Book Review: The Long Water by Stef Penney – an enthralling Nordic mystery with dark echoes from the past

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I’m always excited to see a new novel by Stef Penney. Her new novel, The Long Water, takes its name from a river in a rugged part of Norway within the Arctic Circle, where there’s a string of lakes and rivers, guarded by “mountains that rise out of the water like teeth”. It’s a remote area that once fostered mining, but with most mines now closed, the economy is now more reliant on tourism.

In the town of Fauske, senior high school students are enjoying “russ”, a kind of spring break, taking part in dares, general mayhem and partying all night before the hard work of exams begins. In the middle of this, a popular boy goes missing. Daniel was one of a group of friends who called themselves the Hellraisers and who are admired by everyone for their general coolness. A police search that goes on for days and then weeks yields not the missing boy, but a body in a mine that dates back to 1968, when the mine was closed.

The story draws you in through the eyes of several characters beginning with Svea, an elderly woman living on the outskirts of town with her dog who likes to keep to herself. Her one good friend is Odd Emil, a widower who is also Daniel’s grandfather. Svea has fallen out with her daughter, but is in contact with a granddaughter, Elin, who lives with her father, a rather conservative vicar. Now sixteen, Elin has just come out as gender fluid which at first perplexes her father, but fortunately Svea lends a sympathetic ear.

As well as being a mystery, this is also the story of Svea’s family and ongoing damage from their horrific upbringing. Svea has become strong in spite of this – the father she never knew was a German soldier stationed in Norway during the war, and her mother’s one true love. Her violent drunk of a stepfather taunted her with her doubtful parentage, but at least she had the love of her two sisters.

Elin worries that her being neurodiverse is what drove her mother away, but Svea thinks it’s more likely that her daughter has been troubled by her family’s mental health problems, in particular, an alcoholic grandmother and a fey aunt who disappeared some years ago.

My name is Svea. That’s an unusual name, you might think, for a Norwegian of my vintage. Basically, it means ‘Swedish’, although I could argue that it is a version of the masculine Sverre, from the Old Norse sverrir, meaning ‘wild, swinging’. That’s rather more exciting, but take your pick: swinging, or Swedish; I don’t care. Svea Hustoft. In town, I get called both Miss Hustoft and Mrs Hustoft. Both are equally meaningless. At one point in my life, I was called Svea Ovegaard, but I didn’t like that. Not that Hustoft is any great shakes, but at least it doesn’t have such unpleasant associations. Anyway – what is my vintage? I’m seventy-nine, if you must know, although I think it’s rather rude of you to ask. No, I don’t look it, do I? Don’t think you can get around me with flattery. It’s too late for that. Really, people these days – no manners at all.

The story also follows Benny, Elin’s friend who gets inadvertently caught up as a witness to events on the night of Daniel’s disappearance, while doing something he probably shouldn’t. And then there’s Daniel’s teacher, Marylen, who has a troubled home life and a secret attraction to Elin’s father. They are all interesting characters, well-drawn, who throw different lights onto the central mystery.

So there’s plenty of story threads. How the town deals with the disappearance of Daniel, as well as the discovery of a body pushes the plot along nicely. Elin and Svea can’t help but ask questions while hints of what happened decades ago make you whip through the pages. On top of which, Fauske is such an interesting place for a reader to visit – Stef Penney is brilliant at creating evocative settings – and you have the feeling that there are darker undercurrents that need to be brought to light, particularly around misogyny and prejudice.

While all the characters are easy to sympathise with, Svea is a particularly brilliant creation. She’s crusty and plain-spoken, loves her dog but has secrets too. Her story is slowly revealed, while we wonder if it isn’t too late for her to find peace with the past, reconnection with her family, even love. Stef Penney, who wrote the Costa Award winning: The Tenderness of Wolves, is always worth waiting for and her new book didn’t disappoint. The Long Water is a four and a half star read from me.

Book Review: Mr Campion’s Christmas by Mike Ripley – a fun, seasonal read with both thrills and period charm

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Mike Ripley is the author of the Fitzroy Maclean Angel crime series featuring an enigmatic bandleader as its sleuth. Then about ten years ago he picked up where Margery Allingham left off and has written another twelve novels in her Albert Campion series. I feel as if I’m rather late to the party having never read any of the Campion books, which Allingham began way back in 1929, a kind of spoof, supposedly, of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels.

