Ann Granger - Mud, Muck and Dead Things

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Undemanding

This was a decent, undemanding cosy crime novel until the ending, which I’m afraid I found very silly indeed.

The plot concerns the death of a young woman in the Cotswolds, investigated by Inspector Jess Campbell and her new boss Superintendent Ian Carter, whose partnership is new and scarcely develops during this first book. The investigation involves an array of local characters who are reasonably well portrayed if a little on the predictable side – the rich and boorish incomer, the horsy, bossy mother and so on. It all develops a little slowly but readably...until an utterly absurd development toward the end which made me say “Oh, please!” out loud and rather lost me from there on in.

Ann Granger’s prose is good, although her characters do tend to talk in novelistic paragraphs rather than as natural speech, and for most of the book I thought I’d be rounding 3.5 stars up to 4. However, the last 50 pages or so changed my mind. I can give this a cautious and qualified recommendation as a light, undemanding read, but it does come with reservations.

Tony Parsons - #taken

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another good instalment

I enjoyed this, the sixth instalment in the Max Wolfe series. It’s a good story and Tony Parsons writes very well, as ever.

This time Max, who is recovering from the shattering events at the end of Girl On Fire, is called to investigate the abduction of a young woman. The investigation takes him and his colleagues into the world of an ageing crime boss and some very shady, complex revelations as they search for her. Max’s relationships with his daughter and his ex-wife develop, too, and Max’s (and Parsons’) powerful commitment to parenthood are movingly portrayed.

In short, it’s a good story, well told. Max is an engaging, human narrator who is likeable if fallible. The plot gives us interesting developments rather than absurdly shocking “twists” and I found it genuinely gripping. There are some implausibilities – not least Max’s tendency to race off alone into dangerous situations without even calling for backup, let alone waiting for it – but I found that quite easy to forgive in the context. I can recommend this as a very good read.

(My thanks to Cornerstone for an ARC via Net Galley.)

Ottessa Moshfegh - Death In Her Hands

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Very disappointing

I had two good goes at this book, but I gave up in the end. I’m very disappointed because I loved My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, but I simply couldn’t get on with Death In Her Hands.

The book is the internal monologue of a widowed and isolated woman whose life seeking solitude and calm is disrupted by finding a disturbing note while walking in the woods. It’s an intriguing beginning...which goes nowhere extremely slowly. I just couldn’t keep going with the endless minutiae of Vesta’s thought processes and what was intended to be an intimate psychological study was, to me, tedious, stodgy and uninteresting.

Otessa Moshfegh is a fine writer, but this one did nothing for me whatsoever, I’m afraid.

(My thanks to Jonathan Cape for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I didn’t get on at all well with A Philosophical Investigation. It sets out to be a dystopian thriller with serious philosophical content, but I’m afraid I just found it over-long, convoluted, a bit tedious and rather show-offy.

Published in 1992, the book is set in 2013 and one problem is Kerr’s vision of a time we have lived through. It’s prescient in some ways, but the sheer unrecognisability of the setting does get in the way, especially things like the hopelessly under-imagined technology, no NHS and expensive, dirty hospitals and so on. The story concerns one of a plague of “recreational” serial killers who has been found to lack a part of the brain which inhibits violence and is killing others on the secret list of similarly affected people. Each has been given a codename; the killer’s codename is Wittgenstein...and so we get into a lot of philosophical discussion.

Much of the discussion is in Wittgenstein’s internal voice and for me, it doesn’t work. I’m happy to wrestle with philosophical ideas, butI found much of this unconvincing both in its context in the book and in its content. Rather than being intellectually stimulating I found it often tendentious and, frankly, more interested in showing the reader how frightfully clever the author is than in developing a reasoned, readable argument and story. Tellingly, I thought I was reading it for the first time until well after half way I came across a scene I recognised. I had plainly read it when it came out and remembered almost none of it. This says something about my memory, I admit, but also much about the book, because I can recall books I liked from well before then.

I know many people admire Philip Kerr’s books greatly, but I’ve never been wholly convinced by them and this has done nothing to help. It’s minority view, I suspect, but I can’t recommend this.

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

Sara Paretsky - Dead Land

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good, but not Paretsky's best

Dead Land is is a good, enjoyable read as we’d expect from Sara Paretsky, but I don’t think it’s one of the very best of the V.I. Warshawski series.

This time, Vic becomes involved with a homeless street musician who turns out to be a once-successful singer-songwriter and political activist. A twisty plot ensues, involving political corruption in Chicago, some very painful history in Chile, the right-wing economics of the Chicago School and a number of other things – plus a welcome cast of familiar characters, of course.

