Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Once you've started with the Cazalets, it is hard to stop. I found myself following on from The Light Years with the second book in the series, Marking Time. This is definitely much darker than the first, beginning as it does with the start of the Second World War.
    At first war has little effect on the family - Hugh must carry on helping run the family business, particularly now the Brig is going blind. Edward is too old for active service but does his bit at an airfield, giving him irregular hours and limited leave - a perfect cover for his continued affair with Diana. Rupert enlists with the Navy and this seems a safe corner in the war effort until Dunkirk, where he is listed as missing.
    Clary is the only one of the family who dares to believe her father is alive while her step-mother, Zoe, has to cope with bringing her daughter into the world alone. With the blitz getting into full swing in London, the various family groupings decide Home Place is the best location to hunker down and wait out the war.
    Most of the novel is told from the points of view of the three daughters: Louise, Polly and Clary who are growing up. Polly has to come to terms with her mother's possibly fatal illness, an illness she is not supposed to know about. Clary continues to hope against hope, but has matured enough to befriend Zoe and help out with baby Juliet.
    Louise wins a place at a drama school and her parents allow her a year to make real her dream of acting, otherwise she is doomed to a sensible office job. She experiences miserable digs that are a stark contract to the comfortable life she leads at home - the young actors are half starved and have no heating throughout the winter.
    Louise is probably one of the more interesting characters in the book as she is determined to experience life and avails herself of every opportunity. Even her friends are interesting, particularly Stella, who comes from a family of artistic and intellectual London Jews.  Louise meets a much older man she is attracted to, the portrait painter Michael Hadleigh, but to contemplate marriage at her age will surely put an end to her theatrical aspirations.
   For many characters though, Marking Time is just that, a book about waiting. Like the first book, it has some very funny moments with the younger Cazalets amid the more poignant ones: Rachel's growing love for her friend Sid, Sybil's illness and the arrival of Archie, Rupert's art school friend. Closing with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, the series is set for cranking up the tension as the war grinds into its more decisive phases.
    Howard is a master at recreating the period through her intimately-portrayed characters and realistic dialogue. Each character has their own version of the war, their own private anguishes, but brought together they treat the reader to a very detailed picture of what the war was like for civilians in England at the time.
 

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

I was rather pleasantly surprised to discover that Elizabeth Jane Howard had written a fifth book in the Cazalet series. With All Change just coming out, I decided to revisit the earlier books, thinking I'll just give The Light Years a quick glance through before getting stuck into the new book. However no sooner had I opened The Light Years up on page one than I was completely immersed in the lives of an English extended family over two summers just before World War Two. I just had to read on.
    The Cazalets are a family of three brothers: Hugh and Edward, who came through World War One, and their younger brother Rupert, who was too young to enlist. Their parents, the Brig and the Duchy, live at Home Place, a rambling country house in Sussex. The Cazalets' wealth is based on the timber industry with Hugh and Edward working for the family firm. Rupert has avoided joining them because he aims to make painting his living and teaches art to support his family.
    There is a huge cast of characters, helpfully outlined in a family tree at the start of the book, plus a list of the relatives and servants that make up the different family households. It's a bit like a Tolstoy novel really, with the story jumping from person to person and war looming in the background. While some big things do happen - there's infidelity, children planning to run away from home, unrequited love and unexpected pregnancies - it is the little dramas that make the story interesting and also explain such a lot about what life was like at the time.
    The children are particularly interesting, often left out of the loop when adults discuss a possible war, yet they are amazingly perceptive and entertaining. The older children - particularly Polly, Louise and Christopher have to deal with some pretty big issues. Polly, Hugh's daughter, becomes particularly worried about the likelihood of war but can't share her fears; Edward's daughter Louise wants desperately to be an actress and feels uncomfortable around her father; Christopher, her cousin has had a terrible time at his school, vows to run away and should there come a war will be a conscientious objector.
    The young children, self-important Neville and outspoken Lydia add some hilarious dialogue. The servants also get a look in with a budding romance between the widowed cook, Mrs Cripps, and Tonbridge, the unhappily married chauffeur. And the governess (the girls aren't sent to school!), Miss Milliment, is a terrific creation - in spite of her plain looks and her ancient and often grubby clothing, she has such a fund of erudite knowledge that she soon commands respect from those she converses with.
    The Light Years leaves the reader at the point of Chamberlain having reached a peace agreement with Hitler and everyone breathing a huge sigh of relief that a fragile peace seems likely to continue. It sets the scene perfectly for the next book, Marking Time, and the inevitable announcement that Britain is at war with Germany.