Having just read Mr Campion’s Christmas I feel I have a bit of catching up to do. The story begins with a bus journey from London, leaving the Victoria Coach Station a couple of days after Christmas. It’s 1962, a year that went down in history not only for the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also a severe season of blizzards that particularly rocked East Anglia. The coach is heading for Walsingham, a Norfolk village famous for its shrines and as such a destination for pilgrims.

Walsingham is also near an RAF airbase, so there are three genial American airman on board, as well as a small collection of odd characters: Hereward Henderson, a history buff and general bore, Miss Pounder, a reserved middle-aged woman, Reverend Breck who is planning to retire in Walsingham, and Fred De Vries, a Dutch art dealer who guards his luggage with his life. It’s a nerve-wracking journey for Graham Fisk, the driver, as snow turns to blizzard, so he’s only too happy to hand over the driving to one of the airmen. But even Oscar can’t keep the bus straight in such horrific conditions and the coach collides with one of the gate posts of a country house named Carterers.

Yes, it’s the home of Albert Campion, his wife Lady Amanda and their son Rupert, just home from his first term at a University in America. The three are hunkering down as the snow falls, along with Campion’s side-kick Magersfontein Lugg, a large man with a few rough edges. The hot meals keep coming thanks to Mrs Thursby, the housekeeper, and the family have also rescued Lloyd Thursby, Mrs Thursby’s deaf father-in-law who has a passion for watching westerns on the TV.

Suddenly the Campions are playing hosts to the stranded coach party and sleeping arrangements have to be sorted. But what starts out as Yule-tide hospitality turns into a hostage situation plus a murder, and it’s a return to the old days for Campion and Lugg who must save the day. It’s a classic kind of thriller, made entertaining and fresh by the quirky characters of the household as well as those from the coach. Most of this group seem to be harbouring a secret, just to make things complicated.

Mr Campion flung open the kitchen door, strode in and turned the light on as if he owned the place, which of course he did. He and Lugg were confronted by a scene of simple domesticity, if the detritus of catering for eight unexpected guests arriving in a snowstorm could be described as simple. Everything seemed to be in its place, or at least where Amanda and Mrs Thursby had left it.
‘If we ‘ad a burglar, he wasn’t peckish,’ said Lugg, indicating the tray of geometrically arranged mince pies Mrs Thursby had baked ‘just in case’ before she went to bed. As if moving chess pieces, he carefully picked out two which did not disturb the pattern unduly and began munching.
‘Can I get you the brandy butter and a pot of tea perhaps?’ hissed Campion. ‘Or can we get on?’

Of course the telephone loses connection so there’s no chance of rescue, and the Campions must rescue themselves, although help comes from an unexpected quarter. Lady Amanda is a modern woman, with a career in the aeronautical industry, and also gets to show her mettle. Just as all seems lost, Campion devises an oddball plan that is very entertaining as well as reasonably nail-biting. Campion hides his skill at handling tricky situations behind a facade of batty eccentricity, that’s a little P G Wodehouse, while his brain is in overdrive looking for windows of opportunity. There are codewords and his number one weapon, the size and heft of Lugg, is eventually deployed.

Bubbling through it all is a steady stream of wit, humorous incidents and smart writing that makes this update of an old favourite nicely readable for a modern audience. But you’re still happily in 1962 and the classic crime writing of this era – the perfect light, diverting escapade for Christmas. Mr Campion’s Christmas is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward – a humorous take on the bookshop mystery, packed with local colour

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I went to an author talk recently at which authors Gareth and Louise Ward described how they came to write a book together set in the New Zealand village of Havelock North where they live and where they own a bookshop. The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone is a delightful cosy mystery and part of the humour for me, anyway – and this is a very funny book – comes from the way the main characters, Garth and Eloise Sherlock, owners of Sherlock Tomes, are seemingly versions of the authors and their world.

In real life, Gareth and Louise were also, once upon a time, coppers back in the UK, or Blighty as they call it. And they do have a large dog with a sensitive personality who is often at the shop – I’ve been there a few times, so I know. The world of these booksellers just seems made for a cosy mystery series, doesn’t it? At the talk I was amused to learn that the dog, Stevie, was a more prominent character in the first drafts, until the editor cut out large chunks with “too much Stevie” scrawled in the margin. So for lovers of mysteries where pets save the day and solve the murder, this doesn’t quite happen, although I am happy to say, Stevie does play a pivotal role in things.

The story revolves around a cold case, the disappearance of schoolgirl, Tracey Jervis, decades before. A bright student with a talent for poetry, Tracey left home, heading for the circus, and was never seen again. There were rumours of her being caught in a clinch with a teacher, but the work she did helping a politician with his campaign seems to have thrown up more questions. As well as being politically ambitious, Franklin White is a property developer, with an arrogance that makes him easy to loathe. And then there’s Tracey’s controlling father; and what about the ex-boyfriend?

