Holly Bourne - How Do You Like Me Now?

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Not for me 

I thought Holly Bourne’s Am I Normal Yet? was absolutely outstanding, but I’ve tried three times now with How Do You Like Me Now? and I just can’t get through it.

Its narrated by the unhappy Tori, who has an apparently perfect life with a partner whom everyone admires and a very successful career, but who feels lost in her life and finds her partner considerably less perfect than everyone else does. She is also very aware of being subject to the pressures and sexism experienced by women everywhere in our society. The descriptions of all of this are as penetrating and as vivid as you’d expect from Holly Bourne and it’s an angry and thoughtful analysis of very important subjects...but I’ve had to abandon it, I’m afraid.

I think the problem is that it’s pretty unremittingly bleak and that I felt that I was rather being beaten over the head with issues while finding it difficult to empathise with the narrator. In Am I Normal Yet?, Bourne managed to deal with some very difficult, often uncomfortable topics and a rather tormented narrator with both humanity and humour which made it compulsively readable for me but which are both in shorter supply here.

To be fair, as a man in late middle-age I’m not really the target audience, but this one just didn’t work for me. Sorry, Holly.

Carol O'Connell - The Man Who Lied To Women

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Another fine instalment

Kathy Mallory, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

This second instalment in the Mallory series is a brilliant development of Mallory’s history and character. Carol O’Connell has created a wonderfully enigmatic, dark, often terrifying heroine and is developing and enriching the character with every book in the series. There are some chilling revelations about Mallory’s history here, and her present-day behaviour means that I would probably run away from her very fast, but she’s a wonderfully complex character whom I love to read about and always want to get to know better.

The story is good, involving a difficult murder case with some high-profile suspects and a dysfunctional family who bring their son to Kathy and Charles’s consultancy for investigation into apparent paranormal activity. It’s all well done with some vivid characters and sordid secrets, while Mallory’s unorthodox (and often illegal) methods are darkly entertaining.

I found one aspect of the story rather hard to accept (I won’t say more because of spoilers) but this is another fine book from O’Connell, who both revels in the genre and sometimes subverts it by blurring lines between good and bad and refusing always to provide a “just” resolution to each strand. It’s a great read and I can recommend it (and the whole series) very warmly.

Michael Simkins - The Last Flannelled Fool

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Flannelled Fool. It’s not as out-and-out hilarious as Fatty Batter, but it’s often very funny and also makes some fine, sometimes poignant observations about cricket, the people who watch and play it and the way society is moving in general.

In the summer of 2010, Michael Simkins was prevented from playing any cricket at all by a foot injury. Instead, he spent much of the summer visiting places of cricketing significance either to him personally or in the history of the game. This involved watching County Championship matches, often in the company of the proverbial three men and a dog, as well as larger, more popular events. He meets some interesting, quirky people, reflects on how things have changed since his youthful obsession with cricket and has some well-informed and thoughtful things to say about all of it.

I found it a delight. Simkins writes very well and, while pointing out sad developments like the commercial vandalism which has destroyed a lot of lovely, history-laden grounds, has a willingness to be pleased with the things and people he sees. There’s plenty of engaging history and anecdote, and it’s a little as though Bill Bryson or Stuart Maconie were fanatical about cricket and went on one of their travels in search of its soul.

Obviously, you need to have an interest in cricket to enjoy this book. It may help if, like me, you are of a similar age to the author, who was born in 1957, and who therefore talks about a lot of the cricketers I saw when I was an enthusiastic watcher as a lad and after, but whatever generation you belong to I think any fellow cricket-lover would also love this and I can recommend it warmly.

Donna Leon - Give Unto Others

 

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Not one of Donna Leon's best

I have enjoyed the Brunetti books I have read, but for me this one wasn’t all that good.

Brunetti is approached by a woman who knew him and his family long ago, asking his “advice”; she is worried about her daughter because of the behaviour of the daughter’s husband. Brunetti allows old loyalty to draw him into an “unofficial” investigation, which slowly - very slowly - begins to uncover possible malfeasance.

Frankly, I found it something of a slog, certainly for the first two-thirds. It seems to take Brunetti an age to spot some pretty obvious pointers, there is almost no Brunetti family life and even Venice itself didn’t seem the essential character it usually is and I found the descriptions of it a bit laboured and familiar. Donna Leon has always been good at character depiction and rounded description, but there’s a difference between that and a lot of superfluous verbiage; here there is far too much of the latter, I think. There are some long, tortured metaphors, likening the case to a pinball machine and then to the pandemic, for example, which I found frankly absurd, and I think if I'd read just once more about Brunetti waiting for answer in silence with yet another laboured explanation of why he didn’t speak, I might have said some rude words. Later, things picked up a little as Elettra, Vianello and Claudia become more involved in the off-the-books investigation, but in the end the denouement didn’t convince and relied on what I thought was some pretty thin psychology.

I did finish the book, with a little skimming, but I found it a disappointent. It’s not bad, but it’s not that great either, I’m afraid.

(My thanks to Hutchinson Heinemann for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Sarah Caudwell - Thus Was Adonis Murdered

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

A delight 

 

I loved Thus Was Adonis Murdered. It's a decent mystery but the main pleasure is in the language, which is made me laugh out loud regularly.

The story is narrated by a pompous, pedantic and self-regarding Oxford Law Professor who is joined by four barristers in the investigation of a murder in Venice of which Julia, a rather hapless colleague, is accused. We spend very little time in Venice itself, but rely on Julia’s (extremely funny) letters to the group in their London chambers and other second-hand accounts.

