Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good

I enjoyed this book very much.  I had a couple of reservations about it, but it's very well written, readable and with some important things to say.

Be warned, the book is set among the criminal and drug worlds of Cork, so there's squalor, sex and what the BBC would describe as Very Strong Language – all of which seems utterly appropriate to me.  Lisa McInerney paints vivid and convincing portraits of her characters in this milieu, and this is one of the great strengths of the book.  She has an unflinching but often compassionate eye and I became very involved with some of the main characters, even if they were badly flawed.

The plot is rather complex but begins with a killing and concerns the consequences of that as its effects ripple over the next five years or so.  It's well done, if a little over-long and very over-reliant on coincidence throughout.  At one point a character murmurs "Small world…" and I'm afraid I thought, "Yes, but not that small."  Nonetheless, it's a pretty gripping read.

One of the other fine features of the book is its take on contemporary Ireland.  It's a bleak and cynical take, with some excoriating attacks on the oppressive effect of the Catholic church, hypocritical and cruel morality, economic mismanagement and corruption, but it's done with fire and genuine wit at times which makes it very compelling.

Lisa McInerney is plainly immensely talented and I look forward to more of her work.  Meanwhile, I can recommend this as a very good book.

(I received a free ARC via Netgalley.)

Keith Martin - The Little Book of Sham

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An amusing collection

This is a fairly amusing little collection of jokily adapted "inspirational" and "motivational" sayings which is a sort of parody of things like The Little Book Of Calm.  Keith Martin has included an epigraph from Wittgenstein:  “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”  Well, this is not a philosophical work and the jokes are OK but often not brilliant, but it's worth a look I'd say.

Some "aphorisms", it has to be said, are pretty familiar, but there's a decent smattering of original stuff here.  I'd say that it's likely to induce a wry smile rather than provoke loud laughter.  To give a flavour, a few random (and clean!) selections are:

"Life is short and often brutal like a job interview. So be yourself.  On no account be Piers Morgan."

"Nothing lasts forever, except sofa sales"

"Idle hands used to do the 'devil's work'.  Today they post updates on Facebook.

Though it may be the same thing."

This is a book to dip into from time to time for a few pages, which will amuse, I think.  Reading the whole lot at once gets a bit much, but I can recommend it as an entertaining little collection.

(I was sent a free e-copy for review.)

Mick Herron - Dead Lions

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

This is brilliant.  It's the second in Mick Herron's Slough House series and I'd suggest that you read the first, Slow Horses, before Dead Lions, but it's not essential.

Herron has created Slough House, an annexe of MI5 where the agent who are "mess-ups" (not the exact words used in the book) are sent.  It is presided over by Jackson Lamb, who is one of the great creations of modern fiction, I think.  He's an old Service hand who is personally repellent, offensive, rude gloriously politically incorrect – and under that, a brilliant spy.  From this, Herron develops a sly, witty and occasionally genuinely hilarious spy thriller – but a really good thriller, nonetheless.  The plot here revolves around the possible discovery of a network of Sleepers and it unravels brilliantly as Herron has diverse but believable characters slowly unpicking leads, following false trails and so on.  It's extremely well done, and it kept me awake far too late as I was too gripped to put it down before I'd finished it.

It is Lamb who makes this series such a joy.  To give a flavour, try this exchange between him and a new "recruit" to Slough House:

"I've forgotten your name."

"It's Longridge."

"I don’t want to know it.  I was making a point."

Or Jackson lamb's five stages of grieving: disbelief, anger, bargaining, indifference, breakfast.

I loved this.  It’s a brilliant, gripping read, I laughed out loud several times and it's just beautifully done.  Very warmly recommended.

S.J. Parris - Heresy

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

Like many other reviewers, I enjoyed this book. The plot has been very adequately summarised elsewhere and I agree with what many others have said - that it's a good murder mystery with a rich and well-evoked Tudor background. It has a few flaws but certainly not enough to spoil my enjoyment.

I thought the choice of Giordano Bruno as protagonist was a bold move because he was a real and significant figure in the great revolution in scientific thought of the late 16th century. This brings some risks to the author in that historical detail needs to be more accurate than if she had created a wholly fictional figure - the debate between Bruno and John Underhill depicted in the book did actually take place, for example - and it is greatly to Ms Parrish's credit that she manages this very convincingly. Given the real Bruno's historical significance (and his ultimate fate, chillingly hinted at in the closing pages) I would have liked a bit more emphasis on the importance of the scientific "heresies" of the time to the religious debate, but this might just be a foible of mine. Parrish does portray the religious upheavals and terrors very well and weaves them convincingly into the plot.

Parallels with modern issues of tolerance, religious fanaticism and violence and the ethics of counter-terrorism are not clunkily signposted but are plainly there. They lent some of the discussions real weight, and they form an aspect of the novel which I thought was well done and thought-provoking.

Comparisons with Sansom? Well, yes - they're inevitable and Parrish compares very well. I think it's fair to say that if you like Sansom then you'll like this just as much. Parrish manages a similar effect to Sansom's with language, by the way: she manages to use modern language in slightly more formal patterns to convey a sense of the manners of the time without resorting to a lot of verilys, forsooths and the like. It works very well and only the very occasional word or phrase seems jarringly out of place("paranoid" or "it's down to you," for example).

I didn't find the whole book an absolute page-turner, but it's an enjoyable read and is more than just another historically-set thriller. Recommended.