Meryl is an artist, as she’s told us often, although I’ve never seen any of her work in Havelock North’s galleries or that other purveyor of fine art, the local coffee shop. She barges past me pulling a granny trolley, which she is far too young to be using. ‘What other calendars have you got?’ she asks, seeming indifferent to the fact that I haven’t set up for the day, or even yet switched the lights on.
Despite having been ordered from the reps in February, the main drop of calendars hasn’t arrived yet. They get later each year and the shipping issues we’ve had thanks to Covid have only made matters worse. ‘They’re in a box up at the counter,’ I tell Meryl. ‘We’ve just had a couple of the smaller suppliers so far.’ I grab two piles of magazines banded with plastic strips from outside the door and hurry after her.
‘What about “Nice Jewish Guys”?’
When we first opened the shop, and didn’t know what we were doing, we got an eclectic mix of calendars of which perhaps the most bizarre was ‘Nice Jewish Guys’. We put a photo of Eloise swooning over it up on Facebook as a bit of a giggle and sold all four copies the same day. Ever since it has been a firm seller every year, though the calendar rep told us we’re the only retailer in New Zealand that stocks it.

Garth and Eloise had never heard of Tracey Jarvis until a mysterious package is delivered to the shop with a copy of a book inside – See You in September, by real-life local author, Charity Norman. The book has been annotated with a message – a call to action to reinvestigate Tracey’s disappearance, and on the package is a reference to Eloise’s old police badge number, which was hardly something anyone local would know. The couple can’t help wondering if there’s a link to a nasty criminal Eloise had helped put away years ago and who casts a lingering shadow.

Other story threads are woven in, the most notable being the decision of one of the world’s best-selling authors to launch her latest book at Sherlock Tomes, a colossal and mind-boggling event that has to be kept under wraps. Then there’s the flower pilferer that is pinching flowers from the shop’s window box as well as the menace provided by some thuggish gang members who try to put a stop to the Tracey Jarvis investigation.

Everything comes together neatly, the plot building to a simmering conclusion full of surprises and fair dose of action. But while the book lives up to it’s ‘cosy mystery’ label, it’s also a view into the enchanting world of bookshops and the people who visit, its quirky and loveable staff, and the curious characters who inhabit the village. Dead Girl Gone is the first in a series, with a second book already in the pipeline to look out for. Can’t wait! This one’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell – a disturbing story about family secrets and the spectre of madness

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I’ve had this book on my bedside table for what seems like forever – a ‘just in case’ sort of book for when I’d run out of anything else that begged me to pick it up. I knew it would be good – Maggie O’Farrell is always good, but the subject matter sounded sobering.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox follows an Edinburgh family. Iris receives a letter from a solicitor about a relative she didn’t know she had, the sister of her grandmother, about to be released from care. Esme Lennox has been in a mental hospital for sixty odd years and now needs to be rehoused. Her name has been put down for a rest home, but there’s not a bed available for some weeks. Can Iris look after her in the meantime?

Iris assumes Esme must be unsafe, or unable to care for herself, or both, and with a shop to run and a busy life, is not confident she can take her aunt on. Her initial impulse is to agree to a temporary solution in a hostel. She collects Esme, a woman in her seventies, but the hostel is unwelcoming, peopled with drug addicts and volatile personalities. What can she do but put Esme up in her spare room and explore other options.

In the meantime we get Iris’s story – her close bond with step-brother Alex; the father who died young; her mother in Brisbane; her affair with a married man. Her little shop selling gorgeous pre-loved clothes and accessories. But the bulk of story is about Esme – her childhood in India with an older sister and baby brother. Her quirky personality, her stuffy, unloving parents and the terrible tragedy before the family’s return to Edinburgh. Esme is bright and rebellious, not sensible and manageable like her sister, Kitty. We follow her growing up and the events that tip her over the edge.

Iris waits for Esme to open the door but nothing happens. She puts her hand on the doorknob and turns it slowly. ‘Good morning,’ she says, as she does so, hoping she sounds more upbeat than she feels. She has no idea what she will see behind the door.
Esme is standing in the middle of the room. She is fully dressed, her hair brushed and neatly clipped to one side. She is wearing her coat, for some reason, buttoned up to the neck. There is an armchair next to her and Iris realises that she must have been pushing it across the floor. The expression on her face, Iris is astonished to see, is one of absolute, abject terror. She is looking at her, Iris thinks, as if she is expecting Iris to strike her.

