Book Review: The Fine Art of Uncanny Prediction by Robert Goddard – the invisibly detecting Wada returns for a new puzzle in her home country

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Like Andrew Taylor (see previous post), Robert Goddard is a recipient of the CWA Diamond Dagger Award for his long career in putting out superbly plotted crime fiction. Mostly he’s a writer of stand-alone novels, but his latest book takes us back to Japan where we first met Umiko Wada in The Fine Art of Invisible Detection and a case that brought her to England and a convoluted mystery that helped her cut her teeth as a detective.

In The Fine Art of Uncanny Prediction, Wada has taken over the investigative business set up by her late boss, Kazuto Kodaka. Wada is a middle-aged woman who was widowed young. She’s outwardly unremarkable and, like many fictional private investigators, her work is her life. With a brother in New York, it’s left to Wada to check in on her mother, which is problematic in more ways than one.

The story gets going with a new case, an elderly man who has lost contact with his son. Fumito Nagata is worried his son, Manjiro may be depressed, even suicidal, following the collapse of his business, but Fumito is unable to contact him. Mr Nagata wants Wada to find him and report back. The younger Nagata is also the nephew of Teruki Jinno, head of a prosperous construction business that has been in the family for decades, a business that did well out of rebuilding Tokyo after the war.

Wada’s investigation will take us back to those dark days after Tokyo was firebombed, into a labyrinthine plot full of strands but all focused on power and money. She’s also being pestered by her brother to see to what’s going on with their mother – she’s taken on a lodger, an ex-Sumo wrestler who has fallen from grace. Wada’s brother is appalled.

‘I have you down as a solitary person. Is that right?’
‘It is not wrong.’
He frowned at her. ‘Do you ever let your guard down, Wada?’
‘Occasionally.’
‘Am I likely to see it happen?’
‘Unlikely, I would say.’
Then he grinned. ‘See, that’s what I like about you. You’re just so damn honest.’

The story also slips back in time to the mid 1990s and a case being investigated by Kodaka, again involving the Jinno construction company. Kodaka is asked to determine the recipient of large sums of money, paid into a bank account by the late founder of the company for over fifty years. The case will also have Kodaka asking questions around the Kobe Sensitive, the mysterious woman who phoned in a prediction about the Kobe earthquake – a prediction that was ignored but proved to be tragically accurate.

The plot flips between the two time periods, and the cases of the two detectives that will, of course, show how they connect towards the end. There’s a lot going on and a raft of characters to remember – I made frequent use of the character list at the start of the book. But I persevered, because Goddard is such a brilliant storyteller, there’s a thread of humour running through it all and Wada is such an interesting character – one of those ordinary people flung into extraordinary circumstances and somehow coping surprisingly well.

Yes, there’s plenty of danger, and Wada can’t ever be sure who to trust. There’s her connection to Kodaka, a more typical fictional detective who drinks too much, but knows his stuff, and has a will to stand up for the underdog. I enjoyed how the story includes how the two met, and how Wada became involved in the tricky business of detecting, much to her mother’s disappointment.

The setting of Tokyo seems very real – we get the trains, the distinctive suburbs and Tokyo’s hinterland. There’s a visit to San Francisco too – both settings come to life on the page. Underneath what turns out to be a ripping good yarn, full of twists, are thoughts on the devastation and ongoing effects of war, and those who prosper from it. The possibility of predicting earthquakes – both scientifically and through a kind of ‘gift’ is a fairly original concept for a detective novel and adds a good deal of interest.

There are still plenty of surprises as it as it all comes together towards the end, and as a reader I felt I was in the hands of a seasoned professional, an author that makes it all work so cleverly, creating a supremely satisfying read. Not that I was surprised. He’s done it so often before. The Fine Art of Uncanny Prediction is a four and a half star read from me.

