Tag: British settings

Book Review: The Good Liars by Anita Frank – a haunting novel where old sins cast long shadows

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

It is interesting how claustrophobic a large country house can seem in a nicely gothic suspense novel like this. In spite of extensive grounds and views that take in woods and a river, the country house at the heart of Anita Frank’s latest novel, The Good Liars, is taut with post-war misery, its inhabitants hemmed in by events of the past.

We catch up with the Stilwell family in 1920. There’s Maurice Stilwell, who is mentally damaged by his time in the trenches. He lives at the atmospherically named Darkacre Hall with his beautiful and somewhat petulant wife, Ida, and his younger brother Leonard. There’s also Maurice’s great friend, Victor, manly and debonair, who was once in love with Ida, but with Maurice’s family money, was always going to be the losing suitor.

Unlike Maurice, Leonard is sound of mind, but a physical wreck, and this is why Sarah is taken on as his nurse, a great relief to Ida, as it has been nigh on impossible to find staff willing to stay at Darkacre Hall. It is soon clear that Ida has earned the hatred of the locals because of her actions in the early stages of the war, handing out white feathers to young men who needn’t have signed up, either because of their age or occupation. Many felt compelled to enlist and some lost their lives.

It’s a chilly, gloomy house, that Sarah has come to but being a good sort, she soon mucks in, not only helping Leonard but taking on a lot of the housekeeping. You can’t help wondering if she’s too good to be true, but she’s kindly and observant which helps the story along.

Sarah is beginning to find the dark wood that dominates the Hall horribly oppressive. The incessant panelling and ancient furniture greedily absorb all glimmers of light. Everything around her appears drab and morose. Even the silverware on the table – the candlesticks, the cruet set, the cutlery – is tarnished, and though the electric lights of the low-hanging brass candelabra above them are lit, two of the bulbs have blown, meaning that, beyond the immediate table, the features of the room are concealed in dense shadow, in which anyone – or anything – might lurk without fear of detection. She finds it a most unsettling thought.

Into this setting comes a police inspector who is looking into a cold case – the disappearance of a teenage boy in the summer of 1914. There’s been a letter apparently, and new information to suggest the boy was in the Darkacre Hall grounds when he went missing. A Sergeant Verity is sent to ask further questions, and this throws the household into a spin. Maurice becomes agitated, and Leonard even more miserable.

The reader is soon aware that there are secrets everyone is hiding, events from before and during the war that have never been accounted for. While everyone else quivers and frets, Victor, the man of action, makes a bold decision. Meanwhile Sarah has a sense that there is a ghostly presence at the Hall, which adds to the atmosphere. Can the aptly named Verity get to the bottom of things?

Anita Frank builds tension expertly, switching the point of view between characters who huddle in corners, or take drastic steps. As well as a major weather event that keeps everyone even more housebound, there are one or two surprises you probably won’t see coming. And while you get caught up in the story, desperate to know how it plays out, you’re treated to some excellent writing too.

While this may not be the cheeriest novel – the dark events of a terrible war haunt every moment for the characters, in more ways than one – it is all put together really well. I will be happy to look out for more by Anita Frank – The Good Liars is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: After the Funeral – a short story collection that’s as compelling as any novel

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I rarely seem to pick up short story collections these days. There are always so many brilliant new novels coming out all the time, and you get used to the way the plot teasingly unfolds with the longer form, the unrolling of scenes and the character development. But sometimes a short story is just such a wonderful thing. A small, complete entertainment. It can say a lot too.

And that’s what you get with Tessa Hadley’s latest collection, After the Funeral. These twelve stories are for the most part family stories, delving into the reactions and emotions when something happens that upsets the applecart in relationships, between siblings, between parents and daughters and with couples. The subtle undercurrents of the class system are also there. Things are suitable or not suitable, or plainly ludicrous in a particular milieu.

Several stories have children dealing with parents acting alarmingly. The title story has two daughters whose world changes after the sudden death of their father, leaving their beautiful mother, who is something of an airhead, to provide for her family. It’s the 1970s and women didn’t necessarily equip themselves with career prospects back then. A family connection soon sets her up with a job in the office of a dentist. Of course the dentist falls in love with her. In “Cecilia Awakened”, Hadley perfectly captures that feeling you have when you discover as Ceclia does at fifteen, what an embarrassment family holidays, and in particular, parents, can be.

