Mark Hill - The Two O'Clock Boy

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Very disappointing

I'm afraid I can't agree with the enthusiastic reviews for The Two O'Clock Boy.  I didn't think it was very good at all.

The book is a sort of police procedural, in that it involves a police investigation of a series of murders, but there's precious little procedure really, and lots of Maverick Cop, This-Time-It's-Personal, Threatened Investigator stuff.  Both central police officers have Family Issues, one has a Dark Secret In His Past Which Could Ruin Him…you get the idea.  The plot – who would have thought it? – centres around an abusive children's home in the 1980s, and frankly, it all felt rather unoriginal and well-worn.

The narrative is quite well structured at the start so I found myself carried along reasonably well for the first couple of hundred pages.  However, lazy cliché marred the prose too often: "he clung on for dear life", "she dragged them kicking and screaming", "the life and soul" and plenty of others, and the occasional solecism added to the sense of slightly careless writing.  It all seemed a bit stale and crudely done to me; I found that the story became more laboured and the implausibilities and rather unconvincing "thrills" mounted up.  Characters who had earlier been carefully introduced and given rather pointless little conflicts of their own which added nothing to the story were apparently forgotten.  I lost count of the number of times a phone rang or something else interrupted *just* as something dreadful was about to happen…and so on. 

The book became a bit of a slog, and then just silly – including a vicious mass murderer who said things like "I harbour a lifetime's resentment against your family," at which point I said out loud "oh, for heavens' sake!" (I paraphrase).  I got to the eye-rolling stage as the lead investigator was taken off the case, wondering whether any cliché was to be left out, and passed well beyond it as the plot and behaviour of central characters became simply ridiculous.  I finished the book out of a sense of duty and then wondered why I had bothered with what became simply ludicrous nonsense. 

So, this wasn't for me.  The reasonably good first half meant I gave it two stars rather than one, but only just.  This is the start of a series, apparently, but it's certainly not a series I shall be bothering with.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Laura Kaye - English Animals

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Readable and insightful

I didn't really expect to enjoy this book.  I read it on a friend's recommendation and in fact I enjoyed it very much.  It is very well written and very insightful.

The story of English Animals is narrated in the first person by Mirka, a 19-year-old woman from Slovakia who takes a job as a general assistant with a couple who run a small country house and estate where they hold weddings, game shoots and so on, and who becomes involved in taxidermy.  A love affair develops, and people's responses to it and to Mirka in general are very well observed.  I liked the skilful way that Mirka's history emerged and how her growing into herself and how events around her unfolded, along with a growing sense of menace and impermanence, so I won't give away any story, but I became very involved with the characters and how they interacted.

Laura Kaye is exceptionally good at the details of relationships and their subtleties and complexities.  She captures beautifully in some of her characters their simultaneous kindness and underlying selfishness and lack of awareness.  She also paints completely convincing portraits of a range of more minor characters, all of whom are so real as to be recognisable.  She has valuable things to say about the meaning of acceptance and bigotry, self-fulfilment and belonging.  I also loved (well, loathed, but you know what I mean) the excellent portrait of a blinkered man who is violently opposed to anything which might disrupt his ideal of England (including foreigners like Mirka), but who prefers to live in France. 

Mirka's voice is beautifully done; it is thoughtful, slightly naïve and completely convincing in its directness and lack of idiom as that of a young woman who speaks English very well but for whom it is not her first language.  I found the whole thing readable and very involving; it's an excellent read, which left me with much to think about afterward, and I can recommend it warmly.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Caroline Graham - Death of a Hollow Man

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very enjoyable read

I have enjoyed all of the books in this series very much – and far more than I expected to. I grew tired of the Midsomer Murders TV series a long time ago, but the books are actually very different in tone and character from what the series became. They are very good novels of character with crime as their plot drivers.

In Death of a Hollow Man, Barnaby is dragged along to an amateur dramatic performance and ends up investigating a dramatic death.  However, at least the first third of the book is scene-setting and the establishing of characters, and it is this which makes the books such a pleasure for me.  She writes very well with a fine understanding of her characters and their motivations and there is genuine psychological insight here.  She paints them with insight and a penetrating wit, making this far more than the collection of rather hollow stereotypes which sometimes go to make up the characters in the TV programmes. It is this which makes the books so worthwhile; she paints some scathing (and sometimes very funny) portraits but others with genuine compassion and depictions of goodness, all of which I found very realistic.

