South London Books

"The Crash of '79", Paul Erdman

2011-10-12T20:31:00.003+01:00

Sometimes it's all too easy to start a theme going, and financially based thrillers seem as good a one for the moment as any.

I distinctly remember Paul Erdman's "The Crash of '79", and what I always regarded as its successor, "The Panic of '89" being present in vast quantities in the thriller/action section of my local second hand bookstore in Dublin as I grew up during the 1980s. To my teenage eyes they never really appealed, tastes running to more the whiz-bang end of the spectrum then, but as time passes so do tastes change, and when one of my explorations into one of Vermont's many second hand literary Alladin's Caves in Brattleboro last December (Brattleboro Books on Elliot St - which I sincerely hope survived the ravages of Hurrican Irene) yielded up "Crash of '79" for a princely dollar fifty, it seemed churlish not to give it a go.

It seems on the surface ridiculous to mention what initially seems like a true piece of 1970s schlock in the same breath as Harris' "Fear Index", but in actual fact Erdman, a rare beast in being a banker who actually served time in prison for being bad at his job, provides a more relevant tome for today. We have creaking European economies, banks grown fat on deeply flawed asset backed securities, high oil prices with a depressed tanker market, and a cash rich 'new economy' with the potential to re-energise the financial system and shake it out of a prolonged recession. Despite being nearly 40 years old, you can't help thinking the work strikes a chord.

Despite this, it is very dated. The 1970s haven't quite yet had the Mad Men reinvention in popular culture, and as such there's a lot about "The Crash of '79" that makes you wince. The 'hero', Bill Hitchcock, is either an thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, or maybe the 1970s really were like that. Either way, passages such as "in the cab on the long way into town, I decided on my order of priorities: first a drink, then a piece of ass" (p.36 of the 1976 Simon and Schuster edition) jar a little in the present day - and there's a lot of this to get through.

All this said it's strangely readable in a guilty pleasure way, and not just for the economic lessons or the snapshot of 1970s culture, there's a pleasing insight into how most people misread how the 1970s would segue into the 1980s. There's no hint that the Shah, portrayed as an uber alpha male, would flee, dying, into exile in the very year that Erdman saw him making his grab for the Saudi oil fields that would topple the world economy, no suggestion that the 1980s would presage a prolonged era of low oil prices, which would drive a long boom and ultimately play its part in ending the Cold War.

In many levels my teenage self was right to leave "The Crash of '79" on the shelf, it's not great literature, but there's still a suspicion that I might hang on to this, or at the very least use it to torment friends in the oil industry.

“The Fear Index”, Robert Harris

2011-10-09T11:52:00.001+01:00

One of the less trendy elements in my reading habits is finding financial thrillers genuinely interesting. I’m one of these people who, many years ago, enjoyed the stock market elements in Tom Clancy’s "Debt of Honour", and I see it as sad that authors like Paul Kilduff and Michael Ridpath have moved away from the financial sector, to budget airlines and Icelandic crime respectively. This is reinforced by the notion that the prolonged economic slump should provide us with the sort of raw materials to deliver a first rate page turner.

Robert Harris thus should be ideally positioned to deliver with “The Fear Index”, looking at a hedge fund trading on the volatility that people’s elemental fear introduces, reflecting the opportunities offered by human irrationality, and to some extent it works, but deep down, there’s a frustration that somehow an opportunity has been missed.

Harris built his reputation with intelligent, thoughtful novels, with plausible characterisation and pacing. “Fatherland” and “Enigma” built on his journalistic reputation, and provided us with something that could legitimately be seen as literature. Latterly however we can see something of a transition into a much more populist author. While “The Fear Index” lays claim to the highbrow high ground with quotations from Darwin and passages on the nature of what makes people frightened, this feels a lot more lightweight than his earlier work.

Indeed it’s almost possible to cast Harris as straying into Dan Brown territory here. With tongue a little in cheek, let’s look at the linkage with CERN, the plot running its course over a 24 hour period, and ultimately, an “opponent” with the capacity to exercise vast power over the entire world, sounding familiar yet? It’s not helped by a nagging sense throughout that we’ve somehow come across a lot of this before, especially in the latter third, where (and I hope I’m not giving too much away here) there’s a very 2001 like sense of “the computer is trying to kill me”; it’s the sort of thing that mildly exasperates.

Leaving all this aside, I don’t begrudge the time or expense involved in “The Fear Index”. It is readable, engaging, and enjoyable – and was the right companion for a week of glass blowing in the West Country. It does however say something that I’ve mulled over the book in the days since finishing it, and most of this has reflected a nagging sense that it wasn’t quite as good as it should have been – it’s all a little too superficial, and ultimately undoes a lot of the real depth that made Harris’ reputation in the first place. Transforming himself into Michael Crichton will probably do Harris a lot of good in terms of his sales figures, but for me he’s no longer the must read author he once was.

"The Fear Index" became one of those books left in the rental cottage, which sums it up. A good holiday read, but not a keeper.

"Walk the Lines: The London Underground, Overground", Mark Mason

2011-09-06T00:05:00.000+01:00

I like living and working in London.
As a city it's got its ups and downs, and there are times when I think I'm insane to willingly get back on the plane to be a wage slave in the most expensive city in the world, but there's probably a reason I haven't actually left in the 12 odd years I've lived there. Sometimes you come across something that crystalises that view. I'm currently reading a slightly random purchase from my marvellous local small independent bookshop (http://www.beckenhambooks.com/), Mark Mason's "Walk the Lines" - an account of walking the various underground lines that make up Harry Beck's iconic description of London.

It's book that more than usually resonates with me. When I moved to London in 1999 it was walking around it that first scared the hell out of me, then made me slowly but surely figure out how it fitted together, and then ultimately, as a proud South Londoner, feel highly aggrieved at how the richness of "south of the river" gets missed by the vast majority of London visitors because "it's not on the tube".In many ways it's worth a read, and has been a good choice for this week's Oslo run, but it just came into its own in the way that most travel books should - it talked to an experience I relish.

Day in day out I walk from Cannon Street to London Wall and I treasure the moment, circumnavigating the Bank of England, when I can start to break away from the brownian motion of most of city traffic and find a little oasis of peace of silence. There are pockets like this dotted all over London but Tokenhouse Yard is one of them, and one that always makes me smile. It's a bit of the Square Mile I can still surprise friends and colleagues with. That makes it one of my favourite places, and that Mason describes it as one his too makes me like his book that crucial bit more. There are a lot reasons to read "Walk the Lines" - it's a well written travelogue around one of the world's megacities, but if you've lived in the wider city, been affected by the way transport impacts it, and are looking for someone who understands really what London is all about in the way you do too, then this will probably work.

I can even forgive my existential disagreement over the quality of bacon sandwiches provided by "Little Gatsby" (more correctly on Telegraph St I suspect). It's differences like this that make London one of the most exciting cities imaginable.

Straits of Hormuz

2011-05-09T21:54:00.000+01:00

I'm currently a little behind on reviewing Lee Allen Zatarain's "Americas First Clash with Iran" on the 1987-88 Tanker War for Intelligence and National Security, not because of any reluctance to read what is, so far, a pretty good read, but more general inertia.

In lieu of any comment on it at the moment I thought it appropriate to share this gem in the current issue of Fairplay (one the main commercial shipping weeklies, for those of you perhaps unfamiliar with it).

It's not nice to mock the afflicted, but given that these guys will have spent a significant amount of cash promoting their ship refuelling service on this, you'd have thought there might have been a degree of attention paid to how to spell the Straits in question.

Craig Thomas, 1942-2011

2011-04-12T18:41:00.002+01:00

So, Craig Thomas is no longer with us.

To be fair most of us had resigned ourselves to having read the last of him, the long 12 years of silence at 1999's "Slipping into Shadow" communicated the message that this was all over reasonably clearly, and in our minds I think we all knew that his finest work was behind him even then, but it's still sad to see someone who could genuinely be seen as a master of British cold war fiction leave us, and it's only appropriate to pause and reflect on what his work was all about.

In 1985 I 'discovered' the spy thriller. I was 13 and the pair of Clive Cussler and Craig Thomas served to introduce 'adult' fiction to my shelves with something of a bang. Almost overnight collections of W E Johns and Swallows and Amazons went, making way for anything I could lay my hands on from my small local second hand bookshop in Dalkey. In retrospect it seems almost disrespectful to mention Cussler and Thomas in the same breath. Clive Cussler writes fantastic gung ho rollicking adventures, but in his long running character Kenneth Aubrey Thomas produced a creation to rival Le Carre's Smiley.

Most of the obituaries emerging have latched onto "Firefox" as being his signature novel, and it was this which first drew my attention to Thomas, initially, and perhaps somewhat unusually not through the Clint Eastwood film, but the laser disc arcade game, then as the first of his books to be read by me - closely followed by its sequel, "Firefox Down". It would be a huge shame for this to obscure his triumphant journey through British intelligence as portrayed by the Kenneth Aubrey series (Aubrey has a bit part in "Firefox", grotesquely played by Freddie Jones in the film), the high point almost certainly being "The Bear's Tears", a sinuous tale of betrayal spanning Cold War Europe and Afghanistan topically at the time wrapped up in the suspicions that British intelligence was penetrated at a high level by a Soviet agent. "The Bear's Tears" is enormously readable and while perhaps it suffers from undeniably coming after "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" it deserves a much higher profile than it currently enjoys. I loved reading it during what I distinctly remember was a bleak November in the mid 1980s, and it has borne periodic revisiting.

The universe of Aubrey and his Australian man-of-action Patrick Hyde ran on for five further books and while all were highly polished political thrillers, I don't think the same heights were quite scaled. This was punctuated by a return of Firefox's Mitchell Gant, in a pair of slightly underwhelming books, and what initially promised to be the start of a new series, with 1995's "A Wild Justice" which set a group of dedicated Russian police fighting the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction in the chaos of the collapsed Soviet Union. Most notably this was supported by very high profile marketing in British broadsheet newspapers with mock electrical store adverts plugging "Unbeatable deals of top brand Nuclear Weapons".

Steam undeniably ran out towards the end. The final Gant book, "A Different War" draws almost word for word on "A Hooded Crow" for its denouement, and in "Slipping into Shadow", largely set in Burma's Golden Triangle, there's a perceptible sense of lassitude. It was a disappointment, but probably not a surprise that nothing more was forthcoming from Craig Thomas.

He may have stopped writing a long time ago, but it's still sad to draw a line under this, and confirm that there really is nothing more to come. So, tonight's a time to raise a glass to the memory of Aubrey, Hyde, and their very talented creator, Craig Thomas.

“The Railways of Beckenham”, Andrew Hajducki

2011-04-10T13:44:00.000+01:00

Railways and London are inextricably linked. London Transport’s iconic font and signage, set in Johnston, come as close as anything to being a definitive brand for London, and the default means of navigating around the city for any recent arrival is to fall back on the tube map. This of course is a source of long running mild irritation to those of us living south of the river. To the average tourist London sprawls northwards, and the wilds of Cockfosters or Amersham are somehow more accessible than the South London towns of Surbiton, Sutton, Croydon, or Bromley.

This of course is a misrepresentation. South London had its period of explosive growth in the 19^th century, as the Victorian network of overground railways spread through Surrey and Kent, thus when the underground appeared, there was no sense in expensive new tunnelling technology trying to compete with a well-established and functioning network in the south – resulting in the 20^th century focus on the north, the creation of ‘Metroland’ in the 1930s, and in 1931 the arrival of Harry Beck’s schematic diagram, which somehow forever shifted the balance of attention tubewards, and condemned South London to relative obscurity.

Jurist Andrew Hajducki contributes to maybe restoring the balance of understanding with his study of the extensive railway network in what was the Borough of Beckenham – making the point that the railway network built in the 19^th century transformed sleepy countryside hamlets into prosperous Victorian suburbs and that the railway network used by commuters today is more or less identical to that put in place 150 years ago.

The point that social development and railway technology are linked is never lost through the book, from the quaint absurdity of the Cator family insisting that the original railway charter did not allow for cheap weekend tickets to Beckenham, lest there be an unwelcome influx of ‘excursionists’ who would lower the tone and value of the estate, through to a much more modernist approach when The Times in 1923 comments that “Beckenham is a convenient and pleasant suburb with the advantage of late trains and fast services to the City and West End”. In short, Beckenham was democratised and to a large extent created by the railways.

To most who use railways in London there is of course a level of scepticism about how effective the system really is, with autumn and winter seeming being impossible for trains to cope with, and the reality of overcrowding at peak times meaning the train is often a less than idyllic mode of transport. The point is made that this is nothing particularly new. In 1873 the railway authorities are described as treating passengers “more like cattle than Christians” and in the 1970s a British Rail local manager in the Beckenham area was forced to concede that “actually getting commuters to London is a daily miracle”. Somehow one feels much as the network in the area looks the same, the complaints haven’t moved on a tremendous amount either.

It would be very easy to recoil from a book like this in fear of being tarred by the ‘train spotter’ brush, but in overall presentation (it is lavishly illustrated throughout) and avoiding the trap of being over captivated by detail, instead punctuating the narrative with entertaining vignettes, Hajducki provides an engaging and easy read. Wry observations, such as Beckenham’s first casualty of World War Two being a man who, confused by the blackout at Shortlands station, alighted on the wrong side of the train and plummeted to his death on the road below, transform what could be a dry account of train timetables into something a lot richer.

Commercially one suspects that “The Railways of Beckenham” will never be a great deal more than of niche interest to railway enthusiasts or local historians, but for those constituencies it does a fine job. It’s also encouraging to see the author and his publishers make an attempt to directly engage with the target audience. The book was launched last week at Beckenham library with an illustrated talk by the author, highlighting how the stations in the borough can essentially trace the communities’ evolution, and how they serve to mark the course of history over the last 150 years. It’s worth doing, and something that helps build identity in what could otherwise be faceless suburbia.

Beckenham Library hosts launch of "The Railways of Beckenham", 7 April 2011

"Kathy Casey's Northwest Table", Kathy Casey

2011-04-02T17:40:00.000+01:00

I very much enjoy living in Beckenham, but sometimes it has the potential to annoy. The small local kitchenware shop, the Kitchen Range on the High Street, which I've patronised happily in the past, basically screwed up today, and it frustrated. I posted a rather choleric tweet on the subject while stomping back to the car, and in hindsight maybe there should be a little more balance than that afforded by the 140 characters of a microblogging tweet.

So, some context. Mrs Semi Dweller bought a large purple casserole dish from them on Tuesday, but not wanting to carry it home on foot - it being rather significant in size, arranged for it to be collected on Saturday. The staff at the Kitchen Range were perfectly happy about this - reflecting some of the best things about small local shops - with the affable "no, you won't need to bring the receipt, it's an unusual surname and we'll have it for you" - so far so good.

Sadly however when trying to collect it this afternoon, having battled through usual levels of traffic, the store failed to track down the said casserole. The best explanation they could come up with was that it might, for no clear reason, have been sent to their other store, but they weren't sure. Problems happen - I'm all too aware of this, but the hallmark of a business is how it responds to them, and today, the Kitchen Range struggled a bit - no real willingness to look for the item, no real route to fixing this other than idly jotting down my name on a bit of paper, managing to convey little or no impression that this was going to go anywhere.

I like local businesses, and I try to support them whenever I can, but I can't help thinking that they need to play to their strengths in making that personal connection with customers and being entirely responsive. Think about it - even the most basic ebusiness has some form of rudimentary CRM allowing a consistent connection and channel of communication to customers, a traditional meatspace shop doesn't have that out of the box, so it needs to either build that rapport of knowledge about its customers, or play to its strengths in being able to communicate with them on a broader base.

I'll still go to the Kitchen Range, and I'd be extraordinarily sad to see it go, but it could be better, it should be better, and I suspect that it may need to be better.

More positively on the kitchen front I've a weekend more or less to myself. It's an opportunity to put films on in the background, dig out some lesser used recipes, and create a bit of havoc. Today has involved experimenting with brining, marinading chicken in a broth of paprika, coriander, garlic and salt. I probably should leave it for longer than it's going to get, Kathy Casey talks about doing it overnight, and this time round I think four hours is more likely to be what's involved, but nevertheless the process creates something that smells fantastic and reminds why making anything from first principles rewards.

I'm trying to remember where Kathy Casey's Northwest Table was procured. It was certainly during 2008, and my suspicion is it was a Borders in Seattle that provided the source. It's fitting that there is something inspirational in there, the food in the Pacific Northwest is breathtakingly good and Casey succeeds in getting across the appeal of working with ingredients, and in making you want to explore something new. It's the hallmark of a good cookbook, and it's present here. I should know better, it should come off the shelf more often.

Brining described. Probably should be done on the barbecue, but tonight it's one for the griddle.

"The Silver Swan", Benjamin Black

2011-02-20T14:57:00.000Z

John Banville's 'slumming' in crime fiction under the nom de plume of has aroused ire in a lot of quarters, perhaps due to crime fiction's perennial, and unjustified, inferiority complex. This is a shame, because inherently Black's Quirke series has a lot to offer, and very deserves to be considered in its own right, not obscured by debating the rights and wrongs of whether writing crime is an unworthy occupation.

While at the time of writing, in 2007, the drab Ireland of the 1950s perhaps seemed a quaint throwback, now it feels almost prescient, a picture of an Ireland in straitened times, just half a century previously. This is less starkly painted than in "Christine Falls", where the dismal menu available in Jammet's brought home what austerity really meant. Ireland here has had a slow increase in prosperity, but this Dublin still feels like an austere place, where the old Anglo Irish pseudo aristocracy will fail to make a vast amount for themselves, the Catholic establishment will do reasonably well at making money for someone else, and the majority teeter between comfort and destitution. In many ways one fears this could be a description of Ireland now.

Economic realities aside this Dublin in summer feels vividly real. A hallmark of a good book is often whether the reader feels as though the sense of place is accurate, and despite never having had the pleasure of 1950s Dublin, it succeeds in convincing absolutely. Cast in warm dusk amongst Georgian buildings the richness of setting is one of the most satisfying aspects of the novel.

Beyond the interest of the setting, it's striking how easy a read "The Silver Swan" is, despite a languid feel to the language, I got through the lion's share of it in the four hours between Chennai and Dubai, helped perhaps by a comfortable seat and a rather good Meursault provided by Emirates. This ease of writing wraps up what is actually quite a complex combination of murder, blackmail, and sexual betrayal in an accessible package. The non linear plot forces you to think about the book and how the events link together, and while this is not a completely straightforward process it is ultimately rewarding in making you think about what's happening.

Quirke remains the engaging character from "Christine Falls", undeniably flawed and idiosyncratic, but despite this someone who you can like and identify with. Indeed, one of the greater tributes to characterisation is that you can readily forgive him drawing quite such a profoundly incorrect conclusion about what actually happened and who actually did it. That said, the conclusion that justice, even a rough class of it, has been done, is borne out, and the figure of Inspector Hackett, looming in the background, strangely reassures that the truth can be arrived at, if not acted upon.

“Shatter the Bones”, Stuart MacBride

2011-01-23T00:21:00.000Z

I’ve long been an enthusiast of Stuart MacBride’s work. Having an Aberdeen background helps of course, but deep down his mixture of gruesome crime with slapstick policing, a wry approach to language and the cultural background that underpins a rich vein of humour add a lot to the oft trod terrain of the police procedural. Fittingly while “Shatter the Bones” has been making its way back and forth across the North Sea with me over the last couple of weeks, last night’s flight up to Aberdeen provided the ideal opportunity to indulge in MacBride’s distinct form of crime fiction.

My wife is often a bellwether regarding whether an author is likely to be of niche appeal to my particular tastes in crime or if they can break out into more widespread appeal. We listened to the audiobook of “Dying Light” one year driving through France, and the opinion of Mrs Southlondonbook was that it worked because Logan McRae wasn’t the cliched over burdened fucked up detective that appeared to invariably crop up in crime fiction. Sure, he wasn’t without an issue or two, but he wasn’t the put upon downtrodden cop that has the scope to annoy.

Sadly I’m now hesitant to suggest bodging another Stuart MacBride on during a road trip. The humour’s still there, Aberdeen’s still, well, Aberdeen, and the writing is still engaging, but somewhere along the lines, something’s snapped in the heart of the story. Logan McRae’s no longer a happy go lucky, lovable, lucky, if slightly rubbish policeman. His demons are now a lot more front and centre, and while the crime in MacBride has always been a bit on the jarring side, the character of MacRae now seems to have been captured by the bleak side of the narrative.

MacBride’s defended this in the past, seeing it as making his lead character fundamentally more interesting, which is probably fair. Detectives with no issues are unmemorable, let’s face it, even Rosemary and Thyme have baggage, but there’s a thin line to tread. In MacBride’s blog (sadly neglected - that I should have the temerity to say such a thing) cuts to the heart of it

Here's the thing though - I don't really want him to end up as a bitter lump of alcohol-soaked gristle. At least, not in the long term. OK, so he's never going to be the same naïve, bushy-tailed wee scamp he was to start with, but I don't see him turning into the classic police procedural cliché. If he does, then it'll definitely be time to kill him off.

Stuart MacBride, 28 May 2009

Reading “Shatter the Bones” you can’t help thinking that MacBride may be tiring of McRae, and maybe in the back of his mind he’s thinking about an endgame, but somehow if we could find a way of conjuring him into being more of an older and wiser scamp I think we’d strike an even happier balance with. Maybe there is hope though. Will Hunter, the protagonist of MacBride’s ‘other’ book - the dystopian Halfhead, is a detective with appalling events in his history, yet he still remains a captivating character. If McRae migrates into this then perhaps there’s hope.

So, what about “Shatter the Bones” as a book? It adopts an intriguing perspective on crime, in that it opens six days after the central crime, the kidnapping of a mother-daughter star pairing on a reality TV talent show, has taken place. This is precised on the cover, and I almost wish it hadn’t been, as getting to grips with the confusion of crime and the level of pressure a police force is under while under an extreme media spotlight would have felt a lot more real if I had been scrabbling to work out what on earth was going on. Narratively it’s interesting as an approach, and I think it works. It means the obvious suspects aren’t trailed in advance, and focuses attention on the uncertainty and dilemmas faced by the investigating officers.

It bears all the usual hallmarks of a Stuart MacBride novel. In parts it’s sickeningly violent, it has elements of a distressing absence of redemption, but it’s punctuated with laugh-out-loud humour. There is too, a level of satisfaction about the end, in that there is sense that while punishment has been meted out to more than just those deserving of it, the actual wrong doers so actually come to the right sort of sticky end.

Coming strongly throughout “Shatter the Bones” is a level of disdain for the celebrity idolism that permeates British pop culture and the manufactured fame that talent shows push into society. It’s hard to not identify with this, and while describing the book as a moral parable would be going too far, one hopes that the fact that it went straight to number 1 on the hardback best seller lists at least gives one or two readers a pause for thought.

I finished “Shatter the Bones” late last night, staying up longer than intended because there really is that level of compulsion to it. I finished it a little shell shocked. It’s MacBride, therefore there’s plenty in there to shock, but the ending, and I’m not going to spoil it for anyone, is profoundly affecting and bleak. It’s still a really good read, and it reinforces the fact that while MacBride really isn’t for everyone, it works for me. This morning I got up, and ambled through to the spare room and dug out “Blind Eye” to be re-read, sometimes you need that extra bit of Aberdeen in your life.

"Atlantic", Simon Winchester

2011-01-07T21:22:00.001Z

Simon Winchester is one of the authors who, without making a big splash, somehow manages to place his prolific output on my bookshelves without me really noticing. Thus, when I returned from Norway to an impromptu gift of his new “Atlantic” it prompted me to quickly take stock. From the at times derided “Pacific Nightmare” (which still remains as the book I think most scathingly reviewed by the Economist) through “The Map the Changed the World” and “A Crack in the Edge of the World”, among many others, it's clear he's written a lot, and there seems to be a disproportionate amount of it in my library.

Perhaps the reason for this is that Winchester manages to fuse geography, history, and personal anecdote in a genuinely engaging way. His wide ranging 'biography' of the Atlantic Ocean defies classification, but is an absorbing and genuinely fun read, peppered with the sort of material that you want to file away for use in witty and intelligent conversation, or perhaps even better, spurs you read more widely and explore the world hinted at within the confines of Winchester's text.

The subtitle of “A vast ocean of a million stories” hints at the truth of the book - it's not history, biography, geography, or economics, it's an Atlantic miscellany that will not make you an expert on any of these subjects, and as such commenting on specifics of the book becomes difficult. It’s the sort of work that I want to say rewards dipping into, but it doesn’t, it probably does need to be read in a linear fashion, that way the stream of anecdote sinks in, engages, and makes you smile.

A lot of the book requires you to already be pretty au fait with the subjects Winchester is talking about. If you’re unaware of the finer points of Norwegian cuisine (aside, working for a Norwegian company and thus spending a lot of time in that part of the world I perhaps have an unfair advantage) the comment that Amerigo Vespucci is still held by Americans to be the ‘discoverer’ of the New World largely down to pizza being more popular than lutefisk may pass you by.

Throughout the tone is entertaining, opinionated, and wearing its heart on its sleeve hints at the tremendous fun that must have been had in researching the book. Vignettes pop up and make you want to yearn for a post-it note to mark the position, or, in a 21st century way I would send myself emails with cryptic text such as “entertaining anecdote Russian seascape painting p.167” (go on, look it up). Thus, for all that there are times when you may disagree with Winchester, such as with his scathing view of the simultaneous ugliness of contemporary container ships and Le Corbusier’s modernist architecture, you can’t really begrudge him.

Having introduced modernism, let’s talk a little about intextuality. Winchester talks about the Atlantic’s impact on culture through the centuries, but in not quite bringing it up to date I sense a missed opportunity. Covering the ocean’s impact on music, Gilbert and Sullivan is about as pop culture as it gets. This misses the chance to talk about Rod Stewart and 1975’s “Atlantic Crossing” (which of course concludes with the rather apposite “Sailing”) or indeed the magnificently overblown British indie band British Sea Power, who must win prizes for having “Scapa Flow” in a song lyric and managing to put together a monumentally conceptual instrumental soundtrack inspired by life on the Aran Islands. This isn’t however a criticism, more a reflection that Simon Winchester and I have different cultural stimuli, and I suspect that every reader will be able to find points where they wish more had been talked about.

There probably aren’t a million stories contained in “Atlantic”, and truth be told there probably are rather more than a million that could be told. Nobody should worry about this, nobody should buy this hoping that it will be an encyclopaedic exploration of everything to do with the Atlantic Ocean (perhaps along the lines of Braudel’s work on the Mediterranean), but anyone aspiring to have an enhanced repertoire of dinner party anecdotes should absolutely read it.

"Tell No One"

2010-07-18T23:36:00.001+01:00

Guillame Canet's slick 2006 thriller has been sitting on my to-be-watched pile for ages. I've had a couple of stuttering starts at watching it, but never really had the time to do it the justice I felt it deserved. All this was rectified on the Eurostar to Brussels last week.

A train heading into a Europe about to be gripped by the world's most monumental thunderstorm provided a suitably menacing backdrop to this noirish piece of cinema. I've blogged before about location - and this is again a case where surroundings matter. "Tell No One" works fine on the big HD TV at home, but somehow it was more fitting to be immersed by it on a small laptop screen whipping through Flanders as the world threatened to come to an end outside.

"Tell No One" is based on a Harlan Coben novel, originally set in New York (and which I haven't read) but translates it into something ineffably French. The world inhabited by Alexandre Beck, struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife, and then thrown the curveball of an email purportedly from her, is not the Paris you see as a tourist. This is a much more real Paris featuring the banlieue, the no go suburbs on the outskirts of the city, as well as the staggering wealth of the Parisian horsey set.

This is a dark film full of baroque violence and menace. The fleeting, often unexplained characters, including a truly evil androgenous torturer who just will not die, hint at a richness and deep wider story that works at your mind long after the final credits have rolled. There are some obvious links with "The Fugitive" - a doctor wrongly accused of murdering their wife and seeking the real killer - but these are superficial - "Tell No One" is a very different proposition, and much better for it.

Much of the film's strength lies in what's left unsaid. The enormously appealing Bruno (Gilles Lelouche) walking away from his life, son, and girlfriend is all massively understated, but given what you know he's done for Alex, is genuinely moving.

A film you want to watch and then watch again to see what you missed while you were captivated by the story, and a film you want to persuade anyone who will listen to watch with you.

An American remake is apparently in the works. One has to ask why? Okay the original novel is set in US, but somehow Canet has managed to make this a very French story, and to my mind it should remain so. Sure there might be a call for it, and it might well be a commercial success, especially given the depressing number of comments on LoveFilm stating that it's clearly rubbish because it's not even in English. This if nothing else is a persuasive argument for leaving this as ultimate cinematic representation of this particular tale. In fact, if your French is up to it, and this is a bit of an ask, because it does explore a lot of dialogue, turn off the subtitles and enjoy the gorgeous film-making.

Among many awards "Tell No One" has won, it secured best soundtrack at the 2007 Cesar awards - and it deserves it - this is almost a film that could work on the radio with nothing done to it, and leaves tunes in your head that stay with you. Groove Armada's "Hands of Time" is more than usually effective. This is almost Michael Mannish in the linkage of music with image, and believe me, it works.

If you've got a LoveFilm subscription, it's a available to freely watch online; even if you don't you should track this film down and watch it. It will make your life better for being in it.

