Janes O'Brien - How Not To Be Wrong

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Readable, courageous and important 

 

I thought How Not To Be Wrong was excellent. I don’t listen to James O’Brien but I enjoyed his previous book, How To Be Right very much and tried this on the strength of it. It’s a very different book, but just as good and just as important.

The message of the book is summed up in its penultimate sentence: “I have finally learned that admitting to being wrong is infinitely more important than using skills and tricks and weapons and tools to look ‘right’, and that there is no point in having a mind if you can’t change it.” It’s an important message; what that sentence doesn’t convey, though, is what a remarkably honest and courageous book this is. O’Brien talks openly about some of the times he has been, in his words, “horribly wrong” either about an idea or about the way in which he has treated someone. It makes quite painful reading sometimes; it must have been very difficult to write and I think he deserves great credit for what he has done.

He has a lot to say about the way in which early experiences at school in particular gave him a mindset of always expecting attack and how he built a set of verbal tools to fend off attacks and to “win,” rather than to really listen to and empathise with what people with different life experiences may be saying to him. It took a major family crisis for him to realise that these tools did not make him a good father or husband in these circumstances and, again to his credit, he sought counselling even though he was mightily sceptical and cynical about the whole process. His description of how this affected him and the subsequent re-evaluation of much of how he behaves toward people is readable, fascinating and moving in places. Much of what he says applies to an awful lot of us (especially men, I would suggest) and is a salutary read.

I can recommend How Not To Be Wrong as an engrossing, thoughtful and thoroughly illuminating read. One of my best books of the year so far.

(My thanks to Random House, WH Allen for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Julietta Henderson - The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman

 

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Surprisingly good 

I enjoyed The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman. It’s not perfect but it avoids most of the pitfalls which could have spoiled it and I found it readable, amusing and touching.

Let’s face it, it could have been dreadful: a twelve-year-old boy with psoriasis dreams of doing a comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe with his best friend (who is the funny one) but the best friend dies suddenly. His single mum and her very elderly friend decide to help him do a Fringe show anyway, and try to find out who his father is, to boot. It could be sloppy, sentimental, manipulative drivel and I’m not even sure why I tried it, to be honest – but I’m glad I did because it’s nothing of the kind.

Part of what makes it so good is the narrative voices of both Norman and his mum, Sadie. Both are convincing, insightful in their own ways and amusing, too. Norman’s slightly naive but thoughtful and often funny take on things (like the grief of losing your best and only friend) is both powerful and very engaging, as is Sadie’s angst-ridden parental outlook. Julietta Henderson manages to avoid sentimentality to a great extent (I was especially impressed with the way she dealt with the book’s climax of The Show itself) and shows us two people dealing with real difficulties and growing, while avoiding the trite, hammered-home Life Lessons which so often pollute books like this. The search for Norman’s dad is well done, I think, although the ending does get pretty ridiculous and perhaps just spills over into schmaltz a little – but I could forgive that because much of the book is so good.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It’s a very good, enjoyable read with some genuine content and I can recommend it.

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

Adrian McKinty - The Chain

 

Rating: 3/5

Review:

Disappointing

I’m afraid I was disappointed with The Chain. Adrian McKinty is an excellent writer and his Sean Duffy series has been a must-read for me. However, this is just another manufactured thriller; its premise is original and it’s well written but I didn’t do much for me, I’m afraid.

The premise and plot are well described elsewhere; The Chain requires people to pay a ransom and then kidnap another child in order to get their own kidnapped child back. I never managed to suspend disbelief quite enough to buy into this implausible scenario, nor did I find the emotional distress of Rachel, the chief protagonist whose daughter has been kidnapped, particularly convincing. Also, she is undergoing cancer treatment and another main character is trying to come off heroin...but why? Neither condition adds anything whatsoever to the plot or characterisation and seemed to me just random add-ons, presumably for added tension or depth or something. It seemed to me to be a rather cheap ploy and just irritated me in the end. I did keep reading because McKinty’s storytelling was good enough to keep me going – just – but I did skim a bit, I spotted the inevitable Twist a mile off and found the overblown climax just a bit ridiculous.

