Lee Farnsworth - Odd Bird

 

Rating: 3/5

Review: OK but not great 

I thought Odd Bird was OK but nothing more. It is narrated by Simon (“Bird”) who is an expert on the mating behaviour of birds. However, his knowledge of human mating behaviour is catastrophically hopeless, and this is a pretty standard RomCom in which the hapless Simon is guided and helped in his quest for a mate by his slightly louche, devious friend Phil.

It’s decently written and Simon’s voice is quite amusing for a while as he talks about humans and their love lives as if they were the subject of his academic study. Men and women are invariably “males” and “females”, for example, a relationship is a “pair-bond” etc. and he analyses his own and others’ behaviour as if it were the subject of one of his bird studies. Simon is besotted with one woman, completely unable to understand that another is very keen on him or the behaviour of her jealous suitor...you get the picture. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it does pall after a while; there were quite strong echoes of The Rosie Project (which I loved) but for me Odd Bird just didn’t have enough freshness or real humour to carry a whole book.

This might make a reasonable beach read, but I can only give it a qualified recommendation.

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

Elaine Feeney - As You Were

 

Rating: 1/5

Review:  

Unreadable 

I heartily disliked As You Were. I read as much as I could bear and gave up, I’m afraid.

It is the story of Sinead Hynes who is A Woman With A Secret who develops cancer. On the ward to which she is admitted her past and those of other patients gradually emerge...and I found it next to unreadable. My chief (but not my only) problem was the style; Elaine Feeney is a poet and the book is written in a sort of half-prose-half-poetry style which didn’t work at all for me. It is the sort of writing whose purpose seems largely to draw attention to itself rather than to conveying meaning or feeling or narrative in a convincing way. Thus, for example, when the narrator went into hospital previously, it wasn’t to have her appendix removed, it was to have “a thickened, viscid appendix plucked off my bowel.” I can just about live with the overblown adjectives, but “plucked off” is just too much for me here, and there is sentence after sentence after sentence of this stuff.

I did wade through quite a lot of the prose to try to get to what was beneath, but Feeney introduces so many issues that the book loses what focus it may have had. (And it’s all wrapped up in prose which is recondite and of an immanent gelatinous viscosity which...etc.) I expected to be deeply involved with Sinead’s experience as I have been very close to two dearly loved women as they died of cancer, but I wasn’t drawn in at all. The book seemed to be saying nothing new, but going over very well-worn ground in an off-puttingly self-conscious way.

I was persuaded to try this by rave reviews from writers whom I admire like Lisa McInerney, but it really wasn’t for me and I can’t recommend it.

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

 

Christopher Fowler - Full Dark House

Rating: 4/5

Review: Very enjoyable

I enjoyed Full Dark House. I’ve read a couple of the later Bryant and May books and am now going back to the start; this first book in the series sets the scene and the tone very well.

We begin with the present day destruction of the Peculiar Crimes Unit in an explosion and the discovery of some of Arthur Bryant’s remains in the debris. John May, his aged and long-term police partner looks back into their first case together during the blitz to find out why he died and we get a narrative intercut between the present and the case itself. In 1940 Arthur and John are embroiled in a controversial theatre production where cast members keep being killed, and we get the combination of Arthur’s eccentric erudition and John’s steady investigation and logic which finally reveal the truth – which is pretty implausible, but that’s rather the point of the PCU.

It’s a very enjoyable read. Fowler’s intricate knowledge of all sorts of arcane areas and mastery of Greek myth, wartime conditions and much else gives the book real solidity in addition to a good, well constructed mystery and some genuine humour. His characterisation and dialogue are excellent. I did find the cutting between present and past slightly awkward at times, but it’s generally very well done and didn’t spoil my enjoyment at all. I am looking forward to reading the whole of the series and I can recommend this warmly.

Kristen Lepionka - What You Want To See

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Another very good instalment

What You Want To See is the second very enjoyable instalment featuring Roxane Weary the human, flawed but very likeable Ohio private detective.

This time, Roxane is still rather under-employed but is hired by a man to discover whether his wife is having an affair. A few days later the wife is killed and a complex plot develops involving organised crime, sophisticated fraudsters and Roxane refusing to believe the orthodox police explanation. It’s exciting, involving and very well written, with an engaging believable protagonist, very well portrayed characters and excellent dialogue. Kristen Lepionka also gives some real depth to the book in places so it’s far more than just another disposable thriller.

This is shaping up to be a really good series and I’m looking forward to reading the next. Warmly recommended.

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.)