Many of the stories have their roots in the last decades of the twentieth century, while others dip back into the past from the present day. In “The Bunty Club”, three sisters return to the family home when their mother is dying in hospital. They are such different characters, and in a few deft paragraphs, Hadley vividly describes their characters as older women, bookish Pippa, capable Gillian and glamorous Serena – what drives them apart and what can bring them together again.

— Bathroom’s empty! Gillian said. — You should get in before Serena embarks on any aromatherapy. I wish she’d wash the bath out when she’s finished.
— She’s up already, Pippa said. — Look! Worshipping in the garden.
Gillian came to stand beside her. They were spying, and meant to say something dry and funny about their sister, taking advantage of watching her unseen: dancing in the long grass, flitting like a sprite in her black cotton tiered skirt and satiny top – which she’d most likely got from a charity shop, because she was solemn about waste and recycling.

“Funny Little Snake” is set in hippy era London, and is a heart-breaking story of middle-class neglect of a young child, and the woman who attempts to rescue her. In fact there isn’t a lot of good parenting on offer in the collection – distant or missing fathers, mothers wrapt up in their own lives, families recreating themselves after loss or divorce. Tessa Hadley’s writing is too crisp and sharp for the stories to seem downbeat; interesting developments make them crackle with energy.

I’d already enjoyed an earlier novel, The Past, by Tessa Hadley, which was another brilliant look at a family and shares some of the themes on display here so I was expecting to enjoy this collection. I read these stories one after another, but a collection like this could happily sit on the bedside table, ready to be dipped into again and again. But they are so moreish, I dare you not to keep reading until they’re all finished. After the Funeral gets four and a half stars from me.

Book Review: Zero Days by Ruth Ware – a compulsive thriller from a master of the genre

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I always enjoy reading about an interesting new business or career I’ve not come across before – the processes, the clients, the marketing. In Ruth Ware’s latest book Zero Days we’ve got a couple of business penetration security specialists – husband and wife team Gabe Medway and Jacintha (Jack) Cross. Their business, Crossways Security, tests out security both inside and out for their customers. Gabe, an expert hacker does the computer side of things, leaving Jack, pint-sized but super fit, to break in at night, testing alarms, locks and security procedures. They make a great team.

The story begins with Jack entering a client’s premises, from climbing a six foot wall, through to avoiding CCTV cameras, sneaking through doors, disabling alarms and evading the security personnel. Gabe is constantly in her ear, helping her find safe corners and exit points. She has a few close calls but ultimately gets out unscathed, a bit like a character from a Mission Impossible movie.

But heading back to her car, she bumps into the head of security which means a trip to the police station where she tries to contact her client. The minutes tick by, and it’s the small hours before she gets home, only to find that Gabe has been murdered. Shock and anguish delay her call to the police leaving some hours not accounted for when she is later interviewed by the senior investigating officer, DS Malik. Her sister Helena implores her to get a lawyer – spouses are always the first suspect in a murder, they have the means and opportunity; all the police need is to find a motive.

Aside from the grief and shock Jack is experiencing, an email informing her of a life insurance policy to the value of a million pounds adds to her woes. And the way that Malik seems to be homing in on her during a voluntary visit to the station causes alarm bells. Suddenly it seems that the police have chosen their perpetrator, and if they lock up Jack, no one is ever going to find out who the real killer is, the same person who is framing her. With a few more security sidesteps, Jack exits the police station and goes on the run.

Inside the station it was noisy and smelled of cleaning fluid and used coffee cups. As I waited in line to speak to the officer behind the front desk, I couldn’t help scoping the place out as if I were on a job. Two exits – one to the street, unmanned; one to the interior of the station, no lock as far as I could see. There was probably an activation button under the desk. One fixed CCTV camera in the corner with a huge blind spot that covered most of the right-hand wall – not a very good design for a police station. The odd thing was that I had no memory of any of it from before. Shock had wiped half the night’s events from my brain – which felt strange, but no stranger than mechanically assessing the building’s risk profile in a world in which Gabe no longer existed.