The resulting correspondence and conversation plus the narration is genuinely funny. There is a good deal of amusing use of lawyer-speak, plus some flights of courtroom-style rhetoric applied to the everyday, which I loved. As an example of the narrative voice, one of the colleagues says that Julia is going on holiday "after a bit of the other." The narrator explains that "It is a Cambridge expression signifying, as I understand it, the pursuit of erotic satisfaction." Well, it made me laugh.

In short, this is a delight; it is funny, erudite and engaging. I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Natasha Pulley - The Bedlam Stacks

 

Rating:5/5

 

Review:

A very good read 

 

I agree with the large number of enthusiastic reviews here; I enjoyed The Bedlam Stacks very much. It is exceptionally well written and very involving

The story is set mainly in the mid-Victorian period and involves Merrick Tremayne, an expert plantsman and ex-East India Company fixer who is now quite disabled, who ends up being sent to Peru to try to smuggle out quinine cuttings against all sorts of opposition. It sounds like a pretty standard historical adventure, but Natasha Pulley writes so well and creates such a brilliant, slightly magical world that I found it original and gripping. The “slightly magical” aspect is often a complete turn-off for me, but again she handles it so well and creates such believable characters and situations that it worked extremely well. My one reservation is that it felt slightly over-long – but only slightly.

Enough has been said about this book for me not to go on too much. It’s probably enough to say that it’s an excellently written, enjoyable and engaging read which I can recommend warmly.

 

Antoine Wilson - Mouth To Mouth

 

 

 

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Interesting and gripping, but... 

 

I found Mouth To Mouth rather compelling reading, but I’m not quite sure what it added up to in the end.

The book is narrated by a not-very-successful author who coincidentally meets Jeff, an old acquaintance from college while waiting for a delayed flight. Jeff tells the narrator the story of how he once saved a man from drowning and how he subsequently tried to find out about the man he had saved. This leads him into both the man’s art-dealing business and then his personal life, making him think about the consequences of having saved a life when that life may not be a very commendable one.

It’s a very well written and involving tale which is also lent a certain Hitchcockian creepiness by the chance encounter and the other-worldly airport lounge setting. There is some interesting discussion of Jeff’s internal response to his altruistic act and whether he needs or deserves reward or recognition, plus a well-drawn picture of the art world and its wealthy and often amoral milieu, including some neatly-turned descriptions. For example, at the opening of a show “...a few men and women in their forties or early fifties, looking as though they had through wealth escaped into a world without consequences. Funky eyeglasses, a striped jacket, and one woman’s cape made it clear to anyone who saw them that they were nonconformists, people of taste, art-world cognoscenti.”

The quality of the writing and storytelling, plus the book’s commendable brevity made this a rather gripping read for me, but in the end I wasn’t sure whether it had said anything really new. Certainly the claim by one distinguished reviewer that it “interrogates the very nature of identity, destiny and storytelling” seems to me very overblown, rather akin to some of the pretentious vacuity purveyed in the art world. Mouth To Mouth is good, it makes some interesting observations and it’s certainly worth reading, but I’m not sure it’s quite as brilliant or profound as it’s made out to be. I can still recommend it, though.

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

John le Carré - Silverview

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Classy le Carré 

 

I thought Silverview was very good. I’ve found le Carré’s non-Smiley books rather variable, but this was definitely one of the better ones; not an absolute classic, perhaps, but with much of le Carré’s real class in evidence.

It’s hard to say much about the plot without significant spoilers as apparently separate stories gradually merge. A new, somewhat naive bookseller in an East Anglian coastal town is befriended by a rather odd but knowledgeable local man. Meanwhile, there appears to be some near-panic in the Secret Intelligence Services, although it takes some time to piece together why. It gradually becomes clear how these things may be related and we get some vintage le Carré on the workings of the SIS, the psychology of those involved and the motivations of an agent.

It’s all done in beautifully restrained, poised prose which wastes no words but manages to imply so much, so an apparently spare and simple story is rich and involving. I found it engrossing and very readable, but slightly let down by a somewhat transparent ending with some over-explicit exposition at one point. Nonetheless, this is in a class above most contemporary espionage fiction and it stands as a worthy farewell from a genuine master of the genre.

Elizabeth George - Something To Hide

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Not for me

I’m badly out of step with the majority of reviewers because didn’t get on with Something To Hide at all, I’m afraid. I found it long-winded, slow and very overdone.

The main story, when we finally get to it, involves Lynley, Havers and Nkata investigating the murder of a fellow detective, which eventually leads to an organisation committing female genital mutilation. This is a very important issue, but I found the storytelling so slow and turgid that I simply couldn’t get into it at all. I’m all for thorough research, a well-painted background and carefully developed characters, but Elizabeth George tells us so much in painstaking (and for me, pain-giving) and repetitive detail I began to skim and didn’t feel I was missing much. I think the book, at 600-odd pages, could have done with some severe editing down.

Others have plainly loved this book, so do read more reviews before being put off by mine, but it wasn’t for me.

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

Bill Fitzhugh - Radio Activity

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

 

I enjoyed Radio Active, as I have all of Bill Fitzhugh’s books. This one does have some flaws, but it’s still an involving and amusing read.

Rick Shannon is a jobbing radio DJ with a passion for classic rock. He accepts, out of necessity, a job on a local radio station in a small Mississippi town, run by a thoroughly dodgy slimeball. Here he comes across a hidden tape, leading to clues about some possibly serious crimes, which he begins to investigate out of fascination. A tangled and colourful web of intrigue and suspects emerges in a well told, amusing and rather gripping story.

