Tag: British settings

Book Review: Murder Before Evensong by Rev. Richard Coles – an ecclesiastical cosy that takes you back to the ’80s

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

The cosy mystery genre is as varied as any, and some are definitely better than others. I am always on the lookout for the feel of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories when I pick one up, so this one with its classic English village setting seemed promising. Murder Before Evensong introduces us to the parish of Champton, a village with a lord of the manor, Lord Bernard de Floures of Champton House, and a rectory, the home of our sleuth, Rev. Daniel Clement.

When Daniel suggests the installation of toilets at St Mary’s during a church service, he couldn’t possibly have imagined the fallout. A posse of flower ladies are appalled that the space required will mean the loss of the back pews. Daniel is reluctant to back down, but soon has his hands full with other matters. There’s the arrival of his actor brother Theo doing background research for a new role as a TV vicar in a ‘gentle comedy’. He wants to follow Daniel around to get a sense of what he does.

Then there’s the annual open day at Champton House, with the whole village mucking in, managing the door, running guided tours, serving tea. But the day ends in tragedy, with Daniel discovering Bernard’s cousin Anthony Bowness, who’d been archiving the family’s papers, dead in a back pew of St Mary’s. Anthony, a troubled man, often came here to pray, which is where Daniel’s naughty dachshunds come upon the body, stabbed in the neck by a pair of secateurs. What secrets had Anthony uncovered? And who knew how to kill so effectively, picking the exact spot for the carotid artery?

There are more murders before the last page, and multiple suspects. Nathan, the de Floures odd-job man, has a shady past, and the grandfather he lives with an even shadier one. And no one knows what to make of Bernard’s younger son, Alex, with his wild enthusiasms for art installations and his unsuitable friends. Other characters seem to be hiding secrets, and the village’s role in the war can’t be discounted either.

‘And you took the dogs?’
‘They usually come with me to church. And it’s their wee-wee time before bed.’ What a ridiculous phrase, he thought. How would that sound read out in court? ‘And they like to sniff for mice. If they’re lucky, maybe they’ll find half a biscuit … and I thought they would be particularly enthusiastic this evening because we had a lot of visitors come through church on Open Day and some of them bring dogs. Lots to sniff. And that’s when I noticed. Or rather didn’t notice: they didn’t sound enthusiastic. They were barely making a noise, and that’s what made me think something was out of the ordinary. I called them, they didn’t come.

The story is well plotted, adding enough interest to keep the reader guessing and turning the pages. But the steady humour of the writing and the interplay between a host of quirky village characters lift this cosy above the average. Author, the Reverend Richard Coles, obviously knows well the life of an Anglican priest, and as a former member of the band the Communards, seems keen to evoke the 1980s here – Cagney and Lacey on the telly, Wham on the radio. But in a village like this, you feel it could be any time, that things don’t change a lot.

Daniel is a thoughtful, always considerate rector, at times struggling with the demands of those around him – not just his parishioners. His perceptive but interfering mother Audrey has to be constantly held in check, as do the two dachsunds, Cosmo and Hilda. The tiny general store and post-office is often the scene of gossipy councils of war between the anti-toilet brigade which contrasts nicely with scenes at the old-fashioned rectory and the palatial Champton House.

The writing is terrific too. Coles blends in Biblical and other ecclesiastical references to add authenticity without overburdening the story, which is generally lively and full of wit. I chuckled my way through, not particularly caring whodunit, as I was enjoying the journey so much. I’ll definitely be keen to continue with this series – the fourth is out later this year, so there’s a few to catch up with. Murder Before Evensong is a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Clear by Carys Davies – a spare, impeccably written novel set during the Highland Clearances

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction is always on my calendar, with its longlist of brilliant new titles. Among this year’s list was this little book by Carys Davies, and being set for the most part on a remote Scottish island, it immediately caught my eye.

Clear takes us back to 1843, the tail-end of the Highland Clearances, when small holdings made way for sheep, their tenants forced onto unproductive land, emigrating to the colonies or finding other ways to make a living where they could. It’s also the time when Presbyterian ministers signed the Deed of Demission to separate from the Church of Scotland so that congregations could have more say in who they accepted as ministers. These rebel ministers were an evangelical bunch, forming the Free Church of Scotland, which left many of them without a living, at least in the short term.