The book is set for the most part over seven days, as Jack disguises herself, evades capture, copes with injury and tries to piece together what it was that Gabe was doing that got him killed. She has a bit of help from Helena, a busy mother of two, as well as Cole, Gabe’s best friend who was like a brother to the victim, and like Jack is devastated by the murder. At the heart of it all is some cyber crime that went a little over my head but makes for an interestingly different storyline. There are a lot more Mission Impossible type action scenes as Jack gets closer to the truth.

Zero Days was such a compulsive read, I was thankful for a weekend of cold, rainy weather. I inhaled this book, having to remind myself to eat. The writing is sharp and immediate, the tension non-stop, with first-person narration that makes you imagine yourself in Jack’s shoes. You can’t but wonder what would you would do in similar circumstances; how you would cope. The novel must surely add to Ruth Ware’s reputation as the Queen of Just One More Chapter. Zero Days is a four-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: All Together Now by Gill Hornby – a heart-warming read full of quirky characters, humour and song

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes all you really want is a nice, “feel-good” novel – something to chase away the darker clouds of a difficult day. The best of them will have characters you’ll warm to, a plot with a few surprises and an emotional pull – tears or laughter, either way, I’m not fussy.

I haven’t been in a choir since school, but still remember the whoosh you get when a lot of people get together and harmonise in song. Gill Hornby brings her joy for choral singing into her story about a struggling choir in a dead-end town. All Together Now follows the lives of three main characters: socially-awkward Bennett, once a choir boy and now, recently single again, he’s at a loose end; librarian Annie who does all the donkey work for the choir as a way of dealing with her “empty nest”; and Tracey, who is too cool for choirs, but can really belt out a number in the privacy of her home. Tracey also has a burning secret.

The story starts off with a car accident that leaves the Bridgeford Community Choir rudderless, its choirmaster hospitalised and in a coma. There’s a county choral championship up for grabs, and a town in dire need of invigorating – but can a medley from The Sound of Music or The Carpenters be the answer?

Tracey spots the choir performing outside the station one day and it makes her cringe. She’s one of life’s soloists. When her layabout son of twenty-two goes out to work one evening, she suddenly feels liberated. She dusts off her old music collection and begins to sing. A knock on the door and there’s someone she recognises; it’s Lewis from the choir, surprisingly also a neighbour, who rather than demanding Tracey turn it down a bit, implores her to join their choir.

Tracey became aware that, rather than the raspy, throaty one that she used when she was singling along with Billy, she was using her chest voice for once, and she could feel the calming, anti-depressant effect it had on her stressed-out body. But it wasn’t until she was back in the living room, tucked up with her glass and the bottle on the sofa, that she realised exactly what it was she was singing. Christ almighty. Those bloody belters had wormed into her ear, through to her brain, down to her lungs. They had regressed her. She was regressing. For the first time in nearly thirty years, she was spending the night in alone pretending to be Karen bloody Carpenter. How sad was that?

The story follows the lives of Annie, Tracey and Bennett in parallel to the struggling choir that might just save them all. Tracey finds she’s not such a soloist after all, in the choir or in life; Bennett steps up to help save the town, and proves to his kids that he’s almost kinda cool; Annie takes a hard look at her marriage and makes a surprising discovery. And the choir gets a bit better. It’s an uplifting tale, but it’s also full of laughs and dry wit, particularly in the way the characters bounce off each other, disagree but also sing together. There are some amusing and some discordant minor characters that give the plot a bit of tension.

The story is peppered with music – the lines of songs nicely mixed in the scenes describing the choir in rehearsal so you have a sense of how it all sounds. Most of the songs are pretty familiar, but in case you don’t know them there’s a handy play-list of at the back and even a Spotify link so you can hear them as well.

