Jane Harper - The Lost Man

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Excellent

I loved The Lost Man. It’s thoughtful, engrossing and rather powerful.

The synopsis isn’t that alluring: in the Australian Outback in the punishing heat of a Queensland midsummer a man is found dead by his two brothers near the boundary of the two properties in which they have lived all their lives. There is a mystery about why he broke the cardinal rules of Outback survival and as questions are asked, some dark family history and secrets emerge. It sounds very familiar ground, but Jane Harper creates something quite special out of it.

The whole thing is beautifully done. Harper’s writing is unflashy and readable, but has a quiet excellence about it. She generates a very powerful sense of place and the effect of the harsh conditions on its inhabitants. The story unrolls slowly but for me very grippingly as she develops her characters with delicacy, insight and subtlety. Dialogue in particular is excellent as believable characters emerge gently but powerfully and a sense of tension and menace slowly builds. We also get a fine, insightful picture of the effects of loneliness and isolation and of the long, bitter memories which can persist in a small community.

If you expect mutilated corpses, several Big Twists, car chases and the like, this won’t be for you. The pace is slow and measured, but the atmosphere and mystery are beautifully done, I found it utterly gripping and there is genuine human insight here, too. It’s one of the best books I’ve read for a while and I recommend it very warmly.

(My thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Monty Python Speaks! - Edited by David Morgan

Rating: 4/5

Review:
...he's a very naughty boy!

I enjoyed Monty Python Speaks. It gives a chronological account of Python from its birth through interview extracts with all six male Pythons, Carol Cleveland and others involved in the production. It’s not especially funny, but it’s interesting and entertaining.

I should probably say that I was about 15 when Python began on TV and was soon a devotee, so I have more interest in this than some other people may. I enjoyed reading about the group dynamics, the details of the writing process and the films – especially Life Of Brian. I could perhaps have done without such detailed chronicling of the exact nature of the funding and release of different programmes and films in the USA, but I suppose it’s good to have these things on record – and one can always resort to skimming.

I’m not sure I learned much that was really new, but I’m glad to have a fuller picture of the characters involved and the key events – the frank discussion of Graham Chapman’s alcoholism and his contribution to the group was especially interesting to me, for instance.

This is a good book to dip into, and I often found myself reading more at a sitting than I expected to, which is a good sign. Recommended.

(My thanks to Fourth Estate for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Sarah Hilary - Someone Else's Skin

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good crime writing

I enjoyed Someone Else’s Skin. I have read a couple of the later ones in this series and was glad of the chance to read the first.

This is a police procedural featuring DI Marnie Rome and DS Noah Jake which deals with some pretty dark issues of domestic abuse. It does it with realism and generally unsensationally, although there is a longish episode of effectively torture which teetered on the border, I thought. It was redeemed by avoiding many of the clichés and stereotypes of the genre, though, and the story is by and large convincing – and the psychology is a lot more plausible than it often is in crime novels.

The great thing about the book is that Sarah Hilary can really write. Her prose is readable and unflashy, but is very evocative. This gives a flavour: “Her features clustered sulkily at the centre of her face, corralled by pallid, marbled flesh.” The book is full of these little gems of description and it’s a pleasure to read.

I do think that Hilary overdoes her characters’ personal lives. The book opens with the murder of Marnie Rome’s parents, for example, something which rather dominates the books and which intrudes a bit more than I’d like. I also thought that two tense climaxes was rather implausibly excessive. However, overall it’s a very good, gripping read which deals well with tough issues.

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

Alexander McCall Smith - The Department of Sensitive Crimes

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not McCall Smith's best

Like so many people, I enjoy The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series very much. However, I have never really got on with Alexander McCall Smith’s other work and this remains largely true of this start of a new series.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes is set in an odd little department of the police in Malmo, Sweden. The location is significant: it is the setting for both Wallander and The Bridge and McCall Smith is trying to create a contrast to these classics of Scandi-Noir. Ulf Varg (translation: Wolf Wolf) and his colleagues are a gentle investigative team who look into not-terribly-serious crimes and resolve them by talking to people, noticing details, reflecting on human nature (or a version of human nature, at least) and generally being honest and kind. Remind you of anything?

Yes, The Department of Sensitive Crimes has pretty much the structure of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, but set in Sweden. The trouble is that while Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, Mr J.L.B Matekoni and others have real originality, charm and a genuine spark about them, Ulf and his colleagues don’t really. For me they weren’t terribly interesting people and their digressive musings just became rather dull rather than charming.