"From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag", Tony Southgate

2010-07-11T14:06:00.000+01:00

For someone who first started to be interested in motor racing in 1982 Tony Southgate was consistently present in the background of the races I watched. It helped of course that he was associated with underdogs at that stage; teams like Theodore and Osella were never going to win anything, but with the latter in particular, they were doing something different, that appealed to me. There was also the real attraction of an attempt to do something with extraordinarily limited resources, which is an ethos that appeals to this day.

In this light Tony Southgate's autobiography has been a long time comings, and it doesn't disappoint. Told in a concise and to the point manner the true richness of Southgate's career, which has involved winning the Indianapolis 500 with Eagle, the Monaco Grand Prix with BRM, and Le Mans with Jaguar and Audi, is revealed.

This is a story that strips away a lot of the glamour that is often associated with motor racing. The red in tooth and claw nature of the sport in the 1960s and 1970s, when death was common occurrence is exposed, but so too is the gritty unrewarded hard graft that working in the industry entailed. The frankly unpleasant birth of Arrows was before my day, but this is told clearly by one of the participants, who has managed to lose a lot of the rancour with the perspective of distance. Back in the 1980s Southgate would refuse to refer to Arrows, instead calling it Arrow (the team name was built up from letters of the founders Alan Rees, Jackie Oliver, Dave Wass, and Tony Southgate), feeling he wanted nothing to do with them. Reading now of his abrupt dismissal and the borderline fraud that valued his 10% of the company at £5,000 you can understand the level of bitterness felt, especially when put in the context of the court battle with Shadow and the supreme efforts in producing a string of cars in Arrows' early years.

The core message here is that while there's a lot of money sloshing around the sport, it says something that Southgate had to work all the way to 2000 to ensure financial security. This is the story of a career where as he put it "I had always been paid well, but there is a difference between living well and having excess money to save for a rainy day" (p.170). You do however wonder if Southgate would have wanted it any different way? He's clear that the excesses of motorsport hold no appeal to him, and in being compelled to work later into his career he got the opportunity to work on some marvelous machinery and make him a figure who neatly spans the era when an individual could have an impact on every aspect of car design to the present, when the complexity of design means that the nature of the beast means cars are now inherently designed by committee.

As well as being a genuinely good read, right up there with recent classics from Vic Elford and John Horsman, "From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag" brings some real new insight for the student of motor racing. In 1982 then Osella designer, Herve Guilpin quit in disgust at the Caesar's Palace Grand Prix, being fulsome in his criticism of Enzo Osella's approach including choice words such as "The reason is always lack of money. The result is the FA1D [Osella's 1982 car] is and always has been a potential public menace" and questions about resource allocation, such as questioning the building of a test track at the Osella factory. For those who want to know more, the full story is told on page 45 in the 1982 Caesar's Palace edition of Grand Prix International magazine.

Tony Southgate brings a different perspective. When he visited the Osella facility at Volpiano to discuss the project for fitting an Alfa Romeo V12 engine to the FA1E, not long after Guilpin's outburst, he was clearly pleasantly surprised. Summing it up he states "Compared with the likes of Arrows and Shadow, Osella looked very impressive. Where teams allocate their money is always a case of individual priorities, and in Osella's case he obviously spent a lot of it on the factory." (p.126). Different observers, different perspectives, and different circumstances, but it all clearly shows how primary sources can be so contradictory.

"From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag" is beautifully put together and tells a fascinating story. It deserves to be read by anyone with a real passion and interest in motor racing in the latter part of the 20th century.

"Payback", James Barrington

2010-07-10T10:52:00.000+01:00

Since an idle purchase of "Foxbat" at the Eurotunnel crossing in the autumn of 2007, I've enjoyed James Barrington. It's nonsense, requires a significant suspension of disbelief, but as a fried, leafing through the first pages of "Payback" in The Rake one evening this week commented, for nonsense, it's pretty well written.

Throughout Barrington's work it is possible to discern a steady reigning in of his protagonist, Paul Richter. In "Payback" he's a more straightforward character. He's an individualistic and unorthodox intelligence officer, not necessarily anything unusual in a spy thriller, but now there's no merging in of him being a Royal Navy fighter pilot. This, on balance, is a good thing. Barrington can undeniably write both spy fiction and techno-thrillers, but when the genres were fused quite so firmly it somehow didn't quite work.

"Payback" is thus a tighter story, and has a tight geographic focus on Dubai. Here we can see a clear example of how real world events can undermine an author. The Dubai here is a super-rich Sheikhdom basking in opulence, and it is almost certainly an accurate representation of what it was like while Barrington was writing. Sadly by mid-2010 the financial collapse of Dubai has transformed people's perception, and somehow the idea of the Dubai government blithely paying off terrorists with billions of dollars doesn't ring quite so true. Other little niggles, such as Dubai airport's Terminal 3 being described as "soon to open" when it's been working since 2008 are more easily glossed over, but still illustrate how hard it is for an author to achieve complete veracity.

In truth though, there are some aspects of a thriller such as this where accuracy is needed. Getting the technical details wrong, or just making them up, will jar with the seasoned reader of such material, and Barrington doesn't miss a step here. Other aspects of background, such as the issues with Dubai or the riding roughshod over the finer details of intelligence process can be seen as areas where it's unfair to criticise a work for being unrealistic; the function of a book like "Payback" is not to inform, it is to entertain. The end product is a highly readable and enjoyable book. As with everything else Barrington has written, it's not great literature, but doesn't seek to be. It's summer, people will be flocking through airports, "Payback" is the sort of book to readily keep you distracted while cooped up on a long haul flight.

Furst in a hot climate

2010-06-25T00:56:00.000+01:00

I find myself on the horns of a dilemma.

My marvellous small local bookshop in Beckenham had a copy of Alan Furst's "Spies of the Balkans" in stock on day of release. I've read the first few pages, and it's clearly a Furst; there's something about his use of place and language that as many others have said, manage to convince the reader you're in 1940s Europe - I'd always thought that this was just smoke and mirrors convincing me as a Gen-Xer that he was convincing until I gave my mother a copy of "Night Soliders". Mum is going to be 81 this year, and lived through World War II, and even though she did so as a child, the fact that she thinks Alan Furst captures what the period was like works for me.

So where's the problem? I would appear to have a new, unread, Alan Furst in my possession; why am I debating whether I should start it now?

Before answering this, let's rewind briefly. Alan Furst was introduced to me by Salon Magazine (read on AvantGo on a Conpaq Ipaq) back in 2001. Prompted by this I picked up "The World at Night" and was captivated. This was a February, and I was commuting listening to Sara Ayers (very obscure I accept) and some of her songs such as "The Waiting Room" - the combination of Furst's brilliance, wintery rain battering against old slam-door South London rolling stock, and Ms Ayre's cold ambient music made for something magical. There's even something about the covers from his works then, which were, and still are, works of art.

This defines Furst. He talks of a world at night, where moral equivalency imposes a darkness on peoples' souls, and where stinging rain slants into the faces of doomed protagonists. He does this brilliantly, and as a reader in fitting surroundings you're physically propelled into his world.

Rewind.

It's a hot June in the UK. I'm about to go to India for a week. It's hot.

I've tried reading Furst in a warm climate before. I got "Blood of Victory" on day of release and treasured it, saving it for a long laconic holiday we'd scheduled for late September 2002 in Umbria. A bucolic quiet surrounding should have been perfect, but it wasn't. Leaving aside that Furst is best talking about cities, it didn't quite work when sitting beside a pool in Italy's late summer warmth. I loved it as a book, but it didn't worm itself into my soul as other Fursts have.

So. I have "Spies of the Balkans" in my hands. On Sunday I do the long multi-leg flight to Chennai for a week working with my development team, and will want many books as support (quod vide) for business hotel bound nights.

It should be a no-brainer.

I have a new Alan Furst to read.

...It doesn't work.

Chennai in Southern India is hot. Rain or shine next week is going to be a very hot week. I'm going to crave moments of quiet when I can savour condensation on the side of a glass to try and cool me down. This isn't Furst terrain. Even although "Spies of the Balkans" is set in Greece, it starts on a rainy winter night in Salonika. This isn't material for a hot climate.

Alan Furst is being left at home.

I'm desperate to read "Spies of the Balkans". For all that I wish he'd return to the sprawling narratives of "Night Soldiers" and "Dark Star" anything he writes is still an immediate candidate for Desert Island Book. Somehow however I know I'm missing something when the environment isn't there. "Spies of the Balkans" is going to go onto the TBR shelf and I'm going to avoid reviews of it. It's going to stay at behind when I go to Chennai and wait for us to be reacquainted in the European autumn.

Maybe I can swing a Eurostar run to Brussels in November. Whipping through Northern France with sleet stinging against the window is when you should read Alan Furst. He paints a magnificent picture of Europe before and during the fall of man; reading him deserves an appropriate backdrop.

It's late, and I'm writing on my small sitting room netbook. I may well revisit this entry and put in some imagery and hyperlink it so that I can really set this in context, but I liked writing this, and a blog should reflect freshness of thinking. Goodnight.

"Divided Houses, The Hundred Years War III ", Jonathan Sumption

2010-06-22T20:08:00.000+01:00

British QC Jonathan Sumption has been writing his monumental history of the Hundred Years War for over 20 years now, and there's still probably another couple of volumes to go, which at his current rate of writing, will see us through to 2030 or so, a writing project that will have taken almost as long as its subject matter to complete.

The first volume was a surprising gift from a friend's father in 1990 - I'd been the beneficiary of his generosity in the past, as he disbursed the books he accumulated in a career at Irish broadcaster RTE, but I remember being struck that this was a rather more impressive gift than usual. Sadly it remained largely unread through university years - somewhat ironic given the courses in medieval history I took, only picked up when working life and exigencies of a commute impelled me to raid the large unread pile that a decade in higher education can leave you with, and the publication of the 2nd volume reminded me of the first's existence.

Size makes these books daunting, but right from the start, with the lavish description of the funeral of Charles IV in 1328 you realise that this is something deserving of your time. Reading weighty hardback tomes isn't easy on South London commuter trains, especially when you're also trying to juggle a cup of coffee, but some efforts are worth it.

The work is rooted in a traditional highly narrative form of history. As such it may not be scholastic, and academics may legitimately question whether it says much that's genuinely new, but it's probably better for it. Much in the same way as I prefer Runciman's somewhat discredited history of the crusades to more modern interpretations of the Latin East, Sumption's treatment is capable of immersing the reader in the 14th century world, and sweeping you a long with the period's inherent drama.

In terms of location it reminds you that France really is very big, but also that through much of the terrain familiar to British visitors to the continent there runs a rich vein of history when France and England were inextricably linked. It's also a timely reminder that the Hundred Years War was not just a Franco-British affair but in reality a much wider European conflict dragging in the low countries, Spain, and Italy and serving to shape the continent in many ways.

It does also reinforce some key points. Medieval warfare was not perpetual combat - financial realities meant it couldn't be so, and for those whose familiarity with the period is driven by the (admittedly rather good) Medieval Total War computer game or the more elaborate battle scenes in "Kingdom of Heaven", it comes as a surprise to be reminded that warfare was not conducted with a cast of thousands, instead small handfuls of fighting men would in the main shape the course of battle - cataclysmic confrontations such as Crecy or Agincourt (the latter still far from being covered in Sumption's work) very much the exception.

Despite this, it's probably not popular history - it's far too weighty for that, and this is a real shame. History such as this, talking about Kings, Queens, and battles, isn't trendy today, but it's the sort of story that can get people interested and excited. The French to their credit have grasped this with the magnificent visitor centre now at Azincourt, one can only wish that more of this would percolate through in Britain.

“A Deadly Trade”, Michael Stanley

2010-06-02T23:06:00.002+01:00

Crime writing set in Africa can take a number of forms. Robert Wilson's quartet of novels set in Benin paint pictures of West Africa that actively convince you that you would pay a lot of money to never go there. By contrast, the Botswana depicted in Michael Stanley's Detective Kubu novels is an altogether more appealing prospect.

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise; in contrast to its neighbours, Botswana largely avoided the post-colonial political chaos endured by the likes of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Angola, and unusually also managed to do something sensible with its mineral wealth. Obviously it's not without its issues, in particular rampant HIV infection rates, but in the main it feels like somewhere that could be a credible destination and indeed one with no small appeal. In this light, the centrality of tourist camps in the bush to the plot of “A Deadly Trade” is firmly within the bounds of plausability.

The core premise of multiple murders at the remote Jackalberry lodge camp, builds what ultimately feels like a somewhat overcomplicated plotline. It transpires that everyone at the camp on the night in question has some form of suspicious background and possible motivation. As narrative devices go this ends up feeling a little tired and redolent of the worst excesses of Agatha Christie, and in this case you're left with the distinct impression that there would have been a benefit to at least one of the plot's thread being unpicked in the editorial process.

What more than saves the work however is the persona of Detective Kubu. Here we find a marvellously appealing central character. The rotund detective, enormously food oriented, manages to strike just the right balance between crime fiction's obligatory level of insubordination and a credible level of effectiveness. At times too, he displays a reassuring level of 'crapness' that succeeds, in a very endearing way, of making him very human. In short, he's the sort of policeman you really wouldn't object to having as a neighbour.

My initial reaction was to be sceptical of “A Deadly Trade”, and it took its time to work its way to the head of the 'to-be-read' pile, but a combination of a well executed opening scene and an extremely accomplished sense of place managed to capture attention. For all the exasperation at some of the plot devices, it does engender a distinct curiousity about what's actually going to happen, and it passes the 'does it keep you up at night' test with flying colours. Great literature it probably isn't, but it's well worth a read.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as a review copy from Hodder Headline

"In Office Hours", Lucy Kellaway

2010-05-14T00:55:00.001+01:00

Through ten odd years of my current working incarnation, when most of the time I'm supposed to be responsible adult doing grown up things, Lucy Kellaway, through her FT column, has done her bit to keep me sane and sensible.

She came into her own when the subversive in me delighted in goading my then training and development manager with her challenge for companies to concede that the sole reason to go open plan was to squeeze more desks in, one of many points in her writing on business nonsense that was all too applicable to modern working life.

It's impossible too to separate Lucy Kellaway from her wonderfully ridiculous yet true-to-life creation, Martin Lukes, who consistently succeeds in removing the cork from the excesses of C-Suite absurdity that most of us are painfully aware of.

For someone used to Kellaway's general no-nonsense and deeply humorous approach, "In Office Hours" will feel arrestingly different. Telling the story of two corporate women who embark on self destructive affairs within the company they work for, this bears scant relation to the levity that otherwise characterises Kellaway's writing.

Make no mistake however, this doesn't mean that this isn't a good book; it is. In fact, it teeters on the brink of brilliance. It's well observed, feels real, and it is impossible not to be moved by the raw tearing emotion felt by the characters. The fact that the relationships that lie at the heart of the book are doomed is clear from the start, just like any dispassionate observer to an illicit liaison can see the folly of the participants, but as in reality, there is a grim compulsion to seeing the car wreck unfold in front of us.

"In Office Hours" is not a happy book. There is a conspicuous absence of joie de vivre, with the initial exuberence Stella and Bella feel when corresponding with their ... what's the right word, men? boyfriends? counterparts? ... rapidly subsumed by the feeling of being trapped by an illicit relationship, which comes across as being no fun whatsoever. Doomed love does nonetheless make for affecting reading, in this way Kellaway is following in the steps of Faulks' "On Green Dolphin Street" or Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty" in writing something that I suspect will stay with you for a while.

An old friend of mine used to say of office romances that one should never piss on one's own doorstep. He's now happily married to a woman he met at work. Indeed Lucy Kellaway herself makes no bones about the fact that she met her husband at work. This however doesn't alter the core message of "In Office Hours", that our colleagues are people that understand us, and that we have a huge amount in common with, but ultimately crossing the line from friendship to intimacy is a step that isn't likely to make us happy in the long term.

"In Office Hours" is a very good, possibly brilliant, book. Having finished it I'm pretty sure I won't read it again; one read through is enough. It will make me read Lucy's column in Monday morning's FT with an awful lot more respect though. I always knew she was good, reading this I now know she's really good.

"Accused", Mark Gimenez

2010-05-11T23:12:00.001+01:00

As mentioned previously on this blog, I picked up Mark Gimenez's latest legal thriller when passing through Heathrow a couple of weeks ago. There's something fitting about this, I first encountered Gimenez at the same location, at Terminal 5, two years ago, when a touch frustrated at not being able to find an airport edition of Stuart MacBride's "Flesh House", I instead made do with "The Perk", so beginning my engagement with his own brand of Texan legal fiction.

Oft derided as being derivative of John Grisham, there are undeniable similarities between the two authors. They both deal with lawyers, they both predominantly write about the Southern United States, and deep down they're telling stories that are courtroom dramas. That said, I've recently found myself lacking some enthusiasm for Grisham, while "Accused", just like "The Perk" two years ago, was started on the short flight out, and finished by the time the BA Airbus pushed back for the flight home the following day.

Somehow Gimenez paints a picture that feels deeper than that we get with Grisham. The characters are more appealing, the locations spark more questions, and critically I find the stories grip me more. That this is more a reflection of a certain jadedness with Grisham and the relative newness of Gimenez is possible, but right now a new Gimenez has me reaching for the shelf much more than a Grisham does.

So, what's "Accused" really like? Set predominantly in Galveston it revisits the career of Gimenez's first protagonist, A. Scott Fenney from 2006's "The Colour of Law", tackling the intriguing prospect of defending his estranged wife for the murder of the professional golfer she left him for. It's a convoluted premise, and results in a convoluted plot, but it's told with aplomb, and really importantly holds its nerve and retains its ability to surprise.

One key historic area of weakness is his writing has been addressed. Children always feature strongly in Gimenez's writing and "Accused" is no different, however this time around he's managed to write them appropriately. They still have opinions, but these now are those that are credible for their age rather than strangely offering advice and opinion a long way beyond their years. This is a small point, but important, in a book like this you need to be carried along by the pace of the story and any moment where a character jars can lose critical momentum; in previous works the questions raised by the preternaturally mature children broke this flow, now they sit much more fittingly within the novel.

Thinking about "Accused" with the benefit of what hindsight a couple of weeks post reading grants me, I'm coming round to the idea that this might be his best book to date. "The Perk" may have had a more complete plotline and somehow more appealing setting, but there are times when "Accused" teeters on the brink of almost being "12 Angry Men". It's absorbing, not ridiculously far fetched, and by the end does leave you nodding sagely in almost grudging admiration at having been played.

It's probably telling that I enjoyMark Gimenez's books most when I'm on the road. 'Airport novel' has become a pejorative term, but they serve a purpose that I for one am really grateful for, and I think "Accused" transgresses this classification into something a good bit more thought provoking.

Yes, I'd still choose him over Grisham when presented with the two of them on the shelf.

Revisiting Steven Levy's "Hackers"

2010-04-29T13:30:00.000+01:00

Wired magazine, this month, marks 25 years since the publication of Steven Levy's "Hackers" with the author revisiting some of the themes and characters that 'starred' in his book, and reflecting on how culture and the industry have changed, with computing moving from the geekish territory of the school outcast to being all pervasive in our lives.

I first read "Hackers" over 10 years ago, and found it an engaging book, talking a lot to the time when I started tinkering with technology and being a pleasing tale of wonder about creative people. It's not a perfect book, The New York Times, reviewing it in 1984 see it as starting brightly, then running out of steam, and they've probably got it on the money. The latter half of the book doesn't have the creative flame burning quite as brightly, there's a sense of ennui and hubris setting in, perhaps connected with people Levy chose to look at, perhaps a reflection that the mid-80s weren't as creative a time computing wise.

This doesn't alter the fact that "Hackers" is a deeply informative book, and perhaps more relevant now, when the roots of the way computing worms its way into everyday life are perhaps a lot less familiar to the population now. Starting to understand where things like the semantic web and Vannevar Bush's idea of linking information came from all help to drive understanding of what goes on under the hood of our machines, and were that more pervasive it might help recapture some of the 'hacker spirit' that Levy celebrated.

Steven Levy's also capable of writing some wonderful prose. His "Insanely Great" on the development of the Mac is a fascinating read, and "The Perfect Thing", on Apple's iPod still sits on my bookshelf at work as a study in how to develop and manage a product in the 21st century.

Not least, "Hackers" is worth a read because it's so superficially misunderstood. Okay that's probably because the word has been appropriated with more criminal connotations, but it's still entertaining when you see that Bromley libraries file it under "crime", a case study if ever one was needed for the use of faceted navigation in library catalogues.

Even if you're not moved to read the book, have a look at the Wired article, and if you're not familiar with Levy, give him a try, he has a knack for making a potentially very dry subject human and attractive, and that's something that really should be encouraged.

"Moscow Sting", Alex Dryden

2010-04-28T12:24:00.002+01:00

In "The Usual Suspects" Kevin Spacey claims that the best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

I've often thought that in many ways the best trick the

Russian Federation

pulled was convincing the West that it won the Cold War.

Alex Dryden's "Moscow Sting" starts during the Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008, pitting disparate state and civilian intelligence organisations in the search for 'Anna', an on-the-run Russian agent, and the quest for revenge against the Russian sponsored murder of a British agent.

It's a setting I find particularly interesting from a personal perspective. In the summer of 2008 I did a lot of work in Nizhnyy Novgorod, a city without the tourist cachet of Moscow or St Petersburg, but nonetheless an urbane cosmopolitan place at the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers. Nizhnyy Novgorod is a lovely city, and I still have many friends there, but it was nonetheless an odd experience being there then, as the conflict between Russia and Georgia flared and aspects of international politics over which I had no control started to have an impact on ordinary work.

In many ways "Moscow Sting" tries to capture the froideur of that period, yet somehow there's something that doesn't feel right.

I started reading spy fiction back in the early 1980s and "Moscow Sting" reads and feels almost exactly like something from there. Despite some nods to notions of Russian oligarchs and private security companies, this deep down is a story about Russian versus Western intelligence agencies.

Some parts of the book work better than others. The European settings are convincing, in the way the

ones are less so. The plot doesn’t completely hang together, and there are elements that either need to be expanded or cut out, and the ending feels profoundly rushed.

There are some obvious nods to the death of Alexander Litvinenko throughout the book, but it’s not until late on that he’s mentioned by name. Tying him in earlier would have served to reinforce the overall real world believability of the book. This element of veracity is something that’s critical in a spy thriller, and too often Dryden misses what should be an open goal in establishing this. Right at the outset 'Adrian' or 'C' flies to Helsinki on a routine RAF flight in a twin-engined turbo prop. This just doesn't seem likely - what plane is this? and why is there a routine RAF flight to Helsinki? Had Dryden just left it as the scheduled BA flight then the purpose would have been served, and doubts wouldn't have been introduced to the reader's mind.

Another area where the writing jars is in its endless anachronistic references to the KGB. It’s not as though Dryden is unaware of the changed structure of the Russian intelligence community, he makes reference to the FSB and SVR, but it’s almost as though there’s an assumption that the reader can’t cope with the new complexities. This ushers in one of the most troubling aspects of the book, the impression that this was a decent enough book written in the 1980s, and dusted off with a bit of polishing for a 21^st century audience.

There's scope for a brilliant book to be written about 2008, the seeming renewal of the Cold War and the frost that entered Russo-Western relations, and the economic collapse, and for a while I thought this might be it. Sadly it's not. It's a workable spy thriller, but most of the time bumps along in a way that's all too clearly inferior to the admittedly stellar standard set by the likes of le Carre, only sometimes rising above the ordinary.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as a review copy from Hodder Headline

Heathrow Terminal 5 and Mark Gimenez

2010-04-27T18:42:00.003+01:00

Current travels see me in Heathrow T5 en route to Oslo and today's impulse book buy was Mark Gimenez's "Accused".

I generally like what Gimenez has to say for himself so there's a degree of optimism about this and the Mark Billingham currently tucked in the bag will probably have to wait a bit.

One question though - us the central character, A Scott Fenney one that's previously appeared in one of his novels? My gut feel is yes - the unusual first name being a clincher I think, but which one of his books?

Hmmm

Postscript: I really enjoyed "Accused" and have blogged about it more fully in a separate post.

"American Devil", Oliver Stark

2010-04-22T13:13:00.002+01:00

"American Devil" is overtly and unashamedly a hard boiled American cop thriller. If Quintin Jardine's "Blood Red" was metaphorically a little like "Rosemary and Thyme" Oliver Stark's debut novel is much more in the gritty space occupied by "Criminal Minds" and "Messiah". Make no mistake, this isn't 'nice' crime we're dealing with here, this is something a lot darker.

Stark's debut novel treads the well worn path of noirish American serial killer novels. There's the familiar in the troubled renegade detective, pugilist bird watcher Tom Harper, and in the deeply psychological nature of the crime and its investigation. There's a lot of violence, related using what is often arresting language. Homage is paid in particular to Thomas Harris, with a West Virginian origin to the plot, and a set piece involving a pig farm.

Impressively Stark succeeds in keeping tension high with the slow unveiling of the killer's identity, and the numerous decision points, where they could have been stopped, and is not. This combines with the effective ploy of revealing the killer's identity towards the middle of the book,

Often with serial killer fiction, the multitude of victims lessens the impact - you don't learn enough about the background to the victims to identify with them, and thus their death is not as affecting, akin to the argument that as the bodycount goes up the shock value goes down. When taken to absurd degrees it enters the realm of slapstick slasher horror, and care needs to be taken to avoid this fate. Thankfully Stark has enough tools in his repertoire to avoid this pitfall in most (if not quite all) cases; just enough hints are given about the victims for you to start to care a little, and the manner in which narrowly escape, then fall back into the killer's clutches plays with the reader and for all that it probably is predictable, it still works on a sufficiently consistent basis to keep the pages turning.

The book's not completely flawless. The killer's psychological issues don't always feel completely convincing, and most of the victims, by their nature, are highly one dimensional. It's dark, it's disturbing, but it's not quite Elmore Leonard. There are moments too where dialogue is a little stilted, in particular there are times when the killer announces that he is the 'American Devil', somehow there's almost too many syllables involved, and it's a struggle to feel that the conversation is real.

Stark is a self-confessed fan of American pulp crime fiction, and sometimes you get the impression that he might be trying ever so slightly too hard to write in this vein. Language such as - "these were top dogs of the detective bureau and they were already shitting nickels" - conjures up a latter day Dashiel Hammett and Sam Spade, which in a world of "The Wire", or even "NYPD Blue", seems strangely anachronistic - as though this is a 1950s detective story forced through a time machine into the 21st century.

Bearing these mild issues in mind, the book is ideal travel fodder (or, alternatively given volcanic ash is doing its best to return us to a pre-aviation eta, ideal for sitting around waiting to travel). The combination of a fast paced storyline and short chapters make it a quick and easy read, and engaging in terms of driving the reader to find out what happens. Don't look to this as great literature, instead see it as a good story that manages to pull strings regarding elemental fears about intruders in your home. For those of nervous disposition, it's probably not one to read alone at night either.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as a review copy from Hodder Headline

Butchery is not for the Squeamish

2010-04-21T20:47:00.002+01:00

If you read a reasonable amount of crime fiction you’ll be aware that the concept of ‘body parts’ is one that pretty frequently crops up. Corpses are often dismembered, and plotlines involving identifying a particular piece are, let’s face it, not unheard of.

Sometimes an author will refer to the difficulty of actually performing the act, at times there will be a link to the profile of the criminal by looking at their expertise or otherwise in the area. What is however the reality of this? Is it simply a case of having a sharp enough knife or is there really a ‘skill’ involved?

Last night, in a much delayed Christmas present from my mother (dating from 2008 just to be clear, so really delayed) my wife and I went to a pig butchery class run by The Ginger Pig, realistic claimants to the title of best butcher in London.

Being confronted by a pig’s carcass right at the start is enough to make you stop and think. Lifting the half pig from the hook onto the block, hefting the 60 or so kilos, watching for the swinging trotter, and moving the dead weight isn’t a trivial task. You’re then presented with a vista of very fresh meat. We often think of pork as being light brown, almost grey when it’s huddled underneath its plastic packaging when presented in serried ranks in the supermarket. Believe me, the reality is quite different.

Vegetarianism holds little or no appeal to me, and I’ve never had a problem with knowing where my meat came from, but when you’re presented with the sheer size and quantity of a pig in front of you there is a moment where the mouth becomes a little dry, and you find yourself reaching for water. This is when it’s about to get real.

A butchery class is not for the squeamish. Immediately following a frank introduction to Ginger Pig’s farming methods (free range not organic) and a crash course in the various cuts, it’s straight into a very close range encounter with the animal, in a very nose to tail manner. You’re encouraged to touch, to become familiar with handling the carcass, and see that just about all of the animal can be effectively used for food, from the obvious areas of loin and belly, through to the slightly unexpected but still logical (trotters, tail), and eventually to the less expected, how a pig’s head can make a brawn, or the cheeks smoked, and even the (strikingly small in size) brain is edible (if not to everyone’s taste, the taste is apparently somewhat fishy).

Butchery involves all the senses, and in particular it’s audible. Several attendees commented that their first hearing of saw on bone was going to lurk in their ‘dreams’ for a while to come. One was heard to refer to the tearing out of skirt fat as his ‘Dexter’ moment. It’s also, perhaps disturbingly, something you rapidly just get used to. If nothing else, you learn that a human’s sense are very attuned, but equally we are rapidly desensitised.

As you get further involved in butchering the animal, you start to understand that this is indeed a very complex affair, easy if you do it right, but a complete fool’s errand if you get even a little bit wrong. It doesn’t matter how sharp your knife or big your cleaver, if you’re not doing it right, you’re not going to be cutting anything up. In short, there’s no question, skill is involved.