Book Review: The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor – a ripping read set during the reign of Charles II

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Andrew Taylor has had a lot of practice in the art of mystery-thriller writing. At one point in his long career he gave us the Bergerac series, which was also televised – I fondly remember watching it aeons ago with my parents. There have been numerous more series and standalone novels, and in 2009, Taylor was awarded the Diamond Dagger, the Crime Writers Association’s most prestigious award for a lifetime’s contribution to crime writing in the English language.

But in my view, he was just warming up. His latest series is one of my favourite historical mystery series – the James Marwood and Cat Lovett novels set in the years following the Great Fire of London – hence the series title: Ashes of London. The two main characters are frequently at odds with each other, but somehow their paths always cross, usually when there’s murder involved.

As you might recall, Marwood is a rising young man in the corridors of government and in The Shadows of London we catch up with him as an assistant to Lord Arlington, the King’s most trusted advisor. Cat has meanwhile been busy with her architecture business – there’s so much work to do in a city half destroyed by the Great Fire. Her latest project involves rebuilding an almshouse, but work grinds to a halt when a body is found at the site, the man’s face battered beyond recognition.

The local magistrate, Mr Rush, was previously involved in the project, but had a falling out with Cat’s client, Robert Hadgraft, and puts a hold on any work until the murder is resolved. Cat is desperate to resume work as she needs to keep her workers committed to the building work and somehow pay off her suppliers. She turns reluctantly to Marwood to see if he can persuade Arlington to intercede on her behalf. Before you know it, the two are investigating the murder, and yes, again, the unpleasantly conniving Duke of Buckingham appears on the scene.

Marwood has had run-ins with Buckingham before, in particular with the Duke’s vicious henchman, Durrell, whose distinctive appearance is noted by a witness connected to the recent murder. The story is all set for more regal intrigue and takes you to Newmarket, where the King and his court turn up for the spectacle of horse racing. But before we get there we meet Louise, a maid of honour to the Queen, left behind at Whitehall because of an ailment.

Louise is the other thread to the story – a young impoverished noblewoman, once a maid of honour to the King’s late sister. Charles II has given her a home along with one or two other French ladies-in-waiting following his sister’s death. But Louise is worried that her youthful beauty will be irresistible to the King. The Ashes of London series sheds a light on a number of the King’s characteristics, some of them endearing, but here we see him as something of a sexual predator. And Louise should be worried. On top of everything else she has as secret, a problem she’s turned to the Duke of Buckingham, of all people, to handle.

Louise thought with the cold, merciless clarity of a trapped animal that the ambassador would have made a fine preacher had he not chosen instead to be a pander.
Colbert leant even closer. He skewered her with those uncomfortable eyes. His voice hardened. ‘Kings are not like other men. They are chosen of God, and to serve them is a great blessing. To serve two would be doubly blessed. Do you agree?’
‘I seek to serve God and my king, sir,’ she said in a voice that was barely audible above the noises outside. ‘Always.’
He sat back and gave her a thin smile. ‘Of course. I had expected no less of you.’

Everything builds nicely into a thrilling well-paced story, as Marwood juggles the demands of his work with the murder investigation while his enemies close in. There’s a new love interest, and when all seems lost, help comes from a surprising direction. There’s a ton of period colour and insight into the workings of court so you know Taylor has done his homework. But also there’s the perilous situation for women of the time. Cat struggles to be taken seriously as an architect, but at least she strives to be independent. Other women, no matter what class they belong to, have little choice when it comes to their future, doing anything they can to keep a roof over their heads.

The Shadows of London is number six in the series, and I confess to feeling a lump in my throat as I turned the last page because I simply didn’t want it to end. Although it has a very good ending, and you have a feeling that Marwood and Buckingham will have more scores to settle, so there’s promise for more books. I certainly hope so – I’m sure there’s lots more to say about the era of Charles II, and loads more interesting history to mine. The Shadows of London gets five stars from me.

