Monday, November 23, 2020

Private Lives by J.G. Harlond

 


⭐⭐⭐

The blurb...
England, 1942. While reluctant wartime detective Bob Robbins is enjoying a few days’ holiday on the North Devon coast he becomes involved in a shooting incident on a derelict farm. An elderly farmer lies injured, and then disappears. A young man is found shot in the chest. Bob reports the incident to the local police force, but they are so over-stretched with extra duties he finds himself in charge of the case. In urgent need of assistance, Bob requests the help of the young police recruit Laurie Oliver. They take rooms at ‘Peony Villas’, an unusual sort of guest house run by an ex-West End diva, where a troupe of London actors are in residence, and where Bob soon finds himself involved in yet another peculiar mystery..

My review...
Bob is an old widower with dodgey knees, who talks to his dead wife. He is also a retired detective inspector, who has been pressed back into service due to manning issues arising from the war. Bob's on his holidays, birdwatching near Bideford, when he hears a shotgun. He walks up the hill to a local farm and sees a young farm hand dragging an injured possibly dead farmer. He gets told to clear off and does so, until he hears a pistol shot. Bob returns to the farm to find the young farm hand dead but no sign of the old farmer. Bob reports it to the local and very unco-operative police and ends up getting pressganged into taking on the investigation. He sends for his trusty young, educated side kick Laurie Oliver and settles in to his accomadation. He ends up staying at a sort of hotel where the guests are all travelling actors and singers. The neighbour is a grumpy curmudgeon and the chef is suffering from PTSD from the Great War. He may also be supplemtenting rations with something a little different! 

So it's a very good set-up. Plenty of potential suspects, conflict and comedy opportunities. The investigation iteslf centres around who will inherit the two farms that the missing farmer worked.

I can appreciate that we needed an insight into who would be the beneficiary if the old farmer was indeed dead. However, a problematic issue, for me,  was the vast family history trees involved in working out how several of the protaganists were connected. A case of "my next door neighbour's aunty's best friend was married to Bob's daughter" type of thing. I often had to read back over what I had already read to try and gain some clarity. This was exacerbated by the fact that at least three of the characters had another alias and one character had had additional three identities. I would recommend having a notepad and pencil at the ready.

These quibbles not withstanding, now we get onto what the author does well. She does great job of evoking the rural west country  during the war period. You can really feel yourself settling down in the pub drinking scrumpy because there is no beer left as the army lorries thunder through streets built for carthorses.

She also excels at painting a picture of a era where time stretched out rather than rushes by as today. It is a setting that is just as alien to us today as Star Wars is. 

The highlight with regards to mystery is not the whodunnit but the search for the missing (dead?) old farmer and why cant they find his corpse?
 
The comedy elements are well played out too. Loved the cat wrangling cook. The rescuing of the Inspector from the farm privy on a motorbike was a favourite also.

There is a lovely relationship between senior, experienced, worldly wise D.I. and junior less experienced but better educated D.C. 
 
A gentle,  comedic, immersive mystery that plonks you firmly in the west country eighty years ago. Last of the summer wine meets Foyle.

Selected Quotes...
"Hearsay usually carries a lump of disagreeable truth. Never overlook hearsay, even when you cant use it in evidence."

"She says I look like Jimmy Stewart, the Hollywood actor.'
"Does she indeed? tell her how much a British bobby earns, see if she changes her mind."

"He followed his grumpy new relative through a jumble of pint-wielding elbows to an arched bar decorated with horse brasses and government issue respirators"

"Twenty minutes until supper: time enough to raid a broom cupboard for a nine-millimetre pistol while the cook was boiling the potatoes."

"Mr Pots," she murmured,
"whatever are you doing with your cats?' Then she recalled the game pie he'd served the night before...."

"Mrs Healy's mouth was pinched tight like a miser's purse."


About the author...
J.G. Harlond (Jane) grew up near the sea in the South West of England. She studied in Britain and the United States, obtaining a BA (Hons) in Cultural Studies, an MA in Social and Political Thought, and teaching qualifications. For many years, Jane worked in European international schools and wrote school textbook material. In 2010, she gave up an enjoyable, safe, and successful job to also write fiction.