As always with Caroline Graham, the plotting is very good and she weaves a beguiling spell which hooked me in. It's quite a long way from the slightly twee whodunit feel of the TV series – especially in the character of Sergeant Troy who is no loveable sidekick but a lecherous, ignorant bigot with a strong line in unfunny, unpleasant jokes.

The prose is a pleasure to read, with plenty of pithy phrases; it carries you along very nicely without ever getting in the way of the story.  I can recommend this very warmly as a very good, involving novel of character as well as being a very enjoyable crime mystery.

Sarah Perry - The Essex Serpent

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Rather unsatisfying

In the end I struggled quite badly with The Essex Serpent, and thought that there was a good deal less to it than meets the eye.

Set in 1892, the story is of Cora, an intelligent but oppressed woman released by the death of her husband whose curiosity about the natural world leads her to investigate The Essex Serpent.  This is a possibly mythical creature (not unlike the Loch Ness Monster) which she hopes may be a "living fossil".  It's a slow tale, with lots of local atmosphere and weather, but whose characters seem to be straight out of Creative Writing's Victorian Central Casting and whose intellectual content is much thinner than it seems to think.  The story is used to explore the conflict at the time between Darwinism and the prevailing Christian belief in Creation and also social reform, but it lacks much in the way of originality or new insight.  Characters  take up entrenched (and rather over-modern) positions and then preach at each other, so little of the genuine spiritual and intellectual struggle many people experienced at the time (as reflected in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, for example) is evident.  All of this was done far, far better in Elizabeth Gilbert's brilliant The Signature Of All Things.

I also found the style quite hard to take.  The curiously mannered modern language of the narration ("would've"  "might've" etc. etc) and unsubtle attitudes of the characters began to grate badly and found myself plodding on but not looking forward to reading more.

The book is not actively bad, and some bits of it are pretty good (the description of an experimental surgical procedure, for example) but I had trouble wringing any real enjoyment or intellectual insight out of it.  Plainly, a lot of people have enjoyed this far more than I did, but I can't really recommend it.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Georges Simenon - Maigret and the Tall Woman

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A real pleasure

You just can't beat a good Maigret and I read this quickly and with great pleasure.  The two things are linked, because Simenon's unfussy, direct style means that each of the 70-odd Maigret books is brief but very satisfying.  This, like all of them, is as much about character and Parisian life as about crime, but it's done so well that you absorb it all while being involved in the story. 

Here, Maigret begins to investigate the story of a woman whom he arrested in amusing circumstances many years ago; she is concerned that her safe-breaker husband has vanished after seeing a body in a house he broke into.  The plot development is steady and secure but it is, as always, the characters, Maigret's means of confronting suspects and the Parisian atmosphere (here in a hot late summer) which linger.

The new translation by David Watson is excellent.  It is readable and true to the spirit of the original so that you forget that you are reading a translation which is exactly how it should be.  (The sole infelicity, "Boissier returned with a dossier," did make me smile but also pointed out how very good it was overall.)

Quite simply, this is a pleasure.  It's a fine translation of the work of a true master and very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Marcel Proust - Swann's Way

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Oh, for heavens' sake!

I tried this because I thought that I really ought to read some Proust.  A friend suggested that we read it at the same time and discuss it, which sounded like a good idea at the time.  I have dutifully slogged my way through as much as I could bear. 

Someone said of Wagner's Parsifal that it's the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going three hours you look at your watch and it says 6.20.  Well, that's nothing to how I feel about Swann's Way.  Endless, endless pages about what he thought as a child when trying to sleep, some reasonably well observed but incredibly laboured social comedy (I use the word comedy in its loosest sense), monumental quantities of minutiae about uninteresting characters (in which I include the narrator) and an overriding sense of someone utterly self-obsessed – and who is determined to visit the obsession mercilessly on everyone else.  I was irritated and, frankly, bored witless; when I saw that, after a long, serious struggle through really quite a lot (it seemed to me), my Kindle said "8h 07m left in book" I heard Billy Connolly in my head saying, "Oh, d'ya bloody think so?"

I gave up.  Seven volumes of this? *Seven*?  Sheesh!  Does anyone know the French for "For heavens' sake get over yourself"?