Book Review: A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe – a tragedy sparks this original coming-of-age story

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I was at a writers festival recently where a former bookshop owner declared she pressed this book into the hands of every customer she could that ventured into her shop. A Terrible Kindness had caught my eye before that, reminding me of the episode of The Crown (on Netflix) that describes the terrible events surrounding the Aberfan disaster. A colliery spoil tip collapsed after weeks of heavy rain, forming a slurry that slipped downhill and smothered houses but worst of all a school. The death toll topped 140; 116 of the victims were children.

A Terrible Kindness describes the life of newly qualified undertaker William Lavery. We meet him at an undertaker’s dinner, to which he’s finally had the courage to invite Gloria, the love of his life. He’s just nineteen and has a bright future with Lavery and Sons, the business run by his uncle Robert, and he’s come top of his class in embalming. But the dinner is interrupted by the news about Aberfan and the call goes out for embalmers to head to the mining town to prepare the bodies for burial. William is a good-hearted sort and immediately volunteers.

William’s experiences at Aberfan will change his life for ever. Today, anyone helping at such a disaster would be offered counselling. But this is 1966 and it’s back to business when William gets home. This isn’t the only traumatic event that’s happened to William. He lost his father to cancer as a young boy, and something has happened to him at school. A promising singer, he has been selected for a prestigious school in Cambridge where for training as a chorister, his voice full of potential.

Two pieces of music haunt the book. I’d never heard Myfanwy before, but it’s a popular (and achingly sad) Welsh song composed in 1875. The other is Allegri’s Miserere, which I was more familiar with. In fact if you think of boy sopranos, then this is probably the music that springs to mind.

As he sits next to the window on the tired upholstery, with a spring nudging him in the backside, William is unexpectedly overwhelmed with a sense of his mother. Not the mother who moved to Swansea without him and now manages the biggest music shop in Wales, but the mother who took him to Cambridge, who knelt on the gravel in her stockings to tell him how proud she was, trying so hard not to cry. He stares out of the window, not bothering to wipe his face until he feels drips on his hand.

But the book is about a lot more than tragedy and music. William has to navigate a problematic relationship with his very loving mother. Evelyn adores William, he’s all she has left, and has high hopes that singing will save him from the family undertaking business. Robert Lavery was her husband’s twin brother, a living breathing reminder of what she has lost, and Howard, also in the business is Robert’s other half. Homosexuality couldn’t come out of the closet in 1966 and it’s a lingering awkwardness between Evelyn and Robert. But they all love William. As does Martin, the great friend William makes at school, and Gloria of course but is she prepared to wait for him to sort himself out?

These are all wonderful characters, all loving William, but how do you love anyone back when your heart’s full of pain. Jo Browning Wroe puts William through a lot before letting him find some resolution. For such an apparently blameless young man he certainly creates a storm around him.

The Aberfan disaster is hauntingly made real in the descriptions of the work of kind strangers tasked with a terrible job. It’s sensitively done as is the work William does in the mortuary at Lavery and Sons. You develop a new respect for the work of undertakers and learn a lot of the process. It definitely takes a certain kind of person and the author, having herself grown up in the business, is just the writer for this story.

A Terrible Kindness has polarised reviewers, particularly the way the Aberfan disaster is employed as a device to change a character, suggesting this is a little insensitive. Much of the story has little to do with Aberfan, but then perhaps that’s true of lots of wider events that can affect a character, like war for instance. As a reading experience, I felt I disengaged a little – you can get a little frustrated with William – and the story lags a little. But a little after the middle things pick up and I was pulled into the story again.

Overall, I’m glad I read A Terrible Kindness and hope Jo Browning Wroe has another book in the pipeline. She’s created an original and heartfelt story and has brought Britain in the 1950s and 60s to life. Her characters are ordinary and yet special at the same time. This debut novel gets three and a half stars from me.