All Together Now really hits the spot for a big-hearted, cheering sort of read, more character driven than a gripping page-turner, the prose bright and witty. I’ll probably not be rushing off to join a choir anytime soon, but will happily curl up on the sofa with another book by Gill Hornby. This one’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Lessons by Ian McEwan – an epic read in more ways than one

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Ian McEwan is usually a reliable author, one I’ve turned to before anticipating a satisfying and intelligent read. And that’s pretty much what you get with Lessons. The story follows Roland Baines from his childhood and delivery to an unusual boarding school – we’re in the late 1950s – through his schooling and into adulthood, and on to the present day. Critical to his story are the lessons he has at school with a predatory and obsessive piano teacher.

Rolande’s experiences, the grooming and sexual predation by Miriam Cornell, have an ongoing effect on his life. At first the story weaves these scenes from school with a police enquiry into the disappearance of Rolande’s wife Alissa in the 1980s. She has left a note and sent postcards from Europe, so there’s no obvious reason to suspect foul play, but DI Browne wants to be sure. Roland has been left holding the baby, literally, seven-month-old Lawrence.

The story meanders through the years bringing the past up to the time of Alissa’s vanishing and beyond and along with Roland’s story we have key moments of recent history. There’s the Cuba Missile Crisis, which is what sends Roland into a spin, cycling towards danger and Miss Cornell. There’s the fall of the Berlin Wall, another key factor in Roland’s life, the rise of New Labour and much more. Roland is a political animal and there are groups of friends around the dinner table, and lively discussions.

Throughout, Roland considers the effects of broader events in history on his path through life. It is obvious that Roland had potential to have a solid career in something, possibly even as a concert pianist. But failing at school and then bringing up a child on his own have led to a working life that is a cobbling together of hotel piano playing, occasional journalism, and tennis coaching. He’s also a terrific dad. He has relationships with other women but most of them don’t stick. Has he been ruined emotionally by Miss Cornell?

Against his chest he felt the baby’s heartbeat, just under twice the rate of his own. Their pulses fell in and out of phase, but one day they would be always out. They would never be this close. He would know him less well, then even less. Others would know Lawrence better than he did, where he was, what he was doing and saying, growing closer to this friend, then this lover. Crying sometimes, alone. From his father, occasional visits, a sincere hug, catch up on work, family, some politics, then goodbye. Until then, he knew everything about him, where he was in every minute, in every place. He was the baby’s bed and his god. The long letting go could be the essence of parenthood and from here was impossible to conceive.

And yet all in all, Roland’s has been a good life. A life rich in people, experiences and love. He hasn’t been a big achiever; he’s had to be a parent, rather like the lives of many women. So there’s a feminist message here too – not only through Roland, but in the stories of Alissa, her mother and Roland’s mother too.

Roland’s a likeable protagonist, which is just as well as we are with him throughout all the things in life that trouble everyday people. What secrets have his parents kept all these years? How will a new government affect things? Or even, are we on the brink of another world war? The tiny things as well as the broader issues. It’s a novel full of wisdom, and the gaining of it, and I suppose these are also the lessons of the title.

For quite a way through I thought nobody, and certainly not Roland, was learning any lessons. He really does seem to bumble along, reacting to things, rather than making decisive steps in any direction. But he mostly gets there in the end and there are some memorable scenes. McEwan creates these beautifully. The scenes with Miss Cornell are somewhat creepy, but affecting.

While not especially long, it’s a monumental work, and I admire Lessons hugely, but somehow it felt at times rather a slog. I think this is down to the lengthy timescale of the book and also the way it lingers on life’s more difficult moments, of life slipping away, of our mortality. You can relate to this for sure, but you long for lightness and hope. In the end I was glad to have read Lessons, but certainly glad to finish it too. So it’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig – a cracking novel of rural England, the plight of the middle classes, with a mystery thrown in

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Sometimes when you pick up a novel, you just instantly know you are in good hands. I felt like this about The Lie of the Land with its interesting premise – a couple desperate to divorce but can’t because they have no money. So they rent out their London house and find cheaper digs (together!) in the country with their children.

