Lessons – Ian McEwan

The novel opens in 1986 with Roland Baines halfway through his life and coming to terms with his wife walking out on him and their baby son. His first task is to convince the police that he has not killed her, or maybe that is second after the demands of the seven month old infant.

From there the narrative spills out forwards and backwards, sporadically chronicling Roland’s life of paths chosen and opportunities missed. Prominence is given to pivot points that he realises shaped him and his place in the world: an unsettled childhood; a relationship with his school piano teacher; meeting, marrying, and losing Alissa; then his love and ongoing care for his son. Everything revolves around and comes back to those things.

Slow, languorous Ian McEwan prose makes the five hundred or so word-packed pages a pleasure to read, get immersed in, and ponder. There are instances of passion, tension, and humour set against the background of key world events of the period, from the aftermath of the Second World War, through the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall, to Brexit and COVID.

Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara is an AF – an artificial friend, solar powered hence sensitive, almost obsessed, by the movement of the sun and the effects of its rays.

At first, she is in the store window from where she hones her understanding of humans by close observation of scenes in the street. At last, she is acquired for a young girl. Josie is thrilled with her AF and Klara is even happier to have been chosen. But Josie is a sickly child, seemingly adversely affected by being ‘lifted’ – gene edited to boost her intelligence and learning capacity.

Klara, who narrates, slowly gets to grips with her new household – Josie, the working mother, the absent father, the housekeeper … and the boy next door. He and Josie are firm friends, but he has not been lifted so his prospects are limited. Stuff happens; the strange near-future world makes for an intriguing backdrop, and Klara’s otherness gives a skewed perspective on events.

There are multiple threads weaved into the narrative: Klara’s conviction that the sun is all powerful and can cure Josie (mimicking religious faith?); the extent to which an artificial object like Klara can equal a human as a receptacle for care and love (like a superior pet); the risks and rewards of gene editing; and the life cycle of consumer goods, even ones as treasured as Klara (remember Woody’s fate in Toy Story).

So, Klara, composite friend, priest, pet, and appliance. Her story makes for a thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

Becoming – Michelle Obama

This autobiography of the former FLOTAS takes the reader from her humble beginnings on Chicago’s South Side to the opulence of Washington DC’s White House.

It is a strength of the book, and of the lady, that she lets neither of these extremes define her. She is her own woman. Supported by a close knit family unt, Michelle Robinson does well at school and defies the odds by landing a place at Harvard, then a job back in Chicago with a prestigious law firm. She is given the job of mentoring a new intern named Barack Obama, and the rest is history.

But it is her history here – how she became herself, how she overcame setbacks, coped with work and then an increasingly politically distracted husband, and two daughters, both in the run up to the presidential election and during the two terms in office.

It is told in a straightforward fashion, chronologically ordered, and not over-stuffed with name-dropping. She gives credit to her role models and takes deserved pride in becoming one herself.

It is interesting for its unique perspective and insight into American society and politics in the years spanning the millennium.

The Corpse Bridge – Stephen Booth

The Corpse Bridge provides a crossing over the River Dove for a couple of ‘coffin roads’, old footpaths that facilitated the final journeys of the dead of remote villages, in this part of rural Derbyshire, to the burial ground at the parish church. When a body is discovered at the bridge, DS Ben Cooper is sent to investigate.

The body has been in the water overnight, so forensics are scarce, but the appeal for witnesses generates a handful of responses from people who were in the vicinity, and from locals who knew the deceased woman. Items of evidence turn up that indicate strange things were afoot that night, which after all, was Halloween.

DI Cooper and his team, supplemented by a rival DS, Diane Fry, follow leads, grill people of interest, speculate on motives an, in the case of Cooper and Fry, annoy each other, before it all gets resolved. There is clearly history between Cooper and Fry, indeed it turns out this is the fourteenth book in the series, but it reads fine as a stand alone piece.

Booth works hard to give a sense of place, invoking all aspects of the Derbyshire Dales landscape, both natural and man-made. It adds interest to the tale but with much zipping about by Cooper, maybe a map would have helped. The wide cast of both suspects and police officers gives little scope to develop characters in depth, though maybe in the case of the police team this occurs slowly throughout the series.

As a crime novel it works well enough but, unless its geographical setting strikes a chord, there is nothing to make it stand out in an overcrowded genre.

