Different Class by Joanne Harris

514 pages

Rating 3.⭐s

You can buy Different Class...here

You can follow Joanne Harris...here

• The Blurb...

After thirty years at St Oswald's Grammar in North Yorkshire, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go - the clowns, the rebels, the underdogs, and those he calls his Brodie boys. But every so often there's a boy who doesn't fit the mould. A troublemaker. A boy capable of twisting everything around him. A boy with hidden shadows inside.

With insolvency and academic failure looming, a new broom has arrived at the venerable school, bringing Powerpoint, sharp suits and even sixth form girls to the dusty corridors. But while Straitley does his sardonic best to resist this march to the future, a shadow from his past is stirring. A boy who even twenty years on haunts his teacher's dreams. A boy capable of bad things.

• Our Review...

I read this book as part of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. For details click  here. The prompt for this weeks book was a revenge story.

Roy Straightly is an old latin master in a public school. For any readers outside the UK, a public school is actually a private, fee paying school.. I think they are called "public" (which they are definitely not) as part of a camouflage exercise to ensure outrage at their existence, and potential to be taxed is kept to a minimum. 

Anyway, I digress, back to the review  Roy is an archaic man in an archaic institution that is on the verge of collapsing into the abyss.. Onto this sinking ship is parachuted a pilot (I know, I'm mixing metaphors but what the heck!) in the form of crisis head John Harrington. He plans to modernise the school with paperless office, shiny new health and safety policies, customer focus and actually letting girls into the school. 

Roy is horrified and vows to fight the young upstart all the way, especially as Roy knows the new headmaster is a wrong 'un. The new head is a former pupil who, twenty years before, was part of a scandal that resulted in Roy's friend and fellow teacher, Harry Clarke jailed for sexual abuse of a minor and murder. So the battle lines are drawn.

The novel is written in alternating timelines 1980s and 2005. Both timelines are written in the first person. One viewpoint is from Roy's perspective the other is from a child only known as ziggy, who is writing to his diary. It's a clever method of getting in both protagonist and antagonists heads and follow their life experiences and to see why they are who they are. We are also drawn into the day to day running of the school and the characters of other masters and children. 

There is humour in the story but as befits the subject matter it is at times a dark book but never overly descriptive of the sexual abuse. The public school setting is a fairly unique one. You have power, privilege, money, innocence, depravity and to a large extent detachment from the real world. It is scary that these institutions produce our political leaders.

Roy is a sort of Mr Chips character who has devoted his life to the school for 30+ years. No wife or children, who never really felt attached to his now dead parents. He seems to me a strange a-sexual character. The story follows the increasing battle intensity between Roy and the head, while at the same time delving into the past history of the both of them. Could a clue from the past help Roy turn the tide?

It is an interesting novel in that it gives an insight into a world that I would never be part of. Some of the motivations seem a bit odd to me. One in particular, It seems to me that the scandal of sexual abuse and thus dragging the good name of the school through the mud is a a far greater crime than actually carrying out the abuse. The word "tolerated" keeps popping into mind. Which is food for thought. 

• Selected Quotes...

I don't believe God really cares what you eat, or what you wear, or whom you love. I think that if God made the stars, He must have a greater perspective.”

All schools have their skeletons. St Oswald’s is no exception. Most of the time, we try our best to keep them in the closet. But this time, the only recourse we have is to throw open all the closets, light as many bulbs as we can and catch the vermin as it comes out.

They change the sky, not their souls, that run across the ocean.

Progress through tradition

• If You Liked This Then You May Like This...

The History Boys by Alan Bennet

A Very Private School by Charles Spencer (9th earl Spencer and Lady Di's brother.)

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell.

• About The Author...

Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of over twenty novels, plus novellas, cookbooks, scripts, short stories, libretti, lyrics, articles, and a self-help book for writers, TEN THINGS ABOUT WRITING. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system'. She is active on social media, where she writes stories and gives writing tips as @joannechocolat; she posts writing seminars on YouTube; she performs in a live music and storytelling show with the #Storytime Band; and she works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.

She also has a form of synaesthesia which enables her to smell colours. Red, she says, smells of chocolate..