Stories where people ditch the city for the countryside for whatever reason have been around since the novel has, quite probably, or at least since Green Acres appeared on TV in the sixties. But there’s always fresh material to mine, particularly when you’ve got such complex characters as Quentin and Lottie Bredin. Quentin is older than Lottie and his career as a journalist has taken a dive – he’s rude and arrogant and has upset too many people. To make matters worse, Lottie has discovered he’s had several affairs, and all the while she’s been left to manage the home and her children.

Lottie was once an up-and-coming architect, and keeps her home like something out of House and Garden. Perhaps that is what makes her so difficult for Quentin to live with: her fastidiousness, her sharp tongue, plus her ongoing tiredness since the birth of their daughters – Rosie (6) and Stella (8). An opportunity to rent a farmhouse near Quentin’s parents in Devon ridiculously cheaply has them reluctantly leaving London and all its temptations behind.

The novel has a load of interesting plots woven together, with several main narrators. We’re with Lottie, angry and grieving over the way Quentin has treated her, while she tries to balance the books and economise. If they can stick it out for a year, they can clear their debts and sell the London house. This will pay for their divorce and leave enough capital to set up house separately.

Her daily walk includes a visit to the village shop, a Portakabin crouched in the church car park. The design makes her wince, but just to talk to another adult who doesn’t hate her is a relief.
 ’Home-made?’ she asks, pointing to pasties, keeping warm in front of the counter.
 ’Oh, yes. We don’t hold with Humbles.’
 ’It’s good that Shipcott still has a shop.’
 ’It doesn’t make a profit,’ the woman says, shyly. ‘We volunteer, though we all worry about being held up at gunpoint.’
 ’Do you really?’
 ’You’d be surprised. There’s crime here, my lovely, just like everywhere else. But how else are pensioners without cars going to get their food and money each week?’
 She has never known people like this, with their terrible teeth and terrible clothes and kindness. That’s what astonishes her most: the kindness.

We’ve also got Quentin, who can’t believe the nosedive his career has taken, but is still trying to keep in the swim while being a decent father. There’s Xan, Lottie’s eighteen-year-old son, desolate at missing out on a place at Cambridge and at the idea of his London life coming to a halt. Showing us the rural point of view, there’s Sally, a district health nurse with her own quiet grief.

While this seems to be mostly a novel of a marriage, there’s also a grim mystery with the hideous death of the previous tenant at Long Farm, an unsolved crime no one has told the Bredins about. You know you will find out the who and why of the crime by the end of the book, but in the meantime there’s so much character development, as rural life weaves its charm and throws up new challenges for the family.

We get plenty of insight into rural issues, particularly the struggles for farmers to make a living off the land in a competitive market-driven economy. The Polish immigrants that fill in doing unpleasant and exploitative work the locals avoid is evocatively depicted in scenes at Humbles Pie Factory where Xan picks up a casual job. Also the loss of a way of life, the closing of schools as people move away.

Then we’ve got a look at intergenerational relationships, particularly between Quentin and his dying father – the guilt, the disagreements and old scores. And about parenthood, both good and bad, as well as the redemptive power of music and literature. Quite a lot to think about then.

The writing sparkles with wit and vivid descriptions, and is polished and nuanced. You don’t have to like the characters, certainly not all the time – Craigs shows them warts and all – but you can’t complain they’re not interesting. Each finds themselves caught up in difficult dilemmas that give the story plenty of go. Meanwhile all the plates Craig keeps spinning are carefully balanced and then caught at the end for a cracking finish. I loved every minute of it and, although it’s not saying a lot – this being only February – The Lie of the Land is quite my favourite book of the year. A five star read from me.

Book Review: The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page – a big-hearted novel about letting go

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

I’d forgotten why this book was on my list – probably a glowing review somewhere (thank-you, if that was you), but was soon ensconced in the story. I quickly discovered a novel packed with quirky characters and gentle humour – two key ingredients for a pleasant, feel-good read.

The Keeper of Stories takes us to the English university city of Cambridge, where Janice cleans people’s houses and discreetly collects people’s stories. This isn’t for any inclination towards blackmail; it’s just a kind of hobby. Many of these stories come from clients: the famous opera singer who has come from humble beginnings, charming but frail Carrie-Louise, and recently widowed Fiona and her boy Adam who are still grieving. Everyone knows Janice is the best cleaner in Cambridge, but not everything’s plain sailing.