Paretsky, as always, writes and structures her plot very well and I enjoyed reading the book, but I do have some reservations. The large cast of characters makes it quite hard to follow sometimes and it’s too long – both reflected in the number of times Vic has to summarise events to someone for our benefit. Some of the politics, even though I agree with what she’s saying, is very clunky and heavy handed, the ending is rather too pat after all the convoluted developments...and so on. None of this really spoils the book, but I think Sara Paretsky can do better and a firmer editorial hand might have helped the book.

Reservations notwithstanding, Paretsky remains a class act and this is still a good enjoyable read. Recommended.

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

William McIlvanney - Laidlaw

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

I thought Laidlaw was quite brilliant. I tried it without much expectation but I found it gripping, haunting, thoughtful and outstandingly well written.

First published in 1977, Inspector Laidlaw is a thoughtful, moral detective moving in a thoroughly immoral Glasgow underworld. He has to investigate a horrible sex-killing, while some of Glasgow’s hardest criminal bosses also try to track down the perpetrator. It’s beautifully done: there is a superb sense of time and place, an ever-present atmosphere of suppressed violence (which only becomes graphic reality once, making it shockingly effective) and a thoughtful eye cast over everything.

William McIlvanney’s writing is just superb; almost poetic sometimes and always remarkably evocative. Some typical nuggets include “They drank, considering each other from opposite sides of an attitude,” or “...not so much a pub as a transit-camp to dereliction.” He can also produce the odd simile worthy of Chandler, like “The old man opened the door with all the ease of the Venus de Milo cracking a safe.” Through Laidlaw, McIlvanney also brings a subtle, insightful view of the morals and origins of the people and events. I found it an utter joy to read, in spite of the bleak story and many deeply unpleasant characters.

This is a wonderful discovery for me and I will be reading more McIlvanney in the very near future. Very, very warmly recommended.

Jane Casey - The Cutting Place

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another very good instalment

This has been a very good series and The Cutting Place is one of the best yet, I think.

The book is largely about male violence and contempt for women, and based around an organisation which holds events similar to The President’s Club Dinner, which caused such scandal a couple of years ago. There are also major developments in the lives of both Maeve Kerrigan and Josh Derwent, whose relationship continues to be an intriguing and very well handled aspect of these books. To say more of the plot would be a significant spoiler.

Jane Casey, as always, writes very well in fluent, readable prose which carries you along without drawing attention to itself – an excellent attribute. She also creates very believable characters, especially Maeve whose narrative voice is convincing and who is human, flawed and very engaging. Casey also manages to make very important points about sexism, class and coercive control while never indulging in wholesale man-bashing so it makes a powerful and readable story.

I did think that the solution to the initial murder was rather silly and detracted from the rest of the book, but overall this is a thoughtful and very gripping read which I can recommend warmly.

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

Jonathan Pinnock - The Riddle of the Fractal Monks

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another very entertaining instalment

I have enjoyed this series and this, the third, is another very entertaining instalment.

The plot is cheerfully bonkers. Frankly, I don’t know how to begin to explain it but it involves mysterious and violent monks, fractal geometry, a pair of alpacas, some of the usual enjoyably silly but rather exciting episodes of Dan and Dot being in mortal danger (usually having put themselves there) and so on. It’s great fun and very well written and structured with the rather hapless Dan narrating while the women do the brainwork. Dot’s business partner Ali is on fine, scathing and abusive form (I laughed out loud more than once at her comments) and all in all it’s a terrific, cheering read especially in such troubled times.

These books perhaps aren’t utter comic masterpieces but they are very amusing and just immense fun to read. Warmly recommended.

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

Ian McEwan - Machines Like Me

Rating: 3/5

Review
Hard going

I’m afraid I didn’t think Machines Like Me was all that good. It had its moments, but I wasn’t sure quite what it was trying to achieve, and in the end I was rather glad to have finished it.

Ian McEwan has been very ambitious here, but for me that ambition stretches in too many directions and doesn’t really succeed in any of them. There is a promising central theme of the difference between a form of consciousness based on extremely complex mathematical algorithms and human consciousness with its almost infinite nuance and subtlety. The difficulty of coping with human relationships without that nuance and without it also to ward off the sense of the ultimate futility of existence is quite well done – but it’s swamped by so many extraneous stories. The background of an alternate history, set in the early 80s seemed pointless to me and a major distraction as it made endless but rather unconvincing political points and McEwan’s digressions into all sorts of tangentially related subjects just seemed rather show-offy to me. Add to this some more distracting and somewhat clumsy points in an implausible adoption story and so on and it all became a bit of an amorphous mess, I’m afraid.

It’s very well written, of course and it had enough about it to keep me reading to the end (with a little judicious skimming) so I’ve rounded 2.5 stars up to 3, but I can only give this a bery qualified recommendation.

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