Tim Glencross - Hoffer

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

I enjoyed Hoffer, although I'm not entirely convinced by it.

The novel is narrated in the first person by Willam Hoffer, a nebulous figure who moves in fashionable London circles, mixing with Society People and the very rich while offering them a sort of vague "consultancy" service.  He seems to be a kind of fixer, who knows a lot of very shady people and can help to negotiate deals, find desirable art and so on.  His past (or some of it) emerges slowly and very skilfully, as his relationship with a Russian billionaire begins to sour and events from his time negotiating with Mexican drug cartels begin to catch up with him and the book develops into a sort of mystery/thriller.

It's well done; Tim Glencross writes very well and Hoffer's slightly cynical, world-weary tone is convincing and sometimes very amusing.  His penetrating descriptions of the world of the rich in London are excellent and there is some real social observation here as well as a building sense of tension and occasional violent and gruesome action.  I found strong echoes of both Evelyn Waugh and of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley and the combination worked very well.

The style and story certainly kept me reading and wanting more, but it did wander into some slightly contrived and inconclusive territory which ended up being rather anticlimactic, I thought.  I don't mind an ambiguous, inconclusive ending at all, but this seemed just a little too unconvincing while leaving an awful lot unresolved. 

Perhaps Tim Glengross is setting this up as the start of a series; if he is I'll certainly read the next one.  Meanwhile, this is a very good, if slightly flawed novel in its own right which I can recommend with some slight caveats as an enjoyable, engrossing read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)