London Rules by Mick Herron

362 pages.

Rating...5⭐s

You can buy London Rules...here

You can find out more about Mick Herron...here

• The Blurb...

At Regent's Park, the Intelligence Service HQ, its new chief Claude Whelan is learning the job the hard way.

Tasked with protecting a beleaguered Prime Minister, he's facing attack from all directions: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat's wife, a tabloid columnist, who's crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who's alert for Claude's every stumble. Meanwhile, the country's being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks.

Over at Slough House, the last stop for washed up spies, the crew are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. But collectively, they're about to rediscover their greatest strength - making a bad situation much, much worse.

• Our Review...

I read this book as part of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. See here for details.

This weeks prompt was a book with a sticker on the front. 

London Rules is the 5th of a series of 8 (so far) novels set in slough house (see photo)

Slough house is basically a holding pen for washed up has beens or  the never will be of MI5 who, for one reason or another, can't be sacked but the aim of Slough house is to drive them to quit by making their lives one of mind numbing tedium and zero respect. They are known collectively as the Slow Horses. They are made up of alcoholics, coke addicts, gamblers, grief stricken loners, a disgraced relative of a former famous agent, an agent who is possibly having a mental breakdown and a computer nerd who is, well... just a bit of a dick. 

The man is charge is an ageing, slovenly, farting, smoking, drinking, viscous tongued bully. named Jackson Lamb. And he is our hero! I love the character of Jackson Lamb. He is vastly experienced in the spy world, he's been there, done that, shot the guy in the head and got the T shirt and  he literally knows where all the bodies are buried. He spews vitriol onto his charges and verbally abuses them at every opportunity. However, when someone goes after his band of waifs and strays he springs into action, defending them like a mother lioness ( all the while still being a horrible person.) 

An deadly terrorist attack occurs and suspicion of a leak from Slough House that instigated the attack ensures that Lambs nemesis, MI5 big wig Lady Di Taverner, swoops in to attempt to shut down the Slow Horses and take over first chair of MI5.

All the while the PM is battling to save his job from a Farrage-a-like carpet bagger of a back-bencher who has press support. (Sound familiar?) The PM enlists Claude Whelan the grey, low profile head of MI5 to help. When I picture Claude Whelan in my head I keep getting John Major 🤷

And we are off and running...

I must admit I love the writing of Mick Herron. The plots are fascinating, the political intrigue and quest for power is up there with I Claudius and The Godfather. However the best part is that he intertwines serious spy narratives with an outrageous blend of acerbic, sarcastic and cynical humour. I work in heavy industry on the shop floor and this type of "banter" has been my life for 35 years and he does it so well. Think Jack Dee and Al Murray as low level agents. It is a heady mix that just hits the sweet spot with a sledgehammer, 

Henry Ford once said "If you think you can or if you think you can't your'e probably right." A Mick Herron is exactly that, If you read it as a houmourus book youre 100% right and if you read it as a serious spy thriller again you are 100% right. To be 200% right, now that is a seriously good author. My only regret is that I have read books 1 and now book 5, I just wish I had read them all in in order.

• Selected Quotes...

Circles were traditionally vicious. Catherine suspected other shapes had teeth too, but better PR.

"you're all crazy," Flyte said.
"we prefer the term"Alternatively sane".”

State education was for chemists and the grubbier sort of poet.

The biggest threat Parliament faces is democracy. It's been a necessary evil for centuries, and for the most part we've been able to use it to our advantage. But one fucking referendum later and it's like someone gave a loaded gun to a drunk toddler

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre

Berlin Game by Len Deighton

Blott On The Landscape by Tom Sharpe

NB it is very difficult to recommend books similar in style to Mick Herron's, because I truly believe he is a one off. So I have tried to deconstruct his appeal. The first two recs are out and out classic spy thrillers with all the dark intrigue of Herron but lacking in his trademark wit. 

While the last rec maybe a little out of left field but is an hilarious expose of the political manoeuvrings ruling class similar to Whelan/Lady Di but without Herron's jeopardy of the world of the spy catchers. 

• About The Author...

Mick Herron is the #1 bestselling and award-winning novelist and short story writer, best known for his Slough House thrillers. The series has been adapted into an Apple TV series, Slow Horses, starring Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.