It’s not a happy story, not at all, but it casts a light on the way women with mental health problems, or even if they were just a bit unruly, could be sent away to asylums. All was needed was a determined, usually male relative, and the signing off a doctor. Maggie O’Farrell imagines how a young woman like Iris would feel on discovering that her grandmother had a sister she’d never mentioned, and that that sister had been never been out of her mental facility for sixty years. Just how do you deal with that?

The two discover more about each other as secrets emerge, and in facing up to the truth, Iris also faces up to the truth of her own life, in particular her own relationships. It’s a compelling read and I was not in the least disappointed, in spite of the tragedy of Esme’s situation, as the story surges on to an attention-grabbing finale. I was hooked – I am always hooked with Maggie O’Farrell. I’m not sure if it’s her crisp writing style, or her immensely interesting and empathetically drawn characters, but her books are just so satisfying. As is this one. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is a five star read from me.

Book Review: The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher – a wheelchair-bound octogenarian on the trail of a killer

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Novels set in assisted living facilities are becoming quite a trend. I love the way authors such as Joanna Nell and Richard Osman create active and determined elderly protagonists, giving them a new lease of life when everyone else seems to think they ought to be taking things easy.

And you can say that about The Night in Question, which is partly a murder mystery, but a lot more besides. I was soon happily engrossed in an engaging story, but also impressed by the beautifully crafted writing. Of course I should have known I was in safe hands when I saw a recommendation on the cover from Clare Chambers.

The Night in Question is told from the point of view of Florrie Butterfield, eighty-seven and because of a mishap with some mulled wine, has to get around in a wheelchair. She has a comfy flat in Babbington Hall, a former stately home now with various levels of care for the elderly. A cheery, friendly sort, her plump form swathed in pastels, Florrie doesn’t look all that sharp, but appearances can be deceptive. For when two events take place – the first resulting in a death, the second written off as an attempted suicide – Florrie is convinced that someone else is to blame.

Teaming up with Stanhope Jones, another resident she’s got to know chatting about Shakespeare near the compost heap, Florrie is determined to get to the bottom of it. The story will unmask events that are long past, a tragedy that can’t be forgotten or it seems forgiven. But in doing so, Florrie’s own personal tragedy begins to surface, an event that has dogged her since she was seventeen.

As Florrie and Stanhope hunt down clues, research online and interview the Babbington Hall staff and residents, we slowly learn Florrie’s past. Delving into an old cheese box full of mementoes, she remembers the people she has loved. These include her parents, Bobs her brother, best friend Pinky, who was as tall as Florrie was round, and the six men who each almost captured her heart.

Florrie opens her eyes. It feels a small, quiet thought; she merely notes it, at first – there it is – as if a bird has landed inside her, preens a little, settles and closes its wings. But she continues to stare in the darkness.
Can this be true? Is it possible? And she thinks, Yes – for no other reason than it feels easy and right. It feels to fit, just so – like a good shoe. And she remembers Sergeant Butterfield at the kitchen table, saying, ‘A good policeman will listen to this, Florrie’ – tapping his chest with his middle finger. This.
Pushed. She was pushed.

Bobs was the one who probably had the most influence on how Florrie would lead her life, returning from a tank regiment in World War II, badly burned. Always yearning to see the world, Bobs implores Florrie to travel for both of them and do everything they had planned as youngsters. So while Pinky married and had a family, Florrie answered adverts in the paper for jobs in France, then Africa. With each there’s a certain someone she remembers fondly. There’s more travel and more mementoes, new relationships – but no one she dares trust with the truth of her past.

We’ll have to wait until the present day crimes are solved before we find out what it was that happened to Florrie as a girl, the tragedy only Pinky and her great-aunt every knew about. In the meantime, Stanhope does the physical things Florrie can’t – the illicit searches and foraging in the recycling skip – while Florrie chats to people. The two become closer, and the reader can’t but wonder if one day Florrie will tell Stanhope her story.

The Night in Question is a brilliant read, well paced and peppered with terrific characters. Stanhope is charming, a quiet former Latin teacher with a gentle wit. There’s Magda, young and tattooed with a heartbreak of her own, and Reverend Joe with his massive beard, ACDC T-shirts and a tendency to let out the odd swear word during church services. There’s an interesting cast among the other residents, nosy ones and gossipy ones, people Florrie tries to avoid in the dining hall, and others she feels sorry for. It all adds to a rich and entertaining story.