Book Review: The Patient by Jane Shemilt – a creepily suspenseful novel with two picturesque settings

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I felt sorry for Rachel from the first page of Jane Shemilt’s latest novel. Rachel’s a respected GP, and lives in the picturesque town of Salisbury with her teacher husband. But things are distant between them – a spark has died and life’s a bit dreary. And then there’s the daughter – Lizzie, who scarcely talks to Rachel, harbouring a grudge about the lack of quality time Rachel was able to give Lizzie growing up.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is Rachel has stepped over the line with a patient and now her world’s in chaos. She wasn’t even supposed to be working when a suicidal patient turned up at the medical centre. Rachel recently lost a patient to suicide, so gives Luc plenty of time, listening as he pours out his heart. When Rachel discovers Luc is a new neighbour, having renovated the old house she remembers belonging to a childhood friend, she also meets his glamorous American wife, Ophelia, and her charming brother and Ophelia’s little boy. The perfect family – or are they?

Luc has a everything, it seems, but he and Rachel are drawn to each other but, as we all know, doctors aren’t supposed to embark on relationships with their patients – especially vulnerable ones with a mental illness. We meet Rachel as she’s recollecting everything that happened in the months preceding – her lawyer has told her to write it all down while she’s in custody. As a reader we realise that Luc has gone off the rails, that a terrible crime has been committed and somehow Rachel’s involved.

The plot see-saws in time, back and forth, filling in the gaps – Rachel’s fear she’s being followed, her tricky relationship with a woman at work, an obsessive patient, her escape to a conference in France and her affair with Luc. It seems nobody’s on her side – apart from her dear neighbour Victoria, but she’s away on photo shoots a lot or off caring for a dying mother.

As the narrator, Rachel is the perfect character for a story like this. She’s intelligent, obviously, but very trusting, so the plot delivers plenty of surprises as facts rise to the surface. As a reader you are in the position of constantly yelling, look out behind you! And why is she so vague about whether or not she locked up her house? She really needs to be more careful. But she also seems to know her stuff as a doctor – you can tell Jane Shemilt’s own work as a GP inspired her story.

The setting is gorgeous. As well as Salisbury it takes you to the South of France, and the countryside around Arles, where Van Gogh painted his sunflowers. Luc’s mental illness is a kind of echo of Van Gogh’s. But inside of a prison cell is not so nice, particularly when you’re on the cusp of losing everything.

The Patient is a well put-together, nicely written addition to psychological thriller genre. There are plenty of surprises and the before and after timeframe maintains suspense nicely. I enjoyed the novel as an audiobook, read by Hilary McLean, who gave the character of Rachel just the right tone. It’s very easy to binge on psychological thrillers like these, they can be so compelling, particularly the good ones. The Patient is a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda – a twisty tale, nicely turned, with a determined young protagonist

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These psychological thrillers – or domestic noir, as they’re sometimes called – can become quite addictive. Megan Miranda’s novel The Last House Guest is a nicely-turned mystery full of suspense and that often used device of scenes from before woven in with those after. What starts out as a story of a young woman investigating the death of her best friend soon turns into a complex tale of family secrets, power and money.

Avery works for the Loman family who rent out summer cottages in the coastal town of Littleport, Maine. Every summer, the town is bursting at the seams with wealthy summer visitors, Avery doing the donkey work of managing these short-term tenancies, the Loman parents with other fish to fry back in Connecticut. At the end of the season, the younger Lomans – Sadie and Parker – organise a Plus-One party at one of the houses, until one year the party ends in disaster.

Nobody saw Sadie Loman at the last party, but somehow she has ended up lifeless in her party clothes at the bottom of a cliff. Avery doesn’t believe for a moment that Sadie killed herself, and Avery should know, they’d been best friends for years. The story flips back to fill in Avery’s story – the loss of her parents in a car crash, her wild teen years, and her rescue by the Lomans. And then there’s her friendship with Sadie and how it faltered not long before the party.

It was hard to simultaneously grieve and reconstruct your own alibi. It was tempting to accuse someone else just to give yourself some space. It would have been so easy. But none of us had done it, and I thought that was a testament to Sadie herself. Than none of us could imagine wanting her dead.