And now, following the effortful and emotionally enervating distress of having composed this piece, reminding me irresistibly of the long years of suffering in education (the subject of volumes 23-47 of my proposed masterwork), I feel the distressing stirrings of the need to go and do something else.  And yet, I am in an agony of paralysed indecision, for I find that I am unable to move, to think, to live in any meaningful sense before I have received some response, some word, some show of acknowledgement from my readers, for without such approval (or it's simulacrum, at the very least) how may my very existence be continued?  My pulse beats and I become aware of inhaling and absorbing the exquisite torture of the realisation that no-one may read this, in the way in which, in that moment in which a maitre d' informs one that no table will be available for ten minutes, a torment of anguish and crushed hope gives way to the desire to repeat the request,  a desire which must be immediately suppressed as the impulse would…  (continué p. 794)

Spufford - Golden Hill

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

Like almost everyone else, I think this is brilliant.  It's gripping, superbly written and quite remarkably evocative of a time and a place.

The time and place are November 1765, New York.  Into this small city of 7000 people arrives Richard Smith from England; charming, attractive and mysterious, he is there on an errand or mission which he reveals to no-one, including the reader.  His adventures and misadventures over the next couple of months are involving and exciting, and give us a wonderful portrait of the character of New York at that time.  Spufford paints very believable human characters, too, and has plainly immersed himself in the language and practices of the time, because the whole thing is utterly convincing and involving.  The language is quite brilliantly evovative – and the source of the narrative voice, revealed right at the end, is completely believable.

The story is good and quite gripping, but the real strength of this book is the completely involving sense of New York at that time, and the brooding, growing sense of menace and of being untrusted, alone and a very, very long way from home.  I thought it the whole thing was a fantastic read, and I can recommend Golden Hill very warmly indeed.

Salley Vickers - Cousins

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another insightful book from Salley Vickers

The description "family saga" would normally be enough to send me walking briskly in the opposite direction, but I'll read anything by the excellent Salley Vickers, and although this is the story of several generations of a family it's not what would normally be described as a saga.  Much of it was excellent, although I did have some reservations.

The book opens with the account of 20-year-old Will suffering a terrible, life-changing fall.  The narrative at this point is by Will's much younger sister (recalling and writing in adulthood) and at different points we also get narratives by his grandmother and his aunt.  It is hard to give any idea of the story without giving away far more than I would have wanted to know before I started.  The book is concerned with relationships within the family from the 1930s to the present day, with Will's accident as the focus for how they developed and how the individuals changed.  It has Salley Vickers' usual penetrating but compassionate insight, with plenty of pithy observations and also some very thoughtful, understanding views of people – including the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them.

Each of the voices is excellently done.  I found it all very easy and enjoyable to read and the final section becomes quite gripping as the story comes to a climax while dealing with difficult moral issues.  However, the second section, narrated by the grandmother, didn't quite seem to fit.  It's concerned with earlier history which, while relevant, I found a bit of a distraction.  I also could have done with a family tree to keep track of the characters and their locations, especially as some characters are called different names by different people, which is very true to life but sometimes hard to keep track of.

At its best (which is most of the time) this is excellent.  Salley Vickers is a very fine writer and she has a genuine, thoughtful insight into how people work.  I can recommend Cousins as a very rewarding, if slightly flawed, read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Nuala Ellwood - My Sister's Bones

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Decently written bu overdone

I'm afraid I struggled with this book.  It has some good aspects in that it deals with important issues and is decently written, but it tries to do too much and as a result is very overblown.

The bulk of the book is narrated by Kate, a war reporter suffering from PTSD who has recurring nightmares and hallucinations, who has returned to her childhood home to sort out her mother's estate.  We get the unreliable narrative, fragmented into three time frames, in which a tale of unmitigated misery and trauma emerges: a violent father, sibling hatred, a tragic death, alcoholism…and of course, PTSD.  It's all a bit much, frankly, giving the whole book a feeling of trying too hard and hence a slightly false air.  The story takes (via a convenient coincidence) a different turn about two-thirds of the way through; its development from then on felt very familiar and the denouement seemed contrived and rather silly to me.

It's a shame, because Nuala Ellwood writes well and I applaud her desire to portray PTSD and its effect on war reporters.  In the end, though, this felt to me like a rather contrived thriller whose overcooked tone detracted from any psychological insight.  It's not dreadful by any means, but personally I can't really recommend it.

Jeremy Paxman - A Life In Questions

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Interesting and entertaining

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I don't read many autobiographies or memoirs because, frankly, so many of them are so dreadful, but I found this very readable, absorbing, witty and insightful.

