Tayari Jones - An American Marriage

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I’m in the minority about this one, because I didn’t think much of An American Marriage. It started well enough but I got very bogged down and I’m afraid I gave up around page 150 and didn’t finish it.

The story is of Roy and Celestial, a black American couple and their friend Andre, who is there largely to provide a love triangle. The opening, narrated first by Roy, then by Celestial recounts their stormy but passionate marriage and then Roy’s unjust, racist conviction for a crime of which he is innocent. We then get an exchange of letters, mainly between Roy and Celestial, as Roy serves his time, and this is where things began to go badly wrong for me. I didn’t really believe in the characters, their writing styles didn’t convince me at all and all the voices sounded too similar for any realism. I also thought that, having made its initial, powerful point about the threat to black people in the USA, it descended into rather bland soap opera and, frankly, I lost interest.

I’m sorry to criticise, but this simply didn’t do it for me. Other contemporary authors write more powerfully about the experience of black people in the USA while also making their books compulsively readable; I’m thinking of Paul Beatty, Joe Ide, Attica Locke and others. For me, this isn’t in the same league and I’m afraid I can’t recommend An American Marriage.

Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A Pratchett gem

I think Monstrous Regiment is one of Terry Pratchett’s best – which is really saying something.

It is the story of Polly, who disguises herself as a man and joins the army to fight for Borogrovia, a benighted country, permanently at war with its neighbours, beset by absurd traditions and religious restrictions and on the verge of collapse. Pratchett uses this to make some very shrewd satirical points about sexism, oppressive religion, militaristic jingoism and so on. It’s also very funny and very readable. There is silly humour, some very sly humour and Pratchett’s wonderful subverting and playing with the clichés around vampires, trolls, Igors and so on to make some powerful social points while entertaining us hugely.

Probably little more need be said. Pratchett was a real master of his craft and he is at his best here. Very warmly recommended.

Ani Katz - A Good Man

Rating: 2/5

Review:
A struggle

I’m afraid I struggled with A Good Man. It’s a bold idea and Ani Katz certainly writes well, but I got very bogged down in a slow, oppressive narrative.

The book is narrated in the first person by Thomas, a man with an apparently idyllic family life with his wife and daughter and a successful career. We can tell that something dreadful is looming, but it takes a very long time indeed for anything approaching an event to occur. Thomas’s narration is plainly unreliable – and very well done, to be fair – and through his eyes and interpretation we get a lot of history of his marriage and of his rather creepily dysfunctional mother and sisters as he becomes increasingly disturbed by things in his life. The trouble is that for me it just went on and on being oppressive and foreboding with little to really draw me in and, frankly, I found it a real struggle after a while. As a result, I’m not sure I really learned much about what Katz is really trying to tell us.

I applaud the book’s ambition, I think Ani Katz is a good writer and others have plainly derived far more from A Good Man than I did, but personally I couldn’t really get on with it.

(My thanks to Random House for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Deon Meyer - The Last Hunt

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another excellent book from Meyer

I thought The Last Hunt was excellent. I have enjoyed Deon Meyer’s books in the past and I think think is one of his best.

Benny Griessel (now sober and living with Alexa) and Vaughn Cupido are sent to investigate a dodgy death on a luxury train and immediately come up against secretive obstruction from other agencies. Meanwhile we also get a seemingly unrelated narrative of Daniel Darret in Bordeaux who turns out to be an ex-fighter for The Struggle, trying to make a new, peaceful life for himself. What follows is a beautifully paced and completely gripping mix of excellent police procedural and a sort of Day Of The Jackal story, all of which I found believable and involving.

The great strength of the book is its characters in Daniel and, of course, in Vaughn and especially Benny, who is at his most human as he tries to raise the courage to ask Alexa to marry him. The other fine aspect is the picture of South Africa under Jacob Zuma and the frightful extent of corruption and “state capture” by Zuma and the Gupta family who are never named but often referred to. The writing and translation (by K.L. Seegers) are excellent and I was wholly absorbed from start to finish.