Among them is one John Ferguson, a main character from this story. He’s a somewhat dour man who aims to set up his own church, but desperately needs funds to get going. So he accepts help from his brother in law, who finds him short-term employment for a land-owner. This Mr Lowrie has recently converted his land to sheep-farming but has one offshore island still requiring the eviction of its single inhabitant. John makes the arduous boat trip beyond Sheltand to a small island where he’s to persuade the man to leave with him in a month’s time, but immediately things do not go well.

In the meantime, we meet John’s wife Mary, a sensible sort of woman who has come late in life to marriage. Now in her forties, she has learnt to manage and think for herself. So in spite of a decent payout, she can see the pitfalls of this project. The islander may not be happy about being thrown off his holding; John may not be able to express the landlord’s decision in a way the islander, a speaker of a rare dialect, can understand. And John is in the meantime cut off from any transport out for a whole month.

The third main character in all this is Ivar, the island’s solitary inhabitant, a man attuned to the harsh nature of living so far north, with no one but his animals to talk to, but who suits his situation so well. He’s been on his own for twenty years, the visits from his landlord’s factor becoming fewer and further-between. How is he going to react to an interloper on his island?

The big bearded man, Ivar, was watching him turn over the pages.
‘Who does he think I am?’ thought John Ferguson.
He really was very large, as Strachan had told them he would be, and as John Ferguson turned over the last of the sea-washed pages with his raw and damaged fingers, he began to regret that he had come.
Having been alarmed by the factor’s insisting he brought the pistol, he wished now he had it with him. It was a terrible thing to admit to himself, and to God, but it was true. He would have been less afraid with the gun in his possession, and in his weakened state without it, and without Flett’s speech, and without the document of Removing to wave about and prove his authority, he shied away from trying to explain his errand.

Carys Davies creates a terrific story from these characters, their miscommunications and their solutions to unexpected problems. How the two men come to reach an understanding is a large part of the story, building to an intense and somewhat surprising ending. Like the best in this kind of fiction, it brings history to life through the experiences of well-rounded characters. At only 150 pages it’s a short book, but you feel you have lost yourself in this world, the island setting, as well as the backstories of our main characters – all in carefully honed prose.

I can see why this book has made the Walter Scott Prize longlist. It captures perfectly a time and place, as well as creating a nail-biting read. It’s also well-researched. Carys Davies has incorporated some of Ivar’s vanishing language, evocative and interesting words for the environment she describes. Such a lot for such a small book. While it’s nice to have a long immersive read when you pick up a historical novel, sometimes a short book is a breath of fresh air. I loved Clear – easily a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Twins by L V Matthews – a twisty psychological thriller with dark family secrets

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

This novel is the sort of psychological thriller that has you hooked from the beginning. Yes, it’s about twins, and I know there have been so many stories about twins, you often feel you’ve heard them all before. But that didn’t stop me picking this one up and getting immersed in the story of Margot and Cora.

For twins, the two couldn’t be more different. Margot is quiet and responsible, a dedicated nanny to a well-to-do London family. She has a comfortable life and makes sure everything is as it should be for her young charges. It’s a twenty-four seven kind of gig, but you get the feeling Margot is creating a warm and loving environment because that seems to have been absent in her own childhood.

Cora on the other hand lives in a cramped flat across town with a flatmate, and the two are complete hedonists, living on the edge, while Cora will stop at nothing to get that big break as dancer. She’s confident, a bit crass, breezy and somewhat heartless. Glimpses of her at school, a decade before, reveal she’d been in with the in-crowd, while Margot lingered in the background, friendless and the butt of jokes.

The Twins begins with a mishap during a family holiday on a yacht which sees Margot lose the medication that keeps her anxiety at bay, and slowly memories start to creep back. These are events from her late teens, when something terrible happened involving the death of the twins’ younger sister Annie. Desperate to know more, Margot toys with the idea of seeing a therapist, an idea that Cora vehemently opposes. What is the secret that Cora wants to keep from Margot?

…I then look at the sea out of the porthole, exhale, and tell myself that I’m safe here. Looking after people is what I’m good at: routine and order and consideration. There is no need to feel anxious.
‘Margot?’ someone calls from above. ‘Can you bring up the oysters?’
‘Absolutely.’
I busy myself with tending to others. People don’t realise you’re not talking to them about your own life if you’re putting food on their tables, if you’re doing their laundry, if you’re smiling at their stories. I like living their lives because it’s easier than living my own.
My life has ghosts.