Let’s link this back to writing. Butchers are everywhere when you start to think about it. I seem to remember reading about the butcher of Raveloe in George Eliot’s “Silas Marner” as a teenager and thinking he should be recast as a serial killer (perhaps one for the creators of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”). Likewise, and I’m again relying on distant memory here, I think Michael Freyn in “Spies” referred to the local butcher as a “familiar bloodstained comedian”.

In “Dark Hearts of Chicago”, Helen Rapoport and William Horwood’s 2007 novel about crime, journalism, and the Chicago World Fair, there is a section about how attendees were captivated by the speed with which Chicago stockmen would ‘dress’ a carcass, breaking it down into constituent parts. Having now seen this with a pig I can now see what they’re talking about. Around the room we had a quick straw poll on how long we thought it would take to perform the butchery – given that we, as a group, had just spent over an hour going through the process. Most of us reckoned in the two to five minute mark…

And astonishingly this is apparently quite a way slower than the Ginger Pig record…

The clearest butchery and crime fiction link in mind at the moment though is with Stuart MacBride’s “Flesh House”. To his credit MacBride went to the effort of learning about the operations of an abattoir in researching his book, and while he writes and speaks about it entertainingly (including a reference to being kicked in the head by a cow’s carcass) there’s a real degree of honesty about how understanding where your food comes and how it’s produced should really be present in the minds of everyone who eats. This is something that comes across loud and clear from the Ginger Pig. They’re passionate about what they do, and part of that is highly connected with the welfare of their animals, and respect for what they ‘produce’. The fact that they are at pains to point out how to spot signs of stress in the pork you buy (red spots, if you see that, then please don’t buy that piece of meat) and highlight that they work to avoid this ever happening at their farms speaks volumes about their value system.

It’s almost certainly not for everyone, and it’s not cheap, but a butchery night at Ginger Pig in Marylebone is a wonderful and eye opening experience. You leave, having met some fantastic people, learnt a lot about food and how to handle it, rounded off with a jaw droppingly good meal and a glass of wine, with a renewed appreciation for food and butchery.

A word of warning though... butchery can be habit forming. Flush with the excitement of the pig experience, a tweet from @GingerPigLtd announcing a 20% discount on this Friday's beef course was enough to inspire us to reach for the phone and book...

Postscript
I've now linked this post to the Ginger Pig Pork Class entry on Edible Experiences.

"Blood Red", Quintin Jardine

2010-04-20T07:55:00.000+01:00

Straddling the line between light hearted murder romp and something a little more gritty "Blood Red" is a highly readable piece of crime writing. With British crime fiction set in Spain there's always a mild worry that what you're going to get is somehow going to be a mix between "El Dorado" and an overseas episode of "Rosemary and Thyme". This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there's a hint of trepidation there nonetheless. Indeed, while Primavera Blackstone is introduced as someone slightly hard bitten in a Martina Cole sort of vein, quite rapidly she becomes an inherently much happier personality.

The setting too is suitably bucolic. The Catalan village at the heart of the story is exactly the sort of place most readers would want to end up in, and the dilettante existence Primavera lives has a lot of appealing points. The sojourn in Granada adds more appeal to its Spanish setting, tantalising a reader in a bleak UK with the prospect of canas, tapas, and fantastic food.

Underneath the almost chick-lit storyline of planning the village wine fair lies an entertainingly tortuous murder mystery. The storyline contorts sufficiently to confound any attempts to predict who the ultimate villain is. This does, however, go too far at times; the cast of characters is possibly one or two people too large. There were points where I found myself flicking back pages, clarifying who precisely a particular character was, and almost itching to sketch out a who's who of St Marti d'Empuries.

There are a couple of points where stylistically it doesn't quite work. Somehow when you have a male author writing a female protagonist in the first person, it feels almost prurient to have in depth descriptions of, err, 'intimate grooming' cropping up...

"Blood Red" is a pleasing sort of murder mystery with engaging characters, an appealing setting, and a style of writing, with short chapters and a steadily moving pace, that keeps your attention. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and in a clear hallmark of a book I'm enjoying ended up being annoyed by interruptions as I ran into the final pages.

In the real world, one of my staff's father lives in Gullane and is a passing acquaintance of Quintin Jardine. In this light he's been on my list of authors to be read for quite some time, and it's good to get off the starting blocks with him. He's an entertaining author well worth the time of day. Gratifyingly there's a goodly sized back catalogue to get to grips with, equally pleasingly Bromley libraries have lots of them. Pleasing times ahead.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as a review copy from Hodder Headline

What would a 21st century Gene Hunt drive?

2010-04-15T22:48:00.002+01:00

No, this isn't a post about books, and it isn't really a post about the crime fiction of "Ashes to Ashes" either.

Recently the Labour Party portrayed David Cameron as Gene Hunt, posed on the bonnet of an Audi Quattro, imploring the jaded electorate not to let him bring back the 1980s. Personally I like to think the 1980s weren't bad, but leaving pointless UK electoral politics aside, it has raised the question about what a latter day Gene Hunt would drive were he with us now?

Looking at his previous car choices, a Ford Capri in "Life on Mars" followed by the Quattro, there's a distinct track record to live up to.

The basic criteria drawn from the Ford Capri and Audi Quattro are

it should have sporting credentials (Capris in 1970s German sportscars, think lairy Zakspeed turbo cars, and the Quattro as a rally icon)
it should be reasonably rapid
it should be affordable - but only just about
It should be somewhat 'hairy chested'

With the sporting pedigree this is difficult. Back in the 1980s there were some reasonably upmarket cars doing rallying (e.g. Lancia Stratos and Beta Montecarlo) as well as the more common or garden Fords and Fiats, now it's pretty much the exclusive preserve of the 'cheaper' cars e.g. Ford Focus / Citroen C4. The only real contender from this area might be something like a Subaru Impreza. Circuit racing doesn't really offer us much these days, motorsport these days is all about either dedicated racing machinery (Formula 1, Le Mans type machinery, supercars like Ferraris) or actually quite common or garden fodder you'll see in British Touring Cars. Personally I can't really see Gene Hunt in a Chevrolet Cruze or Seat Leon.

Reasonably quick gives us lots of options, most of which are ruled out by other criteria. So, Ferraris are quick, but too expensive, a Ford Focus ST is quick, but a bit too downmarket. The important thing here is it should be comfortably faster than the stock editions of common of garden police cars, making it justifiable for a Hunt character to eschew the police car, and take the Quattro replacement instead.

With affordability, a lot of the fast cars are perhaps too cheap for this criteria. Here we're looking for something along the lines of affordable exclusivity, so we're not talking hot hatch like Ford Focus ST or Audi S3. It also can't be that mass market, so a BMW M3 might sound like a contender, but somehow I just don't see it working. Equally you might just be able to see him with a Porsche Boxster, but I'm not sure it's quite 'hairy chested' enough. I would imagine the cost should be somewhere in the £25-50k mark.

Hairy chested. This means it has to have a bit of a 'mean' edge to it. So, it probably has to be rear wheel drive, have a bigger engine than is perhaps strictly necessary, and a mild belief that when a passenger is in it there's a real risk of dying. This rules out a few cars like the Audi TT, which otherwise might have a claim to being the spiritual successor to the Quattro. Indeed I can just hear Philip Glenister sneering at something he would undoubtedly denounce as a 'hairdressers car'.

Based on that my quick scribblings came up with the following contenders

Subaru Impreza - with gold wheels etc, obviously
Nissan 350Z - possibly chavved up
Audi S5 - with a silly V8 engine

Office banter added to this the Vauxhall VX220 and the Chrysler Crossfire, neither of which I'm entirely convinced by, but at least display a bit of thought.

Any advances?

I've always been quite deeply skeptical about the whole concept of memes, and I worry that this post could teeter dangerously on the brink of being one, but hey, why not live dangerously? I didn't get the point of blogging until I tried it, maybe meme like things are exactly the same.

Just for the record, I drive a Toyota Prius, but aspire to a Porsche Cayman.

"Stettin Station", David Downing

2010-04-09T01:13:00.001+01:00

I've long wanted to write about David Downing. I like the 2nd World War period in history, and as such he's a natural fit for my reading tastes; more substantively he's one of the very few authors set in the period who can legitimately hold a candle to Alan Furst.

They're both fantastic, immersive writers, yet somehow from a reader's perspective properly locating Downing alongside Furst isn't an entirely easy process, and I make no claim to have having done so here.

With Downing the city of Berlin is at the core of the writing, like Paris is in Furst, but here Berlin is so central to the story that the city almost becomes a character, and because time moves in the city, it never becomes stale. The Adlon in Downing evolves, in contrast to the way that Furst's Paris with its Brasserie Heininger seems almost stuck in entropy.

I have strong feelings about Furst at his best. "Dark Star" is a real contender for my Desert Island Book, and Downing's "Station" series in general, but "Stettin Station" in particular, remind me of this. The characters are trapped, closed in by a world evolving against them, and betrayed by plans that should have worked.

"Stettin Station" feels like an ending. By the time of its setting in 1941 the world could really be seen as closing in, and as such it's fitting that the most time I've spent thinking about this book, since finishing it, has focused on the final third or so of it.

There are many things abundantly worth writing about this book, and this series. Not least someone sometime should take the time to take about really how railways function as metaphor. The series emphatically works this, and in here they're more powerful than usual, a metaphor for war entering its darkest times - empty troop trains, passenger services, prisoner trains, and the cattle cars of the nascent holocaust all criss-crossing.

"Stettin Station" is a little different from previous works in series. Sure they all have had a serious tone, but here there isn't much of a happy ending. In fact it ends with an overpowering sense of menace that colours the rest of your day. This is fitting giving the subject matter, and is done in a way that leads you to read furtively at your desk, stretching the definition of your lunch hour, but nonetheless is profoundly affecting; James and Effi have done plenty to embed themselves in our consciousness over three books for us to care about them deeply.

The fourth volume in this series, "Potsdam Station" is due for release in July. I know this because a few hours after finishing "Stettin Station" I went straight to Amazon and searched for David Downing. There are mixed feelings involved here. On the upside I'm delighted there's more to be read about Downing's portrayal of Europe in darkness, yet there's almost a wistfulness that the utter ambiguity of the end of "Stettin Station" won't linger as a perpetual question in the mind of the reader. The Furst that paradoxically has stayed with me the most has been "The Polish Officer", where you're left fulfilled knowing the characters are safe, yet knowing the armageddon of the Warsaw Rising is yet to come. "Stettin Station" ends with this sort feeling, and while it's uncomfortable, it makes us better people for being uncomfortable.

It's a relief "Stettin Station" is not an ending, but this shouldn't divert from the central message of the book. December 1941 was an ending, as Churchill put it, it was the end of the beginning, but it was also an ending for too many lives, succumbing to the still incomprehensible crime of the 20th century.

I first read Downing in January 2009, and I still don't think I've done him justice in writing about him. Sure there are flaws, sure there are areas where he could at times fire on more cylinders, but to complain feels like carping. You don't have to have read the previous works, but it will help. If you like emotive fiction and have an interest in the middle part of the 20th century go and read this book.

"The Book of Spam Meals Snacks 'n' Party Ideas", Cheryl Baker

2010-03-17T16:25:00.000Z

Over the 18 months or so that this blog's been in existence it's been a pretty sleepy place.

This isn't a bad thing. Sleepy places, as my cat will attest, are one of the best things imaginable.

I'm thus surprised that recently posts, despite the text captcha human-check, spam comments, pointing at an array of what, from the URLs, look a lot like porn sites (being at work I have no intention of following these links at all) have become absurdly prevalent.

Spam's one of those interesting phenomenon that's evolved over time. Back in the innocence of the 1990s, when the web was new and email addresses a cause for profound confusion, the periodic appearance of unsolicited mail could be readily dealt with through a simple "you have sent me unsolicited mail. Please don't do this again" reply, with reasonable assurance that you were responding to a human. If that didn't work then a quick email to the ISP admin would usually do the trick.

Oh innocent days of naivity...

We then entered the period where spam was everywhere, where your emailbox was endlessly clogged with people peddling impotence cures, soliciting assistance in getting countless millions out of West Africa, offering you the chance to boost your educational credentials, or, my particular favourite, giving me the chance to become a priest (which among other things, meant I could visit prisons and marry relatives...).

And then it stopped. In the main software companies employ clever people. As of this morning my Gmail account had 334 spam messages in it, and my inbox had been troubled by virtually none of them. Spam email has receded from consciousness to the extent that when I read Richard Parker's largely enjoyable "Stop Me" the one area I struggled with was how a chain email could enter the public consciousness to the extent he posits.

So spam's elsewhere now. It's in the pornographic followers who try to follow you on twitter, and it's comments on blogs.

Twitter's easy to fix. It's easy to block the unwelcome, and in any case I'm not sure a spammer who's elected to recieve broadcasts from me has really grasped the prinicples of profitable direct marketing (maybe this is spam engaging in a groundswell dialogue, but that sounds a bit unlikely doesn't it?). Spammers commenting on my blog is a different story. This is a return to the halcyon days when email felt private and spam was unwelcome. It's still easy to deal with (so "毛衣" and "book", your rather ungermane comments on Paul Kilduff's "The Frontrunner" have been duly excised) but nonetheless annoying.

So, let's see if Spam is worth reappropriating, and what better way than to look at what fun things one can make with Spam? I did fear I was going to have to leave this post in draft for quite a while, we're currently renovating, and all the cookery related books are in a big unwieldy pile in the study rather than being readily accessible, but thankfully this gem could be found towards the top.

Published in 1992 this presumably was Spam's attempt to recapture the mainstream and encourage more people to eat it. On the upside, it's possibly a good way of getting people into the kitchen and doing things other than poking a plastic box into the microwave, but really, that's clutching at straws.

More fundamentally, food is about the most difficult thing on the planet to photograph well. For a cookery book to work it needs to either eschew photography completely and let the writer's descriptions convince you, or it needs to pay a photographer quite a lot of money. Nigella Lawson's publishers tend to get it right. Downmarket restaurants often get it wrong.

Which is it here? Is this the product of a photographer not quite grasping light, colour, exposure? Or does Spam when cooked really look like this?

I can't conceive of how awful Spam based Cantonese Stir Fry must be. I think its appearance at the dinner table might be even less appealing than an piece of unsolicited mail. Is that possible?

"The Frontrunner", Paul Kilduff

2010-02-14T16:30:00.000Z

Reading this in early 2010 one is struck by how topical Kilduff's 2001 financial thriller is. Telling the story of collapsing hedge funds, global economic crisis, and massive governmental intervention in financial markets, Kilduff could in many ways be describing the last few years, rather than a thoroughly fictional early century crisis stemming from the assassination of the Chinese premier in Hong Kong. Swap Lehman Brothers for Alpha Beta Capital and "The Frontrunner" could readily fit into contemporary events.

Paul Kilduff's financial thrillers do tend to follow a familiar, almost formulaic, path. There's the misunderstood and manipulated central character, the bad guys indulge in profoundly deviant sexual practices, the glamorous (and not so glamorous) locations where finance takes place are depicted, and ultimately there's a wrapped up happy ending. In this light, his output isn't quite as satisfyingly varied as Michael Ridpath, but it's still telling that Kilduff has an appeal that kept me up to the small hours last night and there was an urge to finish off "The Frontrunner" this morning.

Enjoyably the writing makes complicated financial instruments readily accessible and the lifestyle of working in finance is exposed as being tiring, tawdry, and unromantic. Most tellingly Kilduff is damning of consultancy work, accurately boiling it down to it being a case of borrowing a client's watch to tell them the time, and then sending them a large bill.

Sadly having read "The Frontrunner" I've exhausted the stock of Kilduff's financial thrillers. I've enjoyed them a lot and as with any author whose output I've exhausted, there's a sense of wistfulness involved. I'd like to have known more about Mitchell Leonberg continued through the decade, and in particular how they'd cope with the cataclysm of the last few years. Does the widespread ire at bankers make financial thrillers more appealing to publishers? One can only hope so.

“Gunner Kelly”, Anthony Price

2010-01-31T11:32:00.002Z

Through his Audley/Mitchell series of novels Anthony Price typically carved a niche out hanging a political thriller plot over an often obscure historical series of events. Generally speaking the history would often be more engaging than the core plot, giving the impression that Price had managed to come up with a really interesting historic tale he wanted to tell, and put all his effort into this, only as an afterthought shoehorning a contemporary plotline into the mix.

"Gunner Kelly", published in 1982, so constituting one of Price's later works, is subtly different. Yes, there's some history - discussions of World War II armoured warfare and the Roman presence in Britain, but by no means is this at the heart of the story. Nor are the usual protagonists David Audley and Paul Mitchell at the heart of the work, instead the story comes very largely from the perspective of German intelligence office Benedikt Schneider. As such it's strongly reminiscent of Le Carre's "The Honourable Schoolboy", and is very nearly as good.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the work is the transformation of Schneider from being someone who you inherently oppose, to realising that he's the hero of the piece. Schneider's a thoroughly believable character, professional but not perfect, and with a background that supports what he does over the course of the book. Audley too, while more peripheral in the narrative, is as likable as ever and brings a wry insight to proceedings.

A final word, almost an aside should go to the choice of pull quotes, The Observer's "whorls of mystification" and "the plot moves as sinuously as a frogman through the reeds" from The Telegraph are both magnificent. Newspaper's aren't what they used to be are they?

Aquascutum and the Death of a Brand

2010-01-23T22:35:00.003Z

This post doesn't have much if anything to do with books, but it's an example of how my intertextuality, driven by what I've read, affects how I want to live my life.

For my sins I wear a suit every day, The company I work for is very much of the suit wearing persuasion, and when you're in front of a customer, it's worth trying to look your best. As such, about 10 years ago, I decided it was worth paying money for a good suit.

A suit says a lot about you. It's a way of associating yourself with a set of values in a pleasingly understated sort of way, and when it works it's one of the most comfortable items of clothing you can own. Ten years ago I bought my first Aquascutum suit, I still own it, it's no longer in its first flush of use, and doesn't fit quite as well as it did, but it's still perfectly serviceable and gets worn. Others have been worn out, and throughout they stood as a hallmark to good British tailoring, I'm British, I like being British, and wearing an Aquascutum suit conformed fundamentally to my own brand values,

All that changed today.

I need a new suit, and in trying to buy one Aquascutum's flagship store on Regent Street should be an entirely logical place to buy one. You expect a shop like that to match what Aquascutum as a brand says. It should be polished, refined, provide impeccable service and convey the sort of confidence that wearing one of their suits should impart. The store should encapsulate the best of British - dinner at the Savoy Grill, flying BA Club class, driving an Aston Martin through the Cotswolds. It's expensive, probably can't be done every day, but everything about it should be worth it.

Aquascutum's Regent Street presence doesn't work like that. The lights are too bright, the clothing rails feel cheap and temporary, the music is too loud, the bright red 'sale' signs too prevalent and garish, and the staff too conspicuous by their absence. Shopping there should make you feel valued, to be blunt, spending that sort of amount on tailoring should be valued and you should be made to feel that way. Standing for 10 minutes without any sign of staff to pay attention didn't feel quintessentially British, it felt like T K Maxx.

I didn't buy a suit from Aquascutum today. I walked out, and not too far up the road found Brooks Brothers, who have always made fantastic shirts, and who get service and quality. Today they were everything Aquascutum should have been, and sold me a suit in a way that makes me want to go back.

Sorry to say, but Brooks Brothers have shown that in this case Americans are now better at being British than we are. Others have worked this out already; Stephen Fry shops at Brooks Brothers.

"The Disappeared", M. R. Hall

2010-01-19T22:58:00.003Z

Fittingly, a book purchased at Gatwick on way out to Dubai has been read and finished completely within the UK after coming back. It's been a pleasing companion, if nothing else, quite fittingly passing the time in Lewisham Hospital's A&E department.

More than usually this is a curates egg of a book. For one that's gripped throughout and been a thoroughly enjoyable read M. R. Hall's second novel still leaves one or two many niggles to get the ringing endorsement I might otherwise be pleased to give it.

The story rattles along engagingly, the universe created is engaging, and the persona of the coroner, Jenny Cooper is one who it's easy to care about. While reading the pace of the plot readily papers over a lot of the cracks in the book that further reflection starts to reveal.

Ultimately I suspect that like many other crime writers, Hall, in weaving a terrorism / espionage plot together is trying something that stretches outside their comfort zone, and the overall result is one that doesn't quite work. Her first work, "The Coroner" skated on the edge of plausibility, sadly "The Disappeared" just ends up on the wrong side of that boundary. In particular the denouement feels rushed and ultimately confused and is possibly the least satisfying element of the book.

There are further problems in characterisation. Roguish lawyer Alec MacEvoy simply isn't credible and far too much is left entirely unexplained about him. In attempting to give him complex hidden depths Hall has really ended up creating a comic book style character whose role appears to be to introduce critical clues along the way and keep the plot moving along. Continuing in this vein, there are too many characters in the cast to readily keep track of, tidying up who did what to whom would have been a highly worthwhile exercise.

Ultimately however the real problem with "The Disappeared" is in fact a problem with the UK coroner system. Coroners should be impartial judges facilitating a process whereby cause of death is established. In the UK they have become politicised, having an agenda of their own, and blurring the line between investigator and judge. Judges should be conspicuous in their impartiality and when they stop problems arise - as shown by the excesses of Mr Justice Eady in applying the laws of libel. The world provided by M. R. Hall is one where this is seen as a virtue, where Jenny Cooper is styled as single handedly providing a bulwark against the conspiracies of the state. Is it really credible that a lone coroner is able to see what the multitude of established intelligence and policing functions can't?

Perhaps it would have been better to read this on an aircraft. It's a highly readable book and in an environment where you're not moved to deconstruct it too much it functions well. To reiterate, the personal story of Jenny Cooper is engaging, and the concluding sentence is comfortably enough to make you want to read the next instalment. This series is almost brilliant, if the status of 'coroner' could be reined in ever so slightly it might get there.

Gatwick Airport and Kurt Wallander

2010-01-12T18:20:00.000Z

I should know better. I've been in enough airports in general, and been to Gatwick in particular often enough, but every time I think the airport experience is going to be nice, a Cinzano drinking 'jet-set' sort of way. It's not, I know, but it doesn't stop me travelling in hope.

Tonight, with a seven hour period of fitful dozing en route to Dubai to look forward to, I'm ruing the loss of the BA silver card more than usual, and wondering at the pettiness of the Wetherspoons in blanking off all the power sockets. Surely the price of an indifferent meal and couple of even less memorable beers should cover the minimal electricity my small laptop would use?

More encouragingly, the WH Smiths had reasonable pickings in the 2 for 1 on airport exclusives. M R Hall's “The Disappeared” and Mark Billingham's “Bloodline” have duly been hoovered up, and there was probably a decent enough selection to justify the 4 for 3 offer – although how that would tally with a hand baggage only approach I'm not so sure.

Interestingly though I don't think I'm going to read either tonight. Reading prospects are dominated by Henning Mankell's “The Man Who Smiled”. It's one of the Mankell's I think I've only read once, and quite a long time ago too. The BBC adaptation was broadcast last Sunday, and unlike previous ones I genuinely couldn't remember how it panned out when it started. The broadcasts benefit a lot from rewatching (indeed thanks to the miracle of the iPlayer it's on my hard drive even now) but after finishing watching on Sunday evening I was genuinely curious about what I'd thought of the book.

In that light I was genuinely pleased to manage to find my copy when packing this morning. Is it as bleak as the BBC version? Was there a reason I haven't returned to it?

A window seat, lots of suitable music on the Zune to keep me company, and a long flight to somewhere warmer might well help me find out.

Thinking about John Irving

2009-12-21T23:34:00.002Z

A few weeks ago my wife came home with a copy of John Irving's "Last Night in Twisted River", which has had really good reviews, and its arrival was a lovely and much appreciated gesture. A few years back I'd have been over the moon and I would have been able to cite chapter and verse of it and look forward to talking lots about the nuance in it. So why is it that it's still lurking by the bed, and sometimes creeping into the briefcase to come to work, but largely remaining unread?

I first encountered John Irving when a friend, conscious that I was going through a phase when I wanted to read books that were both haunting and sad, gave me a copy of "The Cider House Rules". That led to a summer when I raided all the local second hand bookstores for his work, and read all of them, loving some of them more than others, but unquestionably seeing him as the sort of author I wanted to have on my shelves,

When John Irving's good he's very very good. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is still perhaps the best anti-war book, that doesn't really mention war, ever written. I've started to come think however that he's not quite the utterly reliable standby I used to think he was.

I say this for two reasons. First, a few years ago, stuck in the cultural wasteland of Washington Dulles I bought "The World According to Garp", thinking I could reread it in the back of a rickety United 767 as it bumped me back across the Atlantic. Second time around I didn't get on with it in the slightest, and discarded it in exasperation not long after Canada was left behind. This might have been whim, or circumstance, but then I came across "Until I Find You", which I enthusiastically bought, and have singularly failed to finish, finding it more tawdry and unpleasant than I wanted. It's still on the shelf, but to be honest it's on borrowed time before it makes its way to a charity shop.

With any other author I might think that this was just a case of me falling out of tune with him and move on, but I've since revisited others by him ("A Widow for One Year" working on a pretty consistent basis) and the memories I have of that summer mainlining his work is still a time I remember fondly.

So - should I launch into "Twisted River"? The first few pages seem promising, and its had genuinely good and thoughtful reviews, but there's still a reservation in the back of my mind.

Any thoughts gratefully received.

“The Assault on Mavis A”, Norman Stahl

2009-12-20T23:41:00.001Z

Lately I've been revisiting a whole number of books read a long time ago. Norman Stahl's “Assault on Mavis A”, long out of print, and properly obscure, was last read in my mid-teens, when I would devour thrillers at a ridiculous pace. Now, after 25 or so years, a second look seemed appropriate.

Sparked by now working in the shipping industry, and the discovery of an engaging if dormant list of nautical related fiction, eBay readily yielded a cheap, to be honest fairly tatty copy of it, and over the course of this wintery Sunday afternoon, it's been duly polished off. One striking thing about it however, is monumentally annoyingly eight pages had been removed from the book at some stage in its life, not enough to seriously impede understanding the plot, but nonetheless a reflection that at times when you pay more or less nothing for a book there are downsides!

Any book that can be hurtled through in the course of a few hours is going to be both undemanding and sufficiently interesting to keep attention. This isn't high literature, but then you can probably work this out by the tagline, which describes it as being “overflowing with violence, treachery, sex … a terrifying suspense story”, certainly a contender for most overblown subtitle in fiction.

The central premise, hijacking an oil tanker and crashing it into an oil platform is reasonably engaging, and Stahl brings a convincing level of detail to the way he writes about the ship itself. The scale of a very large crude carrier and its peripatetic existence moving from the Persian Gulf to Europe or North America is atmospherically brought to life to the extent that the vessel almost qualifies as a character in its own right.

While the plot cheerfully rattles along, it's both too busy and inherently suffers from being pretty full of holes, and the majority of the characters lack a much in the way of depth. More troublingly, it's unpleasant and needlessly violent on a number of levels. As the cover hints, there's a lot of sex in here, and none of it is well written, instead being more prurient than it needs to be. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with sex in a novel, but the level to which it's written in here doesn't quite work.

Ultimately once every quarter of a century is probably frequently enough to read a book like this. It's amiable enough nonsense to while away an afternoon, but it's not something that leaves you particularly fulfilled or informed.

Sometimes it's best to leave books read and enjoyed long ago in the past where they belong.

“Second Violin”, John Lawton

2009-12-19T16:55:00.001Z

Warning – there might be a spoiler or two in here, if you haven't read "Second Violin" and want to preserve suspense, might be best to look away now…

Sparked by a great blog post on Crime Scraps I was reminded how great John Lawton is as a writer, and there's an extra appeal to his style of prose in a London winter. His reinterpretation of mid 20th century history is also powerfully seductive, having weaved a complex universe with characters touching on the heart of power throughout. In this light he can be compared to other chroniclers of the 20th century such as Simon Raven and Anthony Powell.

I had initially wanted to reread his non-Troy book, "Sweet Sunday", which isn't London at all, and one coming on top of what initially had been the Troy trilogy felt dramatically different. In the intervening years however, Lawton's style of writing has changed, and I've got a lot more used to this new way of writing, which made me wonder if I'd now discover additional layers to the almost forgotten "Sweet Sunday".

It a humbling confession, but my fiction shelves aren't organised at all. There's a big pile under the bedside table, there are a few interspersed among more serious tomes in the study, and there's a big bookshelf in the guest room, where I should have a system, but don't, and all that's really clear is that it's overfull. As a result of this filing chaos, on Sunday evening, when casting around trying to lay my hands on "Sweet Sunday" it was nowhere to be seen. So, I thought, why not slake my Lawton thirst with something else, and "Second Violin" readily came to hand.

As such this isn't really much of a review, much more a case of some musing on Lawton and his core creation, Fred Troy. It's not intended to be definitive, and at some stage someone should write something really impressive in terms of literary criticism about them, but now is not the time for me to do so. Bearing these comments in mind I must reiterate my comments about caveat emptor. Not being a review means there may be spoiler contained – I think Lawton's long since moved beyond a typical suspense novel, but if you want to read him, in particular with his earlier works, as such, maybe you should click the back button now and come back when you've read them. I mean this, little is worse than having the pleasure of speculation stolen away, and I'd hate to diminish your enjoyment of Lawton's work.