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler

A Patchwork Planet is the first novel I discovered by Anne Tyler and I enjoyed it so much that I have devoured everything of hers I've come across ever since. As in many of her books, it features a main character who is a little on the edges of society, in this case, family black sheep, Barnaby Gaitlin.
    Barnaby has a failed marriage behind him and before that a stint at a reform school, having been caught breaking into other people's houses. Unlike his mates who looked for money or alcoholic consumables, Barnaby would sit in people's living rooms and go through photograph albums or pocket small ornaments.
    Being a Gaitlin, there was money to pay off the victims of his crimes but the years following his early misdemeanours have done nothing to earn back the respect of his well-to-do family. He lives in a bedsit, sees his daughter only once a month and works as a manual labourer for Rent-a-back, a company that does odd jobs for the elderly and lonely.
    But maybe it is just that Barnaby hasn't met his 'angel' yet. All the Gaitlin males have encountered an 'angel' who has put them on the right track towards prosperity. Grandfather Gaitlin's angel told him that what women wanted was a model of themselves which they could dress in the outfit that they were to wear that day. The Twin-form launched what was to become the business that made his fortune.
    But Barnaby doesn't seem all that bothered about what his family hope for him. As we know he is insatiably curious about people - he follows a woman at the train station who agrees to deliver a package for a stranger. He becomes so obsessed with her that he strikes up a relationship with her, particularly after she somehow helps him when his ex-wife decides he shouldn't see his daughter Opal any more. Could this Sophia be Barnaby's angel?
    As we wait to find out, we see how much of an angel Barnaby is himself. His long list of clients can be demanding, calling the agency at all hours to clear the snow from driveways, collect groceries or put up Christmas trees to impress visiting grandchildren.
    Tyler spins a terrific yarn about a man trying his best to be a good person yet is held back by his obligations to family and his tendency to disappoint. Her characterisation is nothing short of brilliant - Tyler has a talent for quirky old people and Barnaby, who narrates the story, is a warmly entertaining companion. There is plenty of humour too - Tyler has that knack of being able to write a feel good novel that is also poignant and has a lot to say about family expectations and how society regards success. This isn't the first Anne Tyler novel I have been happy to revisit, and I am sure it won't be the last.