In finishing the novel, I can’t help feeling I’ve discovered a wonderful new author. Susan Fletcher has written seven previous books so I’ll look forward to hunting through her backlist. Her first novel, Eve Green, won the Whitbread First Novel award, and there have been other award nominations. This one’s definitely a nicely fresh take on the rest-home murder mystery and I can’t wait to see what she does next. The Night in Question is a four-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Huang Bo-Reum – a novel about new beginnings, friendship and reading

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There seems to be a never ending supply of novels set around bookshops and libraries. Many are about a lot of other stuff as well, such as relationships, social issues and even war. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is set in Seoul and as such promised a different kind of read. It follows the story of Yeongju who has turned the corner on an unsatisfactory phase in her life in order to fulfil a dream – to open her own bookshop. I’m sure many readers can relate to that idea.

It is here that Yeongju slowly comes out of her shell. She has to learn not only about business side of things, but she’s going to have to talk to people. This is difficult for someone who has a lingering sense of sadness – it’s a while before the reader discovers why. To start with her bookshop is a kind of haven – she can read when there are no customers or think about new stock or write her blog.

Then there are the connections she makes through coffee. I must say I like the idea of bookshops where there’s coffee and comfy chairs to sit and enjoy it. Yeongju finds she can’t do everything and employs Minjun as barrista. He has felt like a failure after his promising university education didn’t lead to a great career. But he finds his feet in his love for good coffee, enjoying meeting up with Yoengju’s coffee roaster friend Jimi who runs Goat Beans.

Other characters appear, including Jungsuh who just sits and knits, wondering how often she needs to buy a coffee to be allowed to stay. There’s Mincheol, a boy whose mother wants him to find something to get passionate about, hopefully books, and Seungwoo, the author who arrives to give a talk on writing. They’re all characters who are dealing with life, happiness or the lack of it, and finding their way. Running through it all are references to books, and the philosophical conversations they inspire.

Yeongju was usually a pragmatic person but when she was deeply engrossed in a story, she was like a person trying to grasp at moving clouds. Minjun found the juxtaposition interesting, as if she had one eye on reality while the other gazed at some faraway dreamland. Just the other day, she’d asked him another question about life.
‘Do you think there’s any meaning to life?’
‘Huh?’
‘I don’t think there is.’ Her proclamation was met with silence. ‘That’s why people try to make sense of their own. In the end, everyone’s life is different, according to the meaning they find.’
‘…I see.’
‘But I don’t think I can find it.’
‘Find what?’
‘Meaning. Where can you find meaning? In love? Friendship, books, bookshops? It’s not easy.’

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a charming, gentle story – one that won’t keep you up at night, but will quietly amuse and give you something to think about. I enjoy the odd book about people’s workplaces, and this book delivers on that, not only the bookshop, but the coffee roasting business, as well as the rat-race of people’s previous careers. It’s a fitting book for the time, with Covid lockdowns having shown us other ways to work and possibly also to think about what’s really important in life.

For the most part this was an interesting read, but for me the plot seemed to lag a little. The indecisiveness of the characters could be somewhat frustrating. Another minor issue I had was with the dialogue – I sometimes had to work to figure out who was speaking. This may well be because in Korean there are indicators such as word endings to show gender, that we don’t have in English – and which didn’t come through in the translation. Or maybe it was just me.

On the other hand, in spite of finding the book a bit slow at times, I have been left thinking about some of the ideas it presents. I am certainly glad to have read it. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a three-star read from me.

Book Review: Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers – a remarkable story, engrossing and heart-warming

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I bought Shy Creatures as soon as it came out as an ebook, and unlike many previously purchased novels, it didn’t sit on my bedside table languishing while I was distracted by other books passing by. It beckoned to me and I was soon engrossed – and gosh, what a satisfying read it is.

Shy Creatures is set for the most part in 1964. Helen Hansford is an art therapist at Westbury Park, a facility for mental health patients. She has been having an affair with Gil Rudden, one of the doctors, which is complicated by his wife being a distant cousin of her mother’s. Gil has promised Helen that as soon as his children are old enough to leave home, he will divorce his wife and marry her. Helen accepts the status quo and muddles on with a less than satisfactory home life, a nagging mother, and a job where she doesn’t feel she makes a lot of difference.

For all that, Helen is passionate about her work and the way Westbury Park is run. The gates are always open, and while some therapy involves dulling the patients’s minds with drugs, doctors like Gil have more modern ideas, which is one of the reasons Helen fell for him. An incident at a nearby house leads Helen and Gil to discover a man who has been shut up indoors for at least ten years along with his only relative, a frail and elderly aunt.

