Joan Didion - Slouching Towards Bethlehem

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Excellent writing, less good content 

 

I find it hard to rate this collection of essays. In many ways they are excellent because Joan Didion was a very fine writer; her style is clear, precise, unsensational and very readable and she took a lot of trouble to talk to her subjects so there is real content here rather than a lot of authorial waffle as in a lot of such essays.

Nonetheless, I found the collection a bit unsatisfactory. I think this is because behind Didion’s flat style there is a lot of editorialising in her focus. There’s nothing wrong with that in an essay, of course, but there was a pretty persistent focus on a slightly mocking tone and on quotes which she chose to damn people out of their own mouths. For example, Where The Kissing Never Stops is a portrait of Joan Baez and her Institute, which Didion makes very damning without ever explicitly saying so. The same is true of the essay which gives its title to the book and of most others here. There may have been a good deal to criticise, but the persistent mocking and damning tone applied to people whose intentions were very decent, if naive, began to get me down in the end.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is worth reading for the quality of the writing and it does give a picture of an age, but it’s a very one-sided and cynical picture so approach with caution.

Bonnie Garmus - Lessons In Chemistry

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Brilliant! 

 

Just to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Lessons In Chemistry. I loved it – it is funny, thoughtful, very clear-sighted, and a delight to read.

A book about the travails of a brilliant chemist and single mother enduring the sexism and crushing attitudes of the 1950s could be a grim struggle, but this is anything but. Elizabeth Zott’s genuine disbelief in the utterly illogical attitudes of the time and her determined, analytical approach to her life make for extremely entertaining and uplifting reading, in spite of the all-too-recognisable condescension and abuse she suffers. Bonnie Garmus manages to make the book genuinely funny while tackling these issues head on.

Part of the attraction is Garmus’s clever use of three different minds which look in shocked disbelief at the more absurd social mores. There is Elizabeth herself, her prodigiously brilliant 4-year-old daughter Madeleine who has a child’s innocent “But why?” approach to things, and their dog Six-Thirty, whom they teach to understand quite a large vocabulary (like “diary”, which he deduces is a book in which people write vicious things about their friends and family and then pray that none of them ever read it) and to whom a lot of the behaviour he sees is simply ridiculous.

The ending was just a touch cloying for me, but I still thought it was a brilliant, hugely enjoyable book that makes points which, as current events keep reminding us, still need to be made.

Christopher St. John Sprigg - Death Of An Airman

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

I enjoyed Death Of An Airman very much. First published in 1935, it’s a good mystery, written in an engaging style.

An experienced airman is killed when the small plane he is piloting crashes at the aerodrome at which his flying club is based. It all seems like a tragic accident until some puzzling features become apparent and evidence of skulduggery begins to appear. The detectives on the case (and some civilian characters) eventually expose sinister malfeasance.

It’s all rather charming. The two detectives on the case are likeable and engaging (although one of them does seem remarkably slow on the uptake for a seasoned Inspector at times) and the other characters are neatly and quite convincingly drawn. The style is very enjoyable, with a wry humour often showing through. Just as a small example, one detective says of a possible suspect, “She is the daughter of a rural dean. That’s pretty bad, but not the sort of thing you can use in evidence against her.”

The narrative did get a little bogged down in what-ifs and hypotheses from time to time and the solution is just a trifle pat, but overall this is a very enjoyable Golden Age mystery and a fun read.

Alan Bradley - The Curious Case Of The Copper Corpse

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review

OK, but rather unsatisfying 

This is a very short story, roughly the length of a single chapter in a full Flavia book, and as a result it’s rather unsatisfying.

Flavia receives a panicked not from a pupil at Greyminster School asking her to investigate the death of a copper-plated corpse in the bath. The familiar elements (see what I did there?) of Flavia’s chemical expertise and deductive skills are all there, but the depth of background, character and even her delightful narrative voice are all pale shadows of what we have come to love in the full novels.

