Stockholm Delete

I am a sucker for Swedish noir so I settled in to read Stockholm Delete by Jens Lapidus with enthusiasm. Disappointment followed. It’s a legal/lawyer lead plot with a few twists and turns but it turns into more of an ordeal than a pleasure. Either the characters aren’t well enough developed or they just aren’t captivating.

This is the first part of a trilogy, I’ll pass on the next two parts.

2/5

The Last Hours

I used to be a big fan of Minette Walters, eagerly devouring each of her chilling psycho thrilled. But that was a good while ago and I haven’t read her for ages, with more edgy American and Scandi authors replacing her.

The Last Hours breaks with Walters past work, it is a historical novel set in the time of the Black Death. Lady Anne is the compassionate and strong willed mistress of the Devilish (yes really!) estate which is quarantined to protect against the plague after its brutal master has succumbed to the disease. The Last Hours combines the evolving relationship between Lady Anne and her mysterious steward Thaddeus with a vivid description of the spread of the plague and the wasteland surrounding the estate.

It is quite readable but not outstanding, the plot meanders in a somewhat predictable way to a climax which is then snatched away with a “to be continued”. I am not sure that I will bother to follow this through to conclusion.

3/5

The Golden House

I never really fell in love with Salman Rushdie, Midnights Children passed me by, The Satanic Verses I found underwhelming and I couldn’t understand the outrage or ovation that it received from different quarters. So I started Rushdie’s latest The Golden House with little expectation, which meant that I had a very pleasant surprise.

Nero Golden, a wealthy Indian, immigrates to New York from Mumbai with his 3 sons in curious circumstances. As the novel unfolds, the back story in Mumbai becomes clearer while the impending sense of disaster grows. The story switches between the challenges in adapting to New York life faced by Nero’s sons, the machinations around Nero himself and what happened in Mumbai. There are strong resonances with recent political events both in the US and India. The climax, while somewhat predictable, is compelling – this is a literary page turner.

If, like me, you haven’t read Rushdie for a while The Golden House is well worth giving a try – you might even want to go back to some of those old hits to give them a second read.

4/5

 

Dinner at the Centre of the Earth

Dinner at the Centre of the Earth by Nathan Englander is intriguing, sensitive and difficult to put down.

The central character is an unnamed prisoner in a secret Israeli prison. Gradually Englander shares the story of an immigrant who spies for Mossad, betrays his country because of his dismay at some of it’s actions and becomes a non-person. It’s difficult to know who are the good guys in this shifting muddle of loyalties and it’s only as you near the end that you think you know what is going on.

It’s easy to groan at the thought of another novel about Israel and Palestine but don’t, this is a humorous and sad novel that is well worth reading whatever your views on the conflict.

4/5

The Word is Murder

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz is a clever riff on the the Watson and Holmes meme. Horowitz, who has previously written House of Silk an authorised new Sherlock Holmes novel, puts himself in the Watson role alongside Hawthorne, an ex Scotland Yard homicide detective with a mysterious past.

Diana Cowper walks into an undertaker’s shop and makes plans for her own funeral, a few hours later she is found murdered. Horowitz finds himself becoming Hawthorne’s chronicler and publicist as Hawthorne sets out to solve the murder before Scotland Yard. His reluctant and tetchy relationship with Hawthorne provides a neat subplot. The path of their investigations is reminiscent of the Holmes stories until Horowitz strikes out on his own.

This is a good read, the plot device of Horowitz playing himself and peppering the story with some personal details works well. The ending is very Holmesian and leaves room for a follow on novel with the same characters.

3.5/5

 

 

 

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan is a remarkable book, it tells the story of Pino Lella’s teenage years at the end of the war, based upon a series of interviews that Sullivan had with Lella towards the end of his life.

Lella’s war starts with him acting as a mountain guide/courier helping jews to escape from occupied Italy into Switzerland. He is “conscripted” into the German army by his family as a way of keeping him out of the from line and works as a driver and translator for one of the commanders of the 3rd Reich in Italy, this privileged position allows him to spy for the partisans.

As the war draws to a close and German forces are retreating the story climaxes in the chaos of the lawless days of retribution.

If ever a novel illustrates that fact can be stranger and more exciting than fiction, this is it. From early on it is captivating, terrifying and thrilling.

4.5/5

To Kill the President

To Kill the President by Sam Bourne (Jonathan Freedland) is an incredibly timely and prescient novel.

There is no mention of the current US President but his persona runs through this novel,  you will recognise the Bannon, Priebus and Ivanka characters as well. This is crazy, scary fiction made more so by the fact that it is so believable in current circumstances.

The plot starts with a late night panic as the President endeavours to launch a nuclear strike against North Korea, well that could never happen in real life or could it?

You can’t put this down, it’s perfect holiday reading. It’s even more delicious if you have been reading Freedland’s columns for the Guardian over the last year

4/5

The Penn Cage series

The Penn Cage books by Greg Iles are a cracking series.

I’ve just finished reading the last 3 volumes, The Natchez Trilogy, which build to a superb climax.  The series is based around Penn Cage, a lawyer in Natchez, Mississippi, uncovering the racial history of the south, the dark past of his home town and some secrets within his own family.

This is pacy, dark, tense reading and difficult to put down. If you like James Lee Burke (one of my top favourites) then you will enjoy this series. It’s worth starting at the beginning.

4.5/5

The Susan Effect

The Susan Effect by Peter Hoeg is a political/conspiracy thriller set in Denmark.

Susan has a unique ability to get people to tell her their innermost secrets which she shares with her husband and their two children. When the family becomes involved in a life changing scandal in India she agrees to use her ‘power’ to gather information on the Future Committee for a secretive and sinister government fixer in return for getting the charges against her family dropped. Things rapidly get out of control as she starts to unearth the final reports of the Future Committee and the conspiracy behind it.

This is a rather far-fetched but quite readable book if you like conspiracy, mayhem and a bit of near magical super powers.

2.5/5

Post-Truth

Post-Truth by Matthew d’Ancona is both timely and thought provoking.

In recent months we have been bombarded with allegations of “Fake News”, “the politics of fear”, “alternative facts” and wherever you sit on the political spectrum at the very least some economy in truthfulness (although nearly always from those that you already disagree with).

This is a short tour through the genesis of the phenomena that d’Ancona describes as Post-Truth written in an easily readable academic style. Starting in 2016 it follows both the Trump campaign in the US election and the Leave campaign in the UK’s EU referendum and explores how emotion and identity have replaced truth in political discourse in both countries. d’Ancona highlights the collapse of trust in experts and facts and the way that social media has magnified the impact of misinformation, conspiracy theories and ultimately Fake News.

Post-Truth is a disturbing read, the reader is left shocked at the speed with which our discussion of events has been polluted by lies and misinformation in the last 2 years. Of course the bubble effect means that most who read this book will already agree with it while those who the reader might think ‘ought’ to read it will dismiss it as a crazy liberal conspiracy theory – that may be an indication of the long journey we face to get back to a norm of debate based on fact.

4.5/5