It does have its moments; a statement in court by a convicted man is genuinely touching, for example, and wry sentences like “But the procedure for procedures had to be gone through, in accordance with further procedural guidelines,” kept me going. It’s readable and I did finish it (with a little skimming of yet another digression every so often) but I won’t be rushing to read the next in the series.

(My thanks to Little Brown for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Steve Cavanagh - Twisted

Rating: 3/5

Review:
So-so

I was rather underwhelmed by Twisted. I had heard that Thirteen was very good, so I thought I’d try this one, but it seemed pretty run-of-the-mill stuff to me. The plot is based around a reclusive, mysterious author, JT LeBeau, whose books make millions but whose life seems to be involved with a number of murders. To say more would be a significant spoiler.

The thing is, the book is constructed entirely so that there can be “Twists”. (And just in case we don’t admire them sufficiently we’re even told by a character how very difficult this is.) I am prepared to suspend disbelief, sometimes from a considerable height for a really good book, but I found a lot of Twisted rather silly and a bit dull. The opening hundred pages or so are padded with masses of tedious and largely irrelevant detail about unconvincing characters’ lives, thoughts and so on, to the extent that I kept suspecting that the author was paid by the word, thinking “get on with it!” and skimming judiciously. I didn’t miss anything important. When things did begin to happen, nothing was much of a surprise and there are some ridiculous coincidences and some utter implausibilities: for example, a character who is obsessed with concealing his true background isn’t really sure where he left a vital document which may or may not have been stolen. Really? Later, another similarly obsessed character leaves his laptop alone with someone else and available to be read, to the extent that it doesn’t even require a password to bring it out of sleep mode. Huh? Even mine does that. And so on.

It’s well enough written to be readable, but the knowledge that we’re always being set up for the next Twist made it unengaging for me, and that knowledge meant that I saw several of the Twists coming. The ending is absurdly silly and I wasn’t all that sorry to finish it. This might be OK for a brain-off beach read or the like, but nothing more.

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

Andrea Levy - The Long Song

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not for me

I almost feel I should apologise for not getting on with The Long Song. I can see that it’s well written with an original voice, that it’s a well-constructed narrative and that, obviously it deals with extremely important issues. It’s just that for some reason I didn’t engage with it at all.

I can’t really explain this; it’s just something that happens occasionally with books and no matter how well done it is, it just doesn’t do it for me. This is plainly just a very personal response so don’t let me put anyone off because many others think it’s brilliant. Personally, though, it’s not a book I liked.

(My thanks to Tinder Press for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Hamilton Crane - Watch The Wall, Miss Seeton

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I enjoyed Watch The Wall, Miss Seeton enormously. These books are always fun, but I found this one especially good.

The plot...oh, who cares, really? I mean, who reads Miss Seeton for the plot? They’re always slightly bonkers and this is no exception, involving metal theft, murder (quite a grisly one, too, by Miss Seeton standards), misunderstanding and, of course, smuggling. Hamilton Crane enjoys herself enormously with the Kipling song and other literary references, even introducing a couple of minor characters with names from classic novels for us to spot. Miss Seeton is her usual benevolent self, Plummergen’s characters are as wonderful as ever and the MissEss’s inspired artworks solve the mystery as always.

It’s terrific fun, but the real pleasure here is the writing, which is witty, deceptively insightful into character and extremely skilful. I offer a couple of very brief examples which I enjoyed:

“In the post office, the regular gossips were gathered to discuss the latest doings, and to dissect the characters of the absent in a spirit of genial malevolence.” And this, after a character has used a number of (implied, of course) obscure and original swear words in the course of being arrested: “The voice of [spoiler redacted] was raised in more vocabulary-enhancing protest as he was led away...”

Profound literature or gritty thriller it ain’t, but the whole thing was a real pleasure to read. I don’t want to make direct comparisons, but there are hints of the prose style of people like P.G. Wodehouse, Margery Allingham, Colin Watson and others, while keeping a distinctive voice of its own. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll like this. Warmly recommended.

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

Kate London - Gallowstree Lane

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Intelligent and gripping

I enjoyed Gallowstree Lane very much. It had it’s little oddities, but it’s a well written, thoughtful and gripping police procedural.

This is the third in the series. I haven’t read the preceding two but it works fine as a stand-alone book. It’s a story of gang activity in London, including a murder, and of a major police operation to prevent guns being delivered to a gang leader. The two investigations overlap with conflicting interests and needs, which presents a genuine and well-delineated problem for the protagonists.