William Tapping, now in his late thirties, has been found in a bad way, in a state of undress, a beard down to his stomach and apparently mute. The house is in a state of disrepair, filthy windows letting in no light, the garden a jungle. When social services intervene, William and his aunt are whisked away to Westbury Park. Here Aunt Louisa implores Helen to find a container hidden in the flour bin that no one else should see, but while she’s at the house, Helen also discovers some drawings in William’s room that display the work of a talented artist.

At the discovery of this cache, Helen’s pulse quickened and she felt a tingle of excitement. No one who had passed through the art therapy room during her residency had shown anything approaching this level of talent. Of all the professionals at Westbury Park, she was uniquely placed to help this hidden man emerge from his place of silence. Even Gil did not have her advantage.

The story follows Helen’s efforts to make a connection with William through art as well as her tracking down some old acquaintances – people he knew at school – in an attempt to find out more about him. We have the ups and downs of Helen’s relationships with Gil, as well as her family, particularly with a teenage niece who has a kind of breakdown. Woven into all of this is William’s story, going back steadily in time until we get to the day when his life changed dramatically, putting in place the kind of house arrest his family imposed on him.

It’s a fascinating story with Clare Chambers’s usual wit and brilliantly evoked characterisation – one of the things that puts her books on my must-read list. And it’s a sad story too, as we consider William’s wasted years. The author recreates the era of the sixties – the music and clothes as well as social attitudes to women, to the mentally frail. The limited choices for girls once they leave school – particularly if they want to please their mothers. We also have the war years, and the privations of rationing, the nightly fear of air raids.

If there’s a theme that often appears in books by this Clare Chambers, it is about finding a place in society when you’re not a natural fit. Many of her characters are on the quirky side and with William, we have someone who quite possibly never will find a suitable niche in the world – particularly a world like Britain in 1964. This, plus Helen’s relationship woes pulls you through the story, along with the eventual revelation of a terrible secret. It’s another brilliant read from Clare Chambers – I can’t recommend it enough – a five-star read from me.

Book Review: 33 Place Brugman by Alice Austin – an engrossing read set in WWII Brussells

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Some stories are so much about the setting that it is like a main character. This is the case for 33 Place Brugman, an apartment building in Brussels whose residents are adjusting to life during World War II. As we know, German forces invaded Belgium in 1940 and began an occupation that would last another four years. In this novel, we are treated to a glimpse of normal life before that, and how that changed with the Occupation. The fear and the pressure to conform, to dob people in or risk your life, or else to take courage and resist – to say nothing of food shortages and loss of work.

On the fourth floor of Number 33 are two families: Francois Sauvin, an architect and his daughter Charlotte, and their neighbours the Raphaëls. Leo Raphaël is an art dealer who lives with his wife Sophia, and their children, Esther and Julian. Losing his wife in childbirth, has left Francois to raise his daughter alone, but he’s been lucky to have support from the Raphaëls, particularly Sophia, who has her nanny help out with Charlotte’s care so that Francois can work and sleep.

The children all grow up together, and the two families dine together regularly. So when the Raphaëls disappear one night, without word to anybody, it’s a bolt from the blue. They are a Jewish family, and with stories about Nazi atrocities and the likelihood of another war, the Raphaëls have been lucky to get out when they could.

The Raphaëls leave in the middle of the night, and they leave everything behind.
The sofas and chairs and beds and lamps and heavy carpets and the dining table. The films we made are in a box together with the projector, a set of oil paints, and a blank canvas. On it is a note that reads, For Charlotte. I gasp, the air coming in tight and sharp. I might have thought I was dreaming, but for that note. When I see it, I know the Raphaëls are truly gone.
In their wake, rumours swirl through the building. The Raphaëls haven’t left everything. They took their silver. And the paintings? The paintings simply disappear.

The novel follows the first years of the war and how it affects both the Raphaëls and those that remain at Number 33 – not just Francois and Charlotte, but also Masha, the Russian emigré who lives in the attic, making a living as a seamstress. There’s an elderly widowed Colonel with his dog Zipper, and nosy and unlikeable Miss Hobert – both live below the Sauvins. Next floor down are the DeBaerres whose son Dirk is an old school friend of Julian’s. Each has a part to play in the story as each has to examine their conscience and decide what is the right thing to do.