The opening is OK, if not hugely inspiring, being a well written but fairly standard recitation of Paxman's early life and education.  Things begin to get really good as he almost falls into journalism, and especially his time in Northern Ireland during the "Troubles."  He is incisive and fair-minded – and scathing about some of the political cynicism and incompetence, but also generous to others whom he saw attempting to do their best in tough times.  This is true throughout the book; Paxman dishes very little dirt in the way of revelation about individuals but he leaves the reader in no doubt about his opinion of some people and groups of people, nor of his contempt for management bull-excreta.  The book is peppered with pithy phrases like "…[they] talked about a 'mission to explain,' which was apparently something far more important than telling people what had happened that day," or "those shuffling oxymorons, media academics."  But he isn't waspish for the sake of it and is almost equally often generous about people, too, describing Min Campbell as "the nicest man in politics," for example.  It is plain that, at bottom, he likes most people who behave acceptably, which gives the book an engaging underpinning of humanity.

It's beautifully written, and I found it a pleasure to read.  Part of this is the overriding sense that, while Paxman takes many of the things he talks about very seriously indeed, he has a healthy scepticism about journalists taking them selves too seriously and an excellent line in self deprecation and mockery.  Very unusually, it is worth reading the bit on the dustjacket headed Praise For Jeremy Paxman, for example, which includes "Stay well away from me, you sanctimonious, spineless little toad" – Piers Morgan.

I found this as entertaining, interesting and absorbing as a good novel.  I enjoyed it far more than I expected to and I can recommend it very warmly.

Caroline Graham - Death In Disguise

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A very enjoyable read

I have enjoyed all of the books in this series very much – and far more than I expected to.  I grew tired of the Midsomer Murders TV series a long time ago, but the books are actually very different in tone and character from what the series became.  They are very good novels of character with crime as their plot drivers.

This time, Barnaby is investigating deaths in a New Age Commune.  As always with Caroline Graham, the plotting is very good and she weaves a beguiling spell which hooked me in.   She writes very well with a fine understanding of her characters and their motivations and there is genuine psychological insight here – and also has a lot of fun at the expense of charlatan mystics and gurus.  It is this which makes the books so worthwhile; she paints some scathing portraits but others with genuine compassion and depictions of goodness, all of which I found very realistic.  It's quite a long way from the slightly twee whodunit feel of the TV series – especially in the character of Sergeant Troy who is no loveable sidekick but a lecherous, ignorant bigot with a strong line in unfunny, unpleasant jokes.

The prose is a pleasure to read, with plenty of pithy phrases ad it carries you along very nicely without ever getting in the way of the story.  So, somewhat to my surprise, I can recommend this warmly as a very good, involving novel of character as well as being a gripping crime mystery.

H.E. Bates - The Complete Flying Officer X Stories

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Little gems by a master

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed and was moved by these stories. 

The stories are very short and are essentially character studies of those involved in and affected by the activities of a heavy bomber squadron in WWII, flying Stirlings on raids into Nazi-held territory.  Each one, told by the unnamed narrator ("Pilot Officer X") is a portrait of a pilot, a gunner, a girlfriend, a bereaved family and the officer speaking about the death of their son and so on.  They give fine understated insights into what the war really means to these people and the toll it takes.  The quiet tone, reflecting the modest, unemotional language of the airmen themselves, makes the impact of the action and the emotion all the more powerful, I think.  They also paint a vivid picture of heroism, but less of the daredevil valorous kind and more the quiet, persistent courage needed to do one's best in terrible circumstances, like bringing a terribly damaged plane home through skill and steadiness under fire – the kind of inner strength and courage for which, as Bates remarks, we have not yet struck a medal.

H.E. Bates is a rather little-read writer these days and might be almost entirely forgotten were it not for the TV adaptation of The Darling Buds Of May.  He deserves to be far better remembered and widely read; these stories are little gems which still resonate strongly today and justify Graham Greene's description of Bates as "one of the best short-story writers of my time."  Warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Caroline Graham - A Ghost In The Machine

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I enjoyed this book very much – and far more than I expected to.  I grew tired of the Midsomer Murders TV series a long time ago, but this is actually very different in tone and character from what the series became.  The book is a very good novel of character with crime as its plot driver.