The story flips between the two sisters as we watch Margot attempt to reclaim the past, questioning her grandmother, in a care-home, her own memory now patchy. She trawls the internet to find the one person who might help her – Cora’s high-school boyfriend and Margot’s secret crush. Meanwhile Cora trains for a role in a dance performance that echoes parts of their story.

As more and more shadowy secrets rise to the forefront of Margot’s mind, you can’t help but feel for her and worry that when she finds out the truth it will be worse than not-knowing. She’s a much more sympathetic character than Cora, who seems like the dark to Margot’s light. Besides which, Margot’s grip on her life seems more and more rickety. This really racks up the tension.

Altogether, this is a nicely escapist read that keeps you hooked. However there was one point at which I wanted to throw the book across the room – a twist that I wasn’t expecting, not at all. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to finish the book after that. But I’m glad I did. It all comes together quite well and it makes the book seem rather more psychologically interesting than it might have been.

So if you like a good twisty, suspenseful read, this one’s worth persevering with, even if it is about twins. There is a really nasty character who makes a good villain; and the story plays with the fickleness of memory and the effects of trauma to create an interesting psychological situation. The plot really keeps you on your toes as a reader, so The Twins definitely does the job. A four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Mischief Makers by Elisabeth Gifford – an imagining of the life and creativity of Daphne du Maurier

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

As a girl, I remember being given a number of Daphne du Maurier’s books and enjoying them immensely – particularly Rebecca and The Scapegoat. There were adaptations of her novels and stories that appeared on TV – I’ve seen several versions of Rebecca, and then there was Hitchcock’s The Birds. I read her darker, spookier short stories too. She always struck me as a master storyteller and remarkably original for her time.

Elisabeth Gifford explores what made du Maurier tick in her new novel The Mischief Makers – how she got her inspiration as well as her family life, before and after marriage. It also describes the encouragement she got from J M Barrie, her Uncle Jim, the author of Peter Pan and guardian to her five cousins, the Llewelyn Davies boys.

I’m not sure how Elisabeth Gifford managed to write such a nicely concise and well put together story because there must have been such a lot left on the cutting room floor. The du Mauriers and J M Barrie are all such fascinating people. As a young girl Daphne was often at the theatre, her father, Gerald du Maurier, one of the outstanding theatre actors of his time. It was during a run of Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton that her parents had met, her mother starring opposite Gerald. Daphne’s grandfather was the author of Trilby and creator of the character Svengali, the evil mesmerist whose name lives on.

But one by one they have grown too old for tales of Peter Pan. Now Uncle Jim can also be found sitting with Daphne and Angela in the nursery, perched like a crumpled bird on the fender, mesmerising them with secret islands, prompting them as they swoop from chair to chair or swim like mermaids across the carpet. All night long Daphne continues to swim and fly through the night in her sleep. And it becomes clear to her that she has a secret only Jim knows: she may look like her sisters but really she is one of the boy cousins whom she has long idolised, longed to be there with them when the stories were first told in Black Lake Woods. She is part of Jim’s little gang, living on the edge of magic and adventure. She is really a wild boy, dancing at the edge of Neverland, thumbing her nose at the rest of the dull old world.

Daphne married Major Frederick (Tommy) Browning, himself an interesting man, a career soldier who set up the first British Airborne Division that was instrumental in the defeat of Germany during WWII. Knighted for his war work, Daphne became known as Lady Browning, although the strain the war put on their marriage was one they struggled to recover from. And of course Daphne’s immersion into her work as a writer, her determination to live quietly in Cornwall, which at times cut herself off from her husband, even, at times, her children.

But it’s the stories of her cousins, the Davies boys, and their recollections of their guardian that is really interesting. Peter as an older man is constantly engrossed in letters and memorabilia, trying to make sense of his childhood, whether or not they were simply used by Barrie, and the tragic death of his brother Michael as a young man. Was Barrie somehow at fault?

Daphne sees similarities between Barrie and herself, as writers stepping into imaginary worlds, discovering their characters in the people they meet, as well as in themselves. She even seems to feel Rebecca watching her, a somewhat disturbing presence. This insight into the mind of Daphne the writer is illuminating and fascinating. You also get a strong sense of what people went through in the last century with two world wars, and the social changes that followed, as seen through Daphne’s eyes.