For a start there’s her husband Mike, who is a serial job-quitter, never keeping the same employment for more than a month or two. To make things worse he always leaves on a sour note. He belittles Janice for her humble work even though it’s her earnings that keep a roof over their head, and his insistence on sending their son Simon to boarding school has caused a rift between mother and son.

When two of her more difficult clients, Mrs YeahYeahYeah and her husband Mr NoNoNotNow ask her to clean for the husband’s autocratic mother, Mrs P, it might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for Janice. Yet she forms an unlikely alliance over stories with Mrs P. Catching the bus – Mike nearly always has the couple’s car – her attention is caught by one of the drivers who reminds her of a geography teacher.

“How many stories do you think that there are in the world? Seven? Eight? I can’t remember how many. I read in a magazine somewhere that there are only a certain number of stories ever told.”
  Mrs B sits quietly, watching her.
  Janice sighs. “You and I both know what’s coming, don’t we? It’s a predictable story. It has been played out in hovels and palaces around the world since the beginning of time. There are no new stories, Mrs. B.”
  “But this is your story, Janice, and I believe you need to tell it.”
  “Do I? Will it make any difference? I can’t change the ending.”
  “That’s where I think you’re wrong.”

Mrs P’s has determinedly unsettling ways, trading stories, including that of the scandalous Becky, a courtesan from Paris and her rise in society, in her attempts to hear Janice’s story. For we soon realise that Janice’s collecting of stories is her way of avoiding her own, a story that she feels is too dreadful to tell. Through all this, Mrs P also has a battle on her hands to stay in her university flat, while her son wants to throw her out. Janice is soon doing her bit to help.

There’s plenty of humour and whimsy in Janice’s interactions with her clients while the story builds in drama as it seems likely for Janice that change is in the air. This will not be without pain, but Janice has her friends to help her through, as well as Decius, the sweary dog that Janice walks for Mrs YeahYeahYeah, and who patently thinks Janice should be his owner.

We’re in classic ‘second chances’ territory here, and it all comes together nicely for a big-hearted read. The writing is witty enough to avoid being sentimental – often a danger with this type of book. Keen readers will enjoy the references to literature, while the characters are varied are and interesting. Look out for Page’s new novel, The Book of Beginnings, which will be out later this year. The Keeper of Stories is a four star read from me.

Book Review: The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict – a novel about an extraordinary set of sisters and the politics that divided them

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been fascinated by the Mitfords ever since I saw a British TV adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate which aired in the 1980s. Nancy was a witty novelist who moved in literary circles during the 1930s and ’40s, rubbing shoulders with Evelyn Waugh and his ilk. She mined her family and the upper classes for material for her books, which are still very readable today. Nancy had five sisters and one brother, and with eccentric parents, each sibling seemed to be more extraordinary or oddball than the next.

These are the characters that people Marie Benedict’s novel The Mitford Affair, which concentrates on the years 1932 to 1941, with the rise of fascism in Europe and the opening chapters of World War II. Told from the viewpoints of sisters Nancy, Diana and Unity, you couldn’t ask for more varied characters, each with a very distinctive narrative voice. As the years pass, Nancy watches in horror as Diana goes to ever more extremes to promote the politics of her lover Oswald Mosley, and as Unity heads off to Germany to become a kind of Hitler acolyte. As war becomes inevitable, Nancy has to decide if her loyalty lies with family or her country.

As a reader, you feel very much on the side of Nancy, who seems to be the voice of reason among her sisters. She’s also dealing with a lot personally, in particular a problematic marriage and ever more desperate attempts to bear a child. Meanwhile Diana has ditched an adoring, wealthy and titled husband for a man who is already married and the voice of fascism in Britain. She devotes her energies to his cause even when Mosley declares he cannot offer her marriage or any kind of respectability.