Jane’s fascination with historical novels began while still at school, when she would read anything by Jean Plaidy or Daphne Du Maurier instead of doing her homework. Later, she moved on to a much wider range of books, but particularly liked Dorothy Dunnett, John Le Carré, and Mary Wesley: three very different authors whose well-chosen prose weaves intrigue and sharp descriptive detail into compelling stories. What interests her most about fiction is the manner in which a reader can experience the universal emotions of love, hate, jealousy, and greed through invented narrative, and the way it demonstrates how real and fictitious characters’ life choices affect and are affected by real events and other people’s actions. Jane’s novels also consider the influence of genetic inheritance, showing how family traits, physical appearance, and personality can follow through or skip and re-emerge in different generations.

When she’s not writing, Jane is busy looking after an aging but spirited horse, trying to keep a small but demanding garden in order, and doing her best to stay up to date with what her family is doing in various parts of the world. Travel, it seems, is something of a Harlond family trait.






Saturday, November 7, 2020

Crimson Snow by Jason R Vowles

 


⭐⭐⭐⭐

NB All proceeds from the sale of this book go to charity.
You can buy Crimson Snow....Here

The blurb....
London is hit by the biggest snow storm in decades.
Trains are at a standstill. Traffic is gridlocked. And in the chaos, the lobotomised corpse of a City banker is discovered in Hyde Park, their face slashed beyond recognition.
No physical evidence, no clear witnesses, no potential leads
A dangerously unorthodox DCI assigns the case to the murder investigation team's new recruit, DC Daniel Hudson. As bodies pile up, and with no discernible links between victims, Hudson begins to struggle emotionally with the case, nightmares plaguing his darkest hours.
How long can the new recruit hold it together?
With the media at a frenzy and the boss watching his every move, will Hudson and the team learn the secret behind these terrifying murders, before their killer decides to make things more personal?

My Reveiw....
This is the debut novel from Jason R Vowles, and a fine debut it is too. This is the first in the Daniel Hudson series. Daniel , the young,  provincial copper is aptly named as he enters the lions den of major league crime that is London. 

The plot centres around Daniel's first case in the big city, and it is a big one! A serial killer who lobotomises his victims post mortem. The team struggle to find leads, Daniel's mental health suffers. The author does a good job of ratcheting up the tension and pressure chapter after chapter. You can almost feel the stress level reaching breakdown point.

We also follow the killers story in first person perspective which adds to the creepy factor. I guarantee, you will find yourself searching for clues whenever the killers narrative appears.

The plot is clever and offers numerous potential suspects throughout the various profiles of the killer that the police come up with.

The strength of this book, I feel, is the layering of the character of Daniel. He is definitely not your average hard bitten city cop àla Inspector Rebus he is more the impressionable country hick, eager to please and scared of failure much like a Clarice Starling. (or for those with an even longer memory "McCloud.") You really feel for the character and are willing him on, while also feeling his never ending anxiety at the same time.
In addition there is a strong partnership theme that develops with his slightly dodgy, Japanese, DCI. So we get to explore this continually evolving relationship from the angle of the younger, naive DC Hudson. Again referencing old TV cop shows it is like experiencing Regan from the Sweeney  via a young and innocent Carter's viewpoint. I don't know why but my mind surreptitiously cast Ciaran Hinds in the role of Hiraoka. 
Layered on top of this is the whole ensemble team of multi ethnic fellow officers and pathologists. Some he gets on well with, others not so much. 

The other characters including his sister, love interest and landlady add to the depth of the story too. 

As I was reading towards the end I found myself galloping through the pages in an eager quest to find the killer. Always a good sign in a who dunnit!

There is a good twist, which the author does well to keep hidden. 
I am looking forward to the further adventures of Daniel Hudson and messers Hiraoka, Leigh, Hunt, Nguyen, Moreau, Anderson, Nita and Charlie. 

It's tension inducing thrill ride with a gobsmack twist.

I can give no higher praise than to say this book put me in mind of "the Mermaid's Singing" by Val McDermid, which was the first Tony Hill (Wire in the Blood) book.

It is a very good first step on what I hope will be a long literary career.

Selected Quotes...
"You're a London copper now Hudson. More place for scum to hide in bigger cities. They tend to do nastier shit, too"

"Don't ever get promoted too high, Hudson , it turns into bureaucratic bullshit."