It’s a cracking story, told largely from the point of view of two female police officers, Sarah and Lizzie, one in each investigation, and also of Ryan, a very young gang member who becomes caught up in events which are well beyond him. All are well painted, but it is Ryan’s story and character which really makes this special; I found the picture of him, his circumstances and his actions completely convincing and in many ways sympathetic. It’s something we really need to understand and Kate London really does show insight into this serious current problem. The police procedure was also excellently done, with a detailed understanding of the issues and plausible behaviour by the officers (yes, really!) while still making it a gripping read.

I did have some niggles. The personal life of Lizzie dominated to an unwelcome extent, especially in the first part of the story. I know Kate London needs to flesh out her characters, and the issues she raises are very important, but it felt like a bolt-on intrusion, it was more irritating than illuminating and for a while it got in the way of the story quite badly. A street girl, far gone in crack addiction, takes inspiration from her memories of Shakespeare plays (seriously?), there is the odd over-ambitious simile and so on. For a while I dithered between four and five stars, but there is so much good stuff here and it became so good in the second half that it’s still a five star book for me. It’s much more intelligent and well written than many of the huge slew of crime novels around now, and I can recommend it very warmly.

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

Alex Micheledes - The Silent Patient

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I wasn’t keen on The Silent Patient. To be fair, this is partly because I don’t normally get on with psychological thrillers, but the blurb led me to expect a rather more subtle, insightful book than usual in the genre. I didn’t get it.

The set-up is well explained in the blurb: Theo Faber is a psychotherapist who becomes obsessed with treating/helping a woman who has not spoken for the six years since she was convicted of killing her husband. There follows an unconvincing plot with, inevitably A Huge Twist which, as is so often the case, means sacrificing any credibility of plot or character just to try to make the revelation a surprise to the reader. Combined with a lot of glib psychotherapyspeak I’m afraid it just made me cross. Add to this a faintly irritating writing style which on occasion isn’t afraid of being both unrealistic and using a clunking cliché at the same time (“I became resolved to stop at nothing until Alicia became my patient”) and has a habit of ending chapters with that Punchy Sentence technique, like “I wondered why Christian was so positive I would fail. But it made me even more determined to succeed.” which I began to wait for like the next drop in the Water Torture. I was, frankly, glad to get to the end.

Fans of the psychological thriller have plainly enjoyed this far more than I did, but personally I can’t recommend it.

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

Alan Parks - February's Son

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another very good thriller from Parks

February’s Son is another very good, very dark thriller from Alan Parks.

Be warned, this is about as Noir as it gets; it’s cold, wet and dark all the time, there is some horrible violence and some very unpleasant characters, plus liberal (although entirely realistic) use of the f- and c-words. Parks is a good enough writer to forge this into a convincing and gripping novel.

It is February 1973 in Glasgow, just a few weeks after the events of Bloody January (which I would recommend you read first). DI McCoy’s shady relationship with Stevie Cooper continues as their joint childhood history comes back with a bang, and there’s a deranged gangland hit-man on a killing spree. A tangled (but comprehensible) plot develops involving the manhunt, struggles for power in the criminal underworld and historical child abuse. The latter is a terribly over-used trope in crime fiction nowadays, but again, Parks handles it with real skill so that it never seems like a lazy device but is a genuine part of the story. The prose and dialogue are excellent, painting very realistic portraits of both the setting and the characters and he paces and structures the story very well.

I have to say that the climax did get a bit silly and over-the-top, but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment. I thought this was very good and this is shaping up to be a very fine series. Recommended.

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

David Quantick - Go West

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very entertaining

I like David Quantick’s journalism and broadcasts very much and I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed Go West, too. It’s amusing, completely bonkers in places and rather a gripping read.

Charlie Bread is an “Antiques Whisperer” who is employed to spot fake antiques. He is sent to Devon to examine a manuscript...and things get complicated. An absurd but entertaining plot ensues involving sinister men pursuing him, a beautiful but mysterious woman who keeps cropping up, fake identities and so on, plus a strange journey though the South West of England.

David Quantick is an accomplished and witty writer, so the book is a pleasure to read. Don’t expect a serious thriller, although it is quite an exciting story; there are ridiculous coincidences and unexplained absurdities in places, but I didn’t mind that at all. The whole thing works on its own terms and we also get quite a lot of obscure musical references (of course) and some enjoyable commentary on aspects of English life and travel which reminded me a little of some of Stuart Maconie’s books – which is high praise.

Go West is involving, witty and often funny and it is built on rather erudite foundations which gives it some substance, too. Recommended.

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