The Mischief Makers is quite a tour de force, a brilliant read, particularly for a life-long Daphne du Maurier fan like me. The writing is pared back and straight-forward, mostly written from inside Daphne’s head, but with some extra chapters slipped in from earlier family experiences, the results of Peter’s research. It all comes together to create an overall picture of a very complex woman and her world. I wonder if we’ll see the book among those long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. It’s a five-star read from me.

Book Review: The Last Line by Stephen Ronson – a World War Two thriller with a home-front hero who’ll stop at nothing

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I’m not really sure what to make of The Last Line, Stephen Ronson’s first book in a series following wartime hero John Cook. The cover promises that Cook is “the Jack Reacher of 1940s Britain”, and that would certainly seem to be true. But it took me a while to get used to a character like Cook in a WWII Suffolk setting.

After serving in the First World War, Cook had decided he wanted more action, and found it as a Commando in India. Once he got that out of his system, he got busy turning around a struggling family farm and buying up more land. When we meet him, Cook is just quietly minding his farm when a Spitfire crash lands in one of his fields, chased by a Messerschmitt, an interesting scene that reminds us that the war is dangerously close to British soil.

As a farmer, Cook needn’t rejoin his regiment, but you can’t keep a good man down and he plans to get back into the action as soon as possible. But the War Office has other ideas for him, and he’s instead asked to be part of an Auxiliary Unit, a resistance group designed to make things difficult for a German invasion, which after the fall of France now seems imminent. He meets a man named Bunny in a pub who tells him to find some people he can trust to lend helping hand, people who are prepared to give their lives in a ‘last line’ of defence, before the tanks roll their way on up to London.

Bunny shook his head. ‘I want you to form a small team, I’m calling them Auxiliary Units. Someone local will make contact with you. Work with them to pick up a few more men you can trust. Ex-army probably. Men who take the initiative, who can find their way around the country, who know the woods. Men who get things done without being told how to do it. Men like you.’
‘How do I communicate with you?’ I asked.
‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘This isn’t regular army. No chain of command. No safety net. If you get caught with a machine-gun and a pound of TNT under your bed next week, you’ll be shot as a German spy. No crying to Mother.’

And so we get to meet a few other determined sorts, among them young Eric, out poaching every night, Cyril with his hidden radio gear, and Lady Margaret who is struggling to save her estate from ruin, but has a stash of munitions ready to go. There’s some instant chemistry between LM and Cook, but before any romance can take place, our dashing hero has some local battles on his hands. The daughter of his accountant has been murdered – she’d been worried about a young evacuee and had been asking awkward questions.

These lead Cook to The Grange, a stately home also struggling to pay the bills, where he spots odd comings and goings involving trucks, a couple of young spivs who aren’t dressed for the country, and a padlocked barn. He puts his Commando knowledge to good use, how to make himself invisible as well as how to get answers out of people who think a sidearm makes them tough. They’re always in for a surprise as Cook will stop at nothing and knows how to kill with his bare hands.

It’s fair to say, however, that the malefactors are truely vile and get what they deserve. But as the death toll rose, I just couldn’t help wondering how Cook could get away with it all. Perhaps Bunny would pull a few strings. In the end I decided to just go with it and enjoy the story as a kind of boy’s own adventure for grown-ups.

The support characters are interesting and offer scope for development in the novels to come. I liked Lady Margaret, she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty, and the young evacuee, Frankie. He’s struggling to fit in, has obviously come from poverty, but Cook takes him on in an endearing way. I hope we get more from Mrs Cook, John’s mother, who seems a salt of the earth type, and has a lot to put up with.

The Last Line is a diverting read, with plenty of pace and a lively style that suits the period and the main character. The second book is already published (The Berlin Agent), and I’m interested enough in Cook & co. to find out what happens next. This one’s a three-star read from me.

Book Review: The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell – a twisty, psychological thriller sequel that will have you hooked

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

Lisa Jewell often explores dark family secrets in her psychological thrillers. This is never more so than in The Family Upstairs, the 2019 novel about the Lambs, a well-to-do family and the interlopers who make their home with them, upending their lives. Mrs Lamb has felt the need to do something useful with the Chelsea family’s wealth, and takes in the Thomsen’s, as well as a couple of homeless musicians. Their London riverside house is luxurious and roomy, but David Thomsen exploits the Lambs, and the children, Henry and Lucy Lamb; Phin and Clemency Thomsen, get caught up in a situation that ends in murder.