This took me about 20 minutes to read. It’s perfectly acceptable, but not much more and I don’t think I’d have missed out on much if I hadn’t read it at all...and now I’m very keen to get back to the proper sequence of Flavia books.

Ajay Chowdhury - The Waiter

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Disappointing 

I wasn’t that keen on The Waiter. It’s OK, but overall I found it rather unengaging and a somewhat run-of-the-mill detective story.

Kamil Rahman has been dismissed from the Kolkata police and finds himself working as a waiter in the London restaurant of a family friend. Here, there is a murder at a party for another family friend at which he is working and Kamil becomes involved in the hunt for the killer and to clear a suspect whom he believes to be innocent. Intercut with this is the story of the high-profile case in Kolkata which ended in his dismissal, as it becomes slowly clear that the two cases may be linked in some way.

Frankly, as a thriller it didn’t do much for me. It plodded rather, I found the intercutting a bit off-putting, the prose was pretty pedestrian and if it hadn’t been for the interesting settings I would probably have given up. I did like the descriptions of life in the Bengali community around Brick Lane and in Kolkata, but they weren’t really enough to keep my interest and I did begin to skim without feeling I was missing all that much. The solution had more than a degree of implausibility – not least in the sudden friendly attitude of the British police Inspector – and I realised that I wasn’t all that bothered about it.

A disappointment overall, then, after a warm recommendation from a friend. The book has its merits, but I don’t think I’ll be reading on in the series.

Deon Meyer - The Dark Flood

 

 Rating: 5/5

Review:

Brilliant

I thought The Dark Flood was excellent. I have enjoyed all of the books I have read in this series but I think this is the best so far. This works as a stand-alone, but it would probably help to have read some previous ones – especially its immediate predecessor, The Last Hunt.

In the fallout from The Last Hunt, Benny and Vaughan are threatened with dismissal, but escape – just – with demotion and banishment from the Hawks to a provincial posting. There, they work on a puzzling Missing Person case; in the meantime disgraced millionaire Jasper Boonstra is involved in some shady property dealing and eventually the two become linked in a tangled web of deceit and corruption.

It’s brilliant. I was hooked from the start; the pacing and structure are excellent and there is a lot of genuine excitement (including a climax which is actually both plausible and thrilling). The background of South Africa in the last days of the Zuma presidency is excellently and subtly done in both the social set-up and the dreadful corruption of “state capture”. The relationship between Benny and Vaughan is realistic, touching at times and humorous at others, as is the progress of their personal lives.

I thought this was an exemplary police procedural. I was convinced by and completely engrossed in the story and I can recommend it very warmly.

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

Edward Marston - Murder On The Lusitania

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Disappointing 

 

I wasn’t very keen on Murder On The Lusitania. It’s a competently crafted cosy mystery with an interesting period shipboard setting, but it didn’t really work for me.

The book introduces us to George Porter Dillman, an American about to embark in Liverpool for the Lusitania’s maiden voyage to New York. It emerges that he is a detective employed by Cunard to be a security operative on the voyage and, sure enough, skulduggery and eventually murder require his professional attention, as a couple of attractive women vie for his personal attention.

The plot is pretty run-of-the-mill – although the identity of the killer is well concealed – and the characters are rather laboriously depicted. The shipboard atmosphere is pretty well done, although there is an awful lot of fact-sharing between characters to show how much research the author has done, and the language by no means always reflects the period. The prose is workmanlike but no more, with a sprinkling of rather lazy, stale usages like “gloomy prognostications” and “with consummate ease,” and there is an awful lot of what seemed to me like padding where pretty obvious things are explained at length and a wholly irrelevant and rather annoying side-plot. I skimmed quite a few passages and didn’t feel I’d missed anything. The denouement is quite well constructed, but the dialogue as it plays out is simply absurd and the subsequent struggle is wholly unconvincing.

