Rosamund Lupton - Three Hours

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Gripping and thoughtful

A lot about Three Hours was excellent. I found it very gripping and well done a lot of the time, but it did have its flaws in the end.

This is the story of a school siege by initially unknown gunmen. The school is in an isolated part of north Somerset and it is snowing heavily, giving the story extra atmosphere which Rosamund Lupton does very well. It begins dramatically with the shooting of the headteacher and from there we get several points of view as it unfolds: various students including a refugee from Syria with PTSD, a parent, a police officer and so on. These are all excellently handled and feel very real so that even filling in the back-stories, a device which can sometimes feel very clumsy and tired, seems natural to the narrative. Lupton also writes very well much of the time; as an example, capturing the intensity of teenage love (before the siege has begun), “A white snowflake landed on a fiery gold strand of her hair and for a moment he saw the beauty of it,” which I thought very evocative and there’s plenty more of a similar quality.

For much of its length this was a five-star read for me – gripping, exciting, intelligent and thoughtful. In the last third or so, though, there began to be just a few too many unlikely contrivances for the sake of a tense plot which weakened it for me. Also, there is suddenly some rather heavy-handed political evengelising. I agree entirely with what Lupton is saying and she is making very important points, but it did feel a little clumsy and over-polemical to me.

That said, Three Hours is still very good. It is very well researched, I found it hard to put down and Lupton’s thoughtful and sensitive portraits of her characters are excellent. Recommended.

(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Tim Dorsey - Shark Skin Suite

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Cracking entertainment

This is another absolutely cracking entertainment from Tim Dorsey. The Serge Storms books are always a pleasure and Shark Skin Suite is no exception – although it perhaps starts a little less alluringly than some.

The book opens with Serge on the run from both the law and his ex-wife, which is quite amusing but not the carefree Serge we know and love. However, he’s soon back to racing around Florida spouting high-energy facts and history (much of which is genuinely very interesting), dealing with Coleman’s drug- and alcohol-fuelled antics and visiting satisfying revenge on scumbags of various sorts. The main focus this time is on the greed and careless arrogance of banks and large corporations and their lawyers, some of whom get a very pleasing come-uppance in the end.

As always, this is funny, engrossing and with an underpinning of both erudition about Florida and a shrewd analysis of the behaviour of some financial institutions. I loved it and can recommend it very warmly.

Joyce Porter - Dover One

Rating: 3/5

Review: 
Disappointing

I didn’t enjoy Dover One nearly as much as I’d hoped. Farrago have done an excellent job in finding and reissuing some really good humorous series – notably Colin Watson’s Flaxborough books, the Bandy series by Donald Jack and Miss Seeton; sadly, for me this wasn’t nearly as enjoyable.

Written and set in the mid 60s, the book features the eponymous Chief Inspector Dover who is idle, unscrupulous and offensive in both manner and person. He and his super-keen and squeaky-clean sidekick are called to investigate the disappearance of a young woman in “Creedshire” where we meet, Agatha Christie style, a cast of locals who may all have had a motive for doing away with her, but her (very substantial) body is nowhere to be found.

The mystery is decently plotted and well written but I’m afraid I became pretty tired of it all by about half way and began to skim. I still can’t quite put my finger on why, but it’s partly that the characters are a collection of almost uniformly repellent caricatures which I found rather heavy-handed rather than witty. Things do move pretty slowly, so in the absence of an engaging character or of much to make me smile I got quite bogged down. Also, even allowing for the prevailing attitudes of the time, I found some of it pretty jarring and using the hideous suffering survived by one character in a concentration camp as a humorous (even darkly humorous) plot device really did seem a bit much.

It may just be me; the prose is well written and it’s well plotted, so others may enjoy Dover far more than I did, but personally I can’t really recommend it.

(My thanks to Farrago for an ARC via NetGalley.)

William Shea - Conversations With Galileo

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Rather disappointing

I was rather underwhelmed by Conversations With Galileo. It’s not a bad insight into some of the man’s character and discoveries, but for me it had some pretty big flaws.