A Ghost In the Machine is 550 pages long and I have to say that the first third of the book was good but a bit of a plod sometimes.  Caroline Graham paints intricate portraits of her characters and their lives and we spend a long time getting to know them while not much actually happens, but she does it very well and I did get quite involved in them.  The plot really begins to develop with a death after almost 200 pages, and by that time I was pretty well hooked.  The story is well told and pretty plausible, with the characters' behaviour very believable, which is by no means always the case in such books.  By half way I was immersed and gripped and I enjoyed the second half very much indeed – especially the lack of a ridiculous Cornered Killer Climax, but a plausible, sensible denouement which was no less gripping.

Graham writes very well.  She has a fine understanding of her characters and their motivations and there is genuine psychological insight here.  She paints some scathing portraits but others with genuine compassion and depictions of goodness, all of which I found very realistic.  The prose is a pleasure to read, with plenty of pithy phrases like the man welcoming people to a spiritualist evening: "He bared his teeth in a fearsome grimace of synthetic friendliness."  Or setting the scene and character neatly with "Choosing her moment carefully, after Alan Titchmarsh but before the snooker…"  It's excellent stuff.  (Oh, and you might be surprised by the real Sergeant Troy who, far from the lovable character of the TV series, is a lecherous, ignorant bigot - excellently portrayed.)

So, somewhat to my surprise, I can recommend this warmly as a very good, involving novel of character as well as being a gripping crime mystery.

Ian Rankin - Rather Be The Devil

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another good novel from Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin's books are always good and sometimes quite outstanding.  I don't think this is an outstanding one, but it's still very good.

In Rather Be The Devil, we continue Rebus's real-time development.  He is ageing with the rest of us, now in retirement, of course, and even trying to look after his health as it begins genuinely to worry him.  None of this stops him getting involved with an old, unsolved murder case while Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox continue their uneasy relationship while working together on a current fraud and money-laundering operation.  It's a decent enough story which becomes pretty convoluted as the two cases may or may not be related to each other but Rankin, as ever, tells it very well, creating good characters and keeping the reader hooked.

These books are now really three-handers rather than just Rebus novels, with Clarke and Fox having equally active roles.  It works very well, I think, and they make an interesting and engaging trio.  Old adversaries Darryl Christie and, of course, Big Ger Cafferty play prominent roles and long-term Rebus fans like me will find this a satisfying instalment.  (And those of us who share some of Rebus's musical taste will enjoy the way the title Rather Be The Devil is never actually mentioned, but its source features quite prominently on Rebus's turntable.)

I didn't think the plot and sense of place were among Rankin's best achievements, but a Rankin book which isn't one of his very best is still head and shoulders above a lot of other crime writing.   This is an involving and rewarding read, and I can recommend it.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Mick Herron - Spook Street

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A great addition to a fantastic series

Mick Herron has created a fantastic series of spy thrillers in the Slough House series and this, the fourth, is well up to the brilliant standard of its predecessors.

Not a great deal more need be said, really, but this is another rather twisty tale of the washed-up spooks of Slough House, dragged into the aftermath of a terrorist outrage and lots of consequent internal Intelligence politics and nefarious dealings, some going back decades.  The plot is good, although perhaps slightly less plausible than previous books – but who cares?  It's still a gripping, superbly told tale with the magnificent Jackson Lamb at its heart and Herron manages to make this both hilarious and chilling – sometimes simultaneously.  Lamb and his ragbag of rejects are again superbly drawn, damaged characters, about whom we somehow care, Lamb himself remains his cynically obnoxious self and I laughed out loud regularly, as I always do when reading Mick Herron's books.  Lamb is one of the great creations of modern fiction.

If you haven't yet read the Slough House series I would recommend reading the others in order first (Slow Horses,  Dead Lions, Real Tigers), but this can be read on its own.  If you have read the others you'll need no encouragement from me; this is an excellent addition to what is becoming a classic series and is very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Chris Brookmyre - Black Widow

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent read

I thought this was an excellent thriller.  Twenty years ago someone gave me a copy of Quite Ugly One Morning, I didn't like it all that much and haven't read any Brookmyre since, which was clearly an error because he has become a very good writer indeed.

Black Widow (it's a pity the title is such a cliché) is a clever, involving psychological thriller.  It involves the death in a road accident of a recently married IT worker, although the body is never found, and the subsequent growing suspicions that not all is as it seems and that his wife, surgeon Diana Jager, may have murdered him. To say more would be to give away more than I would have liked to know before reading it, but I found it a real page-turner which gripped me early on and didn't let go until the final pages. 