"Let's light up this room. I want noise until repeats of Top Gear have finished airing on Dave."

"It dawned on him then, how much he'd gambled on. How big of a thing this all was. Bigger than him. This wasn't just a change in career. A change in lifestyle. This was a change of world."

"Hot chocolate before tea? Are you sure you dont swing the other way?"

"I was greeted by the smell of polish, stale popcorn and some lingering deodorant from some fat, zero hours idiot at the front desk"

"When the blade hit his upper abdomen, a jet of blood fired out from his mouth like punching hand soap quickly"

About the Author
Jason is a young breakthrough author, kicking off his writing career with the DC Daniel Hudson crime series. Based in Cardiff, Wales, he has lived all over England growing up for much of his life in Norfolk. He is influenced heavily by crime and mystery in various forms from around the world, from America to Japan, England to Sweden, Germany to South Korea.








Sunday, November 1, 2020

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett



⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The blurb...
The Uncommon Reader" is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely ( JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. 

Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.

My Review...
I only had time for a short book this week, So after checking through Goodreads I settled on this little 124 page dwtty piece of loveliness. It was first published in 2007 so I haven't exactly got my finger bang on the pulse of today with this one. 

I also chose it in part to challenge my own issues around the institution of the Monarchy. (Basically, I think it is ridiculous and would much rather my taxes go the NHS.)

Bennett portrays them as well meaning idiots stuck in their rut of opening supermarkets and launching ships.  They are like the "flying lady" ornament on the hood of a Rolls Royce. They are nice to look at, a distraction for the eye but in reality totally superfluous to the actual running of the machine, quite literally a figure head.

That is until her Madge stumbles into the mobile library parked around the back in the servants quarters and meets young, ginger and possibly gay Norman the kitchen boy. Madge takes out a book out of politeness and the floodgates open. 

This is where Bennett excels. He describes the addiction to books that every bibliophile knows only too well. He also describes its consequences, both to the reader and those around them. He may have been describing the Queen but he is also describing me and all those who frequent this site and Twitter page! Yes that means you. 

Gradually the royal robot develops consciousness. Yes it is very ex Machina.  So the plot isn't twisty (although there is quite a mic' drop moment at the end) and the book is very short. In fact it is more of a thought experiment than a novel.

 However it is very clever and well written. Mr Bennett does have a lovely turn of phrase as can be seen by the amount of selected quotes that I have used below. I also had to cut another half dozen off the list. 

In short this is a small, well crafted thing of beauty

Selected quotes...

"Read? Of course he read. Everybody read. He opened the glove compartment and took out his copy of the Sun."

"Surely most people can read?’ ‘They can read, ma’am, but I’m not sure that they do.’

"it would help if we were able to put out a press release saying that, apart from English literature, Your Majesty was also reading ethnic classics.’ ‘Which ethnic classics did you have in mind, Sir Kevin? The Kama Sutra?’

"To read is to withdraw. To make oneself unavailable."

"Nor initially did she discuss her reading with anyone, least of all in public, knowing that such a late-flowering enthusiasm, however worthwhile, might expose her to ridicule. It would be the same, she thought, if she had developed a passion for God, or dahlias."

"Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met with in the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader’s imagination as the characters in their books. Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them."

"The public must not be allowed to think the world could not be managed. That way lay chaos. Or defeat at the polls, which was the same thing.

"Books are wonderful, aren’t they?’ she said to the vice-chancellor, who concurred. ‘At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak,’ she said, ‘they tenderise one.’ 

"One has given one’s white-gloved hand to hands that were steeped in blood and conversed politely with men who have personally slaughtered children. One has waded through excrement and gore; to be Queen, I have often thought the one essential item of equipment a pair of thigh-length boots."

About the Author...
Alan Bennett is one of the most celebrated writers in Britain today. His play (and film) The History Boys won seven Emmys in New York and was the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre. Untold Stories has sold over 700,000 copies in hardback and paperback. Alan Bennett was Author of the Year at the 2006 British Book Awards.



2001, A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke

  You can buy 2001 A Space Odyssey.. . Here You can find out more about Arthur C Clarke... Here 228 pages The Blurb... Written when landing ...