Then there’s Unity. Always the least liked in her family – the only daughter to be sent to school so her mother didn’t have to put up with her – you get the feeling that today, Unity would be diagnosed with a mental condition, possibly as bipolar or a spectrum disorder. Much younger than Nancy or Diana, she’s only in her late teens when we meet her, her half of her bedroom festooned with pictures of Hitler and Mussolini, as opposed to Jessica who on her side of the room has etched the hammer and sickle into the window.

After the Olympia Hall rally and the violence of the Blackshirts inflicted at the slightest provocation, undoubtedly on Mosley’s orders, I could no longer even pretend to be in the same political ranks as my sisters. Did we not live in a society where free speech was guaranteed? Could Mosley not bear the slightest critique of BUF and his rule. The strutting, posturing, flag-waving, and shows of bravado I’d chuckled at privately now seem menacing rather than humorous, and I felt an urge to unmask Mosley and his dangerous army as hooligans through my writing. I also began to wonder if I could use my writing as a way to awaken my sisters from this madness.

Unity’s adoration for Hitler is like any ordinary girl’s crush on a matinee idol, but such is her fervour, that she talks her mother into sending her to a finishing school in Munich and staking out a café popular with Hitler himself. She’s a difficult character to be with, but Benedict captures her intensity with sympathy, despite her anti-semitism and support for a cruel totalitarian regime. Hers is the saddest story of the three, and you can’t help feeling that with affection from her family, and some half-decent parenting, Unity could have had a brighter future. But that’s not to be.

This is one of those books that is so much more extraordinary for being based on real events and real people. I found myself often heading to the internet for more background, and it’s all there. The Mitford Affair is an enthralling read, although not an easy one, considering what Diana and Unity were prepared to do for a political cause that would lead to such terrible events in Europe. But I couldn’t help feeling that the writing could have been sharper – there are some rather convoluted sentences, and a few Americanisms slip through now and then. As a study of how political fanaticism can take someone over, though, it does the trick. It’s a three star read from me.

The Mother by T M Logan – a light, escapist thriller and perfect holiday read

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Another thriller seemed a good choice for the holiday season – something to while away the minutes between basting the turkey and digging out the good crystal. And this one certainly suited the day. An easy read with short chapters so you can pick up where you left off, and an opening scene that has you hooked from the beginning – a woman, assumedly the ‘mother’ of the title, watching her own funeral.

Yes, I’m sure this has been done before, but it’s always interesting to see a funeral from the late departed’s point of view. But for Heather (yes, another book about a Heather!), hiding behind heavy-framed glasses and dyed hair, she has the pain of seeing her own children for the first time in years and they are visibly distressed.

The story flips back to Heather’s former life, ten years before, when she was a busy mother of young boys, with a career in HR and a husband, Liam, who is a rising MP. They have a pleasant home in Bath, and it would seem a charmed life, if a little hectic. Then, one evening, once the children are in bed, Heather discovers Liam is hiding something from her – he’s unusually evasive and there’s the scent of cologne on his clothes. The two argue. Next morning Heather wakes to find her husband dead.

The story flips forward again and we’re with Heather as she’s released from prison. She’s on parole after serving a nine-year sentence, sharing a room at a hostel with three other women, and with serious conditions surrounding her release. These include keeping away from witnesses from her trial, and from her boys. How is she going to clear her name, let alone be a mother again?

Until Liam’s murder, I had never really appreciated how privileged I was – and what it might be like to lose that privilege overnight. Because from the moment Liam died, all of it – the police, the press, the courts, the system – had turned against me. And from the moment the guilty verdict was read out, I became the enemy, the outsider, the other, to be feared and reviled and never to be trusted again.

Heather is really up against it. Her former middle-class life is in tatters, and she has no one to turn to – her mother now dead and her in-laws refuse to have anything to do with her. Slowly she builds up a support group – Owen Tanner, the journalist who has never given up on her case and fellow hostel inmate, Jodi – a woman from the other side of the tracks. She even manages to convince sister-in-law Amy to help.

The story gathers steam as Heather pieces together facts from her case, helped in part by those Tanner has garnered that reveal something shady within Liam’s constituency office. The appearance of heavies that follow and threaten her would suggest that someone has got something to hide. Heather has to risk breaking the conditions of her parole again and again. Can she discover the truth before she’s sent back to prison?