Brookmyre writes very well; he builds an excellent atmosphere of tension, there are fairly laid clues and some clever misdirection, too, which all made it a very enjoyable read.  I also found it far more subtle than I expected, with penetrating and insightful portraits of the main characters.  Diana is especially well done; the third person narrative is intercut with first person accounts by her for reasons which become apparent late on in the book.  There are also very good minor characters, like the two young police officers who first attend the accident.

In a market which is very crowded with crime fiction, much of it very good, I think this stands out as an especially good example, and I can recommend it very warmly.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Grayson Perry - The Descent of Man

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Readable, witty and insightful

All right – hands up all those who are mad keen to read a book about attitudes to men and how they damage society?  Well, quite.  I braced myself slightly before starting this, but I actually found it an excellent and – amazingly – an enjoyable little book.   It is readable, witty and very insightful.

Grayson Perry is a very acute observer of society.  He is intelligent and thoughtful and his (to use his own word) "other" status as a transvestite gives him an excellent viewpoint.  Here he talks about masculinity; how it is perceived by men and women and how those perceptions may shape the way in which men behave.  He analyses attitudes very shrewdly and says some very interesting things about how those attitudes influence and often damage society, leaving both men and women worse off.

Perry is perhaps not saying anything remarkably new here, but he says it with a clarity, humour and an often self-deprecating honesty which makes it easy and enjoyable to read.  This isn't and anti-men diatribe about how we're all dreadful people, but a recognition of how things are – including in his own behaviour both past and present – and how trying to change some ideas and expectations may make everyone rather happier.

I actually read a lot of this for enjoyment rather than as a book which I Ought To Read Because It Is Good For me, which is rather what I expected, and I can recommend it very warmly.

M.J.Carter - The Devil's Feast

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley.  This normally means that I feel obliged to finish a book, but I'm afraid that after 150 pages or so of The Devil's Feast I just got so bored that I decided that enough was enough.

It's not that it's terrible.  M.J. Carter can write well and she gets the Victorian voice sufficiently accurately to be pretty convincing – although some very modern, US-originated usages do creep in, like "Are we done, gentlemen?" or an oath beginning with "What the <expletive deleted>…" which grate very badly.  My real problem was that very little actually happened among the Sumptuous Detail.  We were introduced to a large cast of characters in whom I found I had very little interest; there are long, long descriptions of the workings of the kitchens at the Reform Club and rather clunky expositions of the politics of the time, for example; we get seemingly endless chapters in which Avery wanders around rather aimlessly talking to people while not knowing what to do, and so on.  There's also some business involving Blake which is so derivative as to be laughably transparent – except to Avery, apparently.

I'm happy to stick with a slow opening, but I'm afraid I need a little more than this by the time I've read over a third of a 350-page book.  Others seem to have found this involving and entertaining, and you may find that you enjoy it, too.  Personally, I'd had all I could take and bailed out.  Not for me, I'm afraid.

Anthony Horowitz - Magpie Murders

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

I enjoyed this book.  Anthony Horowitz is a very good writer of detective fiction and he has created an ingenious vehicle here.

The narrator is Susan Ryeland, a present day publishing editor, who is about to publish Magpie Murders, the latest in a very successful series of Agatha-Christie-like mysteries, set in 1955.  The first half or so of the book is the manuscript of this book, while the second half is Susan's attempts to use clues and puzzles left in the book to solve a present day death.  It's a neat device, and Horowitz enjoys himself creating a slightly Poirot-esque character in the book-within-the-book.  He does it rather well and creates a neat pastiche of a Golden Age detective novel; it's a well-constructed mystery with fair clues and a rather engaging protagonist which does the period pretty well.  And, of course, the few little anachronisms can be blamed on the fictional author.  (A struggling mechanic going back to his mean little flat in 1955 and *showering,* for example? I think not – but there aren't many, to be fair.)

The present-day story mirrors the manuscript neatly and is also a decent mystery.  Writers writing about the business of writing can sometimes be pretty grim, but Horowitz does it very well, giving us a flawed but charming narrator and a good mystery (including the traditional rather silly climax), and he uses the literary setting to make some interesting observations on the nature of crime fiction and its role. 

For much of the book's length (which is quite considerable) I had a slightly detached enjoyment, but I was swept up in the climax of the story and didn't want to put it down.  It's not a classic but it's well-constructed, readable and enjoyable and I can recommend it as a good read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Paul Beatty - The Sellout

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Utterly brilliant

What a fantastic book!  I don't normally gush quite so much, but I think this is one of the best, most enjoyable and most illuminating things I have read for a long time.