This is a crime novel – murders happen, police feature, and Troy is central, but like most of the later Lawtons, the crime isn't at the heart of it. It's much more a novel about time and place and atmosphere, and as such it really works. For those looking for a pacey murder mystery, this is not the book for you, indeed almost 100 pages in and you'll still be searching for the crime or murder that a typical police procedural would concern itself with.

This shift in writing style is something Lawton is clearly aware of, and I particularly liked his self-deprecating denunciation of the 'whodunnit', as Troy says to his father

"Who-dunnits are the lowest form of fiction. Somewhere between whelks and snails." (p.365).

The absence in the majority of the story of much in the way of a common or garden English murder may frustrate one who is explicitly looking for 'traditional' crime fiction. This is a shame and, I think, misses the point. Here crime is not about the usual petty jealousies that lead to death, but about the crime of the century and the attempted extermination of an entire race by Nazi Germany. Contained within this there is also the still open case of the murder of God by rationality and science. This is still a contested issue, as the likes of Richard Dawkins readily shows, but in telling how the early phase of the holocaust stripped away faith while juxtaposing accounts of how numbers were starting to worry at the secret of the universe. As such it buys into the same territory occupied by Ian Rankin's really rather good and often forgotten BBC drama, "Reichenbach Falls", where God is seen as 'dying' sometime during the mid 1800s.

Troy remains a fascinating character. Most notably we see his easy womanising, as he juggles femme fatale Zette Borg and Kitty Stilton (and as such explaining their somewhat sparky relationship in "Riptide"). Yet for all the selfishness, of him clearly stating that he wants a relationship with both women, there's no glamourising of it as a lifestyle. The finality of his interaction with Borg, simply explained as "he never saw her again" is full of pathos, and can't really be called a happy ending.

Most significantly for the series, in the conclusion "Second Violin" talks of Troy in 1975, which comes as a relief. It offers the fact that Troy found life after the bleakness of 1963 and the ambiguous ending of "A Little White Death".

There is a conspicuous absence of closure, the murderer goes unidentified, his motive unexplained, yet this is still an enormously enjoyable book. If you want to get to grips with Lawton and Troy, despite this being the first chronologically of the books, in no circumstances should you start here - it won't make any sense – instead read Lawton like you would Raven's "Alms for Oblivion", jumping around time with pieces of narrative being filled in almost entirely non-sequentially. It doesn't work for everyone, and it may frustrate, but it's very British, and when it works, it's very good.

“The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest”, Po Bronson

2009-12-11T20:06:00.002Z

Written in 1997 Po Bronson's second novel has, unusually for a tech novel, stood the test of time remarkably well, feeling as fresh now as it did in the heady period before reality crashed in and ruined the dot.com party. A lot of this is down to the fact that Bronson focuses on the human aspects of starting a business and doesn't allow the wonders of the technology to obscure the story.

Most of all however "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest" is a highly prescient novel. Positing a world where computer hardware becomes considerably less significant and cheaper, where software and content no longer comes on disc but is delivered over the web, and ultimately where open source development can legitimately worry major manufacturers. Fast forward to 2009, where the majority of PCs are netbooks, where processor speed (does anyone know what the clock speed of their machine is?) is considerably less important than broadband connection speed, and where open source software such as Firefox can capture a major market share, and it becomes clear what Bronson was talking about all those years ago.

There are some anachronisms in here, as well as some points that firmly anchor it in the late '90s. By 1997 the Fiat X1/9 would have been very long in the tooth (if still a rather cool car), the clothing the characters wear is indescribably awful, and it still causes a wry nod of the head when the reader is reminded that in the late twentieth century Apple was a basket case of a company, suffering a lingering death before Jobs' return, the iMac, and iPod all served to reinvent it as, for some, the acme of cool.

Despite all this, there is a real tech story in the subtext. The quest to develop the next big chip in the late 1990s led to Intel's Pentium Pro, which despite a lot of brave words from Intel, was regarded as being slower than the previous '586' Pentium chips in running Windows application – even if this stutter in processor development has been long forgotten. Bronson skilfully picks up this somewhat geeky story and uses it as an underpinning the politics and business realities behind his fictional La Honda research institute.

"The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest" could very easily have been a dry niche story, loosely fictionalising events of interest to technophiles and MBA students, but what transforms it is the dry understated humour that suffuses the text. The interplay between the generally very likable characters rings true to life and at times some of the casual vignettes are laugh out loud funny.

Undoubtedly running a start up technology company is hard work, but if you have to go through it, you could do a lot worse than be guided by Po Bronson fictionalised account, in fact, I'd go so far as to say it should be required reading.

“The Wrecker”, Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

2009-11-15T22:39:00.000Z

In reading terms, I owe a lot to Clive Cussler. Aged 13, a gift of his “Deep Six” from an indulgent aunt transformed my reading world from the children’s section of Aberdeen library to one where more ‘grown up’ adventures took place. The conversion was rapid, and like many new to a faith, my dedication to thriller writing became utterly zealous, seeking out Cussler, then Craig Thomas, and a succession of others. This was fed on my return to Dublin by the seeming endless selection offered by Dalkey’s Exchange bookshop – an alladin’s cave of cheap paperbacks which, I am happy to say, seems still to be in existence.

Cussler remained a favourite. Dirk Pitt was a hero worthy of the title, and the plots, merging pseudo history with genuinely exciting set pieces, never disappointed. Amidst this sea of ‘literature’, Justin Scott came on the scene. His “The Man who Loved the Normandie” and “A Pride of Kings” were memorable adventures that still would warrant a read today. Unlike Cussler, Scott seemed to vanish from the scene, lamented somewhat, because there really was something engaging about his writing.

Since those heady reading days in the 1980s, Cussler has faded a bit. I still buy at least some of his books and enjoy them, but I see now that they’re not literature, and in expanding beyond the Dirk Pitt universe, into an array of co-written franchises, a certain amount of the real appeal to his output has gone. The first of the Isaac Bell books, 2007’s “The Chase” was one of the better offshoots, the early 20th century setting, the suitably outlandish plot, and the backdrop of the San Francisco earthquake all served to work well together, and made for a good, in undemanding read.

Coming across the second of the Isaac Bell books, and discovering its co-author has thus been a genuinely pleasurable experience. “The Wrecker” still isn’t high literature, in fact it’s very silly, but that’s not the point. It’s an atmospheric adventure with a rich setting (predominantly the railroads of the American West) and a likeable cast of characters.

Despite the fact that there's a lot of predictability to the book, and that the identity of the wrecker is revealed comparatively early in the plot, which removes a degree of tension from the business, there's a nice cleverness to the novel. Most enjoyably there's a nod towards Justin Scott's own novels, with a reference to Lt Ash giving Bell a refresher lesson in fencing – a pleasing nod towards “A Pride of Kings” and one which I hope leads to greater convergence between the Van Dorn and Scott's Ash universe.

“The Wrecker” is much akin to its predecessor, “The Chase”, in that it's an entertaining romp that ultimately isn't about to change your world, but you know what? The world's still a better place with books like this in it. “The Wrecker” brought me back to the time when I loved Cussler's books, and that can't be wrong.

More please.

Armistice Day

2009-11-11T12:54:00.002Z

11 November is a significant day in the UK, having moved beyond being just an anniversary of then end of the Great War, to being a point when everyone can engage in quiet, dignified reflection about the sacrifice of others for what is felt to be the greater good.

In a week when "The Sun" has seen fit to appropriate loss to make petty low political points it would be all too easy to jump on a soapbox, try and explain why "The Sun" is wrong, why Tom Newton Dunn isn't going to win either any friends or journalistic prizes with his account of the Jamie Janes issue, and why, for all its flaws, the approach of Gordon Brown and UK government is, in many ways, defensible.

Instead of doing that, it's more a day for speaking softly, and as such we can learn a lot from Australia and the poignant way they get the message across in the link below.

As they say, it doesn't matter who you are, or what you drink, but today's a day to raise a glass to those who are no longer here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOeOP-xhbA

“The Complaints”, Ian Rankin

2009-10-15T20:03:00.002+01:00

How fast the departed fade from view. For so many years Rankin and Rebus were synonymous, almost impossible to imagine one without the other, and even Rankin's other works, such as "Watchmen", were comprehensively outshone by the cases of his signature detective. Since Rebus exited stage left with 2007's "Exit Music" it is interesting the level to which he has faded from consciousness. While the careful reader could spot a passing side reference to him in "Doors Open", "The Complaints", Rankin's first 'proper' book in the post Rebus era, has wiped him completely from the scene.

Ably stepping into the shoes of lead protagonist, Inspector (as he says, we lose the 'detective' in PSU) Malcolm Fox is a very different character to Rebus, both in temperament and background, but it is testament to Rankin's ability, that very quickly the reader identifies with him, cares about him, and gives not a thought to the absence of Rebus. Interestingly, the initial impression of him is as a healthy almost ascetic figure, perhaps encouraged by him being a reformed alcoholic, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that Fox is overweight, struggling to sit comfortably in Breck's Mazda RX-8, and unfit, being tested by running up stairs in Edinburgh's Waverly station. Strangely this comes as a surprise, and it significantly complicated building up a picture of Fox in my mind.

One area where Rankin's writing has sometimes not quite sat write is when he tries to immerse himself in 'cyberspace'. Writing about online computer games it doesn't seem to fit properly with him. It didn't come across convincingly in "The Falls" and somehow, even although there's more veracity and it's more plausible, it doesn't quite sit right with "Quidnunc" in "The Complaints". I appreciate there may well be copyright issues, and given that Breck, the player of "Quidnunc", is introduced as a suspected user of child pornography one can accept that the makers of "World of Warcraft" or similar may have had reservations, but somehow I can't help feeling that Rankin could have written around this problem in a slightly more effective way.

If the novel does have a real fault, it is that the ending somehow feels too pat. There is an absence of loose ends, which some might see as a good thing in terms of textbook crime writing, but it lacks the ambiguity that keeps a book in your mind long after the final page is read, and almost feels like an "and they all lived happily ever after", which I don't think is what people are looking for from Ian Rankin.

This isn't a significant criticism really, more a mild disappointment. Nothing can detract from Rankin's sheer ability to quickly weave a plot, populate it with intriguing characters, and immerse the reader in time and space. Edinburgh in February 2009 feels right, in just the same way the cops and criminals both appear real; with this in mind Rankin can be forgiven for maybe only getting the narrative execution 90 per cent right.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest”, Stieg Larsson

2009-10-12T21:20:00.003+01:00

Since bringing it home from the bookstore a couple of days before its official release it took quite a lot of restraint to not start reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" immediately. It's testament to the phenomenon that Stieg Larsson has become and the power of his writing that this is a consideration at all - countless other authors are destined to languish for far too long on the bookshelf, waiting attention, for me this was never likely to be the case with this, the final Larsson book.

Let's get the negatives out of the way to start with. I had thought about doing a complete run through of the trilogy, revisiting the first two works before launching into "Hornets' Nest", and on reflection I should have done. In no way is this a standalone book, indeed without a detailed awareness of what happened in "The Girl Who Played with Fire" it probably makes no sense whatsoever. Compounding this, the way the reader is flung into the events immediately following the end of previous book jars, and it takes the first hundred or so pages to get your bearings and reset yourself in Larsson's universe. The effect of this is initially disconcerting, and I found myself wondering if somehow this might end up as a disappointment. Perseverance is however rewarded, and ultimately this is revealed as every bit as engrossing a tale as his previous works.

Larsson has long challenged easy categorisation, and this is much more a political thriller than crime novel. At its heart is the existence of "The Section", a counterespionage element of Swedish intelligence who, more than most, have been captured by the wilderness of mirrors making up the intelligence community. The namechecking of the now infamous CIA spycatcher, James Jesus Angleton shows how they have come to see secrecy as an end in itself that they immerse themselves in and subvert ordinary legality to what is seen as being of pre-eminent importance. Even these spies however carry with them a sense of world weariness and an awareness that society has passed them by. As reluctant Section Chief Wadensjoo opines:

"There's a new realpolitik in Europe since the Soviet Union collapsed. Our work is less and less about identifying spies. It's about terrorism, and evaluating the political suitability of individuals in sensitive positions." (p.105)

The Section may be at the heart of the crimes perpetrated in the novel, and in their moral relativism are absolutely the opposite to everything the idealistic crusading journalists on Millennium stand for, but somehow one can't help thinking that they too are victims, this time of circumstances largely of their own making. Their ultimate downfall, while satisfying, pales alongside the much more personal story acted out by Lisbeth Salander.

The character of Salander here is more accessible. Over the course of the novel she is much less the Nikita / Petra Reuter like machine, and much more the vulnerable character who has to fall back on her wits and what she's best at to survive. This is a much more satisfying and real existence, and perhaps parallels the psychological journey portrayed in the book, transforming her from the mentally unstable ward of the Swedish state to more fully fledged citizen.

Of the other key characters, they all enjoy the sort of complex and very Swedish relationships that have made Larsson's universe so interesting to read. They're all flawed, but engagingly so, from Blomkvist's endless romantic entanglements to Berger's inability to bring a traditional newsroom to heel, they all build a set of subplots rich in detail and fascinating to read.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" is a sprawling ambitious narrative that gives the lie to the notion, peddled to death by Dan Brown, that to be a fast paced novel it has to take place over 24 hours acted out by characters who never sleep. Here the story takes place over 8 months from April to December, with a rhythm that ebbs and flows in intensity towards the dramatic courtroom denouement, and throughout shows characters that throughout are thoroughly human in their frailties. In contrast to the somewhat disorienting opening, the signature Larsson dramatic coda brings with it a welcome sense of closure, which makes the narrative ultimately work.

Chatting to the bookstore owner while buying this, we concluded that there were mixed feelings about it coming out. Yes it's enormously looked forward to, but there's a tinge of regret, because we know it's the last of these books that we will read. Without wishing to delve into mawkish sentimentality there is a sadness to reading the last pages, because we will never get to find out what Larsson had mapped out for the rest of his 10 volume series.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" is a brilliant book; I still can't quite believe it's all over.

Profitable Direct Marketing and Blogging in the Big Time

2009-10-09T07:09:00.006+01:00

Having been posting for just shy of a year now it's almost pleasing to have managed to get my idle thoughts on books noticed by the "make me a millionaire from doing virtually nothing on the internet" brigade.

The receipt of the following clearly indicates I've hit the big time...

Hey Blogger - My name is David,

I have been searching the Internet for blogs that fit our criteria. Yours does. I wanted to invite you to become a paid blogger at Blog Distributor. (Please understand that I do not send this invitation to every blogger I come across.)

Roughly 25% of bloggers are now being paid to write postings on their blogs, that are linked to websites. The value here is that, when a blog posting is linked to a website, that website will get higher rankings in the search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. You can write anything you think about the website, positive or negative.

Here is a link that describes how it all works in a little more detail:

Redacted

Our system is set up so that bloggers can make more money with us than with any other blog-for-pay firm. In short, we are the middle man between you and the advertiser. We match the correct blogs with the correct advertisers, who pay us to do so. And then we pay you, the blogger on behalf of the advertiser. You only take the advertisements that you want and are comfortable with. In no way does this alter the owersship of your blog. You simply get paid to write postings on your blog that you choose to write. You do what you want, when you want. You decide what content to accept or decline.

To submit your blog, go to Redacted

If you have any questions, do visit the FAQ's area of the site: Redacted

If you have more than one blog, you are more than welcome to sign those up as well. If you have any other questions, please contact me at: Redacted. I know some people might be worried, getting some random e-mail, so please do write me if you have any questions or concerns. Also do a search for us on Yahoo or Google and look for reviews.

P.S. - I should note that we take great concern in the blogs that we allow into the system, so it's not possible for a full evaluation of the blog and/or its content until it reaches our categorizers.

Thanks,

David

I can chuckle about this happily - blogging isn't what pays my bills, it's something I do out of interest, and more selfishly, to try and keep track of what I've read (although this hasn't worked as well as it should have!) but it is a mildly depressing insight into what the WWW has become. Last year in Beijing Tim Berners-Lee made the point that there are now more static pages on the web than there are neurons in the human brain - flipping this on its head, if the web is a reflection of our brains, most of us aren't going to be appearing on "In Our Time" with Melvyn Bragg anytime soon.

I was going to deconstruct what "David" had written to me, with handy reference to my admittedly not particularly well thumbed copy of Jim Kobs' "Profitable Direct Marketing", and thus conforming to my attempt to keep everything on here solidly book related, but sadly the light in the study's gone out, and it's far too early in the morning to go hunting for fuse wire. Suffice to say, in contrast to the nice phone call from Lexus yesterday, it's not really doing anything to persuade me.

Normal book related service will be resumed in due course - perhaps connected to managing to lay my hands on some fresh coffee beans.

“Wasp-Waisted”, David Barrie

2009-10-07T21:43:00.001+01:00

Flippantly while refering to "Wasp-Waisted" I spoke of it being hard to resist, as it was a book simultaneously about murder and pants, however this is to do it a considerable disservice. Scottish author David Barrie has drawn on his experience of living in Paris to pull off that most accomplished of feats, an authentic feeling roman policier penned by someone other than a Frenchman.

"Wasp-Waisted" provides a fusion of murder and couture amidst an achingly fashionable Parisian setting. A series of murders connected by the extremely upmarket lingerie the victims are clad in and artistic photographs of their bodies supply all the raw materials needed for a crime novel suffused with Gallic charm and insouciance. The police are believably natural, Paris fashionistas and artists are chic and interesting in a Julie Delpy sort of way, and the murders richly depicted in a plot that steadfastly resists being predictable.

Franck Guerin is as engaging a central character as one could wish for. A former spook with DST, recovering from a controversial operation in Corsica, he neatly ticks many of the crime fiction 'must haves' as a loner, a man of action, and ill at ease with the more mundane aspects of police work. On the contrast between the resources available to the secret world (and the liberties taken with them) and the due process demanded by police work, he muses that "[p]laying by the rules might be good for one's conscience, but it could prove wearing on the nerves."

Personally Guerin's literate character is ambiguous in his relationships. Throughout the book he displays affection for a multitude of female characters, from an appreciation of model Sonia Delamazure's beautiful shoulders, the sparky relationships with investment banker Sylvie Thomas, and his frank interest in art professor Anne Subrini. Most striking is the lesson in lingerie supplied to him by magazine publisher Maryam Sehati. Throughout Barrie leaves the detail of Guerin's relationships almost completely unsaid, which all serves to add to the reader's interest in him.

As a novel it benefits from a bit of reflection, and the fact that you are thrown into Guerin's life very much at the deep end jars, but by Timothy this is good. It's the sort of book that left on your desk after a lunchtime indulgence calls out to you, and you feel obliged to stifle its siren song in a briefcase or drawer (not at all connected to the titillating pseudo erotic novel cover at all) and hanker to revisit it. As crime fiction it's different, engaging, well written, and deserving of all the attention it can possibly get.

Stieg Larsson and Self Restraint

2009-10-01T00:24:00.002+01:00

My relationship with Stieg Larsson has been one of ever deepening engagement. I came late to "Dragon Tattoo", and loved it. "Played with Fire" was bought in hardback soon after release and in many ways it was even better. Thus "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" qualifyied for one of the most anticipated books of the year. Long on order when I got the phone call on Tuesday evening telling me that my marvellous local bookshop had it in stock it was a prompt to leave work promptly and eagerly collect it. The book store owner's comment, that this was the book everyone's been waiting for, is about as true a comment as one could imagine.

Walking back to the car I ran through some existential dilemmas in my mind. Do I take the sensible approach, using this as an opportunity to revisit the previous books, making sure the context was set in my mind, and long belatedly write down the thoughts I've had on "Girl Who Played with Fire"? There's also the issue that I'm in the middle of a book I'm really genuinely enjoying (David Barrie's "Wasp-Waisted"), lent to me by a friend keen to hear my opinion, and both they and the author deserve not be gazumped by a Swedish best-seller.

Or do I give in to temptation, relishing this as one of the comparatively few times you really want to get a book on day of release? It's complicated by the self knowledge that knows that this is likely to be the sort of book that will steal sleep, tempt me to pull a sickie on Thursday, and an awareness that the coming long weekend is going to be completely taken up with family and not hallmarked by conspicuous amounts of peace and quiet. It's the sort of time that makes you yearn for a long flight (like last year when Ian Rankin's "Doors Open" kept me company on the run out to Hong Kong) or an anonymous European hotel room.

Pragmatically Stieg Larsson's final flowering is going to have to wait...

“The Kingdom of Light”, Giulio Leoni

2009-09-28T23:35:00.000+01:00

Set in 14th century Florence “The Kingdom of Light” presents the poet Dante Alighieri as a clerical investigator probing the mysterious appearance of a ship aground in the Arno, its crew all dead, with the sole clue being a strange broken machine.

From this beginning a complex story involving the Guelf and Ghibbeline conflict that dominated much of medieval Italian history, the clash between secular and religious power, and the legacy of the Emperor, Frederick II, unfolds, all set against the rich background of Florence in the middle ages. Leoni appropriates an intriguing set of historical characters to populate his story, Dante being joined by Cecco Angiolieri and Guido Bigarelli, embellished by artistic licence, but adding genuine colour to the story.

Leoni is also not above the occasional historical joke allowing the reader, with the benefit of wider hindsight, the periodic wry smile. Perhaps best of these is the throwaway comment by the philosopher Arrigo, when Dante fells a urinating member of a rival family with a well thrown stone, that Florence should consider erecting a statue of David.

The fusion of magic and reality in medieval Europe is vividly captured, with 'miracles' such as the Virgin of Antioch presented and the genuine puzzlement of intellectuals such as Dante when faced with what they feel should be impossible but cannot rationally explain is fascinating. As the story progresses, and 20th century physics merges with the scientific exploration inspired by Frederick II the background to the murder story grows more engaging and the broadening of the medieval mind becomes the real interest, almost dwarfing the central crime story.

In linking to Frederick II Leoni has access to one of the more intriguing and mysterious aspects of medieval history. As a ruler fascinated by scientific exploration that bordered on heresy, with a turbulent relationship with the Papacy, and through his Sicilian background, a ready openness to both Eastern and Western cultures, he provides a wealth of background material to work with. To those familiar with the history of the period the references to octagonal structures will bring to mind the strangely spectacular Castel Del Monte in Puglia, and it will be no surprise when this building does indeed come to play a role in the story.

The Frederick II story does however present a challenge for Leoni. The life of Stupor Mundi and the tragic tale of his successor, Conradin, told to gripping and moving effect by Steven Runciman in “The Sicilian Vespers”, is a considerable act to follow in fiction and it is to Leoni's real credit that he has managed to take this raw material and shape it into an utterly absorbing novel. It's a more vivid and lavish world than that populated by other medieval crime writers such as Michael Jecks or Bernard Knight, and in its Italian setting cannot fail to be likened to “The Name of the Rose” - to those that like their crime fiction in a distant historical setting, it should be on their must read list.

“The Dead of Winter”, Rennie Airth

2009-09-21T22:44:00.001+01:00

Sometimes you come across a book that try as you might defies description beyond a somewhat bland "quite good". Rennie Airth's latest work was eagerly anticipated. His previous two John Madden mysteries were highly effective historic crime novels, combining a developed sense of tension with the bucolic idyll of Britain shortly after the Great War.

It's been some time since John Madden's previous outing, in 2005's "A Blood Dimmed Tide", and this, the final book in the trilogy sees time passing in Airth's universe too, with much of the book set in London during the winter of 1944. This inevitably invites comparisons with John Lawton's magisterial "Black Out", and sadly it doesn't quite live up.

"The Dead of Winter" suffers from what seems like a very slow start - taking a while before you're really gripped and multiple strands of the story being introduced without really making reader particularly care about the characters or the crime. This may be a reflection of John Madden's relatively low profile in the initial parts of the novel. His character is a rich and absorbing creation, and it's something of a shame that more isn't made of him. Admittedly this is rectified later in the work, but the slow start may make the reading experience more of an exercise in perseverance than it should be. This is compounded by dialogue which at times feels stilted and a feeling that Airth is trying too hard to set the wartime scene of rationing and bomb damage.

In parts two and three, there is a steady increase in pace and tension with a perceptible notion of building menace towards the inevitable dramatic denouement in the snow. The final 200 pages go a long way towards redeeming the book's earlier shortcomings. There is an ominous feel to it, and you feel that Airth is returning to where he really has form, threatening horrific violence amidst a peaceful countryside and finally making the book a lot harder to put down.

On reflection this is a troubled book that isn't quite as good as it should be. The core problem is the question as to whether the criminal is really believable? Layers of complexity are piled on, yet strangely it's unsatisfying, and slowly, steadily elements of credibility are easily unpicked in the readers' mind, ultimately leaving you somewhat flat. This means you're relying a lot on Airth's ability to portray the distant world of 1940s England, and here there's not quite enough.

The pace towards the conclusion saves "The Dead of Winter", but to be seen as a really good book this should have started much earlier. Sadly, while "quite good", it's not really a patch on the previous two books and not quite the conclusion to the Madden trilogy hoped for.

“Rules of Vengeance”, Christopher Reich

2009-09-10T00:00:00.001+01:00

Over the past 10 years or so Christopher Reich has made the progression from an author of somewhat erudite fiction (such as “Numbered Account” or “The Runner”) to the rather more populist and fantastic terrain of “The Patriot's Club”. As a frequent reader of his work I was surprised that I managed to miss the release of “Rules of Deception”, the first of the Jonathan Ransom books, and a chance purchase in Gatwick's WH Smith of “Rules of Vengeance” was all that alerted me to the existence of the predecessor and the “Rules” series.

“Rules of Vengeance” stands on its own and not having read its predecessor did not overly hurt, however there are sufficient references back to the previous book that one suspects a lot of the tension would be stripped out of it through knowledge of what takes place in book 2.

Undeniably fast paced and engaging “Rules of Vengeance” is a fine example of the chase thriller genre, taking its nod from classics such as “The 39 Steps” or “North by Northwest” with elements such as mistaken identity and a mysterious dynamic femme fatale. The way it overlays layer upon layer of action keeps up the relentless velocity of the story, and this in many ways serves to paper over the cracks that undeniably exist in the plot. The conspiracy at the heart of the novel is perhaps a touch over complex and stretches credibility when really thought about.

What Reich has in mind for core protagonist Ransom is somewhat enigmatic. Is he a subtle pawn of Connor, ensuring the core plot is foiled – but only just – to further high espionage aims? If so then why is so much left to chance and the whim of some of Connor's disillusioned agents? In terms of how the plot unfolds some of the core events, such as the opening murder of Robert Russell, ultimately pose questions as to why they had to take place in furthering the central story – or whether they were simply well executed set pieces that were inserted to keep the attention of the reader.

The character of Emma – another superhero like female character in the vein of Nikita, Stephanie Patrick, or Lisbeth Salander is also hard to completely unpick. Multiple levels of complexity in her background and motivations are revealed which causes the reader's sympathy towards her to swing radically over the course of the book, and ultimately one is left wondering how such a creation came to pass.

Interestingly, a degree of kudos must go to British political consultancy Oxford Analytica for managing to get quite such a significant plug in the course of the book. While not mentioned in the credits, as a real-world organisation this must constitute a highly successful piece of product placement.

As an erudite spy thriller there are simply too many holes in “Rules of Vengeance” for it to be truly satisfactory. It does however function superbly as a fast moving thriller. One cannot help however thinking that a touch more effort put into polishing the manuscript and ensuring loose ends were tied up and that a clearer narrative pathway to the highly surprising conclusion were provided. This aside, it's still a competent work that happily fulfils the needs of a relatively undemanding holiday read.

“Halfhead”, Stuart MacBride

2009-09-08T21:48:00.002+01:00

Over the last few years Stuart MacBride has become one of the authors whose output is anxiously awaited and enthusiastically read, having moved from the pool of writers who I'll happily pick up in the library or as an airport paperback to one whose hardbacks grace the shelves soon after release. As such it was a particular pleasure when Harper Collins Voyager saw fit to send me a copy of “Halfhead” in advance of release, and equally gratifying to discover that MacBride reveals himself to be so much more than a Logan McRae one trick Aberdonian pony.

Highlighting the problem posed by penning a largely successful series set in a particular milieux the complete departure from the contemporary Aberdeen of his previous work, “Halfhead” initially surprises the reader with its tone and setting. As such it will almost certainly irritate a number of hitherto loyal readers by being so fundamentally different to what has come before.

MacBride has often made the point of how if one writes about a murder in the middle ages this is seen as historical crime fiction, write about the present day, and it's crime fiction, yet set crime in the future and all of a sudden it's science fiction. I can see his point, science fiction carries with it a label that restricts its audience and has a lot of geek related intellectual baggage coming along with it. All this notwithstanding, despite “Halfhead” at heart being a remix of the police procedural versus serial killer theme the setting, role of technology, and manner in which society works all serve to justify labelling it as, at the very least, futuristic fiction.

Leaving labels aside “Halfhead” works very well at painting a picture of Scotland somewhere in the future. If you've wondered what Glasgow would be like cast by Philip K Dick (think Bladerunner or Total Recall) where the police are armed by someone who's spent lots of time playing Resistance Fall of Man on their PlayStation then “Halfhead” will fit the bill perfectly. As “future-crime” lots has changed, and initially there's the impression that all that's the same is the name, but as the novel progresses points of familiarity emerge and outside the dystopian towers of Sherman House and Monstrosity Square a more identifiable Glasgow emerges.