Fitzhugh is really good at this sort of thing; he tells a very well-structured and involving tale peopled with well drawn characters and with observations on all sorts of things including small-town politics, the corporatisation of local radio and lots about classic rock music. I’m keen on classic rock and found a lot of the references and discussions entertaining and amusing, but the lengthy monologues about music inspired by Patty Boyd or involving Todd Rundgren, for example, got a little much even for me, so if you’re not into 60s and 70s rock music this may not be the book for you. Also, having really enjoyed the book, I found the ending a little rushed and unsatisfactory – but only a little.

Those small reservations aside, I can still recommend Radio Active as a very enjoyable and entertaining read.

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

Dorothy L. Sayers - Clouds Of Witness

 

 Rating: 4/5

Review:

Very good, but not Sayers' best

This is the second of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. It’s very good, but not an absolute Sayers classic, I think. (For me, she really hit her stride in the next one, Unnatural Death.)

Here, Wimsey’s elder brother, the Duke Of Denver, is discovered with the body of the fiancé of their sister Mary at 3am during a shooting weekend in Yorkshire. He refuses to provide an account of his movements and it is then up to Peter and the redoubtable Inspector Parker to get to the truth of a tangled affair. It’s a decent plot, if a little overburdened with coincidences, but it is Sayers’ characters and descriptions which really make her, in my view, the greatest of the Golden Age writers. She has enormous fun, for example, with both the solemnity and absurdity of the trial of a Peer in the House Of Lords, and there are plenty of other very enjoyable and interesting situations and characterisations. Some is just a little crude, like her view of the taciturnity of Yorkshire people, for example, and Peter’s facile manner can become rather too much at times – before settling down into the delightful character of the later books.

This may not have quite the five-star quality of the later books, but it is still a very enjoyable and involving read which I can recommend.

Jo Browning Wroe - A Terrible Kindness

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Exceptionally good 

 

 I thought A Terrible Kindness was excellent: it is readable, insightful, thoughtful and humane.

The story of William Lavery opens at a flashy dinner in 1966 where he is celebrating his qualification, aged 18, to be an embalmer and to work with the newly dead before their funerals. The occasion is interrupted by an appeal from Aberfan for help after the unspeakable disaster which overwhelmed the primary school and many homes and William volunteers. We see his work there, his response to it and its effect on him, and then jump back to his time as a boy chorister in Cambridge as the loving relationships and tensions in his family evolve and where a traumatic event has plainly occurred. It is a book about a decent, kind young man’s inability to deal with his own emotions and about both the difficulty and the possibilities of healing in friendship, love and music.

There are so many ways in which this could have gone wrong, but Jo Browning Wroe gets it pitch-perfect, I think, never once straying into mawkishness, sentimentality, exploitation, facile psychologising or any other of the traps looming around such a story. The opening section at Aberfan brought me to tears more than once with its delicate humanity and compassion, and I was close to tears at other times in the book, too. Wroe’s depiction of William is quite brilliant and utterly believable, and her evocation of his work as an embalmer is engrossing, moving – and fascinating, too. She is also really good at writing about music; the Welsh song Myfanwy and Allegri’s setting of the Miserere both have a very powerful part to play here and she conveys their power as well as any writing about music I have ever read, as well as the joy and transcendence which can come with performing.

I may have made the book sound a difficult read; in fact, it’s anything but. I was completely engrossed and always wanted to read just a bit more. Wroe’s prose (in the present tense) is poised and unobtrusively brilliant, I think, so that everything from the strongest emotions to the feel of Cambridge in the early 70s (and I was there, so I know) is excellently but quietly done.

A Terrible Kindness is among the best books I have read this year and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

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

Shaun Bythell - Confession Of A Bookseller

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

 

I enjoyed this just as much as Diary Of A Bookseller. Shaun Bythell has lost none of his acerbic wit or his enjoyment of books and the people he is surrounded by, even if he does hide it under a veneer of grumpiness.

This probably doesn’t need a long review; if you enjoyed Diary Of A Bookseller, I think you’ll enjoy this one. Shaun is a little more meditative about things, especially to do with his personal life, and there are moments of genuine sadness. There is also a lot of interest to be found in the way a bookshop works, the way customers behave and the community of Wigtown. Shaun’s grumpiness is still – amusingly – in evidence but his sometimes mocking observations about others are often underpinned with real affection, as with Emanuela, whom he says, quite genuinely, that he will really miss when she returns to Italy, for example.

This may not be great literature, but I found it a very engaging, enjoyable and rewarding read. Warmly recommended.

Louise Welsh - The Second Cut

 

 Rating: 4/5

Review:

Very good

I enjoyed The Second Cut. It haven’t read its predecessor, The Cutting Room, (although I soon will) but it works fine as a stand-alone book.

Rilke is a middle-aged auctioneer, active on Glasgow’s gay scene. His job sometimes brings him into contact with characters from the darker side of Glasgow’s underworld, and his sexual activities can be risky, too – although he is cautious by the standards of some other characters. When an old acquaintance from the scene gives him a tip about a valuable house clearance and is then found dead on a doorstep, apparently from an overdose in an already abused body, Rilke finds himself dealing with some very dodgy characters indeed. A fairly complex but comprehensible plot develops involving vicious drug empires, modern slavery and other skulduggery.