Even if you haven’t read any of the previous books in this series, this is a very fine novel and a great read. Very warmly recommended.

(My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC via NetGalley.)

M.W. Craven - The Puppet Show

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

I enjoyed The Puppet Show. It was a recommendation which I approached with some dubiety; another serial killer, a maverick detective brought back from suspension because of a personal message from the killer...it all sounded very stale and clichéd to me, but M.W. Craven writes well and manages to make this seem quite fresh.

There are a lot of good things about it: principally a decently told story, the Cumbrian setting, some well described and interesting police work, the fact that for once the victims are men rather than women and a very enjoyable character in Tilly Bradshaw. She is a mathematical genius and data analyst who is socially naive and inept but very endearing and who becomes Poe’s partner in the investigation. It all kept me reading with enjoyment, but it did have its flaws, too. There are some very crude targets for Poe’s wrath (pantomime bullies of one sort an another) and the denouement is, as one can spot from very early on, the inevitable One-To-One Stand Off In A Deserted Location between the killer and Poe. The killer’s full explanation sounds as though it’s written by a novelist rather than being spoken by an ordinary person...and so on – although to be fair, Craven does put a somewhat different slant on the encounter from normal.

In spite of these reservations, I found The Puppet Show a good, absorbing read. The setting and characters are convincing and I shall be reading more of this series. Recommended.

Sophie Hannah - Haven't They Grown

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Intriguing and enjoyable

I enjoyed Haven’t They Grown. It’s pretty far-fetched in places, but Sophie Hannah always writes very well and has produced another intriguing, readable mystery.

The story is told in the first person by Beth Leeson, a mother of two teenagers in Cambridgeshire. The set-up is excellent: she sees a friend from whom she has been estranged for 12 years with her two children who still look five and three years old – as they did twelve years ago. We get Beth’s dogged attempts to solve the mystery, interspersed with her domestic life. It’s very well done; I especially liked Hannah’s subverting of the old “am I mad/imagining things?” trope we usually get with women (it’s almost always women) in this situation. Beth knows what she saw and won’t be persuaded otherwise, and she’s a tough, determined character who is genuinely concerned about her friend and the children. Another highlight was Beth’s sixteen-year-old daughter Zannah (short for Suzannah, I was relieved to discover), who is brilliantly painted and for me a joy throughout.

All Hannah’s characters are very convincing and she structures and paces the book very well. I found things getting just a tad incredible during the last third of the book and rather more than a tad incredible at the denouement, but it’s still an enjoyable, ingenious read from a fine writer of the genre. Recommended.

Louis Theroux - Gotta Get Theroux This

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very good

I thought this was very good, in spite of the dreadful title. (It’s a reference to other people’s “humorous” use of his name, but even so…).

Louis Theroux is a very intelligent, amusing, thoughtful and humane man. His TV work speaks for itself and, like many others, I have enjoyed it and learned a great deal from it. There is a good deal of interesting insight here into how Louis got into making documentaries, the process of making them and some of the consequences of the programmes for him and for others. What really shines through here, though, is his insights into people, including himself. He gives thoughtful, nuanced portraits of those he has met and of his own behaviour. He is honest and very self-critical at times, but also recognises the complexity of people and of human behaviour, including his own.

The spectre of Jimmy Savile looms large in the book, as it must. Louis became sort-of-friends with Savile after making a documentary about him and I found his thoughts about the whole affair fascinating and very well-balanced. For example, he describes his own complex responses to the revelations: “I felt alternately defensive, annoyed apologetic and self-critical. I was irked by the piety and self-righteousness of those critics who suggested I should have seen more. And I wished I had seen more.” And this, of the aftermath: “[Savile’s] purpose was now to make everyone else in society feel OK that they aren’t him. He had become a thought-stopping device, and a way for creepy men to make themselves look better...” I found all that very insightful, and this was true of a great deal in the book.

I found Gotta Get Theroux this a readable, stimulating and enjoyable book. Recommended.