Odd things start to happen – electricity gong out, a break-in at one of the cottages. Another renter complaining that someone had lit some candles in their cottage while they were out. When Avery finds Sadie’s phone, shortly before a special remembrance ceremony for Sadie, Avery starts to piece together the events leading up to her death.

There’s a lot for Avery to worry about. If there’s a killer out there, she is surely in danger and she has no one she can trust. And her falling out with Sadie just before her death means she can’t go to the police without implicating herself. And the police are still sniffing around, Detective Ben Collins always hovering hoping to catch a word.

The story builds to a thrilling ending as more secrets are revealed, more is revealed from witnesses, more lies uncovered. There is enough of a twist at the end to keep the reader guessing, and tempers boil over in a final showdown with the killer. The before and after plotting is a little beguiling at times, but it works in that it reminds you what it’s like to be remembering things in bits or piecing together events as you find out more information.

I found the beginning of the book reminded me a little of Wuthering Heights, which I know seems a little crazy. Avery reminded me of Heathcliffe, a young person given a new chance, a cuckoo in the nest of the wealthy family. Her memories of Sadie veer into being obsessive, she also has a wildness about her, a temper that has got her into trouble in her youth. But then she’s had a rough time of it, losing her family so young. Her situation placing her not quite part of the wealthy Loman clan, but not well-regarded by the townsfolk makes her a maverick character and as such she’s alone and vulnerable. But as a reader, you can never quite know how much you can trust her version of events.

I’ll be happy to pick up another Megan Miranda novel when I feel like another dose of suspense – she does it well. The writing is smart, the characterisation interesting and the story never lets up. The Last House Guest is a four star read from me.

Book Review: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward – a struggling family, a desperate girl and a hurricane

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It’s so easy to go for a book that’s a nice relaxing read and totally forget the wider world. But this time I took up Salvage the Bones with the idea that this might be a fairly gritty read and, well, yes it was. But it is just so instantly immersing and the storytelling so engaging that once I’d picked it up, I really didn’t have much say in the matter.

The story follows a poor African-American family living in Mississippi in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. This family has such a lot to deal with. Told from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Esch, we’re soon in her world – a house on the outskirts of town which she shares with older brothers Skeetah and Randall, a much younger brother, Junior, and their alcohol-dependent father.

Daddy is very hurricane-aware and weather warnings impel him to get his house in order – the bottled water and extra supplies, gathering the timber to board up the windows, but his children have other things on their minds. Randall has hopes of going to basketball camp – he’s got potential, and if he can perform well at an upcoming game, he can earn some sponsorship. Skeetah is more entrepreneurial; his pit bull is due to give birth to puppies and China being such a good fighter, he thinks he can sell the pups for a good price.

Junior has been cared for since day one by his older siblings and is a bit of a loose cannon, though very much loved. And that’s the thing. There is such a lot of love in this family between the siblings, but without a lot of parental guidance things pretty soon go haywire. And no one is more desperate than Esch – in love with one of her brother’s friends who is blatantly using her, and pregnant. But Esch is also a reader, dipping into a book of mythology from school, especially drawn to the story of Jason and empathising with the ill-used princess Medea.

After Mama died, Daddy said, What are you crying for? Stop crying. Crying ain’t going to change anything. We never stopped crying. We just did it quieter. We hid it. I learned how to cry so that almost no tears leaked out of my eyes, so that I swallowed the hot salty water of them and felt them running down my throat. This was the only thing that we could do. I swallow and squint through the tears, and I run.

The plot is really compelling as the siblings resort to all kinds of escapades to help fulfil their ambitions, or to just get by. It’s a very different world, there’s danger and lawlessness, and the story doesn’t shy away from the violence inherent in these kids’ lives, and of their acceptance of it as a kind of normal. But there’s also camaraderie and loyalty, a tight-knit community that sticks together. Plenty to keep a story going as it is, but on top of everything else, there’s a hurricane coming.