If it weren’t for the setting I think I may have bailed in this one, and I’m not at all sure I’ll bother with more in the series. Others have plainly enjoyed this a good deal more than I did, but personally I can’t recommend it.

 

Georges Simenon - The Hanged Man Of Saint-Pholien

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A good early Maigret

I enjoyed this early Maigret story. Previously I’ve often found Simenon’s books quite hard going but I think this new translation by Linda Coverdale is a big improvement on the early-60s translations I’ve read before.

The set-up is, to be honest, pretty unlikely. Maigret follows a man from Paris to Bremen in Germany by a long, devious route on slow trains...out of pure curiosity. There, out of pure curiosity but completely unwittingly, he acts in a way which drives the man to suicide. Maigret then investigates the events which may have led up to this.

The actual investigation is rather nebulous and a little frustrating for both Maigret and the reader, but I found Simenon’s depiction of the characters involved and of the ancient guilt which united them and drove them in different directions to be very convincing and rather touching. Like all the Maigret books this is short at about 120 pages, and the commendable brevity lends it an intensity which I found more involving than I had expected.

I am impressed with this translation and I will look out more of the new Penguin series; I think they may be a cure for my previous slight Simenon dubiety. Recommended.

 

John Bright-Holmes - Lord's And Commons: Cricket In Novels And Stories

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

A wonderful anthology 

I loved Lord’s And Commons. It’s a wonderfully diverse anthology of cricket in fiction, ranging from the hilarious to the deeply touching and gave me immense pleasure. There are some passages with which I was already familiar and many with which I wasn’t; they vary in the degree of enjoyment, of course, but that’s true of any anthology. Overall it’s a truly delightful collection which I can warmly recommend to any cricket-lover.

Catherine Aird - Henrietta Who?

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

 

I very much enjoyed Henrietta Who? It’s a very well written and interesting mystery with entertaining characters and a decent slice of humour.

Henrietta Jenkins comes home from university shortly before her 21^st birthday to identify the body of her mother who has been killed in a hit-and-run incident on a quiet village road. However, a post mortem reveals both that Mrs Jenkins has never had a child and that she was probably deliberately killed. This leaves Henrietta without an identity as she never met her father, and Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby with the problem of why Mrs Jenkins (if indeed she was Mrs Jenkins) was murdered – and whether the two questions are related.

It’s a very readable and enjoyable tale. Catherine Aird creates excellent characters, with Sloan himself being a pleasure to spend time with, and a very good sense of place and the way English village life works. She has an often rather dry humour in her writing which I like very much and which gives the narrative a bit of extra sparkle. Gritty realism it certainly ain’t, but it’s none the less engrossing and enjoyable for that.

I’m delighted to have discovered this series and will certainly be reading on. Warmly recommended.

Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore - Crickonomics

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

Interesting but rather hard going 

I have loved cricket all my life and I like a stat (including a bonkers Andy Zaltzman stat) so I expected to love Crickonomics. It is certainly packed with stats and deductions from them, but to be honest I found it rather hard going.

Crickonomics is firmly based on data. As an example, the first section deals with the influence of class in English cricket and why there tend to be more Southern, privately educated batters, but a predominance of Northern, state educated bowlers. It’s an interesting question (as are many of the questions in the book) and the authors produce lots of data to answer it: analyses to check whether it is true and not just a stereotype (it is true) and several tables of data analysing all sorts of things to do with the issue. There is also a decent discussion of the reasons for it, including views from well-informed people in the game. It’s generally well written, too, and other currently important issues get a similar, thoroughly researched, thoughtful treatment, but for me the balance doesn’t quite work, and I found myself rather slogging through data-heavy accounts and trying to remember that this isn’t just a dry statistical exercise, but an important, detailed look at a game I love. I wasn’t always able to remember that, which meant I found the book something of a slog, I’m afraid.

To be fair, this isn’t really a book to be read straight through; taking a section at a time with breaks would probably improve the experience, and it will be of huge interest and help to those analysing the game and proposing to make changes. However, to this general reader and average cricket fan it was less readable and enjoyable than I had hoped.