T M Logan really knows how to plot an enthralling thriller that keeps you turning the pages. The unmasking of the killer near the end packs quite a surprise in a nail-biting finale. The character of Heather is an ‘everywoman’ type you can empathise with. Subordinate characters are interesting too, if a little lightly drawn. My only quibble is how did the police get it all so wrong. Why didn’t Heather’s defence team put up more of a fight? All the evidence seems to be circumstantial. On the other hand, perhaps this happens a lot more than we know. We hope the system is a fair one, but is it really?

The Mother is a pacy, escapist read, well-written and with engaging characters. But after A Bird in Winter it seemed a little ordinary. Oh, well. You can’t have everything. I’ll probably pick up another by this author when I want a book I can easily get lost in. This one’s a three-and-a-half star read from me.

Book Review: A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty – a pacy thriller that’s more than meets the eye

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I’ve heard so many recommendations of Louise Doughty’s novels, among them Apple Tree Yard, which was also televised. So when A Bird in Winter appeared I snapped it up, expecting an intelligent thriller and for the most part I wasn’t disappointed.

The Bird of the title is Heather, nicknamed by her father who was a former intelligence officer in the British Secret Service. Heather makes a roundabout entrance into the service, too, shoulder-tapped and mentored by Richard, her father’s own former protégé. When the story begins Heather is a high-ranking official in the service, working out of an office in Birmingham that has been set up recently to seek out agents who have ‘turned’. A signal at a meeting and Heather abruptly leaves the building and goes on the run.

It’s a compelling beginning. We read with bated breath as Heather collects a stashed bag all set up for such an eventuality. There’s money, a burner phone, a fake passport and a couple disguises – she can be a homeless person one moment, or morph into a middle-aged hiker the next. She hops on and off trains and heads north for Scotland. So far, so James Bond.

Only it isn’t. This isn’t a convoluted espionage thriller, full of action set pieces and a showdown with the baddies at the end complete with guns and random mayhem. Although there is a storm at sea. As Heather waits out the time it will take for her rescue, the story slips into the past – Heather’s spell in the army which is where she meets Flavia. Heather and Flavia become like sisters, sticking up for each other against the misogyny they face daily. Then there’s the special connection Heather has with Flavia’s daughter, and events that lead to them losing contact.

The plot then picks up as Heather tries to piece together the clues to her betrayal, the weakness that was exploited and the treachery that has left her out in the cold. She still has one or two friends who will help her, but she knows she’s on borrowed time. Will she make it out alive?

  He was there that morning to give a PowerPoint presentation about various cases he had been involved with. We had quite a few of these sessions, historical examples of successful missions and, sometimes, the unsuccessful ones, everything that could and had gone wrong. In those talks, we got to learn from the missions the public never hears about – the terrorist attacks that were foiled and how, the demonstrations where invaluable intel was garnered, and why.
  And sometimes, we got to learn about the things that had been missed, the real reasons six or fourteen or thirty-two people had lost their lives when nobody should have died. The men and women who gave those talks had something haunted about them, sometimes apologetically so, sometimes tinged with defiance. Ancient Mariners, all of them.

While there is a lot going on and plenty to keep you turning the pages, A Bird in Winter is a subtler kind of thriller. Doughty takes her time with Heather, showing her as a multifaceted character – a woman who has sacrificed much for her career, and it’s lonely at times. She has all kinds of regrets, particularly around relationships, including Flavia, and also her mother. As a reader you want to like her, and so you become desperate for her to survive, to be able to start a new life, a happier life even.

We get brilliantly evocative settings as Heather adapts to her surroundings, as well as scenes of quiet domesticity, where she tries to be a normal person. But always in the background is the ever present danger. It’s a clever balancing act, and it makes you imagine yourself in Heather’s shoes. There’s also a darkness here, in the cold side of Heather’s make up, which means she can do what it takes, as well as the ever present violence that is for the most part just off stage.

This is such a well written and satisfying novel, definitely a slow-burner, and one that takes its genre into a more literary sphere. I shall be eager to read more by Louise Doughty. A Bird in Winter is a four out of five star read from me.