Under the Paw by Tom Cox

Occasionally I permit myself to read a cat book. Last year I read A Street Cat Named Bob - a wonderful true story about how a man's life is turned round by his relationship with a very special cat. The book tugged the heartstrings so much that every so often I check out Bob's Facebook page to make sure that he and his owner, James Bowen, are still OK.
    Under the Paw is far more relaxed reading, recounting Tom Cox's life as what he calls a 'cat man' - from his childhood relationships with Felix, Monty and Daisy to his later household of six cats, with its inherent dramas, mishaps and moments of slap-stick.
    I enjoyed this book for two main reasons. The first is because I  empathised with Tom's odd little cat man habits, like going for a walk and stopping to talk to the cats he came across. I also understand the emptiness he felt when he was at a stage in his life when he couldn't practically keep a cat. We've all been there. It's not pretty.
    The second reason is because the book is very funny. Tom, a rock critic, is clearly an experienced journalist and uses humour to capture that tenuous relationship cat owners have with their pets.
    Interspersed with the story of living with cats are 'Random Selections from the Cat Dictionary'. It was nice at last to have the right words for so many things I have a close personal experience with. Such as: Gribbly bits (the bits of jellied cat meat that escape from the bowl and weld themselves to hardwood floors and kick boards); Sucking the nettle (to lick one's lips with distaste in the aftermath of an unpleasant or demeaning experience); Purple mist (the special kind of unforgiving cat anger reserved for an owner who has experimented by attaching a lead to its collar); or Argle (the noise that accompanies the eradication  - or attempted eradication - of an ear mite).
   The section on 'How to Feed Six Sodding Cats: Instructions for Housesitters' was particularly funny and seemed to capture the key characteristics of all six cats and how they interact. Clearly the 'Troubled Sensitive Artistic Black Cat' is the elder statesman of the household and it is this cat, known as The Bear, who Tom has to work hardest to gain trust and affection. Tom's attempts to understand what motivates The Bear and his sudden need to disappear for weeks at a time adds all the drama of fairly intense sort of novel.
   If you are left wondering about the long term effects of such an involved relationship with one's pets, there are Tom's follow-up books to peruse as well: 'Talk to the Paw' and 'The Good, the Bad and the Furry'. Living with six cats certainly isn't for everyone (I tend towards having just the one at a time) but if someone has to do it I am glad it is Tom Cox, as he writes a cat book that is hugely entertaining.

The Opposite of Falling by Jennie Rooney

In Jennie Rooney's novel, The Opposite of Falling, flight is a motif that connects three characters. Ursula Bridgewater has, in her early twenties, been jilted by her fiancé, a man with no substance according to Ursula's brother. Her reaction is to travel. It is the 1860s and Thomas Cook is beginning to take tour parties abroad.
    Ursula begins quietly with a trip to Wales and is encouraged by the friends she makes to travel again. Restless and unfulfilled when she is at home, travel becomes something to exercise her brain - if only she could stop writing those letters to her ex-fiance, now happily married and a father of two.
     Ten years later, Ursula is excited at the idea of another Thomas Cook expedition, this time to the United States, but who should she take with her? Having helped her maid, Mavis, into private enterprise, Ursula decides a sensible replacement would be the ideal travel companion.
    Sally Walker has been teaching at the convent which took her in on the death of her mother, but has blotted her copybook with Sister Thomas. She jumps at the chance to work for Ursula, who is kindly and treats her like an intelligent person. Sally is a hopeless shrinking violet, though, for although she has thoughts and desires, she is quite unable to express them.
    On the other side of the Atlantic Toby O'Hara grows up with the memory of his daring mother flying  a bat-inspired contraption built by his father - a toy-maker and would-be aviator - a flight that ended in her death. While flying machines are put aside by his dad, Toby as a teenager is drawn to ballooning and other air-born possibilities.
    The three characters meet in Niagara, to a background score of rushing water and it is here that they all discover how to take flight in a more metaphorical sense. This may make the novel seem overly contrived, and in a sense it is all about how its characters find what they really want in life and develop the courage to reach for it.
    Fortunately the narration of The Opposite of Falling is quirky and charming in an E M Forster kind of way that is very engaging. Rooney uses a detached style of writing about her characters that is slightly old-fashioned, rather than the stream of consciousness, present tense story-telling prevalent in many modern novels. (I enjoy this too as it gives a very immediate feel to a story.)
    You have to be really good at your craft to make a traditional style like this work and Rooney never puts a foot wrong. This is a small book, but very polished and poised. I liked it a lot.

