Dorothy Gilman - The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I thoroughly enjoyed The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax – and I wasn’t at all sure that I would. I found it witty, endearing and rather a gripping story, too.

Mrs Pollifax, a 60-something year old, well-to-do, respectable widow decides she needs to give her life meaning and presents herself at the CIA to volunteer as a spy. Through a slightly silly series of events she is recruited to go on a very routine mission to Mexico City to collect a package. No-one knows who she is and her cover as a tourist is perfect, but (needless to say) things do not go as planned and take a very sinister turn. An exciting plot of kidnap and peril ensues, in which Mrs Pollifax remains very much herself, but discovers the value of some of her solid personal qualities.

It could have been dreadful but Dorothy Gilman strikes a lovely, subtle balance of wit and a little farce occasionally with a very decent, exciting plot and some shrewd insights into human nature and the importance of life. It’s very well written and I read it with unalloyed pleasure (although some allowance does need to be made for the political attitudes of 1966 when it was written). I can recommend it warmly and will certainly be reading more in the series.

(My thanks to Farrago Books for an ARC.)

Roddy Doyle - Love

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I’m sorry to say that I gave up on Love around half way through. I like much of Roddy Doyle’s work and thought Smile was very good, but I couldn’t be doing with this one.

Love consists of two old friends meeting after a longish break and getting slowly drunker and drunker as they catch up on their lives and go in for a lot of introspection and analysis of their relationships. Doyle, of course, has brilliant moment of insight and occasionally puts his finger on something important about men – like the sudden transition to adulthood they discover, for example. However, even this went on far too long and I struggled to engage with either of the central characters so their increasingly incoherent dialogue and thoughts went from not very interesting to slightly repellent. The layout doesn’t help: dialogue is marked by a dash rather than quotation marks, and is also punctuated liberally with dashes within sentences, making it hard to know who is speaking much of the time. Eventually I decided that life was too short and, Roddy Doyle or no Roddy Doyle, I bailed out.

Others may well enjoy this more than me, but personally I can’t recommend it.

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

Denise Mina - The Less Dead

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Not one of Mina's best

Denise Mina is a brilliant writer and I have loved much of her work, but I don’t think The Less Dead is one of her best.

Margo, a Glasgow GP, was adopted at a few days old and has now arranged to meet the sister of her birth mother in order to find out more about her background. This leads Margo into dark territory among Glasgow’s heroin addicts, sex workers and also sparks some very sinister threats to her personally.

Mina, as always, writes very well, but overall I found the book rather unsatisfactory. It opens with a long passage in which Margo, is waiting to meet her birth mother’s siter, who is very late. A lot of pages pass before she finally appears, which rather sets the tone of the book, in which not much happens for pretty long periods. There’s a great deal of atmospheric scene-setting and exploration of Margo’s internal state, which Denise Mina does exceptionally well, of course, and a very good, insightful and compassionate portrait of the life of sex workers and people’s attitudes to them, but it’s all within a structure which didn’t really work for me.

It turns out that Margo’s mother was an addict and a sex worker who was murdered. Gradually it emerges that someone is stalking Margo and that they know a great deal about her mother’s killing. This too is quite well done, but there are so many other fragmented plot strands that the whole thing seemed a bit of a mess to me. There’s an unrelated story about a friend in an abusive relationship, which may be intended to illustrate aspects of the main story but to me just seemed to be a major distraction. There are some red herrings which didn’t really convince at all and, frankly, I found it a bit of a mess.

I’m sorry to be critical of a very fine writer whose work I usually love, but I can only give this one a very qualified recommendation.

(My thanks to Harvill, Secker for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Richard Osman - The Thursday Murder Club

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club – more than I expected to, to be honest. It’s a decent mystery, it’s genuinely witty in places with some shrewd observation and Richard Osman’s characterisation is very good.