It’s readable, involving and quite exciting in places. Its main feature, though, is the background of Glasgow, its violent underworld and the current gay scene – not all of which is comfortable reading. The degree to which homophobia persists is disturbing, although Louise Welsh makes it clear how far attitudes and laws have progressed in twenty years. I also found the auction house side of the book very interesting and could actually have done with rather more of it.

I thought the first half of the book was exceptionally good; it is well written, thoughtful and involving, with Rilke’s relationships with different characters especially well done. It did tail off a little for me later on as some standard implausibilities in the plot began to emerge, like the extremely unlikely but convenient overhearing of a conversation, or the now horribly familiar decision not to call the police but to investigate alone, and so on.

In spite of these minor flaws, I still think this is a very readable, involving book with some important things to say. Recommended.

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

Lisa Gardner - One Step Too Far

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Some good aspects, some serious implausibility 

 

I enjoyed a lot about One Step Too Far, but in places it strained credibility just a little too far itself.

The story is narrated by Frankie Elkin, rather a rootless, lost soul and recovering alcoholic, who travels around trying to locate people who have been missing for a long time. She appears to be doing this to escape from her own demons, although she repeatedly asks herself “Why do I do this?” without managing an answer. For her trouble she gets paid nothing, it seems, so she’s poorly equipped to join an expedition to try to find Tim, a young man who disappeared five years ago on his pre-wedding trip with his friends into the Wyoming wilderness. Tim’s father has organised these trips annually and the group of friends, riven with guilt, join in along with two more experienced wilderness explorers plus a cadaver dog and her handler.

The beginning is very well done, even if the group’s acceptance of Frankie is pretty unlikely. The preparations and development of a serious hike into the wilderness are interesting and absorbing, and the dynamics in the group are interesting and very plausibly developed. As things – inevitably – turn more sinister, plausibility begins to recede somewhat, but for some time it’s well within the bounds of suspension of disbelief. I have to say, though, that it did become pretty silly toward the end. Lisa Gardner’s writing is very good, so the tension and exhaustion of being stranded in the wilderness while apparently being hunted is very well portrayed, but some of the events themselves strained my credulity well beyond its elastic limit. The Big Reveal was also, shall we say, unlikely in the extreme, both in the revelation itself and the manner in which it happens, so the later parts of the book took some of the shine off the very good opening for me.

Overall, this remains a four-star book because Gardner’s characterisation, sense of place and so on are good enough to compensate for much (but not all) of the later plot implausibilities. Certainly a decent holiday read, and with enough here to encourage me to try the next in the series.

(My thanks to Random House for an ARC vis NetGalley.)

Georges Simenon - The Strangers In The House

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Excellent in parts 

I am slightly ambivalent about The Strangers In The House. A good deal of it was excellent, but there are aspects I wasn’t so keen on.

First published 1940, it’s a story with a pretty well-worn trope at its heart: a misanthropic recluse forced back into daily life by circumstance and beginning to live again. This part, Simenon does with great subtlety and considerable insight, I think, as a murder in the house of lawyer Hector Loursat brings him inevitably back into contact with the pre-war small-town society he has shunned and despised for so long. I found the portrait of Loursat, of his small household and of the bourgeoisie of the town very convincing and rather gripping. Curiously, the story of the murder seemed much less successful – especially its courtroom denouement which didn’t ring true at all – which meant that the book rather lost its way for me, although the central thread of Loursat’s character continued to be very well done.

I have been somewhat dubious about all of Simenon’s non-Maigret books that I have read; this was one of the better ones for me. I see that John Banville has described it as a masterpiece and it does carry many of the hallmarks of Banville’s own work in its intense study of the minutiae of a character’s behaviour and personality, although it has a commendable concision which Banville often lacks. I can’t agree that it’s a masterpiece, but it has enough real quality to be an involving and rewarding read which I can recommend.

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

Kinky Friedman - The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very entertaining 

 

I have enjoyed Kinky Friedman’s music for years but The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover is the first of his novels that I have read. I enjoyed this, too.

It features a version of Kinky Friedman himself in a sort of modern pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction of the 30s and 40s, with added comic dialogue and Kinky’s musings, conversations (one way) with his cat and so on. It begins in the classic way with a cool, beautiful blonde coming to Kinky’s agency asking him to find her husband. It then gets progressively more strange and frankly bonkers as odd events happen, people try to kill him (or do they?) and a possible trail to a man called Leaning Jesus and thence to Al Capone begins to emerge. It’s pretty crazy, but it does hang together and I became rather involved with the story.

It does start pretty slowly and rather clumsily, I thought, but it picked up very nicely. There’s a good balance of plot, action and Kinky’s reflections on all manner of things, which are amusing, often shrewd and deceptively erudite in places. I thought it was great fun and I’ll certainly be trying more in the series. Be prepared for a slightly stodgy start, but I can recommend this as a very entertaining read.

Simon Mason - A Killing In November

 

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A promising new series 

I enjoyed A Killing In November far more than I expected to. It’s well written and well structured so that I found any implausibilities and familiar tropes perfectly forgivable.

On the face of it, it sounds like a collection of clichés of the genre strung together: the chalk-and-cheese partners, the rebellious working-class detective in a posh environment and so on. Add to this the idea that Ryan, a CID Inspector, would turn up to investigate a death in an Oxford college wearing tracksuit bottoms and a baseball cap on backward, tell the Provost to “calm the [copulatory obscenity] down” and so on and it sounds utterly preposterous. And it is, really – but somehow it’s well enough done for that not to matter much. The two sides of Oxford are well portrayed, there is some pretty good characterisation and Ryan’s relationship with his 2-year-old son is especially well painted, I think.