The sequel, The Family Remains picks up the story of the younger generation, having been reunited in the first book and who are now trying to each build a future. This includes Libby Jones, the daughter Lucy had as a teenager, brought up by adoptive parents and who inherited the house in Chelsea. But the shadows of what went before still linger and there’s a sense that Henry and Lucy in particular are still looking over their shoulders.

When a bag of bones is found by mudlarkers on the riverbank, DI Samuel Owusu traces them back to the old Lamb residence and all the things that Henry and Lucy hoped would be forgotten about forever may now come to light. But Henry and then Lucy are on a quest to find Phin, Libby’s father, supposedly working in a safari park in Botswana, but who has high-tailed it, for some reason, to Chicago.

So while Henry and Lucy are hunting down Phin, DI Owusu is trying to piece together the life of Birdie Dunlop-Evers, a former member of a pop-group, reported missing in the 1990s. The story also works in the story of Rachel, a jewellery designer, who is told at the start of the book of the death of her estranged husband. We’re well aware of the particularly nasty type of guy Michael was – we met him in the earlier book when he was married to Lucy.

Lucy is a lovely-looking woman. When I saw her last year for the first time since we were teenagers, I was taken aback by the loveliness of her. She has a face that tells stories, she looks all of her forty years, she barely grooms herself, she dresses like a bucket of rags, but somehow she still always looks lovelier than any other woman in the room. It’s something about the juxtaposition of her amber-hazel eyes with the dirty gold streaks in her hair, the weightlessness of her, the rich honey of her voice, the way she moves and holds herself and touches things and looks at you. My father looked like a pork pie on legs and my lucky sister snatched all her looks from our elegant half-Turkish mother.

Golly, there’s a lot going on here, so never before was there a better reason to read the earlier book before the sequel. But somehow it all makes sense, and even if it’s a while since you read The Family Upstairs, you never feel completely bamboozled. Yes, you will have questions, loose ends and half-forgotten pieces of the overall puzzle. But Lisa Jewell will have you hooked, never the less, as I was.

I steamed through this novel in a couple of days, desperate to know if things would work out all right in the end. There’s always the sense that even though Henry and Lucy and even perhaps Phin, have been driven to do desperate and even quite bad things, they were very damaged children. We still feel for them, as well as Rachel, getting caught up in a relationship with a monster. It’s a twisty, original psychological thriller and as such a compelling read, but it’s very empathetic too.

And the characters are just so interesting. DI Owusu is a really nice guy, thoughtful, intelligent and sympathetic, which helps balance out the potential darkness and selfishness of Henry. Rachel’s story takes us into a character who has lived for the moment when it comes to relationships and suddenly in her thirties, feels it’s time to make a commitment. If only she hadn’t settled on Michael. But it’s Lucy I really enjoyed the most – she is so fragile on the one hand and yet has had to be strong and think on her feet for her children.

It is probably the characters and their unique situation that prompted so much demand from readers for the sequel that Lisa Jewell hadn’t planned to write. Which is probably why her books are so good, so moreish. Whenever I feel like a book to unwind with, she’s a top choice. If only I could make them last a day or two longer. This one’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: Western Lane by Chetna Maroo – a beautiful imagining of a family’s grief through a child’s eyes

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

In some ways, Western Lane follows a well trodden path – a young person going through a difficult time, finding an outlet for their feelings through a sport, and then the promise of success. I’m sure I’ve seen a few movies like this, from the Karate Kid to Rocky. This time it’s squash, but the sport is really just something to give the plot a bit of structure, because overall this is a story about a family dealing with the loss of their mother.

Our narrator is Gopi, who is only eleven when her mother dies. She has two older sisters, Khush and Mona, who demonstrate their grief in different ways, while their Pa is patently struggling. His work is erratic – he’s an electrician and doesn’t always turn up when he says he will. His sister-in-law, the girls’ Aunt Ranjan is worried about them when the family visit their Pa’s brother in Edinburgh. Aunt Ranjan says he should consider giving one of the girls to her and Uncle Pavan to bring up.