The story is of a group of 70- and 80-year-olds in a comfortable retirement village who meet each week to discuss historical unsolved murders as a hobby, until they are suddenly in the middle of a real murder investigation. It sounds pretty well-worn, and the idea of yet more quirky, fiesty old people wasn’t especially appealing, but Richard Osman writes very well and paints amusing but very believable portraits of all his characters. I especially liked the kindness and humanity he shows toward them, including the two very engaging police officers with whom the Club becomes involved. It is largely told in the third person, but there are also diary entries from Joyce, a member of the Club, who has a delightful and convincing voice. Osman manages to find a good mix of mystery and the everyday preoccupations of his protagonists which works very well and never strays into the twee. I liked little touches like, “...not a single person has ever been late [for the coach]. Except for Malcolm Weekes who, it turned out, had died in the lightbulb aisle of Robert Dyas.” Or “‘Would you like some sherry?’ asks Joyce. ‘It’s only Sainsbury’s, but it’s Taste The Difference.’”

The plot is well-constructed with some neat misdirection; I was prepared to forgive some rather tardy revelations which lead to the solution and it’s a very enjoyable read. Books by celebrities aren’t always a success by any means, but this one certainly is. I hope there will be more from Richard Osman, and I can recommend this warmly.

(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Susie Steiner - Persons Unknown

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another very good Manon novel

I think this is a quite brilliant series. Susie Steiner has created a wonderful, believable character in Manon Bradshaw and her other characters are just as good. The plot here is probably the weakest of the three books so far, but it’s still very good indeed. It would be best to read Missing, Presumed first, but this stands up well on its own.

In Persons Unknown, Manon is pregnant and has returned to Cambridgeshire after a spell with the Met and is now working cold cases. The murder of a City banker is investigated by her old team, and people very close to Manon come under suspicion. It’s a plot which requires considerable suspension of disbelief, with a number of pretty far-fetched coincidences especially, but the chief pleasure of these books is Steiner’s shrewd, humane characterisation. There were times when I felt that Manon’s personal life and struggles was taking rather too much space at the expense of the story (and Susie Steiner plainly hasn’t had a good experience of maternity wards), but its still a delight to read, thoroughly gripping and very involving.

The whole of this series is way above the standard of most contemporary crime fiction and I can recommend this one very warmly.

Susie Steiner - Missing, Presumed

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Terrific

Like almost everyone else, I thought Missing, Presumed was terrific. It’s very well written and has quite brilliant characterisation, especially of Manon herself.

The plot isn’t spectacular but is well done, as a young woman goes missing in suspicious circumstances and the Cambridgeshire Police conduct a major investigation – and, joy of joys, the police actually follow procedure in a believable way. It was certainly enough to draw me in and keep me hooked, but the real pleasure of the book is the superb cast of characters and Susie Steiner’s portrayal of the effect of these events on those involved. Manon herself is a wonderful character; normal, human, flawed and wholly believable.

There is wit sometimes and some really good writing, too. I picked out a couple of tiny examples I liked: “The sky is a fragile blue, very far away, and the sunlight harsh and breakable and thin, sending its glassy shards through the windscreen so they both have to pull their visors down.” Or this, in the House Of Commons: “The perpetual dusk of Central Lobby – its octagon reverberating with self-important shoes.” There is also some understated, almost sly, reference to Manon’s love of poetry in places, like the “unruly sun.” I love the intelligence and the human insight of the whole thing.

This series is something special; it is several cuts above the usual police procedural and I can recommend Missing, resumed very warmly indeed.

Daisy Johnson - Sisters

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Not for me

I didn’t get on well with Sisters. I found it a struggle and eventually became quite irritated by it.