Marina Lewycka - The Lubetkin Legacy

Rating 5/5

Review:
Funny and sharply observed

I enjoyed this book very much.  It is very funny in places, with elements of farce thrown in, but it is also a sharp social commentary.

The story is told in two intercut voices.  One is a first-person narrative by Bertie, a fifty-something unsuccessful actor living with his aged mother whose death  leaves Bertie with an insecure hold on the tenancy of their ex-council flat and who allows Inna, an old Ukranian woman, to move in and "impersonate" her.  The other voice is third person, from the point of view of Violet, Bertie's new next-door neighbour who is a young woman of Kenyan descent who has started a new job in a prestigious City firm.  Marina Lewycka uses the setting and characters to create a story of modern wealth and poverty, how politics and corruption really affect people both in the UK and in Kenya.

The plot is, in a way, plain silly, but it worked for me.  The farce was a little broad at times (a disastrous funeral was rather overdone, I thought) but it's generally very good and I found it amusing and just believable enough to be rather gripping.  Lewycka's characters are well drawn and she paints a convincing portrait of life and the people in a run-down block, of wealth and poverty and how the greed of some and the indifference of others can affect ordinary people.  To give a flavour, I liked this exchange between Bertie and Inna:

"I don't think Lenin and Khrushchev will make it to heaven, Inna.  Religion and politics have slightly different rules."

"Not so different.  In my country first we have religion, everybody dead, then we get communism, everybody dead, then we get religion again, still everybody dead…"

And this one:

"It's a matter of democracy, Inna…"

"No democracy.  Only oliharki fighting against each other for who can make bigger corruption.  Some oliharki got friend wit Mister Putin, some oliharki got friend wit Mister Cameron.  But every oliharki got same big house in London, inside wife blonde wit big titties, gangster wit big gun by door, and outside good British policeman for protection."

I thought this was a very enjoyable read with some important things to say which it did with a light but telling touch.  Recommended.

Inga Moore - Six Dinner Sid

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An absolute gem

Six Dinner Sid has been very widely praised and I agree: this is a terrific book which both children and adults who are owned by a cat will love. It's a simple story which is very acute in its portrayal of cat behaviour, extremely amusing and beautifully illustrated. I've loved it for many years and warmly recommend it - it's a minor classic in my view.

Peter Hanington - A Dying Breed

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A great read

I agree with the almost universal praise this book has received.  I thought it was very good indeed – well written, extremely well informed and very gripping.

The book is set in London and Aghanistan and involves an old-school BBC reporter (the dying breed of the title) who has discovered a story which The Authorities don't want brought to light.  Put that crudely, it sounds very hackneyed, but it is so well done that it felt very fresh and I became completely involved.  The shady dealings and the journalist's attempts to expose them were very plausible and extremely well portrayed so they made a gripping story, but where this book really shines is in the characters and setting. 

Peter Hanington paints very convincing portraits of a variety of characters from his central protagonist, the world-weary, drink-addled but dogged reporter William Carver to an Afghan drug- and warlord.  Even his most minor characters convince, and he creates a story in which believable people do believable things – something of a rarity in spy fiction.  He also creates a wonderfully convincing backdrop of both journalism and of Afghanistan.  These are both areas which Peter Hanington knows intimately, and it shows.  I found the settings completely convincing, and a very involving part of the book.

There are a couple of minor false steps like the quite lengthy and rather irrelevant details of the personal life of an editor, or the mercenary who informs Carver that this is his last job and talks of the peaceful life he has planned…well, you just know what's going to happen when someone says that, don't you?  Nonetheless, I thought this was a great read; it's intelligent, gripping and very well done ad I can recommend it warmly.

Martin Howard - The Wickedest Witch

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific book

I really enjoyed this book. It is very well-written, funny and exciting. It will appeal hugely to younger readers, but there are lots of witty and knowing references and jokes for adults, too. The heroine is a very engaging character and the witches in the story are a terrific lot of hilarious (and sometimes quite scary) characters. The narrative moves at a cracking pace but never too fast for a neat character detail, a sly dig at modern celebrity culture or a light but very satisfactory leavening of references to poo, snot, bums and the like.

It's great - and seems to be the start of a series, which is excellent news. Very highly recommended.

Jane Casey - The Missing

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Well written and enjoyable

I enjoyed this book very much. It is an extremely well-written crime novel, concerning the murder of a young girl and its effect on those involved. It is told in the first person by a young woman who is the English teacher of the murdered girl and whose own brother went missing and never returned when she was six years old. The intertwining and playing out of the two stories is very skilfully handled and made for a very gripping narrative.

Jane Casey writes in an unaffected style which is easy to read and carries you along very nicely. She doesn't employ overblown stylistic tricks and really gives the sense that it is being related by an ordinary, literate and unpretentious young woman. The characters are convincing and very well drawn (one of the book's great strengths) and they generally act very credibly rather than doing implausible things for the sake of the plot. I found myself utterly immersed while reading and kept wanting to go back and read more.

The plot itself is quite believable, right up to the final pages. The tension builds very satisfactorily - largely psychologically rather than resorting to violence or gruesomeness, which again I thought was a real strength. The only reason I couldn't give this book five stars is the ending. The apparently obligatory Cornered Killer Climax rather let the book down, and I think it would have been far more effective if it had ended more rationally and about thirty pages earlier.

That aside, I thought this an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a literate and exiting read. I shall certainly look out for Ms Casey's next book, and I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful career for her.