The story builds up to a dramatic climax – the weather event we are expecting makes its presence felt and it’s truly life and death. Earlier in the year, in my neck of the woods, we also experienced a cyclone (that’s what we call hurricanes here), and as I was reading this was well aware of the kinds of situations that people can find themselves in if they don’t get out in time, or if things get a lot worse than predicted.

I raced through this book, particularly the final chapters, engrossed in Esch’s world, but also dazzled by the writing. Jesmyn Ward won a National Book Award for this novel, a prize she’s won again for Sing, Unburied, Sing, and she’s brilliant, confronting, but also immensely readable. I’ll be putting Ward on my must-read list and give this book five stars out of five.

Book Review: The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams – a war-at-home story set among Oxford’s printing presses

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Pip William’s first novel, the inordinately successful The Dictionary of Lost Words was always going to be a tough act to follow. But when The Bookbinder of Jericho came my way I was soon swept up in Peggy’s story – the work she does at the Oxford’s Clarendon Press in the bindery’s folding room with other women. It’s a segregated working environment, the women collating the pages from the printing room, folding them ready for stitching and binding, a man’s job. Just as it’s men who are always the machine operators and compositors, mechanics and readers.

Oxford itself is also segregated along class lines. Peggy and twin sister Maude live on a canal boat, still missing their mother who died several years before. The are ‘town’, the ordinary working folk who live outside the walls that separate the academic inhabitants of Oxford – or ‘gown’. But we’re on the brink of World War I, and things are set to change.

Peggy can’t help trying to read the books they are folding; she’s smart and yearns for a higher education. Her mother was also a reader, and their canal boat is crammed with books and parts of books that didn’t made the grade, But her sister needs her, or so she thinks, and Peggy sticks by her side. Maude is a little fey, her fingers always busy folding even in her spare time, her conversation a parroting of the phrases of others. The arrival of Belgian refugees, and in particularly Lotte, a grief-stricken woman who joins them at the folding bench, shakes up Peggy’s relationship with her sister, challenging her excuses for avoiding change.

I’d been walking past Somerville all my life, imagining what it was like for the women on the other side of the wall. Now, here I was, a little bit of Jericho littering an Oxford quad. I remembered when I first thought of being one of them – I’d been listening when I shouldn’t have been. She’d be well suited to the Oxford High School, my teacher had said. I know that, Ma had replied, but she won’t leave Maude. My teacher persisted. I think she’s bright enough for college. Ma sighed, It’s not always enough, though, is it? I’d thought of the income I could start earning at the Press, the difference it would make. I’d stopped listening

Other characters breeze through the book and rock Peggy’s world. There’s Gwen, the upper class girl she meets when the two volunteer to read to wounded soldiers. Gwen is ‘gown’, but finds Peggy’s world fascinating. Peggy can’t be sure if her friendship’s genuine or is she just a pet project? Then there’s Bastiaan, the badly scarred Belgian soldier Peggy is drawn to during her hospital visits. He would definitely be ‘gown’ if he were at home, studying architecture, but war has a levelling effect and the two meet as equals.

Tilda is the girls’ mother’s great friend, a flamboyant actress who becomes a VAD at the front, her letters revealing the horrific realities of life in the field hospital at Etaples. There’s Rosie in the canal boat ‘next door’, whose son Jack marches off to war with so many of the boys from the Press. We also momentarily meet Vera Brittain (Testament of Youth) when Peggy attends a function for the refugees at Somerville – the women’s college Peggy eyes with longing.

As Peggy’s views of things are challenged by her new acquaintances, the war grinds on, news of horrific battles and casualty lists filtering back to Oxford. The book is divided into parts which roughly equate to a year in the war, and a book from the presses. In the background there’s another battle going on – the battle for women’s rights, the suffrage movement on hold for the duration. This enlivens the conversations Peggy has with Gwen, but it’s hard for Peggy not to feel bitter. The vote for women when it comes will only be for women over thirty and landowning ones at that – the vote by no means universal.