The process of 'Halfheading' – removing the lower jaw and lobotomising criminals – is designed to provide a vivid lesson that crime doesn't pay, but the point is also made that really the message is that getting caught doesn't pay. Despite the all pervasiveness of the surveillance society, the banishment of the disenfranchised to sprawling out of town developments, and obviously the draconian punishments available to the state, crime still takes place, and as Will Hunter discovers, walking through Kelvingrove Park at night is not an entirely safe or sensible choice.

Make no mistake, this is a different MacBride to what we've seen before. Even leaving aside the setting and sci-fi nature there is a lot less humour than is to be found with Logan McRae, and in its darkest moments extraordinarily deep depths are plumbed – with one of the most appalling pieces of sexual violence being just one of the side crimes perpetrated in the course of the book. Throughout however it's a compelling read and shows why the manuscript got MacBride his publishing deal. It's easy to separate it from his Aberdeen works and he's put in place an intriguing universe that one hopes will be revisited in future. In short, very good.

The Kids are Alright

2009-09-07T12:11:00.002+01:00

Summers are generally accepted to be about recharging batteries, spending time on things more pleasurable than daily toil, and building up a head of steam for a new school year - or - for those of long departed from the groves of academe, the ever tense run in to year-end. I chose to spend a week on the northern coast of Mallorca (of which more later) in an attempt to get a final fix of balmy idleness before September really took hold, but strangely it was on the flight back that the most positive experience of the whole time took place.

The young studenty couple in front of me on the British Airways 737 didn't do anything particularly extraordinary. They watched a bit of a film on his slightly oversize Acer laptop then opened up a Word 2003 document on "Is there such a thing a just war?". Over summer work for a pair of undergraduates? A Masters thesis soon to be submitted? General interest in just war theory? Who knows, and really who cares? It just makes such a refreshing change from what you often see, particularly when a holiday island such as Mallorca is involved.

Summer's ending and new academic years are beginning and people are still capable of creative thought. Holidays should be life affirming but this sight more than anything else fills me with hope and enthusiasm for getting on with things.

I don't know who the people in 12 E and F on BA2709 from Palma to Gatwick on Sunday night were, nor if they're even remotely likely to read this, but they deserve my thanks.

“Blood Money”, Tom Bradby

2009-08-29T15:40:00.001+01:00

Journalist and Royal Correspondent Tom Bradby has been slowly but surely carving out a niche for himself with a loosely connected series of historical crime thrillers ranging in scope from revolutionary Russia to World War II Cairo. "Blood Money", topically in today's environment, sets a police corruption and sexual serial killer story against the background of 1929 New York and the Wall Street Crash. Covering the decisive few days that saw the end of the 1920s boom and the run up to the New York mayoral elections of 1929, it sees honest detective Joe Quinn seeking to unpick a series of murders and disappearances linked to his family and which exist in the context of a deeply corrupt city. As a story it is absorbing and immersive, the core police procedural being overlayed with historical detail and the complex family relationships of the Quinn family.

"Blood Money" exists in the same universe Bradby has created for his other historical crime novels, and thus there is a level of interconnection that slightly frustrates. The gap between publishing the books meant that for me, the details of characters in other books were a touch hazy, which led to undue effort early on trying to plot the relations between characters in this novel and those in his others. This serves to lessen the force that underpins the start to "Blood Money", which otherwise is powerful and sets the frenetic noirish pace that carries throughout the novel. Ultimately however you realise that this is entirely a standalone work, and the linkages really don't matter in the wider scheme of things, which allows you to concentrate on the really rather good central story. This raises the question as to whether somehow Bradby would be better off creating entirely new characters with no real relations to the other books each time?

For all the depth of historical detail, Bradby is deliberately unspecific about precise dates. This allows you, with a vague grasp of what happened in the Wall Street Crash, to start to locate events and understand where in the climacteric period of late October 1929 the story takes place. The time period covered ends as rumours abound that the collapsing market has been stemmed, appearing to offer closure in a wider sense than just the central crime story, however broader historical events, such as the outcome of La Guardia's mayoral campaign, are left unanswered, relying on history to relate what ultimately happened . This is an oft recurring theme with Bradby, and it's effective. Just as "The God of Chaos" finishes just before the seismic battle of El Alamein, the reader is left understanding how much more of a cataclysm awaits the central characters they have grown to identify with, reinforcing the picture of ordinary people's overwhelming dramas being carried away by the great sweep of history.

While Bradby has developed an unmistakable style of writing, one of his key strengths is to avoid producing boilerplate fiction. This is achieved partially through his mastery of different historical settings, all of which have an air of authenticity (and his depiction here of New York is no different), but there is sufficient diversity in detail in the way his superficially similar plots are delivered. While there is betrayal in "Blood Money", it differs in scale and nature from that found in his other works, similarly the corruption of characters' souls takes a subtly different form to that which we've uncovered in the past. This combination of sticking to what he's genuinely very good at, and simultaneously tweaking the formula keeps his writing fresh and makes for a reading experience that's genuinely enjoyable

“Powersat”, Ben Bova

2009-08-20T12:49:00.002+01:00

Ben Bova's “Powersat” is an intriguing neither fish nor fowl book. Classified by Bromley libraries as Science Fiction, probably legitimately given the author's background, at heart it is a near future techno-thriller centred on a private enterprise attempt to harness solar energy. Throughout there is the impression that this is a case of a Sci Fi author trying to write a post 9/11 terrorism related thriller – and this reveals a number of cracks. Bova is clearly accomplished in writing the science fiction aspects, the overarching technological vision, the clever cues showing how the present could morph into the future, and the grandeur of harnessing space all work well. He is however less convincing writing about the more earthly issues of terrorism, where somehow it doesn't quite work.

Core character Dan Randolph is a curiosity. As a successful entrepreneur, engineer, and obsessive amontillado enthusiast, has some slightly curious tastes – for such an urbane bon viveur is it really credible that he has never heard of Armagnac? In his personal life he is annoyingly petulant in a teenage like manner with his lovestruck obsessing about his now-US Senator ex. Professionally however he has an air of credibility and his vision has an appealing clarity to it.

The writing does at times frustrate stylistically – early on in the novel I was swearing if Julian Scheer's “rain makes applesauce” phrase was used once more I'd become ill and violent, and the delivery of this phrase is pretty unrelenting. Equally Randolphs's reference everything slightly wrong, from a late starting FBI agent to the IRS to terrorists meddling with his satellite is “double damned”. I'm as much of a swearing enthusiast as the next man, but in such things variety really is the spice of life. In a similar vein some plot lines, such as the environmental protests against Randolph's power generation satellite are left somewhat hanging, and a number of characters, including the appealing FAA investigator, Dr Passeau, are not satisfactorily closed out.

All this notwithstanding as a thriller it works as it should – it preserves tension throughout and genuinely keeps you wondering about how it will resolve itself. The fact that the plot isn't suffused with saccharine happy ever after fates for all concerned reinforces the underlying impact of the book. It moves at an unremitting pace, from the graphic disintegration of a spaceplane and the death of its test pilot in the opening pages to the high drama of the denouement it's the sort of book that's an ideal easy reading companion.

“Murder at Deviation Junction”, Andrew Martin

2009-08-15T17:54:00.001+01:00

There was a pleasing circularity to reading Andrew Martin's “Murder at Deviation Junction” last week. Back in 2006 when proximity to Beckenham library prompted me to start using public libraries the first book I borrowed was Edward Marston's “Railway Detective”. This first exposure to 19th century rail based crime fiction wasn't all that auspicious, while the story was reasonably absorbing and the book happily finished, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that it was all a bit silly and far fetched – and not in a good way.

It is thus a particular delight that Andrew Martin's treatment of crime and the railways is much more fulfilling. Rob Kitchen, in his very good “View from the Blue House” blog, has highlighted the importance of location in crime fiction, and “Murder at Deviation Junction” undoubtedly recognises this. One of the keys to this is the way in which the author immerses the reader in the industrial power house that was the North East of Edwardian England. The opening scenes amongst the blast furnaces of Middlesbrough in the snow set the tone, summed up neatly by Harry Stringer, the three year old son of lead character, Jim Stringer, when he comments that “Everything's on fire, Dad”, when looking out over the night skyline outside Redcar. Fittingly for the long 19th century, the railways lie at the heart of this cauldron and their description too is evocative, with scenes such as the 'Gateshead Infant' (a Class V Atlantic, fittingly now in 2009 being resurrected by the Great Northern Steam Company) crossing the Ouse capturing the scale of the railways in the period.

Jim Stringer is a delight as a character. In many way's he's the antithesis to the eminently capable Edwardian detective often presented to us; a failed train driver, flailing with police work, and somewhat henpecked by his bluestocking wife, he nonetheless is thoroughly appealing. His commitment to tracking down the secret behind the Whitby-Middlesborough Travelling Club and the murder of photographer Paul Peters is driven not so much by an earnest quest for truth as a means to resuscitate his police career. As such, for all he is at times a touch crude and rough around the edges, it's impossible not to warm to him, and see him largely come good in the end.

The rich character of Stringer is just one reflection of the keen way in which Martin observes the human condition and brings his story to life. Characters comment on the mundane, such as the almost plaintive opinion on spectacles, that “ it's not so much being able to see that I miss as taking them of to rub on my sleeve” the somewhat hapless reporter, Steve Bowman expresses, and this all serves to deepen our appreciation for the world depicted for us.

It is somewhat disappointing that the denouement is a touch drawn out and doesn't really hang together. This reflects some of the greater shortcomings to the plot. Ultimately it doesn't quite live up to the rich universe, the crime eventually exposed seeming almost disappointingly mundane and some aspects of the storyline leaving the reader scratching their heads about why exactly things have happened.

All this notwithstanding “Murder at Deviation Junction” is a genuinely good read, and follows enjoyably in the footsteps of other fusions of railroads and murder, such as “Murder on the Orient Express” and “North by Northwest”. It may not be such a glamorous picture of travelling by train as these other, later, works, but shows the combination of crime and the steady relentless progress offered by the railway is one, when well done, consistently works.

“The Alamut Ambush”, Anthony Price

2009-08-08T12:16:00.001+01:00

Anthony Price is one of these authors whose popularity in the 1960s and 1970s has sadly not proved persistent into the new century. Now, with just a few of his books in print through Orion's Crime Masterworks series finding his work is a case of luck in libraries and earnestly hunting through charity shops.

This is a real pity. At his best, with books such as "Other Paths to Glory", his writing is compelling and the fusion of history and Cold War espionage provides an interesting and informative new angle on the well trodden terrain of spy fiction. At other times he doesn't quite fire on all cylinders, and you somehow have to be in the humour for him. "The Alamut Ambush" is one of these 'not quite' sort of books. It's been lurking on the bookshelf for well over a year now, teetering on the brink of going back to the charity shop and joining the ranks of abandon-ware. Thankfully, largely down to happenstance, it coming to hand when idly looking for something to read, and, prosaically, it easily fitting in my pocket, it got a second chance.

Set in the early 1970s against the backdrop of the Arab-Israeli conflict the atmosphere of Britain at that time is richly captured. The setting is one of tired tawdriness, Britain still has aspirations and a role to play, but it's starting to look a little shabby and threadbare.

The core character, RAF pilot and intelligence officer Hugh Roskill, is a rich and well rounded character. The intersection of personal and professional interest as he unpicks the murder of a young intelligence technician and links it with the complexities of Middle Eastern politics provides pace to the novel and keeps the reader consistently interested as he moves through London clubland at night and the rainy Hampshire countryside. The underlying plot, of a nascent Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement as terrorism rises to be the means of interaction between Arab and Jew is prescient, coming as it does, well before the Camp David accords, and reflects the political ambiguities and shifting allegiances running beneath what often can seem a blunt zero sum conflict.

Price often leaves the bigger picture unstated, focusing on what individuals do and leaving the reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. This works effectively here, the details of the wider conspiracy, the precise threat posed by the 'Alamut' group (which will come as no real surprise to those familiar with history of the region) and the 'ambush' of the title, are largely left unsaid, and this makes them all the more real, and allows Price to build up a story of real and engaging depth in a scant 189 pages.

This probably isn't the best of Price's books, but I'm still very glad to have had another go at it. It's a shame his work is now so hard to find. In the endorsements on the back he's likened to Eric Ambler, and there are certainly echoes of this here, and there are also notes of John LeCarre, with parts feeling very similar to some of his John Smiley works and "The Honourable Schoolboy" in particular. If you happen to stumble across one of his books, most likely these days in a jumble sale or dusty second hand bookshop, you could do a lot worse than give him a go.

“Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: the Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan”, Antonio Giustozzi

2009-08-05T13:46:00.002+01:00

Honesty up front, even though I first met Antonio Giustozzi at a MacArthur Foundation conference in the mid 1990s, and generally appreciate what he has to say - I haven't read "Khoran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop", even if it does seem a reasonably interesting read.

The current issue of "Asian Affairs" has a review of it which is testament to how to damn with faint praise. The last sentence in particular is particularly breathtaking.

This book provides interesting data on insurgent recruitment, problems within the Afghan army and police, and more: America spends $15m for every insurgent it kills. Yet the book lacks context of any kind. No maps are provided, nor history, and there is little background on key individuals or tribal complexities. If the reader does not know his Achikzais from his Alizais, or the background on Hazrat Ali or Jalaludin Haqqani, most of the book will be inaccessible. It is a pite, for a substantial re-write would have produced a volume of tactical and historical value.

While this seems harsh, I should stress that this is just the concluding paragraph from S. J. Masty's longer review of this and another work on Afghanistan (on pp.297-298 of the July 2009 edition) it strikes me as a genuinely effective review. It flags up the strengths and weaknesses of a book in an effective way, highlighting who is likely to be the best audience for it, and critically doing so in an engaging and memorable way.

In a world where people all too often are reluctant to speak their minds, this is really refreshing.

“Stop Me”, Richard Parker

2009-08-04T00:54:00.004+01:00

Explicitly aimed at the holiday reading market, most clearly shown by the innovative marketing approach taken by publishers Allison & Busby in having author signings in airports through August, Richard Parker's debut novel, "Stop Me", is a novel about murder, kidnap, insanity, and mistrust.

The central premise is that of an email chain letter with a deeply dark edge. The killer starts a chain email, describing the victim and asking the recipients to pass on the message if they want them to be saved. If they receive the email back through the usual chain mail process the victim is saved, otherwise they are killed. This is a somewhat unsettling premise; it plays to our fears of randomness in the world, and our awareness that most of us would delete a message like that, regarding it as an obvious case of spam. However it does raise an interesting question. Spam is very much an internet age phenomenon, transcending the familiar territory of junk mail into something much more intrusive. In this day and age however there is the real question of whether a chain letter ever really works. Reading "Stop Me" made me think when last I'd opened an obvious piece of spam even remotely akin to that sent by the "Vacation Killer"? Spam still unquestionably exists, but the vast majority of it is swept unseen into spam or junk mail folders in our email clients. In this light, is "Stop Me" destined to be a curiosity piece representative of a fleeting period in the late 20th and early 21st century?

It is often held that the higher the body count the lower the overall level of shock, as the reader undergoes a process of desensitisation. Put cinematically a drama with a lone death will remain with the viewer much longer than a hackneyed 'slasher movie'. "Stop Me" is unflinching in its violence. In the first two brief chapters 12 people die, and the central kidnapping takes place. However, this is less a story about murder as one man's attempt to come terms with the disappearance of his wife. The shock experienced by protagonist Leo Sharpe at the utterly unexpected disappearance of Laura and the freefall his life enters into in its aftermath is compelling, if at times perplexing.

The book is written in a sparse, minimalist style and predominantly told from Leo's internalised perspective. This won't work for everyone, and isn't usually what I would go for. It has upsides and downsides. Positively, it keeps the plot moving along with the minimum of distraction, and focuses the reader on the core story of Leo Sharpe's quest for his wife, driven by his unshakeable conviction that she is not dead. Conversely it means that the plot lacks a level of richness and sense of place, and in missing out in some more subtle narrative tools the reading experience at times feels on the shallow side. This also has the effect of leaving questions in the back of the reader's mind about the deeper motivations of characters such as the enigmatic Dr Mutatkar and the sinister Cleaves.

Declan Burke on the Crime Always Pays blog, writing about John Banville, makes the point that "crime fiction fans tend to favour character, plot and narrative over the inventive use of language". This is probably a fair point, and in the case of "Stop Me", at times the emphasis is placed on plot to the exclusion of almost anything else; and thankfully, the plot is great. Tension is maintained throughout the full 336 pages, with a deep curiosity about the motivations underpinning the "Vacation Killer", exploring Leo's journey through the crisis his life has fallen into, and ultimately waiting to discover what precisely is the tableau being presented by Parker is, and this is certainly not one easily predicted. The effect of this is to overwhelm any reservations about linguistic sophistication and comparatively one dimensional characterisation and ensures that at no point is there a temptation to cast the book aside.

It's not great literature, it's probably not the best crime novel of 2009, but as an engaging take on how the internet mixed with celebrity culture can complicate the traditional serial killer story, delivered in a fast paced way, it works.

“The Headhunter”, Paul Kilduff

2009-08-02T19:04:00.002+01:00

There is a certain poignancy to reading an early 21st century financial thriller in late 2009. The wholescale discrediting of the financial sector over the last 12 months has led to an inherent and unsurprised linkage in most people's minds between criminality and banking, which lends a crime novel set in a more earnest era, where there was a grain of respectability to the profession, a somewhat quaint air. Indeed it almost feels natural, that if bankers are capable of destroying livelihoods, then why should it be surprising that at least one of them is capable of being a serial killer?

Highly reminiscent of Michael Ridpath's series of crime novels with a financial setting, "The Headhunter" capitalises on the rich background provided by the Square Mile and Canary Wharf, to set a tale of corporate corruption and murder. While the identities of the perpetrators is revealed comparatively early (and in retrospect there are a couple of additional cross-cultural clues that should make it obvious from the outset) the motivations are explored progressively over the course of the novel, and Kilduff manages to preserve mounting tension and genuine curiosity about how the book will pan out.

The main characters, Adam the young, new FX trader, Samantha the harassed woman trader, Bruce the consummate player, and Henry, the city recruitment consultant, are rounded, well painted, and can be identified with, and they are ably backed by a cast of supporting figures, all of whom are believable. That is, of course, not to say that they are all sympathetic, indeed some are truly odious, but given the setting this comes as no surprise. The main characters however are ones that you can readily identify with and care about their fates, which is critical for a novel such as this.

In a book like this authenticity is key, and here Kilduff, drawing one assumes on his personal experience in banking, scores highly. The lives of bankers are seen as lavish, but transient, luxury flats being furnished by letting companies, or strangely empty, while there is a warmth to where those of more ordinary aspirations live. The only slightly jarring note is the staggeringly low aspirations of the various characters regarding their cars – no Aston Martins or Porsches here – but instead BMW 320s and Audi A4s being seen as the height of desirability, which, if true, might gives rise to some worries among the manufacturers of such exotica. Cars aside, this emptiness in the lives of many hints at the central point, made by several characters, that few want to live in the financial sector forever, instead spending some time there, making some money, then doing something else. Indeed, the characters more wedded to the financial life are by far the more contorted personalities. This warts and all portrayal goes a long way towards taking any remaining gloss from the Square Mile.

I note Paul Kilduff, following his dalliance with budget airlines, is returning to the broad genre of crime or mystery fiction, which based on the quality of "The Headhunter", is enormously good news. I very much look forward to reading more.

“Spinal Trap”, Simon Singh

2009-07-29T10:44:00.003+01:00

The UK's laws on libel are widely regarded as some of the most restrictive in the world, and one of the few instances where the burden of proof is placed on the defendent - in short, you are guilty until proven innocent.

While the guiding principle of this legislation, i.e. to prevent publication of material that damages the reputation of a person or organisation, is laudable and should encourage good journalistic practice, there is a worrying trend seeing libel laws being used to stifle open debate, most significantly well known author and broadcaster Simon Singh being sued for an article he published in the UK newspaper, The Guardian. This has resulted in the original article being removed from the Guardian's website, and represents a challenge to the ability of people to question what may appear to be spurious claims made, in particular, by alternative therapy practitioners.

In protest at this, many websites and blogs are reprinting Simon Singh's article, drawn from David Colquhoun's DC's Improbable Science blog. I am very proud to join this movement by providing an outlet for Simon Singh, whose superb article fully deserves to be read.

Beware the spinal trap
Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.
You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.
In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.
You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.
I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.
But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.
In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.
More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.
Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.
Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”
This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.
If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.
Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.

“The Chalk Circle Man”, Fred Vargas

2009-07-25T12:55:00.004+01:00

Fred Vargas, described by the Guardian as “the hottest property in contemporary French crime fiction today” and winner of the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger multiple times undeniably has a head of steam behind her in terms of expectation creation. In this light “The Chalk Circle Farm” held a lot of promise, combining an author new to me with a Parisian setting, a location with so much potential for absorbing crime fiction.

The premise is pleasing at the outset. Adamsberg a quirky yet visionary detective with an ability to see deeper meanings in ordinary events, and Danglard, a more grizzled traditional cop with issues often trod in crime fiction supply provide good raw material for the sort of policing double act that fiction thrives upon.

Inherently Vargas' writing, and the way the translation is handled by Sian Reynolds, feels as though it's very good in a literary way. This is a book that leaves you in no doubt that there are depths to it and that by reading it you are being improved. This, as Francis Bacon would have put it, is the sort of book to be chewed and digested; and herein for me lies the problem. In using crime as the hook from which to hang high literature Vargas lessens the impact of the crime. The initial premise, that the Parisian police would be so engaged by what initially seems like trivial graffiti, indeed that anyone would notice scrawled blue chalk circles amidst the bustle of Paris does not ring true. This frustrates, when Adamsberg declares that “[t]here's cruelty oozing out of those circles”, the writing comes across as powerful, but that the time can be spent to think about it and identify the cruelty stretches credibility.

I'm sure this says as much about me as it does about Vargas' writing, but I struggle with metaphysical literature. “The Chalk Circle Man” is full of symbolism and concepts of how the notions of reality start and stop – which is interesting, provocative, and sadly not really what I'm after in something categorised as 'crime'. Indeed, this is much less a book about murder, and much more a work about reality – a fact that in retrospect is continually signposted – one of the first references to objects left in the chalk circles talks of two books, contrasting the “Metaphysics of the Real” with “The Fun to Cook Book”. This theme is most clearly shown in the workings of the supporting cast - the blind man, the scarred oceanographer, the deserted spinster. These, initially engaging, come across less as rounded people as devices to serve ontological purposes, creating different views of the world in which the events can take place. It works effectively on this level, but it is inherent in such a work that by doing this well the nature of 'realism' is challenged, which raises questions about whether this is an effective work of crime fiction. If we accept that there are multiple realities is the crime, and ultimately the murder, still something tangible and real?

As Fiona Walker puts it in her review on Eurocrime, these are “not for people who demand gritty realism from their crime fiction”, and while I think there can sometimes be too much grit in crime fiction, this more ethereal writing doesn't gel with what I'm looking for in a roman policier.

“Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War”, Hugh Bicheno

2009-07-24T16:47:00.001+01:00

I'm lucky enough to remember the Falklands War. I was 9 when the invasion took place and my 10^th birthday was two weeks before the Argentine surrender. To this day I remember walking through Kew Gardens discussing with all the earnest boyhood intent I could muster, what the prospects were with my father, and subsequently, as the task force moved south, with my school friends. As my life and career evolved, the Falklands somehow have stayed with me. I distinctly remember discussing how to make an undergraduate course on "Warfare in the 20^th Century" more real to students in the late 1990s, and floating that maybe if we had a week on the Falklands it might work, as some of them might remember it, only for a senior colleague to gently chide me that given most of them didn't remember Thatcher being in power and were predominantly would have been 3 or so when the conflict took place, I was perhaps being a bit optimistic about their memory.

It was largely down to a (different) former colleague that I picked up Hugh Bicheno's unofficial history. I've read a lot about the Falklands over the years, and while I'd seen it had come out I wasn't sure that it would add much to my understanding, or that I really needed to read more on the subject. Gratifyingly I was wrong. "Razor's Edge" is, without question, the wrong place to start if you're new to the 1982 war (better places to start would be Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse's "Signals of War", or Martin Middlebrook's "Task Force"). Bicheno's account is forceful, opiniated, and authoritative, written with confidence, a command of his subject, and an eye for source reliability that is rare. A most pleasing side effect of the conviction with which this account is written is the unflinching passion communicated and an utter unwillingness to pull punches. This makes for a very good read.

The book unapologetically focuses on the ground war. Possession of Port Stanley is rightly seen as the conflict's centre of gravity, and as such, interesting as it is, the sea war and the relative performance in the air is subservient to the grinding battle fought by boots on the ground; two armies facing each other and being tested in environments neither had really prepared for. As such, episodes such as the sinking of the General Belgrano are not investigated in any great detail, Bicheno rightly assuming that those interested can readily find detailed explorations of such events elsewhere.

In this focus on the ground war Bicheno cuts to the heart of the matter in exploding the myth that the British achievement was somehow superhuman. He accurately cites a US document positing that no self respecting military officer should have learned anything from the Falklands War. In this light the whole conflict was not a tribute to flair and extemporisation in adversity, but rather to solid grounding, an appreciation of logistics, and an ability to work in a joined up way; in short, less being unbelievable heroes and more solid people doing their job properly. Indeed when the British Army deviated from what it had consistently trained to do, such as at Goose Green, it came closest to failure and defeat. In this instance Bicheno has no hesitation in questioning sacred cows, firmly asserting that it was only with Colonel H Jones' death (for which he won the Victoria Cross) that 2 Para were allowed to revert to what they had consistently trained to do, and secured victory.

Other popular conceptions about the war are also challenged, for example, the theory that the Argentine invasion constituted a classic intelligence failure, is pointedly exploded. In the words of Bicheno, himself a former intelligence officer in Latin America:

There was no 'intelligence failure' – the British government was well served with hard information from technical and human sources about Argentine actions and intentions. There was, however, an intellectual failure systemic to the political nation. (p.28).

This point ushers in the real central tone of "Razor's Edge". This is the work of a proud Briton disillusioned with what he feels his country has become. He wears his heart on his sleeve when denouncing what he sees as over liberal apologias for Britain's behaviour contrasted with a relative silence concerning the odium of the Argentine junta. The complicity of Britain's political system in creating the environment where the 1982 conflict could take place is clearly exposed, yet there is still the underlying admiration for an underlying mettle in the British character that made victory possible. The story of Hugh Leach's impassioned plea to Thatcher to allow the Royal Navy to try and retake the Falklands is widely known, and given rightful airing here, but Bicheno goes deeper. As he puts it, Argentina's whole strategy was:

…based on a calculation that the British soldier of 1982 was not the man his father had been. But he was: and better in attack than history might have led one to expect of an army more famed for stoicism than tactical flair. (p.93)

This point being rammed home by his assertion that:

The British owed their victory to the ferocity of infantry who went into combat stressed beyond the point beyond which even the best trained troops should be pushed. (p.110)

While there are undeniably points in the book where one could happily debate (for example his wholesale endorsement of then commander of HMS Ardent and latterly First Sea Lord Alan West) ultimately this is a deeply satisfying book that stays just on the right side of polemic. As I have said, it is not the right place to start if one seeks a primer on the conflict, but to one who thinks they already know all that has to be said about the events of March-June 1982, this is a useful antidote and a worthwhile addition to any library on the subject.

“Ruinair”, Paul Kilduff

2009-07-23T22:15:00.002+01:00

I bought this a few months ago, while idly shopping in my local bookshop, cheerfully forgot about it, then rediscovered it in one my periodic study tidy-outs – and happily was just in the sort of humour for a work like this. What sort of work is it however? “Ruinair” is the sort of book that challenges conventional categorisation, and probably should give librarians, booksellers, and others who obsess about locating books on shelves something of a headache. The dayglo cover and branding locate this as humour, and clearly Kilduff sets out to entertain, but there is undoubtedly a serious element to this, also representing a serious travelogue and interesting insight into Ryanair's business model.

While throughout the narrative is told with an eye on being funny, and certainly it has the power to make you smile, this isn't quite the laugh-out-loud-read-bits-to-strangers sort of book that sticks in your mind as being one of the funniest things you've read all year. Inherently, while Kilduff can write, I'm not entirely sure he's completely comfortable writing humorously and at times his slightly chippy attitude grated a little. At times too, one suspects that a degree of padding went on, as though late in the editing process there was a realisation that they really wanted to get the page count up thus the press clippings file related to Ryanair should be raided. This does not however detract from the fact that this is an enjoyable workthat kept me absorbed and is well worth a read.

To anyone living in Europe over the last 10 years or so, the low cost airline phenomenon has been unavoidable. Among the many positives is the extent to which it has enabled travel to be much more feasible, helped us keep in contact with more distantly located friends and relatives, and helped make the concept of an integrated Europe much more real. At the same time we've become accustomed to the sort of folklore that has grown up around such airlines, looking at the shortcomings in customer services, headline grabbing tales of having to pay to use toilets or seats being replaced by stools, and of course, the issue that the airports they fly to can often be nowhere near the cities they claim to serve, all contextualised by the larger than life persona of Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive. The true strength of “Ruinair” is that it cuts to the heart of these conceptions we have about low budget airline travel, and in the main shows them to be firmly grounded in reality, from the reality of where they fly to, how they go about getting you there, and in accumulating the public pronouncements of O'Leary, along with correspondence (accurately described as 'bolloxology') from Ryanair customer services showing the disregard towards the flying public.