Pavan and Ranjan have not been able to have children, are comfortably off, and are fond of the girls. Gopi, being the youngest, seems the likeliest candidate, but Pa can’t bear the thought of it. And imaging losing your mother at such a young age and then being uprooted from your home and family. So on their return to London, Pa and the girls deal with their problems by avoiding them. They hit the squash courts.

Of all the girls, it’s Gopi who has some talent and squash becomes a regular part of her routine. She meets Ged, who’s always at Western Lane because his mother works there. While Gopi plays squash with Ged, her Pa is becoming friendly with Ged’s mother. In the background the local Indian community are watching the family, eager to step in and offer advice, whether it’s appreciated or not. There’s pressure on the girls to do things right, as their mother would have done.

I don’t know if you have ever stood in the middle of a squash court – on the T – and listened to what is going on next door. What I’m thinking of is the sound from the next court of a ball hit clean and hard. It’s a quick, low pistol-shot of a sound, with a close echo. The echo, which is the ball striking the wall of the court, is louder than the shot itself. This is what I hear when I remember the year our mother died, and our father had us practising at Western Lane two, three, four hours a day.

So there are a number of story threads in play, as well as glimpses of Indian culture, the food, the traditions which at times comfort, at others restricts. The reader very much gets a sense of Gopi, wth all that she is going through, what she’s feeling and the red flags. Can she be herself, be allowed to excel at squash as well as being a good daughter? There’s all the worry about her Pa, and her sisters, but she’s just so young. How can she have a normal childhood?

Western Lane is a lovely book, not very long, but nicely judged and the writing is gorgeous. I learnt a lot about squash, the feel of being on the court, the bounce of the speeding ball. It’s done in a way that makes it interesting for even a non-sports-minded person like me. The audiobook was superbly read by Maya Soroya and she really nails Gopi – a child struggling in a world that’s difficult to understand. The novel was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize so I was curious to see why. It’s definitely worth picking up and I’ll be keen look out for more by this author. A four-and-a-half star read from me.


Book Review: Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd – much more than your average spy novel

~ Judith ~ 1 Comment

I’m always keen to read anything by William Boyd – his prose is crafted, his characters complex and there is always an interesting historical setting. And story-wise, you can never tell what’s going to happen next.

With Gabriel’s Moon we are in London, at least some of the time, in the early 1960s, and our complex protagonist this time is Gabriel Dax. He’s a travel writer at that time when travel writing was really popular, and at thirty, is already very successful.

The book opens with a prologue describing the house fire that killed his mother and when, as a six-year-old, Gabriel was lucky to escape with his life. Ever since, Gabriel has struggled to sleep – with nightmares of the fire plus troubling missing elements of his memory. He has sleeping pills, and not surprisingly he drinks a lot. A doctor recommends he see a therapist and these sessions lead him to investigate just what really happened that night.

Gabriel’s recent jaunt abroad has taken him to Léopoldville, and the newly independent Republic of the Congo. He takes an opportunity to interview the new prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who wants to set the record straight. It seems his life is in danger, and there are names he wants recorded, should he be assassinated. This is way out of Gabriel’s usual sphere as a writer, but he does what he’s asked, making taped recordings of the interview.

He was cleaning his teeth when the telephone rang again. He wandered back into the sitting room and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello, Lorraine?’
But no. Silence again.
‘Look,’ he said calmly, ‘you’re wasting your time, whoever you are. I’m not fussed. Not remotely bothered. OK? I don’t care if you call every hour. Goodbye.’
He took his pill, slid into bed and plumped his pillow, thinking back to his two hours spent with Patrice Lumumba and the way Lumumbra would reach out and tap the back of his hand to make a point.
‘They want to kill me,’ he remembered Lumumba had said at one stage, softly, in his accented English, as if he might be overheard by someone.

But Gabriel’s work hasn’t always been just about travel. His brother Sefton, being something in the Foreign Office, has on occasion asked Gabriel to make deliveries for him to the Continent. When Faith Green, a secretive woman Gabriel has clocked reading his book on the plane home, contacts him with a commission of her own, his first instinct is to refuse. Faith works for MI6 and is something of a femme fatale. But the money’s good, and the trip to Spain tempting. Before you know it, Gabriel’s involved in more and more dangerous work for Faith and in spite of his niggling doubts, seems unable to refuse.