The story is a good one, too. There are several possible avenues to consider, including possible jihadi action, straightforward theft, sexual harassment and so on. Each is, in its own way, well considered and I found it an involving and in places an exciting read. The two central characters are perhaps a little overdone, but they are interesting studies nonetheless, both flawed in their own way and with plenty of messy stuff left unresolved, rather than the trite little Life Lessons which so often pollute this kind of portrayal.

So, slightly to my surprise, I can recommend this as an entertaining read and a promising start to a new series. I’ll certainly be looking out for the next one.

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

 

 

Christopher Fowler - Off The Rails

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Another very good instalment 

 

This is another very enjoyable instalment in the excellent Bryant & May series. This one follows on directly from On The Loose; it works fine as a stand-alone book, but I would strongly recommend reading the series in order for maximum enjoyment.

The team are still officially disbanded but still on the trail of “Mr. Fox” in King’s Cross. A series of events means that if they catch him and solve another seemingly unrelated death on the Underground, the Unit will be reinstated. And so begins the usual intricate investigation, with Arthur steeped in the history of the Underground as it seems to be the key to everything. There are perhaps fewer really esoteric “consultants” used by him here, but some equally fascinating people who know the Tube intimately. The characters from the Unit are their usual engaging selves, including the hapless Raymond, and as always there is an involving plot, some genuinely funny humour and a background of London’s history.

In short, this is another fine Bryant & May book. Probably no more really need be said. Warmly recommended.

Steven Pinker - Rationality

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Good, but not all that new

 

The message of this book is important and timely and I am wholly in agreement with its arguments and analyses. However, I did find it a bit of a slog.

Pinker argues clearly and passionately that rationality and reason are vital and that their current abandonment by a worrying number of people is dangerous. He looks at the role of rationality and the essential part it plays in maintaining a civilised society and also attempts to analyse why some people reject it in favour of irrationality, conspiracy theories, evidence-free fantasies and so on. This includes some good analysis of why scientific data can be messy and a clear explanation o why that doesn’t mean that it can simply be ignored.

All of this is commendable but I had some reservations. Firstly, although Pinker has a reputation for brilliant, readable writing, I found the prose quite hard going in places. It is dense, unalleviated by much in the way of light relief and burdened by his tendency to use obscure words where ordinary ones will do just as well – “patrimony,” for example where “inheritance” would make at least as much sense and make for a far easier read.

Secondly, I wasn’t really sure that Pinker was saying much that was new. The book, he explains, grew out of a course he taught and that makes it, for me, a restatement of pretty well rehearsed arguments and ideas. Important, certainly, and a useful restatement of arguments but not all that stimulating.

And thirdly, I kept getting a strong feeling that he is preaching to the converted. This is a book aimed at and surely read by those who, like me, already believe strongly in rationality. It may strengthen our stance, but will it change what really needs to be changed?

I don’t want to be too harsh; this is a good, important book. However, for me Robin Ince’s recent, very enjoyable and equally important book The Importance Of Being Interested said much the same thing in a far more readable and witty way, which may do a better job of reaching the people it needs to.

Christopher Fowler - On The Loose

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review

Classic Fowler 

 

I thought this was another very enjoyable instalment in the Bryant & May series. That’s probably all that really need be said, but for the record:

The Home Office has finally succeeded in disbanding the Peculiar Crimes Unit – as though that makes any difference when a strange, Herne-like figure is seen on a prestigious construction site in King’s Cross and a curious murder is discovered. Needless to say, Arthur and then John and the whole team are drawn into the unofficial investigation and the usual combination of an intricate plot, lots of fascinating history (this time of King’s Cross) and plenty of humour follow.

It’s classic Fowler: erudite, witty, readable and exciting. I would strongly advise starting at the beginning of this excellent series, which will explain a lot of the background to the characters, but it works as a stand-alone novel, too. Warmly recommended.

Sara Freeman - Tides

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Not for me 

 

I got to the end of Tides with something of a sense of relief and thought “Well, what was the point of that?” Shrewd readers will therefore deduce that I didn’t like it.

The story, told in the present-tense, is of a woman whose name, for some reason, we are not told until well after half way through the book. She has, we learn obliquely, lost a child and has left her husband and her family behind without warning, with very little money and few possessions, and ended up in a coastal tourist town as it comes to the end of the season. Here, she is isolated, poor, cold, bleak and alienated. She has occasional sex to manipulate men into helping her and the regrets it, she eventually gets a job and is also helped by the friendship of one woman in the town.

And that’s pretty much it, with a few events which would be spoilers if revealed and a slightly (but only slightly) redemptive note right toward the end. Frankly, I found it rather turgid and depressing to no real end. I didn’t find it a particularly profound study of grief; the emptiness felt by the protagonist is well evoked, but that’s all it is for a very long time. This is a small example of the prose: “She is sandwiched between the two of them: the old and the young, the drunk and the nearly drunk. She pictures herself this way: cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds.” There is so much in this vein and with this rhythm that I found rather mannered. And picturing herself as “cold cut, melted cheese, a tomato slick with seeds”? Seriously? It smacks of Creative Writing Course to me and didn’t appeal.

I’m sorry to be so critical, but I really didn’t enjoy Tides. It’s worth two stars rather than one for the evocation of the main character’s bleak emotional state and the merit of being short. Others may get more from it than I did, but it really wasn’t for me.

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

Julia Spencer-Fleming - Hid From Our Eyes

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Rather disappointing 

 

Hid From Our Eyes is the first book in this series that I have read and I found it rather a disappointment. This may well be partly the effect of joining a lengthy series so late, but I had some serious reservations about the book itself.