(My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Alan Bradley - The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

An excellent, touching instalment 

 

I’ve enjoyed all of this series and I think this is my favourite so far. It is rather different in tone from its predecessors, which works very well. (I think you do need to have read at least some of the earlier books to appreciate this one, by the way. Don’t start here.)

The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches revolves around the discovery of Flavia’s mother Harriet’s long-lost body and its return to Buckshaw. This provokes a mystery about her death and another tragedy closer to home, plus a lot of revelations about Harriet, the de Luce family and ultimately Flavia herself.

The mystery, though, is a relatively minor part of the book, with Inspector Hewitt and others playing rather a background role. Flavia’s delightful voice this time is used to explore an eleven-year-old’s response to grief, her relationships with her father and sisters (and Dogger and Mrs. M, of course) and her own awareness of the world. It’s beautifully done, I think; there are fewer of those laugh-out-loud moments although the humorous tone is there to provide just the right balance, and Flavia’s perceptions and responses are often very affecting. She is beginning to grow up and this series is beginning to grow up with her.

Alan Bradley writes beautifully here, I think. He captures the mixture of bewilderment, desperate sadness, anger and love which Flavia experiences, and also the clear-eyed child’s response to the rituals and behaviour of people around death and the bereaved. Somehow, he manages to keep the book from ever becoming either too grim or too flippantly humorous and the balance is a remarkable achievement.

I loved this. I was a little surprised by its tone, but it was a very pleasant surprise and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Zoe Sharp - Hard Knocks

 

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A cracking read 

Hard Knocks is a whole lot of action-packed fun. It’s the third in Zoe Sharp’s Charlie Fox series; it helps to have read the first two in order to understand some of Charlie’s relationships, but it works fine as a stand-alone.

Charlie, ex-army Special Forces is damaged but very much alive. She is reluctantly roped in to finding out how an ex-colleague came to be shot while instructing on a Close Protection course in Germany. Enrolling as a pupil, she begins to uncover all sorts of complex dodgy dealing, while needing all her physical fitness, ingenuity and deadly skills to survive.

It’s great stuff. Books on similar themes are available by the truck load, of course, but Charlie is a very engaging protagonist, having a woman in the action hero role makes this quite special and, most importantly, Zoe Sharp writes extremely well. Her characters are believable, she deals with the sexism very well and she spins a very exciting, involving yarn.

This may not be great literature, but it’s a great read. Warmly recommended.

Helene Hanff - Q's Legacy

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A very engaging memoir

Q’s Legacy is another very well-written and engaging memoir by Helene Hanff.

The subtitle is a little misleading, I think. Much of the book isn’t about a “lifelong love affair with books” but about the origin and birth of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and its subsequent colossal impact on Helene’s life. That’s just fine by me, and to be fair, her love of books and her debt to Arthur Quiller-Couch in inspiring and guiding that love is evident throughout.

Helene is engaging and honest throughout, for example about how she keeps writing unviable plays and books until realising after many years that she “can only write about what happens to me.” She’s doing that here, and doing it very well. It’s warm, humane, modest and touching in places; her approach to fans is delightful and I found the stories of 84’s publication and subsequent adaptation for TV and the stage quite fascinating.

In short, if you enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road, you’ll enjoy this. I liked it very much and can recommend it warmly.

Alan Parks - May God Forgive

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Another fine instalment 

This is the fifth book in the Harry McCoy series and it’s another very good addition to the series.

It is now May 1974 and McCoy is back at work even though his stomach ulcer makes him scarcely fit. An arson attack on a hairdresser’s leaves five women and girls dead and the city baying for revenge. The three boys responsible are in custody but are snatched while in transit from court. A complex plot emerges involving possible involvement by two of Glasgow’s underworld bosses and a lot of delving into the nastiest aspects of the city, while Stevie Cooper remains a menacing presence in McCoy’s life and in the investigation.