Gabriel’s an interesting character and not always likeable. You want to give him a good shake, tell him not to drink so much and get a grip on his life. There are sadly not many people he gets close enough to call friends. His girlfriend Lorraine hasn’t a clue about what is going on in his head, while he and his brother are somewhat distant having been brought up by different relatives after the death their mother. So there’s no one there to offer a reality check. How he handles the increasingly tricky situations he gets himself into sees a new Gabriel emerge.

Undercurrents of the political situation with the USSR, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as social politics of the time round the story out and the period really comes to life. There are glimpses of the ordinary, such as Gabriel’s ongoing battle with a savvy mouse in his flat; the pest-eradication advice from Tyrone, his streetwise locksmith. The book reminded me a little of A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty – another really intelligent and nuanced spy novel with a main character on their own and battling for survival. This makes both books really engaging and gripping.

Then there are the settings. As well as Congo, there’s Warsaw and Cádiz, rural England and sixties London. If you’re after a satisfying, pacy but intelligent novel, Gabriel’s Moon might just do the trick. It’s a four-star read from me.

Book Review: The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer -a duel timeframe mystery from the cutthroat world of egg collecting

~ Judith ~ 2 Comments

Belinda Bauer is a crime writer from Wales who frequently turns up in the crime fiction awards lists – winning a Gold Dagger for Blacklands, as well as the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year for Rubbernecker. I’ve always enjoyed her books, and would find it hard to pick a favourite, but Rubbernecker was, I recall, a cracker – following the story of a young autistic man and his determination to deal, in his own way, with the death of his father. In Rubbernecker, Patrick signs up for an anatomy class, where groups have to examine a corpse to determine cause of death. It’s his mother’s idea – a way to help him get over his obsession with dying. And this is how he gets tangled up in solving a murder.

With The Impossible Thing, Patrick is back. At twenty-three, he is still happily living at home wth his mum, working at a pub and playing computer games badly with friend and former classmate Nick from next door. When Nick and his mother are subjected to a home invasion, the only thing missing is a guillemot egg in an elaborate case, which Nick had found in the attic and advertised on e-bay. He’s selling whatever he can find to pay for a new gaming chair. It seems bizarre that someone would go to such lengths to steal something as unassuming as an egg, until a little digging throws up the illicit world of rare-egg collecting.

It seems guillemots nest on cliffs, clustered in such tight proximity with each other that the mother bird lays a distinctive egg that will be easy to recognise among all the others. The colours are so varied, collectors would vie to obtain the most unusual. This is now quite illegal, but a hundred years or so ago, men would dangle on ropes over cliffs every nesting season to pick out eggs that they could sell. Which is how me meet our other main character, Celie Sheppard.

Celie is so different from her dark, robust looking siblings, her father disowns her and abandons the family to manage Medland Farm themselves. Her mother leaves baby Celie in the care of Robert, the “idiot” boy who helps on the farm in return for bed and board. Celie survives rather than thrives, and the two make an odd pair, both ignored by the other Sheppards. Egg collecting is a nice little earner at neighbouring farms but at Medland Farm there’s a rocky overhang making it impossible. Until skinny little Celie tells Robbie she can fit through a crack in the rock if he’ll hold her rope.

Robert never ventured on to the overhang. He didn’t say so, but Celie guessed it scared him to be on the sliver of rock with nothing beneath it but air and – finally – sea. It scared her too, but she loved to look through this crack into another world.
Now she put her head into the V again and watched a puffin return to its ledge twenty yards down with a rainbow full of quivering sand-eels. From here she could see hundreds of birds pressed against the cliff-face. And, as they shifted about, glimpses of eggs of every size and colour that she could imagine. They had chickens in the yard, of course, but they laid dull little brown eggs, and never enough to eat, only for selling. These eggs were two or three times that size, and speckled and spotted and splattered with brown and black on backgrounds that ranged from cream, through blue to green. Celie had never had a toy, but the thought of holding such eggs in her little hands made her nearly smile, with a feeling that was beyond hunger.

Celie’s story is one of ambition and trust, heroes and villains, love and also tragedy – particularly for the poor bird who gives up her very saleable egg every nesting season. You’re taken into the world of egg collecting – not just the perilous procedure involved, but also the greed and one-upmanship among the traders and collectors.