At the outset (on page 2) the truism that it that people will fly from somewhere to nowhere is offered, and this sets the tone for the book as a whole. Kilduff's account of his time in Ryanair's many destinations around Europe show that often there's little there. If Ryanair challenges the proverb that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive by overtly stripping the romance out of the journey, then the onus is undeniably on the destination. Kilduff's experience shows that traveling to these places for the sake of going, adhering to the maxim that the flights are so cheap that it's almost more expensive to stay at home, probably isn't enough. Kilduff's odyssey, trying to fly to all 15 countries in Western Europe by budget airline, is a tale noticeably lacking in enjoyment. This is no holiday, and as he recounts bleak evenings in some of the more obscure parts of Europe you realise this, more perhaps than other travelogues of journeys to more difficult parts of the world, is something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Ryanair, along with other budget airlines, make it possible to travel widely, but the key question really should be whether you want to go there in the first place.

“A Season for the Dead”, David Hewson

2009-07-19T00:36:00.002+01:00

Most of my postings involve books I've read recently, reflecting my response to a book at its most visceral and critically when the plot and characterisation is fresh in my mind.

This is a departure from that principle and is not really a book review.

I picked up David Hewson's first Nic Costa novel back in February 2008, the result of a Saturday morning's stroll refamiliarising myself with Aberystwyth. “A Season for the Dead” formed part of a three-for-two offer in the local bookshop, along with Mark Mill's “Savage Garden” and John Niven's “Kill your Friends” (actually quite an unpleasant book, in a strangely compelling way, as things transpired). I'm hard pressed to remember which one was the 'free' book in this package, but memory whispers to me that it probably wasn't the Hewson, I'd just come back from Rome, and full of the prospect of more work there, the prospect of a rich Italian mystery really appealed.

Bringing things to the present day, late on Thursday night, coping with an oppressively hot Bologna night, I came across a recent spat concerning Hewson and his response to negative reviews, bringing up an array of topics including, among many others, cyber-bullying, fair use of copyright material, and libel. Ill tempered discussion such as this, which periodically flare up on the internet, often show the shortcomings of blogging, where there's too much reliance on literal communication and it's all too easy to post in haste and repent at leisure, however this did serve to make me, with the benefit of distant hindsight, think about what I've thought about David Hewson's books.

I read “A Season for the Dead” and while finishing it, being driven with a sense of curiousity about how the plot panned out, an interest in the core characters, and a real sense of enjoyment about the location, something about it left me feeling a touch disappointed. There was a palpable lack of redemption about the book. To take the persona of Nic Costa as an example, there's no shortage of troubled detectives with a surfeit of 'issues' in crime fiction, however I found a certain sense of frustration with him, and struggled to identify with him. Equally, while crime in reality is almost never elegant, much of plot represented humanity at its most tawdry, and left me feeling somewhat stained.

That said, my response to my first exposure to Hewson clearly wasn't completely negative. I clearly remember frustration at my local library not stocking the earlier books in the Costa series, and at some point last year I bought the third book, “The Sacred Cut”, probably at an airport, but it never really grabbed me, and despite a few attempts at starting, ultimately it fell victim to the demands of limited shelf space in a South London semi, and went to the charity shop unread with my feeling that for whatever reason I didn't really get on with Hewson/Costa and I didn't see myself reading it anytime soon.

There ended my engagement with David Hewson, probably concluding that while they were perfectly good crime novels of a particular type, they weren't necessarily for me, but that's just a case of horses for courses.

Reading about the spat referred to above raised some interesting questions in my mind though. I haven't seen the negative review penned by Norm, so I can't comment on whether it was or was not libellous. Raising the issue of libel is however something that does make my blood run cold. I've worked in publishing for many years, and still clearly recall the horror of receiving a phone call from the BBC asking if I was aware that a writ for libel was forthcoming from a third party. I was lucky enough then to be working for a big publisher, with the sort of editorial processes that gave us confidence in our story, and a wider support structure in terms of administration and legal help that cushioned the blow. Blogging is undeniably publishing, and libel is libel, but thinking back to my understanding of the laws surrounding such things, looking at reputational damage in the eyes of the right thinking person on the Clapham ominbus, one does have to wonder what purpose is served by taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

What I do find positive, having over the past couple of days revisited some of the controversial correspondence, is that David Hewson is reading and responding to writings about his work. Engaging in a dialogue, within reason, about its merits, is so much more healthy than leaving things in the hands of lawyers. Clay Shirky among others makes the point that the one thing the internet does is lower the barrier to publication, this has the effect that there is a blurring of lines between the old traditional 'book review' of the Saturday supplement and the impassioned conversation between friends previously the reserved preserve of small groups. From my perspective as a reader this has been vastly positive, introducing me to so many books I wouldn't otherwise have found, however there has to be a process of understanding that maybe principles arrived at for the long established print world do not work as well in a world where everyone can publish and accordingly have their 15 megabytes of fame.

There are going to be good and bad aspects to this, but perhaps it's worth revisiting the basic lessons of libel I was taught many years ago – as an author, would you want this written about you? And as a plaintif, once you enter into litigation gloves will come off and you lose control over what is said.

Restraint is usually the best way forward.

“The Wolf”, Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen

2009-07-11T23:21:00.004+01:00

A very brief one this time - as I'm currently doing a full review of this for Intelligence and National Security, but given the extent to which this is currently being pushed in the UK's airports some initial thoughts might be of interest.

Telling the story of the German warship Wolf's long raiding cruise between late 1916 and early 1918 "The Wolf" is unashamedly populist and while this makes it possible to question it academically the publishers almost certainly took the decision to make this a deliberately accessible book, and on a summer afternoon with competition for attention this is no bad thing.

The actions of the Wolf in the later part of the First World War were to all intents and purposes inconsequential to the ultimate outcome of the war, but this does not alter the fascinating human story of the ship, its crew, and its victims, as well as the wider impact of World War I on Australasia in the later part of the conflict told by Guilliat and Hohnen. It's also a lovely opportunity to go into a little known aspect of Great War naval history - while the Emden and the rest of Graf Spee's raiders have had their time in the sun, the later raiders are largely forgotten. It's easy to be sceptical about airport history, but in this case the result is really rather pleasing.

Books for a hot climate

2009-07-02T00:59:00.002+01:00

It's ridiculous in London at the moment, plants in the garden are giving up the ghost, sleep seems impossible in the heat, and none of the infrastructure is at all designed to cope with this sort of weather - least of all the unassuming 3 bed Beckenham semi I call home.

So then surely my sanity is questioned by my cheerfull acceptance of a business trip to Madrid tomorrow - after all - chances are the temperature's not likely to be a whole lot lower there.

It's a fleeting visit, but one that holds the prospect, should Friday go well, of a rather more time than might be ideal at Madrid's quite nice Barajas airport - it's better than many others, but it's still an airport, and there's not a lot you can do about that.

This makes book choices really worth thinking about. I've got Mark Mills' "Amagansett", which will certainly be coming along, but what to bolster it with? Do I gamble on there being something worthwhile at the bookshop at Heathrow? Or do I revisit Charles Cumming's fantastic "Spanish Game" - topical given the location - especially as I like to be able to put some real experience of places to a novel? Hugh Bicheno's "Razor's Edge" has been a recent acquisition but for some reason I'm not sure I want to read it immediately, and of the fodder I saw at Heathrow last time round, the really appealing "Wolf" from Guilliat and Hohnen is one I'm hoping to write about professionally, thus buying it would be a waste.

If this is the largest cross I have to bear in July I'll be pleased - but please spare a thought for the dilemmas of what to cram into the world's smallest overnight bag...

Any suggestions gratefully received.

“The Night Climbers”, Ivo Stourton

2009-06-29T14:01:00.000+01:00

Ivo Stourton’s debut novel was, for me, a classic library impulse borrowing. Nestling in that awkward genre somewhere between crime and literature, with an appealing cover and an engaging description it fitted easily into my late May borrowing, and then, regrettably sat on the shelf while other books competed with it for my attention – so much so that it very nearly went back unread.

That didn’t happen – and I am enormously pleased about that. The slim paperback made its way into my briefcase last week for a trip to Ankara, and proved the most pleasant of surprises – an engaging, erudite, and accomplished work that had me rechecking the author’s details, astonished my the maturity of the writing.

Set in a Cambridge that must be the late 1990s (although at times it feels much earlier, bygone era) and a contemporary London (it doesn’t pay to try and over analyse the dates, as I’m pretty sure they don’t quite add up – this however does not matter in the slightest) it follows the development of a young undergraduate, James Walker, as he moves from shy undergraduate, through socialite student, to prosperous lawyer. This transformation, from likeable youth to thoroughly unpleasant 30 something is an absorbing morality tale, accurately portrayed in the first person, as Walker punctuate his narrative with observations such as

How foolish it is to believe that you cannot love someone for their fortune.

This cuts to the heart of the novel. This is a story about the corrupting influence of money and its power to ruin. The undergraduate Walker is not rich, and does not come from vast wealth, his father now living in what is hinted at being somewhat straitened circumstances. To live up to his new found friends, who delight in flouting authority, from pirating essays to the nocturnal scaling of college buildings the title refers to, he spends profligately, if unnecessarily, and when his doomed friend, Francis, is cut off from his wealth, Walker is a ready accomplice in their descent into more extreme forms of crime – even if throughout he remains by no means the most criminal or corrupted of his set.

Make no mistake however, despite Walker not being the worst of people, the London lawyer he becomes is thoroughly unappealing. An arrogant, alcoholic-in-denial (with the damning tell-tale phrase of “I never really got drunk any more” appearing), habitual user of pornography and prostitution fails utterly to stir much sympathy in us, the ‘redeeming’ quality of his acquired wealth doing nothing to make him a better person. The roots of this behaviour are signposted throughout the novel; in particular his admiration for Michael’s sexual prowess is depressing.

He was much further advanced in seduction techniques than the rest of us, who still thought that sex in some way was linked to mutual affection.

Intriguingly Walker initially does not rashly plunge into friendships at Cambridge, following the advice of his father and Evelyn Waugh to choose his friends wisely not quickly. His reaction to Michael’s arrival through his window and ensuing introduction to the rest of the night climbers, which sets him on his path to ruin, show that perhaps he was not so judicious in his choice, and that the comment of the porter, initially chasing the climbers, that much worse could stem from what appears to be just youthful antics, was indeed prescient.

This is not a long book, it was read between arriving at Ankara’s eerie deserted airport to fly home and landing at Heathrow, and ultimately this is a fulfilling book, reminiscent in some ways of Hollinghurst’s “Line of Beauty”. There is a trace of redemption at the end, with some level of closure being found, and a realisation that Walker had been misled by others, as well as misleading himself. None of this excuses much of his behaviour or lifestyle, but by the end one starts to realise that his cold night odyssey with old fellow night climber Jessica, her beauty now faded, is a journey out of his depraved existence, in the same way his night climbing in Cambridge sucked him down. To close the book, and realise that you cared about his fate, is testament to the precocious skill that Stourton has brought to his tale. Following this up will not be easy for him.

“Turbulence”, Giles Foden

2009-06-23T20:59:00.000+01:00

Giles Foden's follow up to the fame stemming from “The Last King of Scotland” is an altogether gentler affair, looking at meteorologists earnestly looking for the right moment to schedule the D-Day landings in 1944.

“Turbulence” is a work of fiction, and the introduction of a Saudi funded ice-ship circa 1980 at the start of the novel exposes it as alternative history. This raises the question in the reader's mind as to where the point of departure might be, and Foden keeps this ambiguous to the end.

The pace of the storytelling is leisurely in the extreme. While it's not quite a case of this being a book where nothing much really happens, the solitary lassitude of Henry Meadows' bucolic existence in Western Scotland lulls the reader, and diverts attention from the monumental scale of World War 2. In this scenario, the intrusions of the conflict, with submarines trying to creep into Holy Loch and German reconnaissance flights overhead almost jar, yet serve to build a sense of creeping impending menace fitting for the atmosphere of 1944.

At times there are clear nods towards Thomas Hardy. The most obvious of these comes from the references to Ryman as a 'weather prophet', the direct mirroring of Hardy's phraseology also harkening back to the more 'primitive' existence of the Western Isles where meteorology could really be seen as a black art. More striking however than this passing reference is the profound role of coincidence in the work, and here there are clear echoes of Hardy. Of course, given the subject matter, it might be possible to see the role of what could crudely be seen as 'coincidence as something a bit more sophisticated; after all, this is a book about turbulence as derived from chaos theory – could my reading of the links between events as coincidence be a reflection of my crude thinking in the face of the hard new scientific realities being uncovered by 'boffins' during World War 2?

The role of Pyke throughout is one that I'm still struggling to come to grips with. The Habakkuk type ship on which Meadows writes his recollections of 1944 provide a clear linkage, but again, it's an open question as to what role this plays in the story beyond being an unquestionably lovely image. Nonetheless Pyke provides entertainment, and the little elements of accuracy, such as locating his laboratory underneath Smithfield market, which would have been easy to sacrifice or forget about, through their retention, add an appreciated level of richness to “Turbulence”.

Despite there being a generally high level of detail throughout the book, there are a number of ambiguities in the plot that are left largely hanging by the end of the the conventional text, and the appending of a purported conference paper from the 1980s, casting back retrospectively on weather and D-Day (which in itself introduces a number of anachronisms) to tidy up some of the loose ends feels a little unsatisfactory. While a few of the ends closed raise a smile, one can't help but wonder if they couldn't have been drafted around in the main body of the plot.

Rereading my thoughts on “Turbulence” I can't help thinking I've been needlessly harsh on it. When it arrived it was a book I wanted to read immediately, becoming impatient to read what came before. Perhaps it was this level of anticipation, that could never really be lived up to, that's frustrating me. This shouldn't mask the fact that “Turbulence” is an enjoyable, absorbing, and thought provoking book. I finished it on a rainy night in Rouen almost two weeks ago now, and the fact that it's niggled at the back of my mind while I tried to sort out my thoughts about is perhaps its best endorsement. Not a timeless classic, probably more flawed than it might have been, but a good read, and one that leaves you a better read person than you were before.

“Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer the Built the British Empire”, Pete Brown

2009-06-03T00:11:00.002+01:00

Pete Brown should have crossed my path earlier in life. He went to St Andrews a year or so ahead of me, and clearly enjoying the finer things in life (namely beer), it should be inconceivable that our paths didn't cross in one of north-east Fife's many watering holes. It is however, a matter now of public record that that did not happen, and it was only a chance outing with some of my wife's work friends to the launch of “Three Sheets to the Wind” in Ottakar's Greenwich in 2006 that made me discover him and his work. In the flesh he's entertaining, personable, and anything but a beer bore, and this comes across in both his previous books and in his highly enjoyable blog.

Part social history of the British empire and part travelogue “Hops and Glory” is a lot more serious than his previous two books. He's always been capable of striking a sober note when needed, but there's a dark despairing edge to this one that at times almost perturbs. In the early chapters I suspected that this might be classified as his mid-life crisis book, and by the latter half it almost has more akin to Peter Nichols' “A Voyage for Madmen”.

It is a tribute to Pete Brown the human and the author that the tribulations of recreating a voyage of traditional India Pale Ale from Burton on Trent to Calcutta didn't break him, despite fate's best efforts, and that the end result is quite such a satisfying read. Despite its more serious tone and the more challenging personally honest sections to the narrative it's a tremendously enjoyable read and one that was read far more quickly (and in the face of some stiff competition for reading attention) than either of his previous works. Overcoming all the periodic bleakness is an irrepressible sense of humour, with elements that make you want to stop and read bits out to anyone who'll listen.

Reading “Hops and Glory” undeniably informs as both beer history and travelogue. Like many other relatively casual drinkers of what's referred to British pubs as IPA I'd never really given the roots of it much thought, and blindly taken at surface value the assertions that what's sold as IPA now was true to its origins. Brown comprehensively demolishes this illusion and makes us re-evaluate our thoughts about beer in general and IPA in particular. It's the sort of engaging story told with a passion about the produce that makes you go and seek out the few British examples and perhaps rather more numerous American beers that hold true to the notion of what an IPA historically was. It's also an interesting thought that IPA, as a light beer with most fermentable matter removed and almost pasteurised by its long sea voyage might, in fact, have a touch more in common with the Cobra we drink in Indian restaurants than the thick, yeasty, brown British session bitter

One is also more informed about travel with places throughout described with colour. Canal boating is effectively shown to be hard work on your own – although I suspect getting RSI while steering such a vessel is probably going a bit far, and cruising, despite its reasonably favourable treatment at the hand of the author, does come across as being a little bit ghastly, his account of Bryan Ferry vengefully readying an Exocet to fire at the cringingly appalling cover band aboard cuts to the heart of why I, having encountered similar outfits in the 1990s on a the Le Havre-Rosslare ferry, never want to go on a cruise. More adventurously, a tall ship comes across as a beautiful way of crossing the Atlantic, and a container ship voyage across the Indian Ocean (made seductive by Icebreaker International's “Trein Maersk”) seems dully mechanistic and stripped of all romance.

“Hops and Glory” is a genuinely good book. I'm very sadly going to miss Pete Brown's South London launch of the book in Forest Hill next Thursday (11 June, full details on his blog, linked above) when instead I'll be relaxing (probably with a Maredsous) watching sportscars at Le Mans, but if you're in the area you could do a lot worse than go along, listen to someone with some very good stories to tell, pick up a copy of “Hops and Glory”, and if Pete Brown has had anything to do with picking the venue, drink some really very good beer.

A literary weekend

2009-05-30T12:27:00.002+01:00

Sometimes good things all come at once.

It's been a busy but ultimately productive week, and now Saturday's arrived with genuinely fantastic weather, a garden that doesn't need a profound overhaul, and a stack of books competing for my attention.

First on the list is Pete Brown's eagerly anticipated "Hops and Glory" - it's not supposed to be out until June 5th, but according to Pete's blog, it's shipping from Amazon now, and my fabulous local bookseller, the Beckenham Bookshop got my copy in today. Far too soon to tell, but I suspect this will accompany me into the garden this afternoon.

Also arriving today was Gordon Spice's autobiography - a brief excerpt from it in Motor Sport a couple of months ago was entertaining, and while I don't expect it to be highbrow, I'm hopeful it'll be another contribution to worthy books about motor racing rather than the mass produced and badly edited pap that sports writing in general and motor racing in particular seems to attract.

All that makes the current library book, Ivo Stourton's "The Night Climbers", a speculative borrow but one that seems to have some promise very sadly fall down the list a little. It's a paperback, so has the benefit of portability, but given next week is travel free it might be put onto the longer finger.

Capping off a Saturday of literary excitement was an email from LibraryThing telling me I'd got an early reviewer copy of Giles Foden's "Turbulence", so will be looking for that in the mail soon.

As I said at the start, sometimes it's almost as though there's too much of a good thing!

“Riding the Retreat: Mons to Marne 1914 Revisited”, Richard Holmes

2009-05-28T18:21:00.003+01:00

The flat countryside of northern France and Belgium is eerie when viewed with a historical eye. Today the train from London to Brussels hurtles through an emotive landscape, punctuated by periodic glimpses of pill boxes and cemeteries, grim reminders of 20th century European history. A short train ride south from Brussels brings you to the town of Mons, capital of Hainault, and site of the British Army's first engagement of the First World War. With "Riding the Retreat" Richard Holmes, perhaps best known for his magnificent “War Walks” series, incomprehensibly unavailable on DVD, combines a readable history of the opening part of the Great War with a personal and likeable travelogue recreating the headlong retreat on horseback.

When one thinks of the 1914-18 war one cannot help conjure up a picture of cloying mud, trenches, and endless static fighting for gains measured more in yards than miles. This masks the period in August 1914 when the long 19th century ended, when there was truly a war of movement and cavalry was not quite yet the tragic anachronism it would become in a matter of months. It is this war of movement that has largely preserved the Mons area and the countryside over which the British retreated, and this means that to this day the visitor can still see the landscape much as it would have been nearly 100 years ago. Holmes skillfully applies the story of the soldiers of 1914 to what is visible today, and as such brings it to life in a moving, emotional way. Having been privileged to live in Mons in 2007 I found this especially easy to relate to. Then my apartment, not far from the Berlin Gate to NATO's present day Supreme Headquarters, was just beside the point, in the little village of Casteau, where the first meeting took place, and every Friday I would drive to Soignies, in whose narrow streets the breakneck cavalry running battle ended

Holmes makes the point that August 1914 was one of only two periods when the war could have been comprehensively lost militarily, and this is spectacularly illustrated in “Riding the Retreat”, where the headlong pace of the retreat, is shown by pointing out how units dispersed in Belgium, only managed to reform in western cities such as Le Mans. The point too, that the British were not forced due east, but in a much more southerly direction after Mons is driven home, which highlights the gaping hole the Germans blew in the allied lines, and what made the prospect of success for the Schlieffen Plan much more than a nebulous idea. The speed of the German advance, the disorganised chaos into which the allies were thrown, and the perpetual motion of the retreating British Expeditionary Force describe a very different war from that which we associate with the 1914-18 period.

Affecting and compelling as the history is, this book's real strength is in the travelogue of Holmes and his companions, human and equine, as they make their way through Belgium and France. This aspect of the book is a very human story, with engaging and entertaining characters. Holmes describes the sort of interesting misadventures, lovely people, and fantastic meals that make this a journey one wants to have been part of, and one which it is a pleasure to read about. As such this book, really about a monumental human tragedy, as few of those fighting in August 1914 survived unscathed to November 1918, is one that makes you smile, which is in itself a sort of tribute to the sacrifice made by soldiers and civilians on both sides.

“Blind Eye”, Stuart MacBride

2009-05-20T20:14:00.002+01:00

Aberdeen crime writer Stuart MacBride is often dismissed as an imitation of Ian Rankin, similar, not without his good points, but inherently not a patch on the original much, in fact, in the way his native city struggles in comparison with Rankin's Edinburgh. In both cases this is a little unfair, just as Aberdeen is a different city to Edinburgh, with different strengths and weaknesses, MacBride's general feel differs quite profoundly from Rankin's.

Stuart MacBride is a highly entertaining author in person, and this sense of fun readily translates into his writing. On this level “Blind Eye”, perhaps even more so than in his previous works, is a deeply funny book. Moments of slapstick violence such as McRae pressing a spade into service as an impromptu truncheon, the light hearted ineptitude of Grampian Police's armed response unit, and the absurdity of a pornographic remake of the Wizard of Oz all serve to make this the sort of book that one very happily reads. The risk of this is, however, that one is sometimes lulled into thinking that this is a comedy (albeit a black one) – the sort of genre that doesn't generally agree with me (think Christopher Brookmyre or Patricia Cornwell's Andy Brazil series) – and to do so would be to do a grave disservice to “Blind Eye”.

For all the levity surrounding DS McRae's investigation there is a gritty darkness underpinning the story. The casual exploitation of the immigrant community, the moral ambiguity of a prostitute rebelling against her violent pimp, and the horrific pattern of graphically described blindings refereed to in the title cut through the humour and serve as an abundantly clear reminder that for all his ability to joke about it, MacBride is still very much best categorised under crime rather than humour.

The universe MacBride has created, with an Aberdeen where it often rains and where provincial journalism can exert disproportionate influence, and a police force whose general activities seem to ring broadly true has become a familiar one which I'm happy to regularly visit. The characters are richly enough developed to be mainly rounded humans in their own right, the central cadre well built up with a novel specific supporting cast that add complexity and depth to the overall experience. Critically in dealing with a city I've known well for many years there are few if any anachronisms or spatial discontinuities that jar, which embeds the work just the right side of plausibility.

Probably a bit more predictable and linear than its predecessor, “Flesh House”, “Blind Eye” is nonetheless a highly enjoyable and readable police procedural that continues the Logan McRae series with some aplomb.

As something of an aside, “Blind Eye” was acquired at Stuart MacBride's launch tour event at Waterstone's Picadilly and this reinforced the impression of him as a highly entertaining human being. His repertoire of stories is well worth hearing and he has a presence in front of an audience which reveals his theatrical background, particularly memorable was his ability to survive a conversation regarding bondage related themes with an audience member who was forced to point out that she was only 14. His ability to handle with courtesy and kindness the more eccentric members of the audience was also a very nice touch. As an author, through his magnificent blog, and in his periodic media appearances he's come across as a genuine and engaging person and it's most pleasing to discover that this impression is also communicated in person.

“The Appeal”, John Grisham

2009-05-10T02:13:00.001+01:00

Every once in a while John Grisham tries to break away from the very formulaic style that has stood him in good stead through his career and varies his approach. Sometimes this will take the form of a complete departure from the legal thriller genre, such as with the surprisingly good "Playing for Pizza", other attempts stay close to his comfort zone, with more minor tweaks being made around the edges, and it is into this category that "The Appeal" falls.

Centred around a corporate negligance lawsuit against a polluting chemical company "The Appeal" is undeniably a good and compelling read, but it's less easily seen as a pleasant experience. John Grisham is in no way the best advert for the legal profession, but here the process by which 'justice' is served is exposed as a shallow, manipulated transaction utterly divorced from the concepts of 'right' and 'wrong' that should form the basis of jurisprudence. Perhaps this makes it more true to life, but it doesn't make it easy on the reader.

The morally ambiguous picture of law is complicated by the absence of a central character. Thrillers generally should have a hero in them, and there is a conspicuous absence of heroism in the book, and none of them are really at the the true core of the book. The splitting of perspective from the earnest trial lawyers (who, at heart, are ambulance chasers), the supreme court candidate (whose smug superficial piety makes him impossible to warm to), and the hen pecked billionaire businessman (who obviously is the villain of the piece) also means that we're presented with a sequence of ill developed cardboard characters, with whom we have little empathy. While obviously in real life everybody is coloured in shades of grey, literature of this kind does need a core character, who, even if they're imperfect, we inherently want to root for.

Usually polished, Grisham suffers from a number of plot stutters in the course of "The Appeal". In particular, part way through the work we are introduced to Buck Burleson, a former chemical company employee, who now nervously drives a water truck into the poisoned community of Bowmore, nervously fingering a 9mm pistol all the while. Chekhov's dictum holds that if there's a gun in the first act it should go off in the third, and the failure of this to happen here jars noticeably.

Invariably John Grisham charts the corruption and then redemption of an inherently good lawyer in his work. Here however ambiguity remains. Aspirant judge Ron Fisk does go through some form of catharsis, but this doesn't come from self discovery, but instead relies on a level of coincidence almost worthy of Thomas Hardy. This too is only a partial level of redemption, less a road to Damascus as a chipping away of assumptions that is more depressing than affirming.

On re-reading this review I see it does come across negatively, and this isn't fair. For all its faults "The Appeal" keeps interest and was a most welcome companion on both a late evening in a bar by the Bourse in Brussels and then on the Eurostar back to London. Paradoxically the very bleakness at its heart makes it much more memorable than other more generic Grisham works. I'm pleased I've read it, but I'm in no hurry to revisit it at all.

“Death of a Pilgrim”, David Dickinson

2009-04-29T14:49:00.000+01:00

Last year David Dickinson was an author I very enthusiastically indulged in, loving their wit, endearing pictures of Edwardian society, gentle nods towards art, and ultimately, at the heart, a good traditional murder to get to the bottom of. More recently however coming across a new Lord Francis Powerscourt mystery is something of a curates egg. There's still the out and out glee at spotting a new one on the shelf, and no question at all in my mind that it's immediately placed on the to be read pile (and somewhere near the top too), but sadly "Death of a Pilgrim" continues the pattern I started to discern with "Death on Holy Mountain". The pace seems to have noticably slowed, and where once they'd cheerfully be disposed of in a day or so, they now don't impose themselves at the forefront of consciousness quite enough, so much so that "Death of a Pilgrim" has occasionally been left on the bedside table and not quite made it into the briefcase.

"Death of a Pilgrim" has been described elsewhere as a traditional English country house murder mystery recast along the path of a group of pilgrims making their way to Santiago de Compostela. This is a clever narrative device, but slightly unsettling, as throughout the book there's a niggle in the back of your mind as to what works of classic detective fiction Dickinson is paying homage to and while this is not a demanding read, there are times when it is rewarding to be paying attention to what's on the page rather than mulling over other books.

In setting the mystery along the Way of St James Dickinson is given the opportunity to stretch his literary legs in - his descriptions of the wide open vistas of l'Aubrac, the warm shady twists of the Lot, and the crumbling remains of castles from the Albigensian crusade. As such, in places it's beautifully written and immersive, although one can't help thinking that coming after the previous Powerscourt books it's as though David Dickinson is having a go at metamorphosing into Brian Sewell.

So - cultural fusion aside, is it any good? The answer here has to be a partial endorsement. The central plot, that of multiple members of the extended Delaney family all gathered on a pilgrimage from Le Puy to Santiago is engaging enough, but gives rise to a certain level of confusion, multiple characters all with more or less the same name rely heavily on having distinct personalities, and while there are some attempts at granting them distinguising features (the corpulent priest, the drunkard, the lovestruck) this isn't quite enough to raise them much above the level of cardboard cutout characters. This, in addition to adding a layer of confusion to the book, means it is noticably harder to care particularly about many of the characters, whcih sadly reduces murder to something of a ho-hum affair. In some ways the identity of the perpetrator is predictable, although this is so much so that there is enjoyment in trying to build cases for other candidates, and given the peripatetic location, and the shared background of the pilgrims, there is a more than a passing resemblance to "Murder on the Orient Express".