The plot concerns three similar, mysterious deaths of young women; one in the present day, one in the early 70s and one in the early 50s. We get details of the investigations intercut, plus all sorts of other issues in the present day story: a bid to close Miller’s Kill Police Department, Clare’s ongoing struggles with motherhood and addiction, Russ having been a suspect in one of the previous cases, the stories of how successive Police Chiefs were recruited, a lawsuit against the department, an affair gone badly wrong between two officers, a transgender intern at the church...and so on.

Frankly, it’s all too much, and the phrase much ado about nothing did spring to mind once or twice. Julia Spencer-Fleming writes well, but there is so much going on everywhere that it dilutes any real impact or involvement I may have had, and the sense of policing in a small New England community is rather better evoked (and with a good deal more humour and humanity) by Castle Freeman. The thread about the three deaths had a frankly absurd denouement and I reached the end with a little relief.

There was enough here to warrant three stars, but only just. I note that one reviewer has said that the earlier books were better so I might give the beginning of the series a try, but I won’t be rushing, I’m afraid.

Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Hard Going 

 

Shuggie Bain is a powerful portrayal of working class life in Glasgow under Thatcher and afterward. It is very well written and completely convincing...and pretty unremittingly grim. As a result, I struggled with it; it’s a book I felt I ought to read rather than one I wanted to.

Douglas Stuart paints intimate and compelling portraits of a family including philandering father, an alcoholic mother and a young lad with a good heart who is lost, who has had to choose between school and earning to eat, who is intimidated by the world and who does not understand his own sexuality. It’s raw and important, but frankly, I can only take so much alcoholism, misogyny and alienation in perpetual rain and gloom and I got very bogged down in it.

I’ve given the book three stars because I can see that it’s well written and deals important stuff, but as a readable novel I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

Janet Evanovich - Fortune and Glory

 

 

 Rating: 5/5

Review:

Classic Stephanie Plum

I loved Fortune and Glory. Probably all that need be said is that it’s classic Stephanie Plum, which makes it an exciting and very entertaining read.

The plot this time is the hunt for Grandma Mazur’s treasure, which may or may not exist but belonged to her late husband Jimmy, a gangster who shares the right to any treasure with four other very dangerous but very old hoodlums. And...cars get totalled, donuts and canoli get eaten, Lula is an absolute riot, some bail skippers are re-taken in near-farcical circumstances, possibly the world’s most annoying man who decides it is his mission to protect Stephanie and the poor woman once again has to juggle her love life between two of the sexiest men in New Jersey. Like I said, classic Stephanie Plum.

It’s just great. I was completely hooked and laughed a lot. Janet Evanovich writes brilliantly, especially dialogue, and the whole thing is a monumental pleasure. Very warmly recommended – and there’s another one due in a couple of weeks. Hurrah!

Ella Baxter - New Animal

 

Rating: 3/5

Review:

Not for me 

 

New Animal is a well written and in many ways courageous book, but I couldn’t get through it, I’m afraid.

It’s a story of grief and an attempt to find some comfort, peace and possibly oblivion in sexual abandon. The narrator Amelia is already plainly troubled by the fairly recent suicide of a young man locally, although we are not told whether they were lovers or even friends. Working in the family funeral business gives her focus and some fulfilment, but when her beloved mother dies she simply cannot face the communal family grief and runs off to Tasmania, where she becomes involved in the local BDSM scene...which is where I gave up.

Ella Baxter is a talented writer. Her sense of place, Amelia’s work and the other characters are very well done and she portrays Amelia’s internal turmoil very well indeed. The thing is, for me it was so unremittingly grim and self-destructive that when she moves into some pretty serious sado-masochistic stuff it just got too much. Again, it’s very well portrayed and I can sort of see what Baxter is trying to convey here, but in the complete absence of any lightness or hope I just didn’t want to read any more about a woman’s self-loathing and degradation, thanks, and I bailed out about two-thirds of the way through. There may possibly be a message of hope and redemption later, but I couldn’t hang around to find out.

This is a matter of personal taste, of course. The book has considerable literary merit and the portrait of a mind (and body) in a turmoil of grief is very well done, but I probably should have realised from the blurb that overall that I wouldn’t like it. I have given it three stars in recognition of its qualities; others may find it more palatable and rewarding than I did, but it wasn’t for me.

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

Elizabeth Strout - Oh William!

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review: 

Not for me this time

 

I’m afraid that Oh, William! didn’t do it for me. I loved My Name Is Lucy Barton and both Olive Kitteridge books, but this really didn’t have anything like the same appeal; I struggled to well past half way but then gave up.

These are Lucy’s reminiscences of more of her life, especially with William, her first husband. This time I found Lucy’s narrative voice rather mannered, with her repeated little verbal habits like “...this is what I’m saying here,” or several instances of “I don’t want to say any more about that...” and then going on to say a good deal more about it. I’m sure it’s intended to be a representation of a genuine person’s voice, but for me it didn’t work this time. Also, the story which emerged in I Am Lucy Barton is beautifully structured, horrifying but ultimately humane and, for me, utterly riveting. Here, I really wasn’t all that bothered about what was happening. Elizabeth Strout makes some of her usual penetrating character studies and the odd shrewd take on aspects of life which kept me going for a while, but overall it didn’t grip me at all.

So, I’m sorry to be critical of an author whose other work I have liked and admired but this one really wasn’t for me and I can’t really recommend it.