It is impossible to give an outline of the plot without undesirable spoilers, so I won’t try. The book opens with a family arriving in an unwelcoming, quite isolated cottage in Yorkshire, having suffered some kind of serious incident in Oxford where the two girls, named July and September (really?) were at school. Much of the narration is by July, the younger sister who is plainly somewhat traumatised, but by what is not clear...and very little else happens for a long time. There’s lots of Oppressive Atmosphere and Hinting At Dark Things, told in a fractured voice which is intended to sound like a troubled girl, but which sounded to me like an author trying to be clever and actually being mannered and self-conscious.

Things do begin to happen slowly, and past events begin to emerge...and the Big Surprise at the end becomes fairly obvious quite early on. Add to this a lengthy passage from the point of view of the mother, giving a lot of history which, to me, added nothing and served only as a distraction and I began to skim. I reached the end with some relief.

A lot of people have liked Sisters, but I’m afraid I didn’t and can’t recommend it.

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

Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Exceptionally good

This masterpiece scarcely needs another review from me, but I agree with all the rave reviews: it is a remarkable piece of work and a wholly engrossing and very rewarding read.

It’s the story of John Grady Cole, a very young man in the late 1940s in Texas who loses his family ranch and crosses to Mexico to seek work with the horses he loves. He and his friend have a number of encounters, some violent, some friendly and some loving. It’s a story of growing up, of endurance and of a love of the land and of its creatures and it is beautifully done. McCarthy has a deep understanding of his subjects and especially of men, friendship and John Cole’s decency which can act against him.

The prose is remarkable; it is spare in its revelations about people and lavish in its evocation of places, with an almost biblically poetic feel at times. There is some real violence and horror, but it is done without any sense of deliberate shockingness or titillation; it is a flat, honest description of how things were and it is all the more powerful and gripping for that. There are also some quiet but important and timely truths stated here, like these two examples (from the same remarkable speech by an older woman):

“...what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.”

and

“I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful it will make little difference whether she lives at all.”

In short, I thought All The Pretty Horses was stunning. I was wholly engrossed in it and it continues to resonate well after I’ve finished reading – and I’m sure will go on resonating for a long time. My strong recommendation is that you do not miss out on this book. It is exceptional.

Charlie Hodges - Vanishing Act

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable mystery

I enjoyed Vanishing Act. It’s not perfect but it’s an engaging story with some genuine humour, too.

Tom Knight is now 73 and living in Eastbourne. Ex-military and still working as a private detective, he is an engaging protagonist with a wealth of experience and some handy gadgets – and some of the physical problems you’d expect at 73, including a very dodgy knee. It’s rather a winning combination, and Tom’s attempts to woo Fran by proving her innocent of murder form a decent plot, too.

Charlie Hodges writes very well. There is some genuine wit in places and his prose is readable and unaffected. The vain, lazy, bigoted and dim policeman whom Tom is up against is something of an over-the-top caricature, but I didn’t really mind that. Some of the farcical elements of the story got a little wearisome and some tightening up would help as Tom does get into and then narrowly escapes from rather a lot of perilous situations, but it’s a good read overall with a rather poignant ending. I’ll certainly be reading the next in the series and I expect Hodges to develop Tom into an enduring character. Recommended.

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

Tim Dorsey - Naked Came The Florida Man

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another great Serge instalment

This is another extremely enjoyable outing for Serge Storms. He is, needless to say, as obsessive, hyperactive and psychopathic as ever and he and Coleman still form a great comic partnership.

This time we have a story with three converging strands which is probably too complicated to explain. It’s exciting, though, and takes Serge on a new tour around Lake Okeechobee with his usual obsessive delight in all aspects of Florida’s history, culture, flora, fauna and way of life – which Tim Dorsey manages to make as fascinating as ever. Serge also, of course, visits punishments on malefactors which are often Dante-esque in their appropriateness and irony.

It’s crazy, funny, touching in places and absolutely outrageous in others. There are an awful lot of laws against what Serge does. We really ought to disapprove but of course we cheer him on, so there probably ought to be a law against Tim Dorsey, too – but I’m very glad there isn’t. This is an immensely enjoyable read and warmly recommended.