The series is often seen as being about Lord Francis Powerscourt, but one insight I took away from "Death of a Pilgrim" was the centrality of Johnny Fitzgerald. The two spark off each other effectively, and while many of the elements featuring Fitzgerald, including a stay in Macroom and an encounter with his former fiancee feel like underdeveloped subplots, the quality and sheer fun of Fitzgerald's character really shine through, and when his path finally joins that of Powerscourt there is a palpable lift to the enjoyability of the book.

Despite this being one of the longer books in the series one can't help but wonder whether Dickinson had to leave some additional plot richness on the cutting room floor. The scenes in Ireland feel as though there should be more to them, opportunities to muddy the waters regarding the perpetrator feel as though they should have been taken, and ultimately there wasn't the overarching sense of satisfaction at the end as has been found in some of the preceeding volumes.

Finally, a niggle, nothing to do with Dickinson. Towards the end Powerscourt speculates about the Three Musketeers, and who in the investigating group could readily be identified with which musketeer. This immediately brought to mind a book I've read in the last 12 months, where children (I think( learning who the three musketeers were constituted a recurrent theme. The character I'm thinking of could readily recall D'Artagnen (like everyone else) but not the other two. Since finishing the book last night I've been wracking my brains as to what book I'm thinking of and can't for the life of me get to the bottom of it. Scrolling through previous reads on LibraryThing haven't helped, and it's the sort of question Google is hopeless at answering. If anyone can think of what it might be I'm thinking of - and I'm pretty sure it's crime fiction of some variety - answers on a metaphorical postcard please - it's annoying me sufficiently I can probably drum up a small prize for anyone who can put me out of my misery...

“Phoenix Squadron”, Rowland White

2009-04-23T13:37:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it's obvious where a book has come from. Rowland White's “Phoenix Squadron” is clearly cut from the same cloth as his previous “Vulcan 607” in celebrating the extemporised innovation and heroism of British military aviators, more striking however is how much is owed to the seminal fly on the wall documentary “Sailor”, which charted HMS Ark Royal's final deployment. Both the 1970s television series and the 2009 book successfully evoke the spirit of life aboard the ship, and the manner in which the Royal Navy operated.

Like “Vulcan 607” White hangs the wider story of how an organisation functions and how the constituent personalities interact on the pillar of a particular operation. While this worked in the case of the Vulcan raid on Port Stanley for his first book, the Ark Royal's engagement in a classic late colonial exercise of gunboat diplomacy in Central America in 1972 does not quite provide enough material to really drive the book of this size. White almost admits as such in the preface, where he makes it clear that he wanted to write about Ark Royal, but that it was comparatively late in the process when the idea of looking at the deployment in support of Belize, and the sortie of 809 Squadron on 28 January 1972 came to him. This lack of central focus in the writing process does come through in the course of the book, where often it feels like a loosely connected series of vignettes about the navy, the Fleet Air Arm, and a group of people serving aboard the ship rather than a clearly constructed narrative connected to a specific issue.

The lack of sufficiently powerful central theme might have reduced the effectiveness of the book, but it testament to White's ability to capture atmosphere and personality, as well as the basic charisma of Ark Royal herself, that much like “Sailor”, the simple telling of shipboard life and how the vessel operated makes for a highly engaging read. It doesn't have pretensions to being high naval history, but is none the worse for it, and indeed this populism is interesting given the current climate.

Despite its periodic bittiness “Phoenix Squadron” remains a useful addition to the body of literature on the phenomenon of gunboat diplomacy in its coverage of the Belize/Guatemala incident. Indeed, while the dispute over British Honduras has a long history giving rise to successful British applications of purposeful force dating back at least to 1948's deployment of Sheffield and Devonshire, yet there is little narrative history on the nuts and bolts of how the Royal Navy was able to successfully shape Guatemalan policy and how limited naval force can be used for political ends.

Equally valid is viewing the work as a contribution towards Cold War naval history. Striking in this aspect are the passages concerning Ark Royal's role within NATO as part of Striking Fleet Atlantic. This makes clear that the roots of the Maritime Strategy of the 1980s, with its very aggressive use of naval aviation north of the Greenland-Iceland-Unitied Kingdom gap truly had roots stretching back into the 1970s. Descriptions of operations in Norwegian fjords and targetting of the Kola peninsula are very reminiscent of Hank Mustin's leadership of 2nd Fleet during the 1980s (related both in numerous articles in US Naval Institute Proceedings and in John Morton's 2003 family history), and show that the Nelson's dictum that a captain can do little wrong by laying their ship alongside their enemy was just as applicable in the 1970s as ever.

“Phoenix Squadron” could be seen as being a highly timely work. Just as the the intervention in Belize could be seen as the final flowering of Royal Navy big carrier gunboat diplomacy and the use of a capability that went away with the scrapping of Ark Royal, the retelling of this story, in a highly populist work, could be seen as a useful ploy in explaining why, in highly straightened economic times, the United Kingdom is seeking to re-enter the large carrier club with the two Queen Elizabeth class vessels.

“The Associate”, John Grisham

2009-04-21T21:37:00.001+01:00

London Heathrow Terminal 2 has almost no redeeming features, even the bookshop being something of a tawdry ill organised affair. It does however provide airport exclusives, which always have a certain appeal, and the usual two for 20 pounds deal means there's scope for a degree of adventurism in book choice. John Grisham's probably not much of an adventure, but given the patchy response to some of his recent work, picking up “The Associate” wasn't the no-brainer that other book purchases have been.

Through 2005 I went through my first real Grisham phase, raiding charity shops across South London in search of battered copies, and accepting their basic formulaic nature, predominantly found it a rewarding enough way to while away a few hours. “The Associate” in no way is a departure from the common basic theme that has served Grisham well in the past, the tale of the idealistic young lawyer, corrupted by law's misapplication, leading to ultimate redemption, surrendering the trappings of richness for a more wholesome approach to life.

A small area of differentiation in “The Associate” is that the protagonist, Kyle McAvoy, is a flawed character to start with and initially it is hard to warm to him – the skeletons in his closet aren't particularly pleasant, and his protestations that he wants to go and earnestly work on behalf of immigrants in Virginia rings a touch false. These flaws in his character make plausible the hook whereby he is blackmailed and pushed into the Wall St corporate law he claims to be trying to avoid.

The hidden manipulators pulling McAvoy's strings are more faceless than usual, and this actually adds a lot to the book. The murkiness of their motive, and the fact that many elements with them are left unresolved avoids the book being too pat. Grisham performs at his best building a sense of menace surrounding 'Bennie' and his ability to reach into people's lives, and by leaving much unwritten, allows the reader the readily fill in the blanks quite possibly more effectively than a more detailed description might allow for.

Where Grisham falls down a touch is in his description of the central legal case that drives the plot. While in actual fact this is largely inconsequential, the complex defence contract giving rise to the enormous controversial lawsuit of interest to 'Bennie' doesn't ring true and has the feel of an author out of their depth and struggling to explain it. This is in direct contrast to the aplomb with which Grisham has handled subjects like tobacco and firearms in previous works.

Reading John Grisham seldom offers much encouragement towards a legal career, and “The Associate”, more than usual, paints a very bleak picture of the profession. The reality of legal life beyond the large salaries and luxurious public facing rooms is shown to be tawdry, venal, and thoroughly unappealing.

“The Associate” has been likened Grisham's breakthrough work, “The Firm”, and particularly feels like a filmscript in waiting. McAvoy should be easy to cast, there are clear acts and scenes that could readily transition to screen, and critically the book is brief enough to not have to be cut to shreds to fit it into a two hour window offered by Hollywood.

Written with possibly more than half an eye on the screen adaptation, “The Associate” isn't a great book. It's very linear, the majority of the characters are shallow and undeveloped, and the plot fairly simple. While I'm firmly of the opinion that 'twists' are not obligatory in fiction, the absence of one here is felt. To a reader familiar with Grisham this is a very predictable work and few surprises are encountered on the way. That said, while it lasts it's an engaging read. Started as the plane pushed back at Frankfurt airport on Friday, it was well on its way by the time Heathrow was reached, and readily completed by the end of the weekend. This doesn't however mask the fact that ultimately “The Associate” is a forgettable book. I am under no illusions that it will quickly be recycled back to a charity shop, and in a few months time it will be a struggle to differentiate it from most of Grisham's other work. Having recently read Gimenenz's “Common Lawyer” one can't help thinking that the position of pre-eminent legal thriller writer might have shifted.

“Go”, Simon Lewis

2009-04-11T23:37:00.001+01:00

Are book reviews a lot like the mix tapes of old (or perhaps playlists now) where one really shouldn’t put two songs by the same artist next to each other? If that’s the case then I must plead guilty to driving a cart and horses through this rule by immediately following Simon Lewis’ “Bad Traffic” with a review of his first work, 1998’s “Go”.

There are some undeniable benefits to running the two books together. On several levels they’re very different, and “Go” is clearly the output of a much younger author. Set in the late 1990s it’s suffused with some of the exuberance that swept New Labour to power, while exposing the innate corruption and decay of Britain that society only seems able to paper over for brief moments. There are common themes between the two books, the most clear being the multiple point of view approach to the same events, an association with China, and, oddly, his periodic penchant for referring to bodily fluids as “goo”.

On many levels “Go” reminds the reader of Jake Arnott – crime novels where law enforcement is not at the centre of the story, where the protagonists exist on a moral plane unfamiliar to most of us, and the episodic immersion in different characters as their world is described. In this light it’s striking that “Go” predates Arnott’s breakthrough debut, “The Long Firm”, going to show a lot about what innovation really means in the publishing world and the power of positioning to really make an author.

“Go” is an immersive book. Goan heat and the cascading rain of Hong Kong during 1997’s handover are communicated effectively, as are temporal references such as an Austin Montego and a Sony Walkman. Most telling however is the sense of desperate alienation suffered by the ingenue abroad – a theme that will be highly familiar to readers of “Bad Traffic”; the scene of Vix trying to buy a train ticket to Beijing really encapsulates the difficulty of trying to do anything when you don’t speak the language, don’t understand the way things are supposed to work, or the protocol of where you’re supposed to queue.

This isn’t a crime novel in the true sense. There isn’t a single central crime being investigated. It’s certainly not a police procedural, but criminality and life beyond the normal mores of society are what this book is about, and as a such it really is rather good. Of course you can nitpick. My jaded editorial eye wondered why, after Sol cheerfully drinks a whisky with Chinese gangster Li in his hotel on a rainy afternoon, he describes the beer he drinks a few hours later as his first alcohol in weeks. Sometimes continuity errors like this grate, and make me rail against a publishing system that allows editors to be browbeaten, but in this case, it doesn’t bother at all.

Don’t read this book expecting it to be like “Bad Traffic”. They’re clearly by the same author, but “Go” has a much rougher edge to it, which paradoxically helps it along and effectively locates in the 1990s. Having been able to compare the two at close quarters, “Go” is perhaps the more thought provoking. None of the characters involved are flawless at all, indeed all of them are complicit, to one extent or another in profound criminality, but I could readily identify with them, feel happiness at the fulfilment that some find, and wistful sadness at the end that some of the less admirable characters meet.

“Go” was hard to track down. My local library had to get it out of storage, it seems to be out of print, and its resale price on Amazon is practically zero. The perception of what it’s about is also hugely misunderstood, with a trusted reader telling me they didn’t think Lewis’ first novel was a crime work. All of this is a shame. “Go” is a genuinely good and underrated first novel much deserving of a wider readership. If you get a chance, you really should read it.

“Bad Traffic”, Simon Lewis

2009-04-06T17:27:00.001+01:00

Simon Lewis' second book, coming after a long interval, is a highly innovative work. Undeniably a crime novel, whose central protagonist is a policeman, but "Bad Traffic" is enormously divorced from the traditional concept of the police procedural. "Bad Traffic" in fact at times feels much more akin to a chase novel, such as John Buchan's "39 Steps".

As the author of a number of guidebooks to China, including "The Rough Guide to China", Lewis is well placed to portray Chinese characters. My knowledge of China is pretty fleeting, based on a slightly hectic week there in 2008, but the characters rings true, and the brief scenes set in China itself are also identifiably Chinese.

"Bad Traffic" is not just about one man's search for his missing daughter, this central tenet is used as a supporting beam off of which many, often brief, side stories paining a rich picture of the Chinese in Britain are hung. The incomprehension with which Chinese look at common or garden features of British life combine with the grinding depressing racism permeating so much of society are neatly portrayed in brief vignettes punctuating the novel.

The protagonist, Inspector Jian is a deeply flawed character. He is not a 'good' policeman, fond of bribes, a serial womaniser, and quick to resort to sickening violence, and "Bad Traffic" is largely a story about his quest for redemption. This however is not an easy passage, and by the end of the work there are still questions as to whether Jian has been 'saved' by his experience in the UK. Indeed throughout one is reminded, perhaps fittingly, of the Confucian proverb, that before setting out to seek vengeance, you should dig two graves. This sense of fatalism pervades the novel, consistently trying to prepare the reader for bad news, which is perhaps even more powerful than delivering it.

The heart of the story concerns Chinese organised crime in the UK, and specifically the exploitation of the immigrant community and the real horror of people trafficking. The casual disregard human life is held in is powerfully displayed, and the naïve desperation of the people seeking a new life on the 'golden mountain' (as they refer to Britain) is made painfully clear. The loyalty migrant worker Ding Ming shows to his English gangmaster, an appalling human being called Kevin, despite the vileness of his treatment, fascinates and horrifies at the same time. The fact that we all know illegal immigration happens, and that migrant workers are treated truly dreadfully, makes "Bad Traffic" feel all too real in its bleakness.

Every book has its flaws. One that I still can't quite grasp and keep having to revisit to check and make sure I've got it straight is the setting of the plot in both Leeds, where Jian's daughter goes to university, and where much of the story is set, and Liverpool, where the gangster Black Fort is based. I know they're closer than you sometimes think, but it jarred somewhat to think about the casual way in which characters flit between the two. A lot of the impact of the book is tied up in its perpetual motion, but this leg struck me as being unnecessary and, in its seeming unlikeliness, needlessly distracted. If, of course, someone knows better, and actually Lewis is on the money describing a Leeds-Liverpool crime axis then I am perfectly happy to eat humble pie!

This is a really good book about the Chinese in the UK. Charles Cumming's "Typhoon" worked very well as a thriller set in China, and as works like Misha Glenny's brilliant "McMafia" show, there's a rich vein of crime to explore in China. Bearing this in mind I was struck by Robert Wilson's recent comment that there was significant reader opposition to setting a novel in China. Yes it's absolutely an alien place, but the juxtaposition between the ultramodern and the atmospheric rambling hutongs you find in downtown Beijing strikes me as a magnificent backdrop for crime related fiction. One can only hope that writers like Simon Lewis, who combine a level of country and cultural knowledge with a clear aptitude for writing crime fiction can exploit this setting, which is being left deliberately bare by other authors.

“The Ultimate Mixer Cookbook”, Kay Halsey

2009-04-04T14:38:00.001+01:00

Okay, this qualifies as an odd one. There are a lot of cookery books around our house, some fantastic standbys whose quality can be judged by the amount of use they get, some initially promise much, but spend a lot of time on the shelf, and probably wouldn't be missed if they went to the great library in the sky.

"The Ultimate Mixer Cookbook" has a slightly unusual provenance. Last Christmas the household gained a fetching red Kitchen Aid mixer. Terribly middle class, this is a work of art in itself, unambiguously wearing its industrial credentials on its sleeve, and having the sort of solidity that leads you to trust it absolutely. The fact that it makes cake making a doddle is also appreciated, both around the house and at work, where the arrival of cake is rightly regarded as a considerable boost to morale.

Being a significant investment, we decided that instead of chucking out the buyer registration card, which is standard operating practice, we'd fill it in and post it off to Belgium (why Belgium?), and as an added bonus, we would apparently be sent a mixer cookbook.

I had zero expectations about what sort of form this cookbook would take. Generally free gifts such as this more resemble booklets, with low production values, and little in the way of useful content. So, when this morning we received a jumbo batch of post and I spied the postman leaving something in the porch – a clear indicator of parcel excitement, there was considerable surprise when the Kitchen Aid logo was spotted on the sturdy cardboard packaging. Unwrapping revealed the absolute antithesis of the cheap throwaway free recipe books I had in mind.

Just as a Kitchen Aid is a thing of beauty, "The Ultimate Mixer Cookbook" is a beautiful book. Large, sturdy, and beautifully illustrated it conveys the levels of quality that Kitchen Aid presumably want to be associated with. In 176 pages Kitchen Aid have managed to get a brand extension exercise absolutely right. Presentation is critical in a cookery book, and the right note is struck here. Its large format means it stays open on the worktop, the ingredients are clearly spelled out, and the recipes themselves straightforward. In short, this is a cookery book that impresses.

Time will tell how often it gets used, and we'll see whether it acquires the patina of use that indicate a cookery book that fundamentally works. As a functional exercise in promoting Kitchen Aid however it's superb right out of the box. In a time when it could be seen as perfectly justifiable to cut costs and rein in lavish marketing gestures like this, it's delightful that Kitchen Aid are still so focused on making their customers feel liked and appreciated. Why can't more companies be like Kitchen Aid.

“Pandemic”, James Barrington

2009-03-30T20:03:00.001+01:00

I've approached James Barrington with his series of Paul Richter techno thrillers backwards. Two Septembers ago his “Foxbat” (the third in the series) provided me with the second half of a 2 for 20 quid deal on 'airport exclusives' at the Dover Eurotunnel terminal as I was casting around for something to go with Ian Rankin's “Exit Music”. “Foxbat” cheerfully served its point as fodder for evenings in what was my last week of living in Belgium. It romped along cheerfully providing a happy degree of excitement even if its core plot was highly implausible I distinctly recall finishing it with a bit of a chuckle, concluding it hadn't been all that bad, and happily passing it along to a colleague as part of my effort to lighten my bag for my return to blighty.

“Pandemic”, the second Richter book posits a fairly typical scenario featuring a long lost biological weapon recovered from the submerged wreckage of an aircraft (shades of Cussler's “Vixen 03”) and the spiralling consequences of this as elements within the US intelligence community attempt to cover the affair up while British man-of-action Paul Richter attempts to uncover the truth. Crete provides a pleasingly different backdrop for the majority of the book. Barrington weaves the disparate plot lines together in a way that succeeds in keeping attention, even if not really approaching the level of 'unputdownability' that true suspense fiction achieves.

Throughout the book there is an immense level of technical detail included. I've gone through phases in my reading life when this is enormously appreciated, feeling that it adds authenticity, but there is the countervailing argument that holds that a lot of it is just padding and doesn't add a huge amount to the core plot. While in this instance the level of diversion into the finer points of military technology or epidemiology didn't bother too much, there were the occasional instances where there was the sneaking suspicion that a slightly sharper editor might have been able to trim a little bloat from the book.

The central character provides a number of credibility challenges. The combination of fighter pilot and spy doesn't sit as easily as perhaps it should, and the level to which he is imbued with a level of cold blooded ruthlessness somehow doesn't help make him especially real. Indeed, throughout “Pandemic” there is a distinct lack of rounded characters the reader can readily identify with. The effect of this is that while this is undeniably a violent book, the acts of violence do not carry the real arresting impact that stops the reader and makes them think. This, if you like, is comic book violence rather than gritty “Nil by Mouth” sort of territory. Taking this approach does not have to be a bad thing – it certainly makes for an easier read, but lessens the extent to which it's a memorable read.

James Barrington isn't quite an author who makes you almost feel guilty for enjoying his books, but by the same token it's neither high literature nor a classic example of the perfectly legitimate spy thriller genre. I'm pleased to have read both of his books that I've so far encountered, and it's probably a safe bet that the rest of his portfolio will over time find its way into my hands. It's an ideal banker for a trip away or a lazy afternoon at home, but I suspect he'll struggle in my mind to transition from being the second half of a 2 for 20 offer to the prime driver.

“The Last Spike”, Cowboy Junkies

2009-03-27T14:14:00.003Z

While I know there is at least one book entitled “The Last Spike” (the one I seem to recall is about the trans-continental railroad, and thus quite possibly worth a read), it’s the fantastic 1992 song by the Canadian band, the Cowboy Junkies, that I’ve got in mind here.

One of the many nice things about my job is that I get the opportunity to work from home on a reasonably regular basis, and a consequent nice feature of this is I can go for a constitutional around the village when a bit of fresh air and head clearing is needed. Today was one such day, and around lunch time off I head for such mundanities as the post office and a mild thought that I might find lunch in the reasonably good “Ye George” pub on the high street.

Up to now the recession was something that I’d been aware of. It’s hard to escape Robert Peston on the radio, the absence of any interest on my savings is pretty apparent, and while I’d long since stopped going into a branch of Woolworth’s it’s pretty clear that this has now gone as an option. Today, walking through Beckenham it was arrestingly clear that the recession actually means something real to a lot of people. When I moved here, one of the nicest things about it was the thriving village and the sense of community it engendered, and over time I like that I’ve managed to become part of this community.

Today, the High Street is certainly still there, and it’s far too early to be putting nails in the coffin of community, but along the length of the street, but it was all too noticeable that in the last week or so two delis and, most sadly, a small independent coffee merchant, have lost their fight for survival.

While this must be awful for all those concerned, because ultimately it means that people have lost their jobs, I felt the demise of Eva Emilia (the coffee vendors) quite acutely. From a cold commercial point of view I suspect they went under because they didn’t really have the faintest idea about running a business. The shop was hidden away, all too easy to confuse with the slightly odd Chinese herbal shop next door, and the staff always seemed a touch diffident almost about trying to upsell you or manage their loyalty programme. But you know something? That was all part of the charm, and didn’t detract from the fact that their product was both quality and individual. I liked having a bag of “daily fix” or “lunchtime kick” on my desk at work. They were always pretty happy to sell me something a little more unusual to have at home. Most of all I liked living in a village where you could buy something fantastic and different, and the fact that they’re gone more than almost anything else makes me realise that recession is something real, and even if my own employment situation is, so far, largely unaffected, the cold wind blowing through the economy is going to chill every single one of us in some way.

Another nice aspect to working from home is that instead of having hubbub of a sales floor in the background you can play any music you like in the background. Today, despite the best efforts of a whole array of other artists I can’t get the Cowboy Junkies out of my head. I know this hasn’t been much of a review - but if you’re looking for something that in under four and a half minutes sums all the bleak desperation of a community dying away you could do a lot worse than give “The Last Spike” a go. It’s one of the highlights of the broadly very good “Black Eyed Man” album, and Amazon are selling it for not much more than a fiver, which sounds like one of the better ways to spend money. Even better, if you’ve got a small record store near you go and see if they’re selling it. They could probably do with the custom.

“The Ignorance of Blood”, Robert Wilson

2009-03-25T20:23:00.002Z

Let's get the obvious statements out of the way right at the start. Robert Wilson's "The Ignorance of Blood" is a fantastic novel of the type that really is of the stay-up-late, ignore what's on the television, read through meals variety. It's also at times a little flawed and, almost certainly, the wrong place to start if you're new to Wilson.

I should also take the opportunity to thank Crimeficreader from the It's a Crime (Or Mystery) blog who was most kind in sending me her review copy of this book, which made for a marvelous postal delivery at the end of last week.

Concluding a quartet of books set in Seville, "The Ignorance of Blood" follows in close sequence to the previous Falcon novel, "The Hidden Assassins", and herein lies the core problem with it as a book. The last novel in a sequence like this will always rely on traits developed in previous volumes, but it's striking how reliant "Ignorance of Blood" is on what has gone before - to the extent that if you remove the context of "Hidden Assassins" it really doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. This isn't a particular problem in and of itself, but as someone who has read all the Falcon books at time of release, and as it's been a while since 2006 a lot of the details from the previous book were a little fuzzy, and strangely, as Spain seems to lend itself to terrorism related espionage thrillers I found the plotlines between this, Charles Cumming's "Spanish Game", and even, slightly shamefacedly, Charles Ingram's "The Network" all a touch blurred. In retrospect, the release of the conclusion to the quarter should act as a prompt to revisit all three previous books and read them as a continuum. As it stands there are still nagging questions in the back of my mind that make me want to return to the previous books and make sure all the threads have been picked up, and this actually points to the underlying strength of Wilson's prose.

Wilson's mastery of the English language has always shone through his writing, and sometimes it takes exposure to a writer firing on all cylinders to make it clear how good they really are and the level of daylight between them and the ordinariness of the common or garden potboilers we often regard as acceptable. Another reviewer has described his writing as being like that of a fine chocolatier compared to the more usual Galaxy bar we so often encounter, and that probably gets right to the heart of it. Hot climates are written very well by Wilson. In his sense of place and location the reader is truly captivated by the heat of the Spanish night during which so much of the story takes place. This is an appealing world where references to heavy air and sussurating leaves accompanied by beer in a frosted glass tempt you in, and yet the frank violence and the bleak stoicism of victims appalls. While through this Wilson is essentially capturing a duality inherent in terrible crimes committed in beautiful surroundings (the 'serpent in paradise' metaphor), he is not guilty of over romanticising his setting. For every postcard like view of Seville, there is a portrayal of the much more tawdry aspect, the slums that few if any tourists will see, and the despair of those doomed to live there.

There are some arresting passages, and while many will focus on the shocking violence that at times surfaces in the novel, it is the more reflective pieces that for me really highlight the book's underlying darkness. The quiet resigned death of a Russian gangster among the pines is shaded by the comment that "[t]he sight of young girls being defiled always made Ramirez uncomfortable", which strikingly illustrates the level to which evil attains a banality among the inherently good characters exposed to horror all too regularly.

If one of the book's flaws is the level to which the reader has to have read preceding volumes, the other is the slightly uneasy way in which the Russian mafia story intertwines with the Islamist terrorism plot; both are perfectly good storylines and have real levels of interest, however the interaction between the two, and the way a narrative twist is set up involving them, somehow doesn't quite flow. By the same token the final act in Morocco feels rushed and lacks the richness the rest of the story holds. Here too, credibility is a touch stretched, with the level to which Falcon is assisted by the organs of state. Wilson, after "The Company of Strangers", said he was unlikely to write another espionage based novel, and one can't help feeling that he may have been very self aware in coming to this conclusion - the various Spanish, British, and American intelligence agencies in "The Ignorance of Blood" seem a little wooden and their role in advancing the plot feels somewhat contrived.

This shouldn't stand in the way of the fact that "The Ignorance of Blood" really is very good. Part police procedural, part espionage thriller, it is a complete human tragedy. If you've yet to encounter Javier Falcon start at the beginning and work your way through all four, if he's familiar to you, reacquaint yourself with the full suite and then really enjoy the final work. Yes, this approach will mean you take longer to find how all the threads come together, but this time, it's really worth waiting for.

“The Doomsday Prophecy”, Scott Mariani

2009-03-20T14:43:00.006Z

Like so many books in the 'thriller' genre, it's hard to escape the conclusion with Scott Mariani's "The Doomsday Prophecy" that you are dealing with something very silly indeed. I'm not saying this to be rude about books such as this, and indeed this is exactly the sort of material that helped me make the leap from children's fiction something a little more adult (if not grown up) when an aunt won a copy of Clive Cussler's "Deep Six" in 1985 and pointed it in my general direction. Guiltily, "The Doomsday Prophecy" really is rather good, but it does help to leave preconceptions at the door, and overcome any nagging embarrasment one might feel at reading something that probably wasn't put on the planet to make you a better person.

Scott Mariani has clearly been picked up by editors desperate to jump on the Dan Brown bandwagon, wrapping the tradition thriller/adventure in the garb of the grand historical conspiracy. As others out there have pointed out, there's nothing particularly new in this, Umberto Eco doing it to great effect in "Foucault's Pendulum" - which is still a realistic contender for my Desert Island book, however where Eco laid claim to the literary high ground, works like this are much more in the line of the penny dreadful. For all that, Mariani executes his storytelling really rather well; the pace of plot is relentless, in Ben Hope he's built a reasonably rounded central character who, if a little superhero like, is perfectly likeable, and critically, his plots are built around characters rather than falling into the easy trap of relying on a plethora of unlikely gadgets to drive interest.

The central failings of Dan Brown, namely the scale of the conspiracy, the utterly formulaic nature of the plots, and the need to cram absolutely everything that happens into a 24 hour period, are neatly avoided in "The Doomsday Prophecy". For all that Ben Hope has superman like tendencies, he's not without flaws and vulnerabilities, and while there is the perhaps obligatory level of extreme peril, the main plot device is, one discovers, pleasingly mundane and refreshingly non-earth shattering. There probably is a formula at work here, but like watching "24" the plot has sufficient momentum and the set pieces are executed with such drama and panache that any predictability is effectively masked, and occasionally clunky language can be overlooked - although I am more or less certain there's no real need for "if it comes down to a sniper-counter-sniper situation, I have evidence that proves to me you're just about the best guy in the world for this job".

Scott Mariani has a prodigious work rate. Since the publication of "The Alchemist's Secret" in 2008 he's pumped out a further two Ben Hope books, with a fourth on the way scheduled for July 2009. It's no surprise really to find that his other work has been a guide to how to write a thriller, and herein he makes the key point to understanding this as a genre. His point that "a thriller writer doesn't need to have much in the way of literary pretensions - as a matter of fact these may be more of hinderance than a help" really does cut to the heart of the concept, and probably helps us as readers as much as it does aspiring writers. I can't help wishing that there wasn't a gushing endorsement from "Closer" on the cover, and the pictorial key on the back (pictured) really does make me despair about how publishers are communicating with their readers, but that doesn't alter the fact that in its time and place a pot boiler like "The Doomsday Prophecy" is an utterly pleasurable way of keeping one simultaneously off the street and, let's be honest here, entertained.