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

Jodi Taylor - A Second Chance

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review: Good, but...

 

I enjoyed A Second Chance; some of it was quite brilliant, but I was a little less happy about some other parts.

This time, we follow Max to Troy and then the aftermath of the trip for much of the book. Jodi Taylor’s capturing of the feel and events of the Trojan War is excellent; I found it involving and thoroughly convincing, and her rewriting of why Troy fell is an interesting take on the Trojan Horse story. Some other aspects, directly contradicting classical sources were a little harder to swallow, but it’s a cracking story which I was happy to go along with.

The mayhem and humour of St. Mary’s is as enjoyable as ever. In contrast, the course of Max’s love never did run smooth and there are some genuinely affecting parts, both to do with this and with other aspects of the story.

I am becoming a little less comfortable with the way time travel is handled. It becomes very confusing at times and I’m not sure it all made logical sense (although that may just be me being dim). Toward the end, though, we get not only leaps in time but the introduction of parallel universes with alternative histories ,and mystical interventions by Klio, the Muse Of History, which rather undermines a lot of the premise of the stories so far.

I’ll certainly try the next in the series, but I’m not quite as enthusiastic as I was. Nonetheless, I can recommend this as an entertaining and rewarding read.

Jen Campbell - Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Quite amusing in short sections 

 

I read this after a recommendation in Shaun Bythell’s excellent The Diary Of A Bookseller. I quite enjoyed it but I was left just a little disappointed.

The book is a collection of odd, silly or offensive things people have said in bookshops. That’s it; there is none of the scene-setting or development of Bythell’s Diary, which leaves it a bit like a sort of bibliographical version of those Humorous Things Schoolchildren Have Written collections. It’s fine to dip into, but reading more than a few in a row can get a bit wearing, I found. I also wondered about the exact verisimilitude of some of the exchanges and whether some had been touched up a bit in retrospect to make them funnier.

This is fine as a short, dip-into collection, but for me it wasn’t that special.

Bill Fitzhugh - Cross Dressing

 

 Rating: 5/5

Review:

Very enjoyable satire

 

I have read and enjoyed several of Bill Fitzhugh’s books; I think this is the best so far. It is readable and amusing, but also carries some truly scathing satire.

The plot is based heavily in farce, of course. Dan Steele is a cynical, materialistic, uncaring advertising executive with little compassion or moral sense. By an...er...unusual sequence of events he ends up pretending to be a Catholic priest and working in a badly underfunded Care Centre run by an unconventional and very attractive nun. This being Bill Fitzhugh, he also has a number of people who are trying to track him down and kill him.

The story of an inhumane man discovering his humanity may sound hackneyed, but it’s very well done, very amusing and has a plot which becomes quite gripping. It is also brilliantly excoriating about the contrast between the many magnificently good people who do the Church’s work on the ground and the self-serving behaviour of some of its hierarchy. Fitzhugh’s approach is probably best summed up in a quote he uses from Lenny Bruce: “Every day people are drifting away from the church and going back to God.” He also takes some very well aimed potshots at the advertising industry, US materialism and so on.

Most of all, though, this is a really good read; I was hooked and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’ve rounded 4.5 stars up to 5 for that reason. Warmly recommended.

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

Alan Bradley - I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows

 

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Amusing and engaging 

 

This is another very enjoyable instalment of the Flavia de Luce series. The setting and characters remain interesting and entertaining, Flavia’s narrative voice is as delightful as ever and there’s quite a decent mystery here, too.

The latest scheme to ward off financial ruin is to allow a film to be made at Buckshaw in the days before Christmas, with the immensely famous Phyllis Wyvern as its star. Needless to say, Flavia is in the thick of things (while also planning some very interesting chemical antics on Christmas Eve) and befriends Miss Wyvern; when everyone is snowed in and there is a suspicious death, she conducts her own investigations under the nose of the redoubtable Inspector Hewitt.

It’s immense fun. It’s not very plausible and certainly not realistic, but who cares? Equally, it must be said that Alan Bradley does occasionally show that he’s not English and not from that period as the odd Americanism or anachronism shows up. For example, on Romeo And Juliet she opines “...I had formed the opinion that while Shakespeare was good with words, he knew beans about poisons.” Flavia, in rural England in 1950 would never have said “knew beans”, but again it’s so amusing and engaging that I happily forgave it – and any others.

This series has been reliably amusing and involving and this is one of my favourites so far. Recommended – as is the whole series.

Royal Observatory Greenwich - 2022 Guide To The Night Sky

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

An excellent guide

 

 

This is a cracking little guide to the night sky in 2022. It is authoritaive and has very clear illustrations and guides to events, where the planets will be and so on. Seasoned watchers of the skies may possibly need something a little more, but for beginners or people like me who know a little, can recognise the planets and so on it’s ideal. It is compact and very reasonably priced and really I don’t think you could do better. Warmly recommended.

Shaun Bythell - The Diary Of A Bookseller

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

An excellent read

 

Just to add my voice to the hundreds of favourable reviews of this book:

I found Diary Of A Bookseller very entertaining, surprisingly involving and also quite informative about the business of bookselling. It is the diary over a year of Shaun Bythell who owns a very large bookshop in Wigtown, a “book town” in south-west Scotland. He recounts the pleasures and frustrations of dealing in books and of being a central part of a large book festival, which he does with insight and acerbic wit, making it a very enjoyable read. It is peopled with very well drawn characters, like his eccentric (to say the least) assistant Nicky, the loyal and rather enigmatic regular customer Mr Deacon and, of course, the array of customers who come to the shop or order on-line. The behaviour of some customers is embarrassing and/or annoying – and very recognisable to anyone who has spent a lot of time observing people like that while browsing and buying in second-hand bookshops – and it is extremely well captured by Bythell.