Adrian McKinty is better than this. The things which make the Duffy series so good – the excellent background and understanding of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, plausible plots and penetrating characterisation – were missing here and to me it was just another pretty bog-standard, American-set thriller of the type that appears by the truckload these days. It’s readable but I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

P.G. Wodehouse - Psmith In The City

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Amusing early Wodehouse 

This is a very amusing and readable piece of Wodehouse nonsense, but it’s perhaps not The Master at the absolute peak of his form. First published in 1910, this outing for Psmith is quite an early Wodehouse, with the languid, lucid and engaging Psmith with his friend Mike Jackson both sent to work in a City bank.

There are some typical Wodehousian scrapes (although no romantic entanglements) and, naturally, some wonderfully witty writing; his use of language is already exceptional, but he hasn’t yet reached the heights of genius which led Hilaire Belloc to describe him as “the greatest living writer of English” It’s readable and has a good number of smiles in it, but it didn’t make me laugh out loud the way that some later Blandings or Jeeves and Wooster books do.

These caveats aside, you can’t go wrong with Wodehouse and this is a charming, amusing period piece which I can recommend to anyone.

Carl Hiaasen - Double Whammy

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Enjoyable as ever 

 

I enjoyed Double Whammy a lot. I went back to the beginning of Carl Hiaasen’s Skink series after reading a couple of later books; I certainly wasn’t disappointed, but I think Hiaasen improved from here as he really hit his stride.

As well as explaining Skink’s origins, the story has many of Hiaasen’s trademarks: bad guys destroying Florida’s precious natural habitat and wildlife for sleazy gain, political corruption, people with obsessions (in this case bass fishing) and decent people threatened but taking sweet revenge on the scumbags. He is excellent at saying serious things in a witty way and it’s all done with his usual humour and excellent storytelling, so it’s both gripping and very amusing in places. It could perhaps have done with a little tightening up here and there and the wit isn’t quite as dry and biting as in some later books, but it’s great fun nonetheless. Hiaasen is an excellent writer and I was, as always, carried along very enjoyably.

This isn’t absolutely top-notch Hiaasen, but it’s still way ahead of most others in the genre. Warmly recommended.

Derek B. Miller - Norwegian By Night

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

Excellent

I thought Norwegian By Night was excellent. It is gripping, well written and thoughful.

It is the story of Sheldon Horowitz, an ex-marine in his 80s who has moved to Norway to live with his granddaughter and her husband. Through a series of unusual but believable events he ends up on the run from police and Kosovan gangsters while sheltering a young boy with whom he has no language in common.

It’s an odd set-up, but it works very well. It’s a very well told story, with some very good characters – notably Sigrid, the senior police officer directing the investigation, and Sheldon himself. Sheldon may or may not have some level of dementia, so we are not sure whether the history he gives himself as an active sniper in Korea is true or not (although the truth becomes plainer later on). Meanwhile, we get his blunt, sometimes irascible thoughts about all sorts of things and throuh this the book has important things to say about aging, loss, love, masculinity and other things.

I thought it was terrific. I was gripped by the story and sometimes amused and sometimes very moved by Sheldon and his musings and actions. The whole thing will stay with me for a long time and I can recommend it very warmly.

 

Cara Hunter - The Whole Truth

 

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Good, but not one of Cara Hunter's best

 

 The Whole Truth is a good book from Cara Hunter, but I don’t think it’s one of her best.

The story revolves around a student’s complaint of sexual harassment against a tutor. It’s not a typical story by any means and is rather well done for much of its length, with some interesting discussion of issues of consent, but to say more would be too much of a spoiler. As Fawley and his team investigate, a murder is committed which introduces a second, far less believable plot thread which dominates the second half of the book. I was a little disappointed in this, in that it smacks of a slightly desperate search for a Twist to Ratchet Up The Tension; Hunter is better than that and I think this demeans her slightly.

Structurally, too, it’s not as well done as some others in the series. Hunter is still excellent on both police procedure (they do actually follow procedure!) and on press and social media responses to a story, and her characterisation is very good – especially of the regular members of Fawley’s team. However, there is more of a fragmented feel to this one, some slightly odd addressing of the reader directly and a great rush of revelation at the end which felt a bit forced.

All that said, it remains a good, involving read and a cut above a lot of stuff in this genre. Not a classic but I have rounded 3.5 stars up to 4 and I’ll certainly be continuing with the series.

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