And this is what the story is so good at. It throws unheard of challenges at its characters, who are complex enough for their decisions to be difficult ones. To keep in the good books of your oppressor, to look out for your neighbour, or to fight back? How to feed your family and to keep them safe.

The novel is also a love story. Firstly, there’s Charlotte, who meets Philippe at art school, where she’s talented and able to see the world in a different way, being quite colourblind. But then there’s Julian, who has always loved Charlotte, which worries his mother. The story also brings in the work of the French Resistance in Paris, through the nefarious Harry, a friend of the Colonel, as well as the war in the air, with Julian signing up for the RAF. This gives the novel plenty of strands, and adds some excitement to balance out the quietly tense periods of the plot, as pressure slowly builds.

For me, 33 Place Brugman was an engaging novel and I was soon swept up in the lives of Charlotte, Julian and their families. It’s quite nail-biting at times, when the reader knows more about the danger around the corner than the characters. The story is also threaded with philosophy, particularly that of Wittgenstein, who is discussed quite a lot – but not knowing a lot about him, I found these references somewhat beguiling. The writing is beautiful though; the characters come to life on the page, as do the settings.

I would have loved to learn what happens to the characters by the end of the war, as the story finishes even before D-Day. An epilogue, maybe? But overall I really enjoyed this original view of the war, and its splendidly evoked setting – so it’s four-stars from me. 33 Place Brugman is to be published on 11 March, 2025 . This advance copy was provided by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Book Review: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld – a warm and witty novel that explores the affairs of the heart

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I loved Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld’s modern interpretation of Pride and Prejudice, written for The Austen Project and published in 2016. It was smart, funny and romantic, and a very clever update. So I was expecting a similar vibe with Romantic Comedy, a novel about a sketch writer for a late night TV show and an unexpected romance.

Sally Milz has been writing comedy sketches for The Night Owls for almost ten years and has seen a lot of talent come and go. When fellow writer Danny starts dating Annabel, a beautiful actress who is also super talented and bright, Sally is peeved. Why is it that fairly ordinary guys like Danny can date and even plan a future with women who are way out of their league, when it never happens the other way around? There have been several Danny/Annabel type matches at the studio alone but you never see an ordinary-looking woman, or even a mildly pretty one, catching the eye of handsome star in his prime.

The arrival of Noah Brewster, a hugely successful and drop-dead gorgeous music star, as a guest host on the show gives Sally the perfect opportunity for a sketch to highlight this anomaly. The Danny Horst Rule would star Noah as the gorgeous guy who tries to date an average girl. Sally gets more of her skits voted in for the show that week, and so gets to spend more time with Noah at rehearsals. She finds him surprisingly nice, and what’s more, he apparently likes her. He’s easy to talk to and seems to seek her out.

The story follows their interactions and Sally’s growing attraction to Noah, a relationship that she discounts, because there’s no way a guy like that would ever think of her romantically, is there? We meet other people on The Night Owls, particularly fellow actors like Viv and Henrietta, who are Sally’s friends and sounding boards, whose advice is sometimes helpful, and often hilarious. Viv herself has met an eye doctor she’s attracted to so there’s advice going both ways. And we get a bit of Sally’s backstory – a failed marriage, the colleague who broke her heart.

Working on The Night Owls, Sally works excruciatingly long days, and nights, taking naps in her office, but then she’s a perfectionist and gives her work her all. She has decided never again to date a colleague, and has no time for more than an occasional night spent with someone she doesn’t care about. When Noah upsets the applecart of her carefully managed feelings, she doesn’t know what to do.

I heard someone say my name, but at first I was so deeply asleep that I incorporated the voice into my dream. I thought it was Bernard, the janitor, coming to empty my trash can, and, seamlessly, I mumbled, “You can leave the molluscs.” I felt a hand lightly pat my shoulder, and the person said, “Sally, I’m really sorry to bother you” – not a commonly uttered phrase at TNO – and I pulled the T-shrit off my eyes and the earplugs from my ears, sat straight up, and said, “What do you want?”
Hunched over the couch at such an angle that my sitting up had brought our faces within a few inches of each other was Noah Brewster.

This was a fun read for the most part. I found the look behind the scenes of a television show fascinating and Sittenfeld peoples it with plenty of interesting characters and scenarios. Danny’s and Annabel’s relationship has its ups and downs and so there’s plenty going on. There are ups and downs for Sally and Noah too, and a lot of the story has the reader wondering: will they or won’t they? There’s Covid and the lock-downs, long-distance communication and a lot of soul searching. So while this is in many ways a romantic comedy, it’s also at times a serious look at love and life.

