintegration that lasts seven years. Agnes’ drinking gets worse, and the slow motion car crash of her life begins in earnest.

Shuggie grows up in the chaos, not helped by his self-awareness, reinforced by his neighbours and peers, that he is ‘not normal’. Despite the neglect by Agnes and abuse from the rest of the world, he remains good-natured and develops a creditable self-sufficiency.

Although Shuggie has the title role, he shares the spotlight with his mother. Agnes is a mass of contradictions: obsessive about keeping up appearances when sober but grossing out when drunk; her love for Shuggie is evident but her neglect is shocking. Only Shuggie sticks with her, to his cost.

The writing treads the fine line between harrowing and heart-warming. It is insightful on alcoholism and a testimony on how some communities were affected by the de-industrialisation wrought by the Thatcher years. That the author emerged from a similar upbringing to produce a fine book like this, gives us hope for Shuggie too.

American Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld

Alice Lindgren relates her life story that takes her from suburban obscurity in 1950’s Wisconsin to the White House in the new millennium. Over the five decades she has only four addresses, and these provide the structure for the book. At each location, key events happen that are told in detail, while the years between are covered in broader brushstrokes.

1272 Amity Lane, Riley, Wisconsin is her family home where she lives with her parents and grandmother. Alice and her best friend Dena grow up, go to school, get their first jobs and boyfriends. A tragic event befalls Alice, compounded by an unwise reaction that need her grandmother’s discretion and experience to deal with.

Ten years older, wiser, and still single, Alice has an apartment at 3859 Sproule Street, Madison. She works at a local elementary school as librarian, a job she loves, inspiring children to read. She and Dena move on the fringes of affluent society, which is how she meets Charlie Blackwell. The Blackwells are Wisconsin royalty, meat packaging magnates and political movers and shakers – Charlie’s father was governor, his brother is a congressman. Republican, naturally. And Charlie has ambitions in that direction.

The Blackwell’s politics and the riches and sense of entitlement that go with them, are a turn-off for staunchly Democrat Alice, but Charlie is attractive, charming, and as far as Alice is concerned, persistent.

Alice swiftly becomes Mrs Blackwell and moves into the new marital home at 402 Maronee Drive, Milwaukee. She has to cope with her husband’s ambition, his compulsion to create a legacy and so prove his worth in the family. It is no easy ride, despite the material comforts enjoyed. Eventually, Charlie makes Governor.

No spoiler this, but the next address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, as Alice, with a sense of unreality, lives the life of a FLOTUS, her democratic leanings sitting uncomfortably with US invasions abroad and Roe v Wade under threat at home. And then someone from her Amity Lane past, who knows a secret, gets in touch.

It reads like the autobiography it could have been. Interesting rather than compelling but written well enough to make light of its 600 page length.

Runaway – Peter May

2015; London; someone gets bumped off, and the news report in a Scottish newspaper prompts a dying man to summon two childhood friends to his hospital bed in Glasgow. They must, Maurie explains to Jack and Dave, go back to London to where they ran away as sixteen-year-olds in 1965.

Five of them left that night, suddenly and secretly, and with mixed motives. They were a band, The Shuffle, and London was the place to make it big, but equally they each had their reason to quit their homes and families.

The twin track narratives unfold fifty years apart. In 1965, there are first tastes of sex, drugs and rock and roll; and bad company that leads to discord, disillusionment, and disaster. In 2015, the old guys, who again have reasons to get out of their current domestic settings, face different problems as they attempt to retrace their route to London, aided by Jack’s socially awkward grandson, Ricky.

The juxtaposition of youthful exuberance, attitudes and exploits with the frustrations and limitations of old age, is nicely done (at least viewed from my position in the latter camp). The writing is easy on the eye and both narratives move forward at pace, each to an exciting climax. By the end, secrets held for five decades slip out, providing a moving dénouement.

After my last May read, the disappointing ‘A Silent Death’, this is more like the quality of his excellent Lewis trilogy.

The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton

In Amsterdam, late in the year 1686, Nella Oortman arrives from her rural home to take up residence with her new husband. The unceremonious wedding, a month since, paired the eighteen-year-old girl with merchant Johannes Brandt, twenty years or so her senior, and now she has come to commence her wifely duties.

Johannes is out on business, so she is received, rather than welcomed, by his unmarried sister Marin, the manservant Otto, and the housemaid Cornelia. Nella takes refuge in her room. She waits nervously for her husband’s return but gets no more than a cursory acknowledgement. She waits at night for his attentions but gets none.

With Marin keeping house and Johannes distant, Nella is in limbo. All she gets from her husband is a cupboard-sized replica of her new home. Is it a toy for his child-bride or compensation for not allowing her to manage the real house? Whatever, it is beautifully made, and Nella contacts a miniaturist to enquire about furniture. Almost immediately exquisitely carved miniatures begin to arrive – items of furniture and doll-like figures that accurately and eerily reflect life in the real house.

As Nella settles in and begins to poke around her new home, she suspects that the household is not as stable or prosperous as it seems. Or that the stability and prosperity is fragile, teetering on some brink, held together by shared secrets and shared lies. Secrets and lies that she does not know, but the miniaturist seems to.

The writing is atmospheric and engrossing. Seventeenth century Amsterdam is revealed in all its period detail, its citizens treading a fine line between the twin drivers of puritanical god-fearing and capitalist profit-making.

As the narrative unfolds, over just a few months, Nella finds herself sucked from the household’s periphery to the centre of events. Events that lead to more than one climax. It makes for a dramatic and compulsive read.