 

Raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, Herron studied English Literature at Oxford, where he continues to live. After some years writing poetry, he turned to fiction, and – despite a daily commute into London, where he worked as a sub editor – found time to write about 350 words a day. His first novel, Down Cemetery Road, was published in 2003. This was the start of Herron’s Zoë Boehm series, set in Oxford and featuring detective Zoë Boehm and civilian Sarah Tucker. The other books in the series are The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers, set in his native Newcastle. During the same period he wrote a number of short stories, many of which appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

 

In 2008, inspired by world events, Mick began writing the Slough House series, featuring MI5 agents who have been exiled from the mainstream for various offences. The first novel, Slow Horses, was published in 2010. Some years later, it was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as one of “the twenty greatest spy novels of all time”.

 

The Slough House thrillers have won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, two CWA Daggers, been published in twenty-five languages. He is also the author of the Zoë Boehm series, soon to be adapted into a major TV series starring Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson. Mick is also the author of the highly acclaimed standalone novels Nobody Walks and The Secret Hours.

Artemis by Andy Weir

 

Rating 4⭐

320 pages

You can buy Artemis...here

You can find out more about the author...here

• The Blurb...

WELCOME TO ARTEMIS. The first city on the moon.
Population 2,000. Mostly tourists.
Some criminals.

Jazz Bashara is one of the criminals. She lives in a poor area of Artemis and subsidises her work as a porter with smuggling contraband onto the moon. But it's not enough.

So when she's offered the chance to make a lot of money she jumps at it. But though planning a crime in 1/6th gravity may be more fun, it's also a lot more dangerous.

When you live on the moon, of course you have a dark side...

• Our review...

I read this book as part of my 52books in 52 weeks challenge. You can find out more this...here. This week's prompt was futuristic technology.  I picked this book on the strength of the author (who had previously wrote The Martian) I did not read the blurb so I expected similar but on the moon as opposed Mars. Imagine my surprise on learning that this novel is very different. it  actually set in a moon city,  albeit a frontier city. It's more like Tombstone than Paris. In addition the protagonist is a woman of Saudi Arabian/Muslim descent and it's written in the first person. Kudos to the author for even thinking of taking that on in the first place. That could be a minefield.

Our heroine is Jazz a porter with a sideline in smuggling. But Jazz is also a genius with mad welding skills amongst other things. One day she is offered an industrial sabotage job that will set her up for life. However there are forces at work that Jazz knows nothing about. As Jazz struggles to stay alive and rectify the situation the stakes get higher and higher. She is forced to seek aid from a rag tag assortment of friends and her semi estranged father. 

While The Martian was Robin Crusoe in space, Artemis is basically Ocean's Eleven in space.

Weir's strength is two fold. Firstly world building. The details of his moon city and environs are both intensive and extensive. He is obviously a space nerd. After reading up a little on the subject apparently the science is also very accurate too. He spent a full year just researching the world building before even thinking about characters and plot. His genre has been described as "Science Fact" because there is not a lot of fiction involved. While this is a big plus in making the novel believable the amount of engineering terms and jargon can slow the flow of a non-sciencey (is that a actually a word?) reader. See first selected quote for example.

His second great quality is blending real life society with all its inherent ills and flaws into his futuristic world. There are prostitutes among the moon hotels, there is crime in the most scientifically advanced place in the universe. It's shiny in parts but your'e not far away from feeling dirty. In that way it's a bit like New York or London or any big city and this also adds to the credibility.

There is humour too although I must say if I didn't know Mr Weir was from the USA, just by reading, I think you could tell he is not a Brit. Not an ounce of sarcasm or cynicism. He seems a very optimistic person. Which I must admit I quite like. 

All in all a lively space heist romp. 

• Selected Quotes...

I hurried to the thermal control box. I unscrewed four bolts and took the access panel off. I yanked out the thermocouple management board and produced a replacement board from my duffel. Svoboda had spent the previous evening piecing it together. Pretty simple, actually. It acted just like the normal board, but it would lie to the computer about the bath temperature, always reporting it low. I inserted it into the slot.