The story is narrated by Bonbon (just one of his names), a black man who owns a small inner-city farm in Dickens, a previously all-black city in suburban LA, which is being taken over by developments and losing its identity.  The outrageous premise is that he tries to restore the identity of Dickens and recover some of the pride and achievements of its black inhabitants by reintroducing segregation (and also keeping a slave…of sorts).  Paul Beatty uses this as a window on attitudes to race from all sides, which is perceptive, thoughtful and often very penetrating – but he does it in a way which made me laugh out loud regularly and also made me very involved with his characters.

The language is brilliant.  Be warned that there is liberal use of the n-word, the f-word and words from most other parts of the alphabet which some readers may find offensive.  I didn't at all; everything was exactly appropriate to the voice of the book and was often very funny in its effect. There is also some deep learning and wisdom here.  I found it extremely readable so that I wanted to get back to it when I wasn't reading, extremely thought-provoking and ultimately extremely wise.  (It reminded me a little in its form of Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy, another brilliant book which uses wit and an outrageous premise to shed light on attitudes to the Holocaust.)

I admit that I was dubious about the idea of opening the Booker Prize to US authors, but it's a delight to find such a wonderfully readable, funny, engaging and profound book on the shortlist and if this should win I will cheer out loud.  Very warmly recommended.

Nick Harper - Marshall: The Book Of Loud

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Amusing enough

The Book Of Loud wasn't what I expected at all, but I quite like it for what it is. 

I thought this would be an illustrated history of Marshall amps in Rock, which I would still be very interested in if anyone wants to write it.  Instead it's a pick-up-and dabble book with loads of utterly random stuff, often presented in several boxes to a page, like A Week of Rock, with seven rock songs each featuring a different day in the title, or the various hairstyles used by rockers over the years, or just a list of random trivia, like which silly pseudonym is used by Ozzy Osbourne when he checks into a hotel. 

There are very few photos, but a lot of line drawings which are of variable interest.  The whole thing is decently presented and amusing enough, without being in any way profound.  I can recommend it as a light read to dip into for a few minutes at a time. 

J.M. Coetzee - The Schooldays of Jesus

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Odd but involving

This is an odd book.  I think it's rather a good one, but it' s not easy to say why.

The Schooldays of Jesus is not about Jesus (unless there's some metaphor which I'm missing).  It's set in an unnamed, probably fictional Spanish-speaking country, where the main protagonist Simón, his companion Inés and her son Davíd are running away from the law for tanking Davíd out of school.  They settle in a new town and a sequence of things happens.  It's a curious sequence which seems like a chunk from some much larger story in that it begins and ends at somewhat random moments with little explained at the beginning and little resolved at the end, and as to what it's about…frankly, I have no real idea.

The narrative touches on the conflict between rationality and passion, guilt and punishment, the best way to educate a child…and dozens of other things, none of which is analysed to a conclusion, but raised periodically, discussed and then left until the next time.  It sounds ghastly, but there is a simple, almost hypnotic quality to the prose and a thoughtful feel which kept me reading right to the end.  I found Simón an engaging, flawed and slightly baffled protagonist and, odd though it is, I rather liked the somewhat fairy-tale atmosphere the style creates and the slightly random sequence of events and ideas.

It is very hard to give more of a flavour of this book.  It's certainly not driven by a page-turning plot and I imagine quite a lot of people will dislike its strange atmosphere.  Personally, I found it rather involving and haunting; I'm glad I read it and I'd suggest giving it a try.

A.L. Kennedy - Serious Sweet

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Hard going

I like A.L. Kennedy's radio work very much but, rather to my shame, this is the first novel of hers that I have read.  I'm afraid I found it pretty hard going.

This is a book which effectively recounts twenty-four hours in the lives of two decent, flawed people in London.  There is very little plot; it's about the nature of life in the city today and about the thoughts and character of the two protagonists.  In many ways, it's very well done.  Kennedy's depictions of aspects of modern life are acute, insightful and morally very necessary at the moment.  Her characters are utterly believable, and her depiction of their internal monologues is remarkably well done as they deal with the minor and major trials and joys of the day and of their lives.

