Terry Pratchett - Going Postal

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Still brilliant

This was one of my favourite Pratchetts when I first read it and re-reading now just confirms how brilliant it is.  It's a great story, it's full of remarkable character insight presented with great humour and compassion and it is amazingly clear-sighted about finance and industrial rapacity.  And it is, of course, very funny.

In short, it's Terry Pratchett at his absolute best – and not much more need be said, I think.  Very warmly recommended.

Christopher Fowler - Hall Of Mirrors

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An entertaining read

I enjoyed Hall Of Mirrors.  It is the first Bryant and May book I have read; it works fine as a stand-alone novel, but I suspect that there are quite a few running gags and references which I'd have picked up better if I had read some of the previous ones.

It is 1969 and, following a major debacle while in pursuit of a suspect, Arthur and John are sent to a crumbling stately home in Kent to guard a threatened witness in a forthcoming high-profile trial.  A good deal of chaos ensues, including a number of deaths, and an Agatha Christie-like mystery develops. 

It's a very well written tale and Christopher Fowler has a lot of fun both recreating and sometimes tweaking the nose of the Golden Age country-house mysteries.  There is some genuine humour and the period is very well evoked, while the story itself is actually a pretty decent puzzle with two engaging protagonists and an enjoyable cast of characters.

If I have a gripe, it is that at 400 pages the book is too long and did begin to drag on a bit, but it's an enjoyable, entertaining read with some good social history underpinning it.  Recommended.

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

Colin Watson - Hopjoy Was Here

Rating: 4/5

Review: 
Another enjoyable instalment

I am coming to love this series and Hopjoy Was Here, the third, is another good one.  This time Purbright and his team investigate a possible acid-bath murder, as agents of National Security hover because one of their own may be the victim.  It's a well told, quite twisty tale, but as always it is Colin Watson's writing which is the really enjoyable thing.

Watson has a dry, sardonic take on things, illustrated by this lovely little example as Purbright calls to interview a neighbour of the house which is the crime scene: "Mrs Alice Sayers celebrated the installation of a police inspector in her drawing-room by serving a jug of hot milk and water delicately tinctured with coffee essence..."  The book is full of such amusing and penetrating little nuggets of characterisation, including a very enjoyable satire of self-important spies, while the plot moves on at a fairly leisurely pace - which is just fine by me.

My sole reservation is that women are treated with almost universal contempt, and there are some observations about their sexuality among other things which border on the offensive.  Even allowing for the prevailing attitudes of the period, I did find this uncomfortable.  However, there is so much else to enjoy here that I can still warmly recommend the book.

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

Kevin Powers - A Shout In The Ruins

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing

Like so many others, I thought Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds was quite exceptionally good.  Sadly, A Shout In The Ruins isn't nearly of the same quality.  There is a lot of Powers's lyrical and sometimes very beautiful writing, but as a novel I found it very disappointing.

The story cuts between time periods (seemingly almost compulsory for new novels at the moment) around the Civil War and the early 50s, both in Virginia.  The stories are…well…confusing, to be honest.  There are illustrations of the cruelty of the slave era and depictions of the characters who both suffered and imposed that suffering, and there is also a pretty good evocation of its legacy in the era of segregation.  Both of these still have relevance today and it should form a powerful indictment of racism in modern society, but for me it was too mannered in structure, too disjointed and too full of disparate characters to have the necessary coherence.  I also felt that after books like The Underground Railroad, Days Without End and The Sellout (to name just a few) it was treading well-worn ground without adding much.

I'm sorry to be critical of an author I respect greatly, but that's the truth of it.  It was well written and it certainly wasn't terrible, but it just didn't engage me and I didn't think I'd gained much from reading it.  Only a very qualified recommendation from me, I'm afraid.

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

Tony Parsons - Die Last

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Gripping and intelligent

This is a gripping and intelligent police thriller from Tony Parsons.  It's the fourth in the Max Wolfe series, but I read it without having read the previous three and enjoyed it very much.

This time, DC Max Wolfe investigates people trafficking after twelve women are found dead in the back of a lorry.  It's a well-researched and passionately angry story which it moves at a very brisk pace and kept me gripped throughout.  Parsons writes very well; I found Max's narrative voice very convincing, the characters and background well painted and the story itself largely believable.  There are some fairly significant implausibilities at times, one or two unlikely coincidences, but in a work of fiction like this I didn't find them too off-putting.

This is a very good, exciting read which makes important points while largely avoiding preaching or speechifying.  I enjoyed it and can recommend it warmly.

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

Cathi Unsworth - That Old Black Magic

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Very disappointing

Cathi Unsworth is a very good writer whose previous work I have liked very much, but I'm sorry to say that That Old Black Magic was a severe disappointment.

Set in 1942, the plot is about Nazi spies who use spiritualist and other occult circles for their nefarious ends.  There is an engaging protagonist in Spooner, a policeman turned undercover agent who sets out to unravel the mystery, but apart from that I found very little to keep me reading here.  The pace is funereally slow, the plot is convoluted and rather confusing and - although I'm astonished to be saying this of a Cathy Unsworth novel – it's not all that well written.  For one thing, there is masses and masses of clunky exposition; Unsworth has plainly researched her subject and period very thoroughly, but the picture she paints is to me rather crude and clichéd.  There are some pretty predictable developments among the seemingly endless stream of just telling us things – including stuff like every single component of one very minor character's Sunday roast, for example.

I'm sorry to say that I got so fed up that, after persevering well beyond the point where I was the remotest bit interested, I gave up – which was a considerable relief.  I hope Cathi Unsworth returns to form in the future, but this one most definitely wasn't for me.

(My thanks to Serpent's tail for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Gavin Lyall - Spy's Honour

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Rather unsatisfying

This is the start of Gavin Lyall's Ranklin series which sees Ranklin at the very birth of the British Secret Service in 1912 as the First World War looms.  It's well written and the political background is very well researched and painted, but I found it rather unsatisfying overall.

The book is a series of slightly disjointed episodes in Ranklin's career as it begins and he becomes a more experienced agent.  There is a bit of a Bulldog Drummond feel to it – no doubt deliberate – which doesn't quite work for me.  Although Ranklin is a far more thoughtful character than the gung-ho literary heroes of the time, there isn't a lot of subtlety (or plausibility at times) about the plots, so it had a slightly cartoonish feel to me much of the time. 

Spy's Honour is readable enough because Lyall was a good writer and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to try it, but I won't be bothering with any more in the series.

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