It’s pricey to get here and expensive as hell to live here. But a city can’t just be rich tourists and eccentric billionaires. It needs working-class people too. You don’t expect J. Worthalot Richbastard III to clean his own toilet, do you?

Rudy DuBois is a seriously good-looking man. He’s two meters tall and blond as a Hitler wet dream.

People will trust a reliable criminal more readily than a shady businessman.

But no idiot-proofing can overcome a determined idiot.

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The Return by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes

Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira

One Way by S.J. Morden'

• About The Author...

ANDY WEIR built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time.

He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail.

He lives in California.

The Look by Lee Coates

 

270 pages

Rating... 3⭐

You can buy The Look...Here

You can find out more about Lee Coates...Here

• The Blurb...

Jim is a self-employed web developer living in Cardiff. Successful professionally, the future also looks rosy for his personal life, having recently proposed to his girlfriend, Ffion. However, when the couple decide to celebrate their engagement with his much-loved dad, Callum, Jim’s world is tilted on its axis.

Jim is convinced he spotted his dad staring at him – just for a split second – with a look of pure hatred. Did he imagine it? However, when a series of bizarre and catastrophic events strike Jim’s life in quick succession, he starts to wonder if the look he received from his father could mean something.

Eventually, Callum makes a confession that will lead to the total collapse of Jim’s life as he knows it…

• Our Review...

I read this novel as part of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. For more info click here. This weeks prompt was a novel whose blurb you hadn't read prior to reading. 

The Look is an intriguing and attention holding first novel by Lee Coates, which augers well for future projects. The story is a cross between The Wicker Man and The Omen but set in the very middle class and pretentious Cardiff Bay.  It leaves you with an itch you want to scratch.. Partly because of the ending and partly due to the structure. 

The first half of the book is Jim and Callum's back story. However the main driver for the plot isn't introduced until 70% of the way into the book.. This leaves little time then for the second and third acts. The narrative felt a little front end heavy. A few potential plot strands are laid down but not followed. e.g. the mysterious potential employers, the missing mother, even The Look of the title.  If they are false trails they should still be followed and answered in the climax of the book. As I was hungrily devouring the final chapters I distinctly recall thinking There's only a few pages left, he has got a lot of strands to pull together to get a satisfactory end. 

This is a dark horror/supernatural story that somehow doesn't feel too dark despite some really horrific scenes. I've been wracking my brains as to why it feels 99% but not quite 100%, because as I've said the scenes which are intended to be horrific are indeed very horrific (gonna cancel my opticians appointment! 😟). So not the scenes then. I sort of came gradually to the idea (and this is difficult to articulate for me.) that it feels to me (with the usual caveat, that my opinion is irrelevant) that the authors writing style is slightly out of sync with what he is trying to achieve. I wrote in my notes. " Authors style is light and bouncy, with a use of vocabulary that is varied. It is engaging and just on the right side of the entertaining/verbose border."(see first selected quote for an example.) When reading the narrative it felt sort of...perky. Unlike when I read Cormac McCarthy which makes me feel dread and despair. However I don't know if this perky/bouncy fits with theme of the book.. Like using a precision scalpel, when the job needs a lump hammer.

By the by, one thing that did make the hairs on the back of my old swede jump up. The neighbour in the book is called Steven Staite. Very unusual name. However it was also the name of my neighbour for the first 22years of my life! arrggghhh!!!

There is a lot to admire in this debut novel.

One point which I did think worked out well was that it was written in the !st person from Jim's point of view. Given the (possible) revealing ending, this was a well placed strategy. In addition the author does have a well developed turn of phrase and some of his descriptive lines are very juicy indeed, see selected quotes. With just a few well turned words he can make pictures in your mind.

All in all, I found the novel entertaining and an excellent first step on what will hopefully be a long writing career. It's a good start. He has all the ducks, in this first attempt, next one to line em all up, and knock em dead.

• Selected Quotes...

I can't imagine there was any grisly facet of the atrocities that wasn't overseen by an impromptu documentarian. Anyone with a ghoulish curiosity could easily find out what was happening at any point in the continuum and at most locations within the marquee.