William Shea plainly knows a great deal about his subject and has a real enthusiasm for both Galileo and the times in which he lived. The book is structured in a series of brief chapters, each with a brief introduction and then in the form of some rather open questions from Shea and Galileo’s supposed answers. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t really come off for me, largely because Galileo’s voice is completely unconvincing. He describes events from his life and some of his work in very understandable terms, but it’s all about as natural as the 123-metre spire stuff about Salisbury from those two Russian...er...gentlemen. It’s stilted and rather awkward to read, and it’s not helped by a lack of focus in places. For example, the plague from 1630-33 was a catastrophic and influential event in Galileo’s life, but in such a short book the amount of time devoted to the plague itself rather than its influence and effect on Galileo was a real distraction.

I don’t mean to be too critical, but I did find the book unsatisfactory. Even the introduction by Dava Sobel (whose knowledge I respect greatly) was rather overblown for my taste. I think this would have been better as a simple, brief explanation of the man and his work, which I think Shea would do very well. The structure of imagined conversations didn’t do it for me and I can only give this a very qualified recommendation.

(My thanks to Watkins Publishing for and ARC via Netgalley.)

James Sallis - Sarah Jane

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent book

I thought Sarah Jane was excellent. James Sallis is a very fine writer and his spare style is quite riveting here.

It’s a hard book to describe. Narrated by the eponymous Sarah Jane Pullman, we get the story of how she ends up as a cop in a small town, a job which she didn’t expect to be in but which she’s very good at. The thing is, we don’t get quite the full story as the narrative unfolds and events in Sarah Jane’s past eventually begin to catch up with her – the faintest shadows at first, which begin to build to something more substantial. It’s a humane, thoughtful story which I found utterly gripping as Sallis builds a picture often through the recounting of small, relatively mundane events which are full of insight and compassion but where the sense of looming, growing threat is always present.

It’s beautifully written as Sallis creates his people and places almost like a brilliant artist can with a few lines in a charcoal sketch, with just a few, seemingly simple lines capturing the subject perfectly. It also has the immense merit of brevity at just over 200 pages; nothing is wasted and there’s absolutely no padding. I was completely gripped throughout and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

(My thanks to Oldcastle Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Attica Locke - Heaven My Home

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
Excellent

I thought Bluebird, Bluebird was excellent. This, the sequel, is just as good. (It can be read as a stand-alone book, but I would strongly recommend reading Bluebird, Bluebird first.)

In Heaven My Home, Darren Matthews is still mired in the aftermath of his unethical but understandable behaviour previously. After a period of office work, he is sent to investigate the disappearance of the son of a convicted white supremacist killer because as a black Texas Ranger his boss thinks he may be able to glean information about the racist organisation the boy’s father belongs to. Things don’t go as planned or expected and Darren’s flawed but fundamentally noble character continues to be pulled in different directions both professionally and personally.

It’s a gripping, compelling story and again we get an unvarnished picture of the racism still rampant in some people in the USA and how it has been strengthened by recent political developments. Some of it is raw, ugly and abusive, some is more genteel but no less corrosive and repellent. There is also decency here and an excellent portrait of a (literally) backwater community and its attitudes.

I may have made this sound worthy and a bit turgid, but it’s anything but. I found it completely engrossing and an excellent read; there is some real weight to both its current comment and historical research, but both are lightly worn. It’s an excellent book which I can recommend very warmly.

(My thanks to Profile Books for an ARC via Netgalley.)

Ann Cleeves - The Long Call

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing

This is the first Ann Cleeves that I have read and I was looking forward to it. Sadly, I was rather disappointed.

The Long Call is the first in a new series featuring DI Matthew Venn, who has recently moved back to his childhood home in North Devon. He is estranged from his parents and the strictly religious group in which he grew up because he is gay and has married another man. A body found on a beach leads Matthew into an investigation which (of course) involves this group and also the arts and day centre for learning disabled people run by his husband.

Ann Cleeves generates a good sense of place and it’s good to see gay and learning-disabled characters at the forefront of the story...but the story just isn’t all that well done. There are lots of great, indigestible chunks of characters’ history, quite often of characters who aren’t that important, the whole thing moves very slowly and I got quite bored at times. The “It’s Personal” aspects felt like a well-worn literary device rather than a natural part of the story and there is (of course) a Race Against Time toward the end with some pretty implausible Investigator In Peril stuff which all felt very formulaic - although we were at least spared a clichéd Cornered Killer Climax.

I did finish the book, but it was a bit of a slog and I’m not inclined to pursue the series. Personally, I can’t really recommend it. (2.5 stars rounded up to 3.)

(My thanks to Macmillan for an ARC via NetGalley.)