It’s very well done – and about as noir as it gets. McCoy is ill and disillusioned, it is late May but still raining incessantly, there is a wide range of seedy or ruined characters and some of the violence is truly sickening. Nonetheless, it’s an engrossing story with Alan Parks’s evocation of the Glasgow of the period and its characters being as convincing and fascinating as ever and I was completely engaged. There were strong echoes of William McIlvanney here – which is just fine by me.

Parks is beginning to deserve to be ranked with other contemporary giants of Scottish crime writing like Rankin, Mina and McDermid, I think. This isn’t for the faint-hearted, but if you like crime to be really noir, I can recommend this warmly.

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

John Mortimer - Rumpole Of The Bailey

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

Still a delight 

These stories remain a complete delight. Rumpole’s narrative voice, the characters he portrays and the clever conundrums he encounters all make this a hugely enjoyable, engaging read.

Rumpole’s own attitudes are also interesting and rather thoughtfully portrayed amid the humour. He is a crusty, old-school barrister with a healthy scepticism about the traditions and dignitaries of the law, and about the comfortable Old Boy nature of the legal profession. He quotes copiously from The Oxford Book Of English Verse (the Arthur Quiller-Couch edition, of course) but also has a genuine concern for his clients and an understanding of their circumstances which is often lacking in his colleagues who regard court cases rather as they might a game of chess – genuinely trying to beat their opponents, but finding the result of no great consequence either way. Rumpole understands that to the boy going to prison for several years, the result is of very great consequence indeed.

One story here is rather more troubling. In Rumpole And The Honourable Member he defends someone accused of rape, which includes attacking the alleged victim in the witness box. It’s uncomfortable reading, even though it is an accurate portrayal of what did and does happen in such cases. In these #metoo times, Rumpole’s view of the matter looks, shall we say, dated, but it’s a fair example of some of the more serious matters which are considered in these very amusingly told stories.

That said, you can’t go wrong with Rumpole. I’m delighted to have re-visited these stories and can recommend them very warmly.

Cyril Hare - Tragedy At Law

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

Very enjoyable 

I thoroughly enjoyed Tragedy At Law. It’s a leisurely paced mystery, but the real pleasure is in the wit of the writing and the excellent portraits of both Hare’s characters and of the legal system of 1939, after the start of World War II but before rationing and serious attacks on Britain.

The plot...well, it’s slow and revolves around a judge on an Assize circuit who receives threats and then becomes involved in a serious legal matter of his own. Oddly, no murder happens until almost the end of the book, but for me the plot was almost a side-issue. Hare writes with such hugely enjoyable wit and humour, plus a deep knowledge of the law combined with a healthy scepticism about some of its more arcane ceremonial aspects, that this, along with some highly engaging and well drawn characters kept me fully engaged.

This is a very enjoyable read and I’ll be trying more Cyril Hare before long. Warmly recommended.

Rosemary Tonks - The Bloater

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Review:

Not for me 

 

I didn’t get on well with The Bloater. I’m usually very wary of “cult classics” but an enthusiastic endorsement from Stewart Lee persuaded me to try this one. Not a good idea, as it turns out.

The fact is, I didn’t get it. It’s quite well written and the voice of Min, the narrator, is readable enough, but frankly, I couldn’t see the point. First published in 1968, this seems to me to be a sort of late-60s Bridget Jones Diary. Min, the narrator, has a successful career in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and is married. However the Workshop gets just a couple of scenes, chiefly so Min can have awkward relationships with her two co-workers. Her husband, who may or may not be having affairs, gets barely a mention. Meanwhile, Min is being pursued by two suitors – the titular bloater and Billy, whom she seems to actually care for. There’s some chat with female friends and a lot of confused angst...and I just didn’t find it funny or engaging.

Plainly, people whose views I respect really liked The Bloater. I’m afraid I didn’t and I can’t recommend it.

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