The bruised and pendulous clouds above had descended further,

...the sky was a watercolour artist's paradise, pregnant with varicose-veined purples.

I struggled to comprehend how every single car on display had at least one occupant with their own life and innumerable worries. Some concerns would be major. Others less so. But each and every individual was expected to cope with the constant state of flux inflicted on them from an exponential number of outside influences. Billions of particles inexorably linked by gossamer thin threads. The world was such a complex place. Chaotic.

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

The Omen by David Seltzer

Audrey Rose by Frank D Fellita

• About The Author..

After having two kids, Lee Coates had almost given up on ever fulfilling his dream of writing a novel, spare time being so precious. However, a light-bulb moment occurred during one of his sons’ extracurricular activities. These interminable minutes needn’t be dead time. Lee can be regularly found writing at the side of football pitches, swimming pools and tennis courts in his hometown of Cardiff.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Rating... 4⭐

You Can Buy "Never Let Me Go"...Here

• The Blurb...

Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

• Our Review...

I read this book as part of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. For more info click here. The prompt for this book was "Academic Thriller."

Well, it's mainly set in or related to a boarding school so thats the Academia part covered, but I don't really think I could call it a thriller, it's more of slow burn.

There is a gradual reveal of a twist throughout the book, which is only confirmed in the last third. So in an attempt not to give away too much to start with, the first part of this review will be spoiler free. However because the twist is the book I feel that I will have to mention it. Before this point of no return  occurs there will be a spoiler warning, at which juncture you can, if you feel the need, swerve the rest of the review. 

The book is written in the first person. It is through the eyes of 31 year old Kathy, who reminisces about her boarding school days with her two best friends Ruth and Tommy. Later after leaving the school she crosses paths with them again. It is set in the 1990s. However it slowly becomes apparent that this not your bog standard boarding school. Nobody has a last name, just an initial. No parents visit ever, and the only time the students leave is when they graduate. The students don't really know where the school is and are discouraged from entering the nearby woods. Creative arts are heavily promoted through out the school and a visiting dignitary often takes away the best examples of art and poetry. The students have a vague idea that something is a bit "squiffy" but it generally isn't talked about. The narrative focuses on the three main players. There is huge meaning behind every social inter-action, every conversation is heavily nuanced and has consequences. Much like teenagers the world over then. This slow moving, repressed, exchange is the author's strong suit. He really does it well.. 

SPOILER ALERT

It is gradually insinuated and hinted out through out the book, each chapter adding a little more evidence piece by piece, that Hailsham School was in fact a school for clones. These clones are to be brought to maturity and used to harvest organs for humans. They are like battery farmed chickens. Our protagonists don't know they are clones. They gradually come to suspect it but the surprising thing is they act as if they are resigned to death (or completing as they call it) to be used as spare parts. There is no terror or gnashing of teeth, no armed rebellion, no going on the run. They are stoical lemmings and this is the most disturbing part because in the real world that is us also, We just accept the journey to death without too many questions..

The narrative is very clever in that when we begin to read, the protagonists are normal kids, with the usual emotions, fears, hopes and loves. As the truth slowly dawns, it's too late for us to emotionally back out, we are invested. How can they not be human if they have emotions, fears,, hopes and most of all love. Are we the monsters for using their organs and killing them? Why don't they rebel or run? has a lust for life been genetically modified out of them or like the rest of us. Do they sort of just accept that's their road in life. I can see parallels in the real world here. I sometimes think if I were to be conscripted to fight a war, obviously not going to happen at my age but go with me here, would I have the courage to refuse or just blindly accept my fate to be used as cannon fodder.

The author is very cunning also in using the word students throughout the narrative. That is right up until two of our love triangle confront the now aged headmistress and the word clone is used once and once only., as if in final horrific confirmation of worst fears. It turns out Hailsham school was just a experiment in humane animal husbandry. Give them a nice childhood with a good education before we cut them open and retrieve the bits like a scrapped car.  Although why bother? Battery hen or free range they still end up on the same plate. Battery/free range, clones/students it's just semantics really isn't it? 

I have read a few books that have an all consuming air of outright despair for the human race (most notably Cormac McCarthy books) but NLMG has a creeping, insidious air of sadness in every sentence. So despite it's almost glacial pace, it is two things. heart breaking and thought provoking.