As the plot goes, The Bookbinder of Jericho isn’t exactly riveting reading. Like Peggy’s life, all the action seems to be happening to someone else, somewhere else. Peggy seems to be in a kind of holding pen, waiting. As a reader I found myself waiting too. What makes the book interesting is the world Pip Williams has created. The little enclave in the printing presses of Oxford is well researched and described in detail. Lovingly so. Then there’s Peggy and Maude’s canal boat and life on the water. Everything tucked into corners to make the most of the space. The frugality of their world – apart from paper, which is everywhere.

So The Bookbinder of Jericho gets top marks for characterisation and world building, for bringing history to life. But I did find myself rushing through it to get to ‘the good bits’ rather than savouring it. There’s still a lot to like and even more to think about so I’ll probably read this author again. This novel’s gets three and a half out of five stars from me.

Book Review: A Million Things by Emily Spurr – a resilient young heroine struggling with loss

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I was drawn to this book by its compelling storyline – a young girl all alone, trying to pretend nothing is wrong after her mother disappears. Well, that’s how it seemed to start with. The book’s told from the point of view of ten-year-old Rae – but it’s not your standard first-person narrative voice. Often Rae is talking to a ‘you’ – the mother who isn’t there.

It would be easy to assume that the mother is missing because she hasn’t come home. But Rae’s mother has been mentally ill for quite some time. No wonder Rae knows about the routine of managing meals and getting herself to school, of walking Splinter, the dog. Rae has had to be the grown-up a lot of the time. Only this time Rae’s mother has ended her life in the backyard shed. With no one else to turn to, Rae must manage as best she can on her own.

Rae decides to keep going on her own. She becomes adept at keeping up appearances. She gets herself off to school, takes care of the house, and feeds the dog. There’s no time for grief. If only that nosy old lady next door wasn’t always on her front verandah watching. But Lettie has secrets of her own, things she doesn’t want anybody knowing about. It’s only when Rae hears her calling for help one day that the two discover that they need each other.

Each time you’d go, noises muffled and sharpened and silence got loud. I’d stand still, trying not to breathe, waiting for the door to open and for you to come back through it. The silence you left after you grabbed the keys from the bowl on the table and slammed out the door would stand like a person beside me. The bang made me jump every time. Even though I knew it was coming. Knew from the second your eyes lost focus and tightened and you stopped seeing me and saw only this thing ruining your life.

Things become more complicated by the arrival of new people along the street, Oscar who is the same age as Rae, just wants to make friends, but when he parrots critical comments of his mother about Lettie, Rae finds herself sticking up for her neighbour. She doesn’t want social services nosing around.

It is heartbreaking the lengths Rae will go to pretend everything is normal, alleviated in some part by her growing friendship with Lettie. We slowly get pieces of Lettie’s story, her family tragedy. The tension builds as all the plates Rae tries to keep spinning descend one by one and a dramatic event brings help from an unexpected quarter.

This is one of those books that has you holding your breath – you are so much in Rae’s impossible world. The friendly banter between Rae and Lettie lightens things a little, but the old woman’s situation is horrendous as well. You feel how easy it is for life to get on top of you and the book becomes a sensitive portrait of the effects of mental illness, but of resilience as well. The reluctance to let someone else into your life when you need help; of not wanting anything to change. Of holding onto the grief that ensnares you, that keeps the missing loved one there as a constant presence.

A Million Things was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Prize and won the BookBrowse Best Debut Novel 2021. Emily Spurr is certainly a writer to watch. A Million Things gets four stars from me.

Book Review: No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby – a light and humorous adventure

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This novel was a breath of fresh air, a lively read that was a welcome pick-me-up without challenging the brain cells too much. Part rom-com, part mystery with a little comedy of manners thrown in, No Life for a Lady follows Violet Hamilton who lives with her father in the English seaside town of Hastings.