Nick and Patrick are also an unusual pair, but are oddly complimentary. Patrick is very smart but lacking in social awareness – something he realises and is working on. Nick isn’t all that bright but can be chatty and friendly. As even owning a rare, collectible egg is illegal, Nick refuses to get the police involved, so the two set about tracking down the stolen egg themselves. This will put them in the path of danger, as well as highlighting the motivations of egg obsessives, natural historians, wildlife custodians, and vigilantes.

The Impossible Thing is another cracking read from Bauer. I loved it, although the animal cruelty described is not for the squeamish. Bauer balances Celie’s more poignant story with the humour of Nick’s situation, his often at cross purposes dialogue with Patrick, their hare-brained schemes. There are some madcap action scenes, and the pace picks up to finish the story with a flourish.

This is also a very original novel, not only in its source material but with its two main characters, both outsiders, but both very likeable. And this makes it interesting. I am not sure if Bauer will bring Patrick back for another adventure, but I was delighted to meet him again and enjoyed his quirky smartness. The Impossible Thing is a four-star read from me.

The Impossible Thing will be released at the end of February. I read a proof copy of the book courtesy of Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Book Review: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry – a vivid historical novel where science, religion and superstition collide

~ Judith ~ 3 Comments

The Essex Serpent was singled out for a raft of awards when it came out in 2016, even winning a couple. Now it’s showing on Apple TV with a brilliant cast including Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. I’m not sure why I didn’t pick up the book when it was released, because having read it now, I realise it’s just my kind of book

The story is set in the 1890s, a time of scientific discovery and medical advancement. Cora Seaborne’s bullying husband has recently died, and she finds not so much grieving, but discovering freedom in her new circumstances. Fascinated by science, particularly palaeontology, she is excited to hear reports of an “Essex serpent” and decides to head off to Colchester, accompanied by her companion/servant Martha and young son, Francis. She takes long walks in a man’s coat, releases her hair and becomes increasingly her own person.

In the Essex settlement of Aldwinter, many blame this “serpent” for sudden losses of livestock, deaths by drowning or missing children. It’s God’s punishment for their sins, they surmise. This is of growing concern for their minister, Reverend William Ransome, when he sees his parish becoming increasingly hysterical and afraid. A mutual acquaintance sends Cora to Aldwinter where she is welcomed by Stella Ransome, Will’s wife, who is lovely and kind, particularly with Francis, who is not usually a friendly child, even with his mother.

Will and Cora clash in many ways, Cora determined that there is a possibility that a beast from the dinosaur era may have survived against the odds; Will’s more practical mind believing there’s a more rational explanation. He sees no reason why religion cannot accommodate modern science, while Cora cannot see how he can think logically and still have faith. The two are drawn to each other, in spite of an odd first meeting over the rescue of a sheep.

One day he said: ‘In Japan they’ll mend a broken pot with drops of molten gold. What a thing it would be: to have me break you, and mend your wounds with gold.’ But she’d been seventeen, and armour-clad with youth, and never felt the blade go in: she’d laughed and so had he. On her nineteenth birthday she exchanged birdsong for feathered fans, crickets in the long grass for a jacket dotted with beetles’ wings; she was bound by whalebone, pierced with ivory, pinned by the hair with tortoiseshell. Her speech grew languid to conceal its stumble; she walked nowhere. He gave her a gold ring which was too small – a year later another, and it was smaller still.

Other characters are equally interesting. There’s Cora’s friend, Dr Luke Garrett, who she refers to as the “imp”, the young doctor who attended her late husband, and who is patently in love with her. Luke is desperate to try new kinds of surgery and to make his mark on the medical world, his wealthy friend Spencer, tagging along. Martha has strong socialist views, and in spite of impoverished upbringing, has read Marx, attending lectures on social change and gets involved in housing reform. There are children who get caught up in all the Essex madness, as well as World’s End resident, old Cracknell with his ongoing campaign against moles.

There are further story threads involving Luke’s chance at heart surgery and the life he saves, and Spencer’s opportunity to impress Martha. With so much going on in the novel, the sub-plots highlighting the plight of the poor, and it’s very individualistic characters, the book reminded me a little of a Dickens novel. The writing is well-crafted and evocative, whether we’re in the slums of London, or the salt marshes of Essex. The different story threads pull strongly towards a dramatic finish, and you are desperate to see what happens next. I loved it – the audiobook version read by Juanita McMahon, was superb – and I shall certainly be reading everything else by Sarah Perry. The Essex Serpent is a five-star read from me.