But, dear me, there's a lot of it!  I felt about this rather as I did about John Banville's Ancient Light; wonderful writing, brilliant evocations of emotional states, memories and so on often through the depiction of the minutiae of life – and that 500 pages of it was just too much.  The style which makes a 10-minute radio talk so brilliant begins to feel a bit like wading through treacle after a couple of hundred pages.  Kennedy doesn't always judge it perfectly, either, I think.  I marked two brief early passages:

"And there was the toy-box clutter of the City, a slapdash collection of unlikely forms or the vaguely art deco confections at canary Wharf and, dotted about, the distant filaments of cranes that would lift more empty peculiarities into the undefended sky" which  thought was brilliant (and somewhat reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's opening descrition of Gormenghast Castle). 

And then this, a few pages later:

"This was her equivalent of maybe passing warm pebbles from hand to hand, smooth and reliable, or her version of the rosary, her misbah, her mala, her kmboloi, her worry beads…" which made me think "OK, OK!  I got the point at misbah!"  I found the whole thing a mixture of the beautifully judged and the slightly overblown and it became quite a slog for me.

It comes down to this, I think: if you like A.L. Kennedy's style in large doses, you'll like this and if you don't, you won't.  Personally I found it too much for too long, but you may well disagree; there's some very good stuff here and it may well be worth a try to see if it agrees better with you than it did with me.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

David Wishart - Foreign Bodies

Rating: 5/5

Review:
very enjoyable

I enjoyed this book very much.  It's the first of Wishart's I have read, and I'll definitely be looking out more in the series.

Foreign Bodies is set in the Roman Empire in the reign of Claudius as he plans the invasion of Britain.  Marcus Corvinus is asked by Claudius to investigate a murder in Lugdunum (now Lyons) in Gaul, and he and his wife Perdilla head off there – and beyond as the mystery deepens and becomes involved in high politics before unravelling.  As a detective story it's pretty ordinary, to be honest, with a rather ridiculous denouement, but it's made hugely enjoyable by the period setting and Marcus's terrific narrative voice.

Wishart is plainly deeply knowledgeable about the period, which allows him to give Marcus Corvinus (and his other characters) a thoroughly modern voice while maintaining a very convincing atmosphere.  Marcus speaks to us much like a witty and cynical contemporary Londoner, and it works brilliantly; it's wholly believable and genuinely funny in places.  I know comparisons with Philip Marlowe are almost always ignorant and lazy cliché, but even in the very English-sounding voice there is something of Marlowe's rebellious tone and his use of striking similes - which is a high compliment.

In short, this is an engaging, thoroughly readable and very enjoyable novel.  I'm delighted to have discovered David Wishart and I can recommend this very warmly.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)

Margery Allingham - The White Cottage Mystery

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A decent early work

Margery Allingham was a truly great writer of detective fiction from the Golden Age.  The White Cottage Mystery is her first published book, and her full brilliance had yet to flower.  I quite enjoyed it as a period piece, but it's nothing like as good as Allingham's later Campion books.

This is a solidly constructed mystery set a few years after the Great War.  A murder takes place in a small, respectable Home Counties village which Challoner of the Yard and his son Jerry investigate.  Facts emerge about the murdered man which lead to investigations in Paris and Mentone, revelations about sinister, powerful international criminal organisations and so on.  It's done decently enough, but it's a puzzle with somewhat crude dressing rather than the sort of fine novel as Allingham went on to write.  Characters are a little stereotypical, there's a rather thinly painted romance and so on.  The prose is good, but there's nothing of the brilliance of, say, "She bustled off, leaving a tang of schoolmistress in the air," (from Death of a Ghost) which came to characterise her writing.

Anything by Margery Allingham is worth reading, including this.  It's a readable and quite enjoyable Golden Age mystery – just don't expect it to be on a par with her later work.

(I received a free ARC via Netgalley.)

Graham Norton - Holding

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable novel

I enjoyed this book.  I like Graham Norton as a comic and TV host, but comics and TV hosts don't always make good novelists by any means.  However, Norton has written a very decent, readable book here.

Holding is the story of a small Irish village, in which an old body is unearthed by builders.  The Garda investigation drives the plot, but it is really a vehicle for character studies and a portrait of how oppressive moral attitudes of the past (some of which still prevail) have brought life-long consequences.  It is very well done; Norton creates very believable characters about whom we care, and he treats them with understanding and humanity – which, from someone who can be so waspish, I found a little surprising and very gratifying.  The fat, decent policeman, the alcoholic housewife, the trapped spinster and others are all very well portrayed and the social currents which run in a small community are also very convincingly done.

This isn't a ground-breaking masterpiece, but Graham Norton writes well and has produced an enjoyable, readable novel with some real content.  Recommended.