We’re in the final years of the 19th century, and at 28, Violet should be happily married off by now, according to her respectable banker dad. But Violet is determined never to marry, her parents own marriage having been somewhat less than blissful. So much so that a decade ago, Violet’s beautiful mother Lily disappeared. She’d just popped out to visit friends one evening and never returned.

Lily’s disappearance might have been an accidental drowning as she was last seen on the pier. Had she fallen into the sea and been washed away? That certainly seems to be a possible theory and the one Mr Hamilton propounds to Violet, all the better for her to put her mother behind her and move on with her life. But Violet feels she would know if her mother had died, and thinks she could be out there somewhere, maybe even needing help.

When Violet decides to hire a detective, she sets in motion a chain of unforeseen events that spell disaster on one hand, but also push Violet to becoming a sleuth herself. Frank Knight is the only detective in town and eagerly takes on her case. But Violet is unimpressed with his lack of professionalism, and his assumptions about Lily seem set to defame her rather than save her.

The disappointments of the decade had been compounded by the realisation it was almost impossible for a lady to take up a respectable profession. I had been set on the idea, but now my attic was filled with the skeletons of half-finished hats, faded botanical specimens and, most tragic of all, dusty portraits of a few worthy occupants of the town. This last career had ended abruptly when I persuaded the wife of the town mayor to pose for a portrait. I had faithfully included all three of her chins, upon which she told me she had only sat for me out of sympathy, forbade me to continue as an artist and left, chins wobbling in fury.

Violet finds an old newspaper which leads her to Benjamin Blackthorn, a reluctant detective who has given up the trade in favour of selling furniture in the old, slightly seedy part of town. While he is the opposite of Knight in every way, Benjamin refuses to take on her case, but Violet wears him down enough to allow her to help with one or two cases that require a woman’s touch. Violet is more enthusiastic than subtle at the outset, which leads to some hilarious confrontations.

Dolby’s manuscript for the book was the runner-up in the Comedy Women in Print awards, and there are plenty of fun scenes, the writing’s witty, but there’s plenty to think about too. There are issues around the constraints placed on women in the era, of class and the lack of choice when it comes to making a living: marriage, servitude or prostitution seem to be the main options for women. Add to that the resigned tedium of being stuck in an unhappy marriage; the ignominy of divorce.

Packed with an assortment of quaint and humorous characters, the story builds to a dramatic conclusion involving surprising revelations and a fair amount of danger. For a young lady of her time, Violet has to step outside the norm of proper behaviour but finds allies in surprising places. The ending leaves us with possibilities for a sequel, perhaps more cases for Violet to solve. I shall certainly be keen to read more of Violet’s adventures. No Life for a Lady gets four out of five stars from me.

Delving into the Classics – the Return of the Spin

~ Judith ~ 3 Comments

Just when I’ve been revisiting the life of Katherine Mansfield the Classics Club are rolling out another Spin Challenge. This is the perfect challenge if you feel like a change from reading the latest thing everyone’s talking about. Or if you want to escape into another era or ease into a writing style that has a slower more considered pace. Or maybe you just want to ditch the quandary of what to read next. I can probably say yes to all of that.

So I’ll be reading a book from the following list that corresponds to a number chosen by the Classics Club.

1 Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930)
2 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945)
3 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (1938)
4 The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (1957)
5 The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing (1950)
6 A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute (1950)
7 The Garden Party and other stories by Katherine Mansfield (1922)
8 A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell (1951)
9 The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Buchan (1938)
10 Vittoria Cottage by D E Stevenson (1949)
11 Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon (1928)
12 Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence (1913)
13 The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1855
14 Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1953)
15 To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
16  A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (1951)
17 Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann (1939)
18 The River by Rumer Golden (1946)
19 The End of the Affair by Graham Green (1951)
20 Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929)