• Selected Quotes...

“We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.”

All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.”

“The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.”

you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs.

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang 

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa 

• About The Author...

KAZUO ISHIGURO was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was given a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.

God's Spy by Juan Gomez Jurado

 

Rating...4⭐

386 pages

You can buy "God's Spy"...here

You can find out more about Juan Gomez Jurado...here

• The Blurb...

In the days following the death of Pope John Paul II, 115 cardinals are called to the Vatican in order to take part in the conclave and elect the new Pope. With Rome under siege to foreign press and thousands of mourners, the last thing it needs is a serial killer on the loose...

Paola Dicanti is a profiler who works with the Italian police. She has been put in charge of profiling serial killers in a department of one - i.e. herself - but so far all her experience of serial killers is theoretical. This is until she is called to the church of Santa Maria in the Vatican state. A cardinal has been found murdered, his eyes destroyed, his hands cut off. It seems that this is not the first victim - another cardinal was found in similar circumstances but the authorities didn't want a scandal.

Recovering from a bitter affair with her boss, Paola begins to build her profile using information from the scene of the crime, from the autopsy, and from forensic evidence. She is helped in this by Anthony Fowler, a priest from the States. But it turns out that Fowler is no ordinary priest - he clearly has links to the CIA, and knows a lot about the serial killer than Dicanti could ever have guessed...

• Our Review...

I read this book as part of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. For more info on this click here. This weeks prompt was a book set in a land locked country. In this case The Vatican, the smallest country in the world.

This is an enjoyable, fast paced thriller. The author knows how to keep his reader interested and has a nice quirky touch with his similies and metaphors. (see selected quotes), this sits nicely alongside his feel for the dramatic. I mean a serial (or maybe spree?) killer let loose among a once in a lifetime papal conclave. That's a pretty dramatic setting isn't it. However, as we progress through the story it becomes clear that the time and place is of vital importance. 

I later learned that this author has a Netflix show called Red Queen. Again it has similar themes of a strong female lead tracking down a serial killer but this time set in Spain. I am now watching this and can also recommend this show,

The characters are well fleshed out and the relationships between the various agencies is intriguing. For example, there is priest who also works directly for the Vatican and the CIA. Now, there's two orgainistions that can both be viewed as moral and immoral simultaneously, and often their objectives are at odds with each other. 

Someone once told me that the struggle for power makes great books, as can be seen in a myriad of diverse stories e.g. The Godfather, Animal Farm, Dune, I Claudius et al. At it's heart this is of that ilk.. The interesting nugget that I drew from this novel is that agencies alter outcomes, but clever people can manipulate agencies. This is how sociopaths can remain anonoymous yet powerful within our society.

The identity of the killer is found out early on but the focus then turns to tracking him down and finding out what led him to become a twisted killer in the first place. 

Sometimes I read to enhance my depth of literaray knowledge. However, this is not one of those occasions. This is not a hefty tome of great import, but it was very entertaining. I'm sure we have all read books like this before, however this is well done and enjoyable. Not as dark as Thomas Harris but not too lightweight either. It was just in the sweet spot. 

• Selected Quotes...

The liquid swirled down her throat and for Paola, who almost never drank, it was like swallowing nails soaked in ammonia.

‘And it’s as worthless as a voting booth in Florida.

She’d learned to recognise the vacant look behind the predator’s eyes. These were men to whom killing came as naturally as eating a meal. There is only one thing in nature remotely similar to that look: the eyes of the white shark. They look without seeing. It is unique, and terrifying.

And here she was, at her desk, not exactly enjoying the dawn, but paying respect to her friend in her own fashion. In fact, from where she sat, the dawn was indeed beautiful: the sun sliding over the Roman hills at a leisurely pace, the rays of sunlight lingering on each building and cornice, saluting the art and beauty of the Eternal City. Each of the day’s shapes and colours made its appearance with such delicacy they seemed to be knocking at the door to ask permission to come in.