Holy Island – L J Ross

DCI Ryan is taking a break, on garden leave after a traumatic last case. He is on the idyllic Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, semi-attached to the Northumberland coast by a causeway covered twice daily by the tide. Then a body is discovered, laid out on an altar stone in the grounds of the ruined priory. The tide is in, and with no local police, DCI Ryan feels obliged to get back in the saddle and take charge.

There is potentially a ritualistic element to the killing, and against Ryan’s wishes an expert from Durham University, Dr Taylor, is sent in to assist. But when Ryan meets the attractive Anna Taylor, he is more than happy to tolerate her presence. For Anna it is also a chance to return to her childhood home where complicated baggage remains.

Ryan has to manage his demons, marshal his meagre resources, overcome the locals’ closing of ranks, and manage his romantic feelings for Anna, while solving the crime (which soon multiplies into crimes as further deaths occur).

The plot rattles along, bumping over a few ‘as if’ moments. The procedural element is strong and remarkably efficient in getting evidence processed and paperwork completed in no time at all. There are false leads and unreliable witnesses to contend with, and those pesky tides, before a climactic resolution in the castle on the hill.

But is it resolved? An epilogue hints not quite – and this is just the first of twenty and counting DCI Ryan books each centred on a Northeast landmark. The sites may be iconic, but based on this read I am not sure if the books will be able to make the same claim.

Still Life – Sarah Winman

The book-packing journey arrives in Italy at the back end of the Second World War.

Outside Florence, Private Ulysses Temper (Temps to his friends) and Captain Darnley have a brief encounter with 64-year-old Evelyn Skinner, who is assisting the Allies locate and identify looted art. Darnley won’t survive the war, but Temps will, despite numerous wounds and a dangerous impulsive rescue of an old man (Arturo) from his roof high above a Florence square.

Demobbed back in London, he finds his wife Peggy has had an affair with a long gone American GI and is with child. They remain amicable and Temps bonds with ‘the kid’, settling into a desultory life with mates Cressy, Piano Pete, Col, and Claude - Col is landlord of the Stoat and Parrot, of which Claude is the garrulous parrot.

Nine years on from the war, word arrives from Florence that Arturo has died and left his apartment to the soldier who rescued him. Temps ups sticks, and sets off to Italy to accept his inheritance, accompanied by the kid, mate Cressy, and Claude the parrot. Cressy has cash from an outrageous bet to invest and they develop the property into a pension for visiting tourists.

The narrative meanders down the next twenty-five years, set mainly in Florence with interludes in London with Peggy and Col, who now and then visit Florence. Meanwhile, Evelyn’s life goes forward in parallel, occasionally brushing up with the other characters without making a connection; her back story emerges. Personal dramas unfold, a highlight being the cataclysmic flood of Florence in 1966.

Descriptions of Florence and its art abound, giving a strong sense of place. The characters are endearing (save the parrot), and their relationships well drawn. Spending time with them makes for pleasant enough reading.

Emily Noble’s Disgrace – Mary Paulson-Ellis

It starts in Portobello, Edinburgh’s seaside, in 2019, at a disused boarding house. It is years since proprietor Isabella Dawson last had a paying guest, at least two years as that is how long her body has lain undetected in the upstairs bedroom. As well as being a recluse, she was a hoarder, and with no relatives to be found, the Office for Lost People get involved and engage specialist cleaners to clear the place.

Enter the first narrator, cleaner Essie Pound, who sifts through the old possessions with an acquisitive eye for the curious rather than the valuable. As she uncovers elements of Isabella Dawson’s life, she also reveals her own uncomfortable back story.

Later in the book a second narrator, or point of view, that of PC Emily Noble, is introduced. She is trying to work her way back into favour after making a couple of mistakes in her short career in the force, one professional and one personal, which just adds to the baggage she carries from traumatic childhood. She gets given many a rubbish job, and her latest directs her attention to the old boarding house.

Essie and Emily, unknown to each other, have a lot in common. Their pasts give them both issues and now each, independently, rummages in the debris of Isabella Dawson’s life, peeling back the generations and cycles of birth, death, comings together, splittings apart, and unsolved disappearances. If only they compared notes …

It has a feel of a Kate Atkinson, but not so well done (no shame there!). Attention is needed to keep track of the plot threads that deliberately mirror or echo each other, but that is rewarded with a satisfying denouement.

A good companion piece to the previous and excellent Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, and the heir hunter himself makes a cameo appearance here. (As does Margaret Penney of the Office for Lost People, who featured in Paulson-Ellis’s first novel – The Other Mrs Walker – which I now feel obliged to read).