I appreciate publishers have to use innovative methods to
tempt readers in, but is this graphic really necessary?

“iWoz”, Steve Wozniak

2009-03-15T21:25:00.002Z

Confession time. I have an ambivalent relationship with Apple products. As a young proto-geek in 1980s Ireland, the lone Apple II, lost among serried ranks of Commodore PETs in the school computer room, was a curio, working fundamentally differently to what we were used to, not really playing nicely with the network, and overall coming across as a terribly American product. Moving on, while having the utmost respect for Macs, somehow I got captured by the PC, and now I find myself admiring technology like the iPod, but being utterly repelled by the pseudo-religious devotion it seems to inspire, and thus finding it deliciously ironic that now, should one wish to 'think different”, one generally seems to have to buy something other than an Apple product.

Steve Wozniak is the forgotten “Steve” that founded Apple. Much like the lessons of Paul Allen at Microsoft the Apple example shows how people forget that major computer companies were often team efforts at the start. Wozniak's story is essentially that of a shy committed engineer who wanted to design and build good hardware – the results of which, the Apple I and Apple II, were fantastic results of a single-minded commitment to elegant engineering. His is in many ways an inspiring story of how a dedicated inventor can deliver successful product, and there are many pointers to fruitful labour, not least the admonishment that working alone is often the best way of doing things, and that marketing led organisations, conscious to customer voices and the profit motive, can often deliver appalling product (such as the dismal failure of the Apple III).

A plane crash in 1981 left Wozniak with serious injuries, and to a large extent this ended his active involvement in Apple, and indeed in the true bleeding edge of technology development; while he remains a notional Apple employee, after his accident he seems to move to the margins of the company, not being involved in the evolution of the Macintosh, and increasingly looking to other areas of interest, most fulfillingly in teaching. Prior to this however his story about designing the first personal computers, and significantly coming up with real engineering breakthroughs is fascinating and for someone who has read the likes of Steven Levy's “Hackers” really brings to life the key periods in the evolution of the PC on the West Coast in the 1970s, through organisations like the Homebrew Computer Club. More recently in terms of cultural namechecks, a lot of the experiences Wozniak went through are echoed in Po Bronson's magnificent “The First $20 Million are always the Hardest”.

Perhaps it is a result of the plane crash, equally this could just be an easy excuse, but Wozniak comes across as a naïve character. The story of how Steve Jobs underpaid him for his work on the “Breakout” computer game they undertook for Atari is a tangible example of how his heart was clearly not in the business side of life. There are, however, other aspects of his story as told here, from his ready acceptance of “The Pentagon Papers” as telling the whole truth about Vietnam, through his personal relations, to the more obscure decisions he has made, such as his dalliance with Freemasonry, all give a sense that this is the story of someone brilliant in some areas of his life, yet deeply vulnerable in others. The picture that emerges, of the brilliant shy engineer with an affinity for patchily humorous pranks, is one of an interesting yet not always altogether likeable human.

In the greater scheme of things, “iWoz” is not the best book written about the evolution of the PC, and at times it feels as though it could both do with a decent edit, and the sometimes curious additions of sidebars give the impression that the publisher was working to a page count rather than focused on making the core message as powerful as possible. Cast in the light of the wider canon of literature about Apple it serves a very valuable purpose, clarifying some of the early history, and adding colour to the history of the PC's emergence in Northern California during the 1970s, equally it is interesting to read Wozniak's thoughts on Apple's re-emergence though products such as the iMac and, obviously, the iPod. In short, I've tried to buy this book a few times, and to be honest am now somewhat pleased to have been confounded by bookshop filing systems – a good library read, but would have been frustrating as a full price buy.

"Death in Venice", Thomas Mann

2009-03-10T23:02:00.005Z

I almost feel something of a fraud. Having posted last about how I needed a break from crime and how Italy wasn't quite seizing me, here I am writing about a book with not only death in the title, but Venice to boot. The death however this time is not a murder, but rather a treatment of youth's passage into age and ultimately death, all cast against the decaying backdrop of Venice.

Just because “Death in Venice” isn't a crime novel per se doesn't reduce its somewhat unsettling nature. Like Ruskin before, and Simon Raven afterwards, to say nothing of the obvious connections with Nabokov's “Lolita”, Mann deals with the difficult concept of paedophilia in an unflinching way. For all that the eroticism and lust is unfulfilled, and the distance in time allows an argument to made that Mann and his cast of characters inhabited a different moral universe, the overall reading experience sits a touch uneasily in the early 21^st century.

Thomas Mann confirms that portraying Venice as a glorious yet thoroughly decaying, sinking, corrupt city is nothing new. Indeed the pre-World War I atmosphere of Venice, draped with cholera's miasma, is even less a picture-postcard tourist advert than that of Donna Leon's Brunetti series.

While Thomas Mann isn't an everyday banker as an author, and generally you really have to be in the humour for him, he does capture the sense of place and setting enormously effectively. More arresting is how contemporary his writing sometimes feels, belying the fact that “Death in Venice” is practically a century old. In particular von Aeschenbach's encounter with the sole unlicensed gondolier in Venice feels like something much more akin to a 'modern' comedy of manners from the likes of Alexander McCall Smith.

As I say, Thomas Mann probably isn't for everyone, and it's certainly not for me every day. “Death in Venice” works in a British spring, much like “The Magic Mountain” worked in a hot early summer, where the slow pace of the Nemunas River past dismal sanatoria (pictured) matched the gradual personal evolution of Hans Castorp. So, books very much in and of their place. I'm very pleased to have read “Death in Venice”, but I must say I'm rather looking forward to a return to something a little more mainstream.

Thomas Mann meets Boris Pasternak:

Dusk approaches over faintly depressing sanitoria in Birstonas, Lithuania

Eclectic Thoughts on World Book Day

2009-03-05T12:10:00.002Z

When I set out at the start of the year to conscientiously track my reading in blog form I anticipated focusing completely on reviews. After all, so many MBA types will assure you that the key to success in any publishing venture is to concentrate on doing one thing well, and maintaining a coherent identity that will help build a brand. That said, and for reasons that will be clear below, a review is not as imminent as it might be, and a blog that isn't regularly posted to can give the impression that it's somewhat unloved.

Prompting this was Radio 4's "Today" programme, which carried a segment this morning on books that people claim falsely to have read, all connected with it being World Book Day. Perhaps predictably "1984", "War and Peace", and "Ulysses" came out as winners. Initially I thought, Eureka!, that's something I should do, then figured it wouldn't really be all that exciting, as since my undergraduate days, I haven't really been in the business of making up my reading history, and a confession that in the early 1990s I was slightly underhand in claiming to have read such deathless tomes as Trevor Salmon's "Unneutral Ireland" or Nigel Rodley's "To Loose the Bands of Wickedness" shouldn't really get anyone too agitated.

So, what should one muse on for World Book Day?

Recently my reading for pleasure has all been about crime fiction. While this has been a consistent companion for the last 10 years or so, and there's always going to be such a book in my general vicinity, I do seem to go through phases of over indulging on it as a genre, and then taking a break. I suspect I may be on the cusp of such a break now. For the past 10 days or so I've been keeping Donna Leon's "A Sea of Troubles" on the go, and to be honest, not really getting engaged by it. I don't think it's necessarily any fault of the book itself, which on the surface should tick all the necessary boxes, but rather just a case that I probably need to read something different in pace, style, and tone.

My struggles with Leon's Venice here made me think somewhat about the notion of location in books. Perhaps coincidentally the last time I felt quite so jaded by a particular work was again in an Italian setting, this time with Michael Dibdin's "A Long Finish" (purchased, a touch rashly from a very overpriced stand at a Hatfield House book fair). This is interesting, because as countries go, I am exceptionally fond of Italy. I've been lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time there, and get to know some of the idiosyncrasies of the country and its people, and in that vein Italian crime fiction should really work, however perhaps it's down to my familiarity that I'm a more critical eye. Scandinavia I haven't really been to since childhood, but fiction set there has no problem keeping my attention and allowing me to immerse myself in it. Stuart MacBride and Ian Rankin talk about East Coast Scotland in a way that is very familiar to me; and as I hinted at in a previous post, although I've never been to Texas (apologies for sounding like a country and western lyric) and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy it all that much, Mark Gimenez almost makes it appealing.

So - from this a question. Is it better to read about places that you are familiar with or the more alien? I know I get a particular thrill when a place where I've lived or worked gets culturally name checked, especially when it goes to the micro detail that almost allows you to pinpoint a particular location, but does this make the wider reading experience more or less enjoyable? Not something I have a ready answer for, but perhaps an apposite thought for National Book Day.

I suspect my next review posting will be on something other than a crime novel - although obviously, this doesn not constitute anything resembling a guarantee.

“The Common Lawyer”, Mark Gimenez

2009-03-01T18:40:00.002Z

I stumbled across Mark Gimenez by accident. Last summer, annoyed by being unable to find Stuart MacBride's “Flesh House” as an airport exclusive in Terminal Five, and being stuck for a book for a short trip to Frankfurt (because obviously you can always buy a book at an airport) “The Perk” found its way into my possession; and I loved it. While I'm sure Texas would be far too hot for me, and I worry that too much of it would be the sort of strip mall America I'm distinctly less keen on, in his writing Mark Gimenez makes me interested in it, makes one identify with it, and critically it becomes a place the reader feels comfortable in and familiar with.

Mark Gimenez has consistently been likened to John Grisham, and not just because all his titles start with definite article. This, perhaps more than his previous works follows the Grisham like morality tale of the innocent rags to corrupt riches and back to righteous rags progression of the central character. Like Grisham, Gimenez paints a warts and all portrait of the legal world, combining detail of legal process with lawyers who are, almost universally, somewhat flawed human beings.

The very ordinariness of the protagonist, Andy Prescott is a distinct departure from previous works. This time he's not a software billionaire or a blue chip law firm employee; instead he's an indifferent local lawyer specialising in annulling speeding tickets, regarding his job as a means to his particular ends of riding mountain bikes and failing to get a girlfriend. As such Andy Prescott is a particular strength of the book. While long hair and extreme sports are not really what I'm all about, he's a thoroughly engaging character, and if one excludes the excesses of his 'riches' phase, he's both inherently one of the good guys and, critically, someone I think I would like to know.

Where Gimenez has fallen short in the past is in his children characters. In previous works they have simply been far too grown up, coping with adult issues with perceptive stoicism that simply does not ring true. While the core driver of “The Common Lawyer”, with the terminal illness of a billionaire's son, obviously concerns childhood, the roles played are more peripheral, and their actions more childlike; the book benefits hugely from this. That said, the obvious identification with children and their issues, particularly surrounding illness and disability, are handled with a moving sensibility that is often very powerful.

Part legal thriller, part morality play, part action novel “The Common Lawyer” is Mark Gimenez's most accomplished work to date. It's moving, engaging, and I like to think insightful. As an airport novel it's flawless. Bought at Gatwick on Thursday it was finished late on Friday night, driven by the pretty relentless pace of the plot and by a genuine desire to be in Gimenez's Texas universe. It's not without it's flaws, it's sentimental in the extreme in some places and I'm sure someone of a scientific bent could drive a cart and horse through the core premise, but its fusion of the legal thriller and action genres makes it an eminently readable proposition.

“Judas Strain”, James Rollins

2009-02-24T13:36:00.000Z

I suspect we all guiltily enjoy things we know we probably shouldn’t. Just as knowing how good Belgian chocolates are (and having reasonably ready access to them) doesn’t stop me popping out for a Mars bar every once in a while, an awareness of how much better so many other authors are doesn't stop me, every once in a while, picking up one of James Rollins' books.

Let's get one thing out of the way first of all. His stories, and "Judas Strain" is no different, are very silly indeed. They're not high literature, and they're the sort of works that, at times, you almost want to hide behind a different cover, almost to say "I'm not really reading this, and I'm certainly not enjoying it", which is a shame, because they can legitimately sit alongside some of the wilder parts of the likes of Clive Cussler (albeit without a little of Cussler's charm) in this particular canon of 'literature'. "Judas Strain" was read in the fairly relaxed environment of home, and oddly suffered for it. Past Rollins tomes have been airline fodder, highlighting where we should really locate him, and really where he comes into his own. Previous works have sped long flights past in a perfectly happy way. "Ice Hunt" in particular managing to distract me from the terrifying experience of a post Soviet 'airliner' rattling its way from Nizhny Novgorod to Kaliningrad - for this, if nothing else, I owe James Rollins quite a debt of gratitude.

In terms of plot, "Judas Strain" is effectively a fusion of Steven Seagal meets the Da Vinci Code, fused with 28 Days Later and a dash of Indiana Jones. Rollins has developed a universe reasonably well rounded with colourful characters, shadowy organisations, and monumental conspiracies. Where "Judas Strain" falls down a touch, is the central plot with its overarching threat to the globe's population is too severe and proceeds too far. Conspiracy techno thrillers such as this work best when they could, if only just, be a retelling of what has actually happened; global incidences of a zombie inducing pandemic stretch this beyond breaking point. I'm the first to argue that the strength of fiction is that disbelief is suspended and you allow yourself to be entertained, but in a really imprecise way, there seems to be a threshold that really successful works stay below, and when it's exceeded the overall impact is lessened.

I'm pleased I read "Judas Strain", I'll read more by James Rollins, and I do quite look forward to learning the fate of the emperilled heroes, but by the same token, I'm actually also quite pleased to move onto something a little more sensible next.

“Chicane”, Colin Peel

2009-02-18T23:36:00.000Z

On paper this should have it all, exotic locations, enigmatic characters, fast cars, a femme fatale, and a conspiracy just big enough to be engaging, while remaining (just) within the bounds of possiblity. As a thriller (Beckenham library getting its classification right) it's a nicely measured work that generally avoids falling into the usual traps one associates with the sometimes hackneyed techno-thriller genre. Ultimately there are perhaps one or two too many contortions in the plot, but overall sitting down with this book is a satisfying experience.

There was, however, a degree of wistfulness in reading “Chicane”. I've been reading thrillers of some variety or another for many more years than I care to remember, and there's an overwhelming sensation that this would have been much more at home in a pre-1989 world. Peel makes a brave effort to clad what is fundamentally a Cold War spy thriller in 21st century garb, but despite all the arguments from the likes of Ed Lucas, and the undeniable frostiness discernible from unpleasantness in the Caucasus last year, “Chicane” still feels like an anachronism. One can't help wondering if the result would have been more convincing had it been restyled as a period piece; a few simple tweaks (substitute fax for email, Ferrari 308 for 360 Modena) and it could have been a convincing pseudo-retelling of the late Cold War, and quite possibly have been better for it. Interestingly, the feel of the book given by the cover, typeface, and most of all the deeply curious author photograph feel exactly like a book from the 1980s, and make it surprising to realise it was published in 2003.

Not having come across Peel before, it's unclear if there is a deeper long running story underpinning the central character, Fraser. Taken in isolation he is inherently far too capable, even if he's still perfectly likeable. Throughout others, most notably the female lead, speculate with some validity about his background, seeing him as so much more than a simple photo-journalist. If “Chicane” is part of a wider universe this would make sense – if it's a standalone work then there are probably too many questions for the characterisation to be wholly convincing.

Ultimately it's books like these that justify the existence of public libraries. As hardback buy (even as a cut price deal airport exclusive) this would probably have left the nagging feeling that it wasn't quite worth it (absurd and illogical in the context of what everything else costs – yes – I know), and even as a cheap charity shop rental there might have been more of a ho-hum about some aspects of it. However as a speculative punt from the library it's transformed into something altogether more satisfactory.

“Death in a Strange Country”, Donna Leon

2009-02-14T00:28:00.000Z

I came to Donna Leon almost by accident. She's one of those authors of whose existence you're always aware of, more through peripheral vision than actually considering them. The beauty of a public library means that you can experiment, and in that sort of line a month or so ago I ended up with her “Friends in High Places”. As is perhaps obvious from the title of this post, Donna Leon was sufficiently engaging to make me want to start right at the beginning of her series about criminal Venice and her somewhat lachrymose protagonist, Guido Brunetti.

“Death in a Strange Country” is a very Italian crime novel. Written in the early 1990s it captures the manifold complexities of Italian society, running the gamut of political corruption, the divides between left and right, the difficulties of making money in late 20th century Italy, the omnipresent mafia and the lawless South, and the central point, the impact of the American military presence in Italy. All of this enriches the story, with the impact that the traditional crime narrative, with a process generally leading to an arrest or conviction, is much less achievable. Justice, when served, is less a function of due process than emotion, not all loose ends are tied up, yet all of it is couched in the terms of what passes for a police investigation.

The label 'police procedural' is one that I profoundly dislike; it does nothing to erode the impression of crime fiction being synonymous with trash fiction, and as a term it conveys little in the way of excitement. Perhaps depressingly however Leon's books, and “Death in a Strange Country” is as good an example as any of the three I've come across so far, fits so closely with what we should see as a 'police procedural'. Brunetti exists within the context of a tightly defined criminal justice structure, crimes are committed, investigated, and some form of closure is arrived at. It is to Leon's credit that the way she executes plot keeps attention, build affinity, and applies a gritty veneer to Venice, a city most of us will associate with almost theme park levels of packaged tourism. The Venice we see here really is a fading sinking edifice, loved by its inhabitants, still full of tremendous grandeur, but nonetheless a city exposed warts and all. In short, Leon writes police procedurals, but they are very Italian.

One of the aspects that has struck me in reading this series so far is that it has, for me, struggled somewhat with characterisation. Brunetti, the archetypal frustrated diligent cop is a touch too good. Patta, his superior is altogether too bleakly incompetent. Paola, Brunetti's wife is one dimensional, and almost too good. In fact the road to Damascus experience I had while reading “Death in a Strange Country” was that perhaps the most real character, and one easiest to identify with is Brunetti's father-in-law. His wife's father plays a key role in many of the works as serving as a vehicle for the happy coincidence in moving the plot along, but here his persona is scratched more deeply. The father-in-law (and I apologise for not giving him a name, but my cat is very contentedly asleep on my feet, and it seems cruel to shift him to go and dig out the book to check precise details) comes across maybe as the truest Italian, certainly corrupt, largely trying to do the right thing for his family, and struggling with the compromises that his life revolves around. It is in this unexpected richness in character that really adds to the enjoyment of the book.

Thus far Donna Leon's not quite at the level where there's a desperate hunger for the next book, but there's undeniably a richness here that makes me happy that there are many more in the series. Maybe my opinion will change as I read more of them and get a more rounded view of them, but thus far it's all pretty positive.

Finally, an apology for the gap in posting. Generally when I'm busy at work I'll be on the road a lot, which means I get to read a lot, and thus this should be translated into posting. Unusually February so far has entailed a lot of sitting in the office toiling away and the only real travel being done has been a case of sitting in a car through a South London commute. Book reading overall has fallen through the floor recently, so it's a real pleasure to draw a line under this one and, thankfully, get back to expressing some opinion.

“Death on the Holy Mountain”, David Dickinson

2009-01-21T22:53:00.000Z

The Lord Francis Powerscourt series of mysteries, largely set in Victorian/Edwardian Britain, fall comfortably into the arena of entertaining light hearted silliness. In general they don't take themselves too seriously, have an engaging cast of characters and an ability to make the reader interested. Perhaps the key strength of the series is that it covers a period that lends itself to over pompous mawkishness with a refreshing tone of humour. Be it a rainy afternoon in London, or in one engaging case, a shady deck on a Greek ferry (with “Goodnight Sweet Prince”) a Dickinson novel can generally be relied on to while away the hours in an eminently pleasurable manner; “Death on the Holy Mountain” broadly adheres to these criteria, if at times becoming a touch too bedded into the author's comprehensive background research.

The central character, Powerscourt, is a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, and the series has visited Ireland in the past, but “Death on the Holy Mountain” is the first to set itself primarily there. The Ireland of the period should offer plentiful raw materials for Dickinson to work with, and he draws on many of the obvious candidates such as the faded glory of the rural Protestant nobility, the role of the church in the struggle for independence, and the growing Irish cultural movements. He does, however work on contextualising all of this a touch too much. Great swathes of text devoted to the death of Parnell and his funeral, with a very tangential link to the core plot, and while interesting, serve more to slow down Dickinson's usual pace. Perhaps it's my Irish upbringing suffused with the Irish history of the period, but I suspect leaving some of the historical narrative on the research shelf would have benefitted the book.

The Powerscourt series generally have art and crime related to art as a theme, and “Death on the Holy Mountain” conforms to this, with a series of thefts of ancestral portraits. I do worry however that the threat posed by this lacks a serious level of menace. It doesn't get too much in the way of the story, and reinforces the point that you actively shouldn't overanalyse the plots of these books.

Some of the subplots are, a touch disappointingly, left hanging, in particular a rather engaging adulterous affair conducted by two of the more minor protagonists lacks a satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps in part this helps show the effectiveness of the techniques of 'latent suasion' used in the Irish independence struggle, but stylistically the absence of any real closure in this area disappoints.

None of this should give the impression that this is anything other than a highly entertaining and pleasurable read. The Powerscourt series isn't high literature, but has no pretensions to be so, and is so much the better for it.

“Isle of Dogs”, Patricia Cornwell

2009-01-18T11:52:00.000Z

Sometimes reading moves from the sublime to the ridiculous. The experience of finishing Steig Larsson's “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and moving on to one of Cornwell's non-Scarpetta books is almost enough to make one despair.

It takes a while to work out what Cornwell is attempting with “Isle of Dogs”. Let's be clear, this is not another police procedural in the manner of the Scarpetta series, just with a different suite of characters. Herein lies the problem. Since “The Last Precinct” Cornwell has clearly been bored by the formula that served he well, the later Scarpetta novels, and the Andy Brazil series show a distinct change of tone, Scarpetta's story taking a profoundly darker turn, and Brazil representing an experiment with magic realism. Having made her reputation with Scarpetta she may well have sought to escape being typecast as just another formulaic crime novelist. As such something like “Isle of Dogs” can be seen as a completely understandable step. The trouble is it doesn't really work.

The problems start with the character of Andy Brazil. The persona of the state trooper cum blogger-journalist simply doesn't ring true. One role or another might work, but the way in which they are fused, and the concept that a police superintendent could readily allow one of their staff to work with such freedom, or that they would see the value in them doing so stretches credibility beyond breaking point. Furthermore, the “Trooper Truth” series of columns fail utterly to convince me that they would inspire a frenzy of public attention, reading instead like countless other bland unread blog entries. It's to Cornwell's credit that she sees the power of the changing media landscape, but sadly Trooper Truth doesn't seem like the Web2.0 phenomenon he's cut out to be.

Stylistically “Isle of Dogs” clearly attempts to be a comic novel. There's nothing wrong with novels raising a smile, and there's no particular reason not to find humour in crime, however I just don't think Patricia Cornwell is very good at it. All too often humour resorts to crude toilet gags and simplistic pokes of fun at Virginia patois, in neither case really succeeding in achieving even a wry smile.

Magic realism is a dangerous concept to try and use. It's genuinely rare to find a case of it being used effectively and the attempts to introduce it in “Isle of Dogs”, with sentient crabs and zippers impervious to bullets don't work. I'm not saying this to be horrible or cruel, it's just the case that the the book would ultimately be better off without them.

The Brazil series has clearly sold, and I suspect there may be those to whom it will appeal, but too much of it trades on the Cornwell name. Reading it is too much like hard work – it's neither a comic novel, nor an effective police work, and too much of the time it comes across as just silly, and not in a good way.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, Stieg Larsson

2009-01-17T03:41:00.000Z

Before reading this I deliberately avoided the hype surrounding Stieg Larsson, first by accident, and then, once deciding to give him a go, quite deliberately. Invariably when an author's reputation soars to these sort of heights, especially when combined with Larsson's early death, expectations can be built up to an unachievable level. For once however, I suspect this is a case where you should believe the hype, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” really is that good.

Readers of crime fiction should be more than usually familiar with the context of Sweden, and the world portrayed here is more than usually Swedish, at times breathtakingly so, showing that Scandinavian crime fiction really is a lot more than an episode of “The Bill” with Ikea furniture. In terms of cultural signposts, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” probably resembles the Sweden of Liza Marklund somewhat more than that of Henning Mankell, more urbane, somehow grittier in terms of the flaws in Swedish society, and critically, a move away from the often too familiar police procedural.

The premise, a disgraced investigative journalist employed by an industrial magnate to solve the disappearance of his niece 40 years beforehand provides an engaging cast of characters and using unashamed cultural namechecks, offers an alternative take on a Dorothy Sayers style locked room mystery. Significantly however, the plot moves in such a way that the reader cares about what happens, can identify with most of the major characters, and can appreciate the method whereby the journalist, Blomqvist, gradually unpicks the mystery. Larsson pulls few, if any, punches in the telling of the story, unflinching in describing the true unpleasantness behind the crimes committed, and arresting in the way in which violence is perpetrated. Make no mistake, there are some very unpleasant scenes in this story.

The girl with the dragon tattoo transpires to be the only really problematic character. A troubled woman made a ward of the Swedish state (this in itself being a powerful expose of one the less savoury aspects of Sweden's caring' state system), Salander is computer hacker whose ability to see into people's most closely guarded secrets works as a mechanism for revealing what would otherwise be altogether too coincidental and serendipitous. Salander however is a little bit too much of an achiever. As a gnomish dweller of cyberspace she works, even if she is perhaps a little too effective (I'm open to correction from any cyber security professionals out there though!). However she often transcends this, more resembling Stefanie Patrick / Petra Reuter from Mark Burnell's “Rhythm Section” series, and here, credibility is stretched.

Other plot elements are left hanging, Blomqvist's relationship with one of the Vanger daughters ends abruptly and acrimoniously, with no real explanation. Is this a flaw or a true reflection that relationships do sometimes just end for reasons you can't really explain?

As a whole however “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” fundamentally works. Okay, I read this on holiday, and books do seem to get read more quickly on the beach at Sharm el Sheikh than they do when they have to be fitted around the more mundane aspects of life such as work and commuting, but this is gripping to a miss meals sort of level. Larsson has created a universe I want to know more about, to the extent that there's an urge to find, almost at any cost, his next work, and a profound sadness that we will only ever have three works of his to read.

“The Maze of Cadiz”, Aly Monroe

2009-01-03T00:43:00.000Z

Heat suffuses Monroe's first novel, set in the stultifying atmosphere of Cadiz in September 1944. While set during World War II the context is almost irrelevant – by late '44 the war feels already over, from the perspective of south-western Spain the titanic conflict looks like little more than the combatants going through the motions. This is echoed in the slow pace of life against which the small personal tragedies, otherwise lost in the greater tide of history, unfold. The triumph of the story is that really, even had the grand conspiracy not been foiled the chances are the ultimate course of history would have been completely unchanged.

The protagonist, Cotton, a seemingly reluctant British intelligence officer with a mundane assignment is a curious character. At times he comes across as almost Pooterish, struggling with catering on Spanish trains, embarrassed by the social mores of expatriate life, yet at others he seems a debonair man of the world, and almost James Bond like in his approach. The other characters, not least the aged antique book dealer, the foppish policeman, and the borderline incompetent diplomat, are all somewhat more two dimensional, however their interactions and dialogue inherently work, and serve to keep the pace going through the slow background.

It's not Alan Furst, and stylistically it, at times, reads too much like a lesson in conversational Spanish, but it serves to immerse the reader in an interesting part of Spain in the shadow of the civil war.

Perhaps most fascinating for me was the realisation that while Alan Furst's typically cold works are best read with a slate grey sky and the threat of stinging rain, “The Maze of Cadiz” with its immersive warmth can be readily enjoyed in cold British January.

“Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance”, Giles Milton

2008-12-29T22:38:00.000Z

September 11 is now, for all of us, a tremendously emotive date, so much so that it is surprising when one comes across seismic historic events that did not take place in New York and Washington in 2001 it brings one up short. September 11 1922 is one such date.

I've been reading and thinking about the birth of modern Turkey, to one extent or another, for 20 years or so, and it's a credit to the power of this book that it captured my attention and served very well to keep my attention through a day in a Budapest airport riven by crowds, strikes, and the aftermath of altogether too much hospitality the night before.

Giles Milton's telling of the fall of Smyrna intermingles the broad sweep of the long First World War with individual tales, first of opulence, then of heart rending atrocity. Smyrna is portrayed as a bucolic pleasure garden destroyed in an orgy of vandalism by a victorious Turkish army, and as such this should read as a classic tale of 'good and evil'. Interestingly however, Milton cannot achieve such a simplistic conclusion, and ultimately this is the real strength of the work.

There are villains in the piece, but none of them were directly responsible for setting fire to Smyrna in September 1922; indeed at no stage is an attempt made to seriously posit that the fire that engulfed the city was a consciously taken political decision. Instead the reader finds complicity further afield. Smyrna ultimately was not destroyed by Turks, it had, after all, flourished under Ottoman rule and the decentralised Ottoman system of government allowed it to function freely through the First War. Instead the megali idea of Venizelos (and Milton accurately links this etymologically to the concept of megalomania on p.38), supported energetically by Lloyd George. Cast in this light the destruction of Smyrna is only the most tangible instance of the willful attempt to smash the Turkish state at Sevres.

None of this excuses the atrocities perpetrated in September 1922 and the wholesale ethnic cleansing that took place in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish war, stains that persist to this day, however the broad sweep of Milton's work helps understand why tragedies occur, and why simplistically assigning blame is seldom the correct course of action.