‘Maybe talking about it would help.’ ‘Take my word for it: it won’t. It’s never helped in the past. There are some problems that can’t be resolved by talking.’ ‘That’s a curious thing for a priest to say. Unbelievable for a psychologist.

if you stop asking me tricky questions, I can stop telling you plausible lies.’

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

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Juan Gómez-Jurado (Madrid, 1977) is a journalist and author of several highly successful novels, translated into forty languages. The works about the universe of Antonia Scott ( The Patient , Cicatriz , Reina Roja , Loba Negra and Rey Blanco , all of them published in Ediciones B) have become the biggest sales phenomenon in Spanish thrillers and have established their author as one of the greatest exponents of the genre internationally. Amazon Prime is adapting the Red Queen series , in one of the most anticipated audiovisual projects internationally. In 2022 he once again conquered readers with Todo Arde.

He currently collaborates with various media and is co-creator of the podcasts Almighty and Here there are dragons .

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

This review is by guest reviewer...Rebecca Morgan 

Rating...5⭐

You can buy "In Memoriam"...Here

You can find out more about Alice Winn...Here

380 pages

• The Blurb...

In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood. They're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been.

When Gaunt's mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of the trenches. Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

• Our Review...

Written by Alice Winn as her “breakout” novel. Winner of the 2023 Waterstones debut fiction prize and 2023 Waterstones novel of the year. Both very well deserved IMO! Alice Winn has also done an evident amount of research into the time period and WW1 itself and started writing In Memoriam after reading school newspapers from this time. This book is written in a way that really pulls through a lot of emotions. I read it in a week (new baby slowing me down) as I couldn’t put it down. It covers topics such as homosexuality in a time that it was illegal to act on those feelings, set in a boarding school and a war too horrific to imagine. Thankfully, nothing that I can personally relate to. And yet… it was able to evoke genuine wide ranging emotion. One scene set at the battle of the Somme (that shouldn’t be a spoiler, it’s pretty well documented) made me genuinely stressed, feel anger, confusion and bewilderment. I’ve not connected to description like it before (I’m normally all for the conversational writing). Despite its deep and heavy topics, it also brings through comradery and a unique sense of understanding amongst peers both at the school and at the front. The bond between the boys/men prisoner of war camps and the change in men following their time at the front are also captured and conveyed with an almost ugly beauty. One of the novels strengths is the way Winn brings across emotions. There is a point where Ellwood is walking through town while on leave in England and is handed a white feather. The way it’s written and his decision to never walk in civvi clothes again is particularly well done. Also the scene with the Battle of the Somme (I know I mentioned it above but it’s unbelievably good writing) covered so many different emotions in that one moment. Her use of multiple characters perspective and the perspective of the opposition made the picture really full and left me with genuine feels of anticipation and impending dread. She was able to hold me in this space for, what felt like, an uncomfortably long time… needless to say, I took a break at the end of that chapter. The book is written primarily from the perspective of both the main characters, Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt. Both of these characters are very contrasting and have different views of many things, including the war. Gaunt is partly German and Ellwood has a fantastical schoolboy view of glory. By doing this, Winn is not only able to cover several aspects and introduce more characters and relationships, but also able to draw parallels between expectations and reality. For example, the meaning taken in some of the letters from Gaunt to Ellwood from the front is missed until Ellwood is able to experience these things himself, “When Gaunt wrote that they were rotting, Ellwood had not understood - how could sand rot? But the bags weren’t filled with sand anymore…”. It also allows Winn to draw parallels between the impact the war has on such contrasting characters. One minor distraction form me was that throughout the book Ellwood draws on poetry and quotes this out loud, often based on situations that he is in. While this is very cleverly done and is a good way for him to articulate his feelings while remaining (somewhat) subtle, I myself found it difficult to connect at times. I have very limited prior experience

with poetry and therefore some of it could be lost on me but I did find some nks tenuous. Still think it’s very clever though!

• Selected Quote...

It was the Hell you’d feared in childhood, come to devour the children. It was treading over the corpses of your friends so that you might be killed yourself. It was the congealed evil of a century.

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• About The Author...

Alice Winn is the author of In Memoriam. She grew up in Paris and was educated in the UK. She has a degree in English literature from Oxford University. She lives in Brooklyn.