Denise Mina - Confidence

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Disappointing 

 

Confidence started very well, but faded very badly. At her best, Denise Mina is brilliant, I think, but this one is quite a long way from her best.

Anna and Fin are podcasters with a reputation for investigating and solving mysteries and problems. The book begins with them and their tangled families of exes, new partners and children of various couples on a misguided holiday in a lighthouse, where they are stuck with each other during a very bad storm. Denise Mina handles this part very well, with the tensions and relationships very convincingly drawn, and Anna’s secret past being brought to light realistically and with quiet shock value.

The trouble is, almost none of it has the slightest relevance to the subsequent splot, in which Fin and Anna become embroiled in a complex story of a missing vlogger and the possibly priceless and religiously vital object she has found and may have stolen. This takes them all over Europe in the company of a deeply dodgy man and his young son; there is threat and murder, a lot of who-can-you-trust?, plus a highly unconvincing Perilous Climax with what felt like a deus ex machina denouement. Frankly it all felt rather contrived and like one of those rather implausible thrillers you might read on holiday and then forget and leave behind.

I was disappointed. The really interesting character and relationship developments weren’t at all relevant and were almost a distraction and the plot didn’t do much for me either. Denise Mina is much better than this, I think. I’ll definitely read her next and hope for a return to form, but I can’t recommend Confidence.

Bob Stanley - Yeah Yeah Yeah

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Interesting and enjoyable 

 

I enjoyed Yeah Yeah Yeah a lot. It’s comprehensive, readable and fantastically knowledgeable, although its huge scope did mean that it had its limitations.

Bob Stanley knows whereof he speaks. The breadth and depth of his knowledge is plain, as is his enthusiasm for pop music in all its forms. Of course, he doesn’t like everything he hears, but he’s largely unhampered by prejudice and gives bands like Sweet, for example, the credit they deserve rather than sneerily dismissing them as many Rock Fans (with capital letters, of course) do. It’s a fascinating history, with some good analysis of well-known artists and a fine array of less well known stuff which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed investigating.

Obviously, no-reader will agree with all Stanley’s judgements. I found his rather airy dismissal of much of Joni Mitchell’s work strange, and his failure even to mention the groundbreaking I Can See For Miles by The Who quite shocking – but then he also cites with approval Loudon Wainwright III’s first album which I bought at the time and got him to sign when I saw him live on his first UK tour, so I can forgive the odd lapse elsewhere.

More seriously, although it’s a long book, its sheer scale of ambition means that no-one gets real, in-depth treatment and quite often I felt I wanted a good deal more about styles or artists than was on offer here. It’s probably unfair to criticise the book for this because it’s not really what it sets out to do, but that nagging sense of wanting to know more did haunt me rather often.

That said, it’s a fascinating, enjoyable read which I can recommend to any pop music fan.

Graham Greene - Stamboul Train

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

A good book, badly flawed 

 

I liked many aspects of Stamboul Train, but it had one huge, unpleasant flaw which I found it impossible to ignore.

Greene creates a fine atmosphere of the train itself and the journey across Europe in 1932. He also creates some interesting characters whom he treats largely with insight and intelligence, whose stories make an absorbing and sometimes tense narrative – the scene at a small, almost lawless border post, for example, is atmospheric and very unsettling. It’s a good story (or stories), well told – but…

Myatt, one of the main characters is Jewish, and the anti-Semitism with which he is portrayed really made this a tough read for me in places. I know that one must make allowances for prevailing attitudes when reading fiction from almost a century ago, but this was written in 1932 and given what happened in Central Europe just a few years later, it’s hard to take. It’s not even that Greene is just pointing out the anti-Semitic attitudes of many people – although he does do that – but many of those attitudes are entrenched his own narrative and description. Myatt is often referred to as “the Jew” and scarcely a scene goes by without some reference made to his “race” and its supposed characteristics. It is as if Greene is diligently working through all the offensive stereotypes trotted out by anti-Semites; as an example, Greene has Myatt thinking to himself “I am a Jew, and I have learned nothing except how to make money.” I rest my case.

So, for me this was a good book with a huge, ugly scar. It makes it very hard to rate; I enjoyed many aspects of it, but I can’t give it more than two stars. Approach with caution.

E.R. Punshon - Comes A Stranger

 

 Rating: 4/5

Review:

An enjoyable read

 

This is the first E.R. Punshon I have read; it has an intelligent and knowledgeable background and I enjoyed it overall, but I did find the ending rather overblown and ultimately somewhat silly.

London Detective Sergeant Bobby Owen is the protagonist of this long-running series. Here, he visits his fiancée in a small country village which houses a library of valuable and extremely rare antiquarian books and incunabula. Various sinister characters appear and there is a death which Bobby is called to investigate along with the local constabulary. A tangled and tortuous tale emerges whose twists and obscure roots only become plain after more death and suffering.

It’s a decent mystery, with some interesting bibliographical detail and a very engaging protagonist. My Kindle edition has an interesting afterword explaining that Punshon took the idea for the book from a real-life case. Punshon writes well so it’s all very readable, but I did find the climax both rather predictable and rather overdone. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable read and I’ll probably be reading more Punshon at some point.

Georgette Heyer - Behold, Here's Poison

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Witty and enjoyable 

This is the first Georgette Heyer I have read and I enjoyed it very much, after a somewhat stodgy start.

The plot is a fairly standard Golden Age-style mystery set in a country house with family feuds, complex inheritance issues and so on, which is all very decently done. The real pleasure, though, is in the writing and Heyer’s creation of some excellently drawn characters, whom she brings to life with a wonderfully sly wit. She has obviously had a whale of a time writing the deliciously louche, cynical Randall – who, of course, turns out to have a soft heart under it all – and I had an equally good time reading about him.

I have to say that the first few chapters of scene-setting and establishing the rather complex family relationships were a bit of a struggle at times, but with the murder and the arrival of Inspector Hannasyde things perk up very nicely and I found this a very enjoyable read.

 

John le Carré - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

Still an absolute gem

 

I first read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy over 40 years ago and thought it was excellent. It still is. It’s one of those rare books where, having read a chapter or so, I thought “This is just pure class.” It is miles out of the league of the vast majority of spy fiction and stands very well as literary fiction in its own right, with an espionage story as its driver.

I shan’t bother summarising the well-known story, although that does make it a fascinating and often tense page-turner. What really makes this book for me is the quality of the prose, the brilliance of the characterisation and the subtly but beautifully painted background. Le Carré writes in a quite flat, unemotional tone, which is often far more effective than the racy, punchy style often found in spy thrillers; a couple of scenes where a character is stealing documents are absolutely nerve-shredding, for example, even though the prose is quite calm. Characters are beautifully painted, emerging from their own actions and words or those of others, rather than though laboured exposition of their history. And over all this is a picture of a British establishment still dominated by class and the sort of view that it doesn’t matter where you went to university – they are both very old and very distinguished.”

Put simply, this really is the classic it is made out to be. It’s a pleasure to read and a very rewarding, thought-provoking book. Very warmly recommended.