He makes clear the devastating effect of Amazon on independent booksellers and has made me feel slightly guilty about the amount I now read on my Kindle. (In my defence, there will be a very nasty case of husband-murder if I bring more physical books into the place.) He has also already inspired me to take down and read again an elderly copy of Orwell’s essays, to try William Boyd once more when I had decided that enough was enough, and so on. Any book which can do that deserves praise in itself, and this also gave me great pleasure just in the reading. Very warmly recommended – and I shall be reading his two other books soon.

Robin Ince - The Importance Of Being Interested

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Thoughtful and extremely enjoyable 

 

I think The Importance Of Being Interested is excellent. It is witty, insightful and extremely interesting.

Robin Ince, as most readers will know, is a comedian who began with little knowledge of science but developed an interest and has now presented over 100 episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage with Prof. Brian Cox on Radio 4. In The Importance Of Being Interested, he reflects on his and others’ responses to discoveries in science, using the very considerable knowledge he has gained combined with the humility of a non-expert, to try to understand what some of these ideas mean to people. These people include a wide range of scientists, astronauts and the like who have deep knowledge of the subjects, and also ordinary non-scientists. It’s a fascinating, thoughtful and entertaining read.

Ince addresses subjects like the relationship between science and religion, what space travel means for humanity, evolution and why some people refuse so violently to accept it and so on. He is plainly knowledgeable but wisely leaves most scientific exposition to experts whom he has talked to or read, while concentrating on the human aspects of what the science means. I found it fascinating and very well balanced; for example, as an atheist himself he has immense respect for a lot of rational religious people, strives to understand how it it possible to believe in both scientific rationalism and a God and concludes (correctly in my view) that it certainly is, even if it isn’t a set of beliefs he shares. Ince he has no truck with anti-scientific ideas which clearly go against the evidence, but is genuinely interested in finding out why some people hold them and seem to be immune to reason. He also recognises the importance of trying to re-establish rationality in areas where irrationality and conspiracy theory abound, and the importance of making genuine human contact and explaining scientific ideas with respect and humility. No one has ever been insulted into changing their mind.

One other aspect which I liked very much is that Ince stresses how much scientific knowledge has enhanced his – and humanity’s – awe, respect and wonder at the universe and the natural world. I have always thought that it was a naive and insulting view of the universe to insist that analysing and investigating a poem, for example, leads us to a greater appreciation of its beauty, but doing the same for the natural world somehow destroys all beauty and wonder in it. My own study of science has had quite the opposite effect and it is very pleasing to see this view shared and advocated so well.

In short, this is a fascinating, humane and very enjoyable read. I can recommend it very warmly.

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

Tim Dorsey - Tiger Shrimp Tango

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

Another great Serge episode

 

This is another cracking Serge Storms book. The format is familiar: Serge (bouncing on caffeine and adrenaline) and Coleman (hilariously out of his head on weed, booze and heaven knows what else) target Florida’s scumbags with imaginative executions. This time there’s also a hitman on Serge’s tail and Serge is working in tandem with Mahoney, a very funny PI who talks in barely comprehensible hard-boiled jargon, often in the third person. Predictably, mayhem ensues.

It is, as always, very funny, rather exciting and packed with arcane gems about Florida and with gratuitous, rather pantomimic violence visited on the deserving. I have never been disappointed in a Tim Dorsey book, and Tiger Shrimp Tango is among those I’ve enjoyed the most. Perhaps not for the faint-hearted, but otherwise very warmly recommended.

Robert Peston - The Whistleblower

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A slow start but a decent thriller 

 

The Whistleblower is, in the end, quite a good political thriller. Journalists don’t always make good novelists, but Robert Peston has made a decent fist of this, his first work of fiction.

Set just before the 1997 General Election, the book is narrated by Gilbert Peck, political editor for a major national broadsheet. The death of someone close to him leads to suggestions of some major skulduggery at the top of government which Peck begins to investigate. The book is peopled with some very thinly disguised characters of the time; a charismatic leader of “Modern Labour” with a high-profile spin doctor and a southern-hemisphere newspaper magnate who is trying to move into TV...and so on. This works quite well, although I found the large number of dodgy PR people, MPs, journalists, political advisors and so on rather hard to keep track of some of the time.

I have to say that I found the first 100 pages or so pretty hard going in places. It is a long time before any plot really begins to emerge, with lots and lots of background but not much development. Peston is obviously very familiar with the relationship between politicians and journalists and with the official systems and much less official contacts which exist. It is interesting, but it does read a little like a beginner’s guide to the political lobby system at times (with some fairly extensive instruction on Jewish funerals thrown in for good measure). Add to this an immoral, untrustworthy, self-centred, drug-and-alcohol-fuelled protagonist whom people frequently and justifiably liken to the exit from the human digestive tract and it was a bit of a struggle at times.

However, the book does pick up when things actually begin to happen and I became quite involved in the plot. The well painted background did actually become background rather than a seminar on How Things Work, and was all the better for it. There were some rather unlikely events but I could forgive them, and the way in which the powerful protect themselves, each other and their institutions was very well and rather horrifyingly illustrated.

Overall, I found this an interesting and ultimately exciting political thriller. It’s not a classic, but it’s a good start and I will certainly give Robert Peston’s next book a try.

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