Curtis Sittenfeld has written a smart, thoughtful and very romantic novel which has moments of laugh-out-loud humour. My only quibble is that Sally can be difficult company at times, with a tendency to shoot herself in the foot to make a point. Sometimes I wanted to give her a good telling off. So while I didn’t enjoy Romantic Comedy quite as much as Eligible, it’s still entertaining and clever – and a three-and-a-half-star read from me.

Book Review: In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan – a police pairing that breaks the mould

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I always like to check out the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year awards – the shortlists are full of my favourite mystery authors (Elly Griffiths, Ruth Ware, Abir Mukherjee, and that’s just for starters). This year’s winner was Jo Callaghan’s debut novel, In the Blink of an Eye, which breaks new ground in that there’s a new police officer on the team, and it’s AI. The premise of this novel was just too good to ignore.

DCS Kat Frank has been away from the Warwickshire police on bereavement leave, and her husband’s death is still a bit raw. Her son, Cam, who has just completed his A Levels, has been having therapy, his anxiety over losing a second parent who has a dangerous job never far from his thoughts. So Kat has requested a safe option for her return to work, something less on the frontline. Her boss and mentor Chief Constable McLeish has a surprise in store. He’s signed Kat up to run a missing person’s cold case team that also will be trialling AIDEs (Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entities).

Kat is not happy. She’s an intuitive cop who follows her gut. You can’t solve cases with an algorithm, she declares. Meanwhile the scientist who has designed the AIDE, Professor Okonedo, with her own axe to grind, is sceptical of Kat’s skills and of the police in general. Reluctantly Kat agrees to the trial, taking on ambitious DI Rayan Hassan and shrinking violet, yet empathetic, DS Debbie Browne. Okonedo introduces AIDE Lock, a bracelet-type band that you can talk to like Siri, and which can whip up facts, statistics and probabilities in seconds. In holographic form, it’s remarkably like a person.

With hundreds of cold cases to chose from, Lock determines that recently missing young males will be more easily found. But Lock and Kat disagree over which. Kat’s preferred case is Tyrone Walters, a high-achieving young black man from a deprived area. Lock prefers Will Robinson, a young white male not much older from a wealthy home. According to Locke, statistics suggest the Robinson case would be easier to solve because he’s white. Kat is appalled as this racial bias and has a feeling that Tyrone has been a victim of foul play..

Ultimately, Hassan suggests the trial review both cases, and Professor Okonedo assures Kat that Lock can “perform the functions of many officers in just a fraction of the time”. This makes Kat only bristle more, but she reluctantly agrees. If only the team realised that what starts out as a test, a case chosen by statistics versus one chosen by gut feeling, will converge into a single case that is still active.

Picking up her briefcase, Kat paused at the door. She needed to leave her new team with something more motivational than her obvious irritation. ‘Remember, less than one per cent of missing people turn up dead, so we still have a good chance of finding both boys alive.’

‘Just to clarify, that figure represents one per cent of all the missing,’ said Lock’s voice from her wrist. ‘Only four per cent of adults are still missing one week after being reported, which is the category that Tyrone and Will fall within. So, in actual fact, there is a twenty-five percent chance that both boys are already dead.’

This really was an edge of the seat read, as woven into the narrative are scenes from the point of view of someone who has been kidnapped, drugged and immobilised. The clock is ticking and we can only hope that Kat and Lock will sort out their differences enough to solve the crime and save the missing lads. While Kat is learning how to manage Lock and use its obvious skills – downloading data, scanning social media for clues, extrapolating info, etc. – Lock is learning too. And it needs to, particularly with reading body language and developing social skills.

This makes the book really interesting as it takes time before Kat and Lock gel enough to be useful together. For a lot of the time they’re the angry cop and the irritatingly rational cop. Slowly, Kat’s team start to come into their own: Hassan in spite of his confident manner has a softer side and stuff going on at home, while Browne has a big problem to deal with, but fortunately Kat has enough patience to bring her out. Although mostly Kat is on edge, drinks too much and tends to fly off the handle.

It will be interesting to see how Kat and her officers, as well as Lock, evolve over the course of this series – there’s already a second book, Leave No Trace, plus a third to be published in April next year. Quite the feast. Whatever your thoughts on AI, In the Blink of an Eye illuminates it in real-world scenarios. Jo Callaghan has done a lot of research on the subject and how she imagines AI in a policing environment is fascinating. It’s a four-star read from me, and I can’t wait for the TV series. It would be a cracker.