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

I'd read before of the drought that had Britain in its grip during the summer of 1976 (Anne Berry's The Water Children), but hadn't realised water was so short that the government brought in The Drought Act with fines for water theft and which had Londoners collecting water from a standpipe. This heatwave makes a superb backdrop for tense human activity, and in O'Farrell's novel this is the moment when the Riordan family's past catches up with them.
    Recently retired bank manager, Robert Riordan walks out the door of his London house and doesn't return, telling Gretta, his wife of thirty years, he is going to buy a newspaper. A time of crisis like this is a time for a family to pull together, but Gretta's three children each have difficulties of their own.
    Michael Francis has problems with his marriage - he had a fling with a fellow teacher and his wife has taken up studies at the Open University, shorn off her hair and scarcely talks to him. When he gets home exhausted from a day at the chalk-face, he finds he often has to take over child-minding and meal preparation, while his wife is studying in the attic or about to rush out the door to meet her fellow classmates.
    His sister, Monica, has never wanted children, which caused her previous marriage to end, so you think having a ready-made family with an older husband and his two daughters would be ideal. The trouble is the girls hate her and want their dad to be with their mother again. When the cat gets run over and Monica has to have it put down, the animosity intensifies. But returning to her childhood home to help Gretta, while getting her away from a hostile situation, brings back a lot of baggage Monica has being ignoring for years.
    Much of this baggage has to do with her first husband and her younger sister. Aoife was a late baby and a difficult child. At school she suffered from an extreme case of dyslexia, and was labelled stupid. Leaving home as soon as she could, Aoife has landed in New York where she is an unpaid photographer's assistant and has a draft dodging boyfriend named Gabe. She is unable to tell either her boss or Gabe about her problem with reading and this is all about to blow up in her face when Michael Francis phones and tells her to return home.
   The three children gather around Gretta, but it takes some time for anyone to have the wherewithal to enact a plan. Gretta has her own demons - her superstitions and her old-fashioned Catholic ideas about how her children should live, leading to numerous disagreements, to say nothing of the issues gnawing at each them regarding their personal lives. And then there's the heat.
    Eventually it is what happened in their father's past life that will lead them back to Ireland, the scene of numerous family holidays and a secret that Gretta has been harbouring since her marriage.
    O'Farrell is a wonderful storyteller. Each of her characters, in spite of obvious flaws, wins over our sympathy - Monica has taken a brave step to decide not to have children at a time when motherhood was considered the norm for married women. Michael Francis is clearly a good person, or tries to be, often at the expense of his own happiness. And you can only have pity for Aoife, clearly a talented woman bearing the stigma of illiteracy at a time when dyslexia was not understood.
    Many readers will recognise the family dynamics, sibling spats and allegiances, the misundestandings and distorted memories, because O'Farrell does this sort of thing so well. She also sensitively portrays the period - when women were still establishing their rights, still learning to 'have it all', when traditional marriages and roles still held sway over people's ambitions. This material could have been leaden and preachy but in O'Farrell's deft hands it is just part of a terrific story with a nicely turned ending. Magic! 

A Pale Horse by Charles Todd

A Pale Horse starts promisingly enough with a body found by a bunch of Yorkshire schoolboys, propped up in the atmospheric setting of a ruined abbey, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a gas mask. As you might remember with the Inspector Rutledge series, we are in the years following the First World War, so gas masks were familiar items and reminders of a terrible human carnage.
    The dead man takes a while to be identified, but near the body is a book about alchemy, full of incantations in Latin, a peculiar book to be sure, but inscribed on the flyleaf is the name of the boys' school master, Albert Crowell. Crowell was a conscientious objector during the war, and also a rival with Madsen, the local policeman,  for the affections of Mrs Crowell. She has become disfigured by a scar, the result of a drunk's stumbling onto her path. This gives Madsen a potential victim, for no one has seen the drunk for several weeks, and wouldn't it be nice so stitch Crowell up for the murder.
    Meanwhile, Rutledge has been asked to find out what has happened to the oddly named Gaylord Partridge, missing for several months from his home in Uffington, Berkshire. Nestled beneath the hill bearing the ancient giant figure of a white horse, Partridge's house is one of a cluster built originally for lepers, although no such people have ever lived here. Instead they seem to be occupied by lepers of another sort, the kind of people needing to lie low. For instance, Mrs Cathcart is terrified of her ex-husband; Quincey, a remittance man, had promised never to return to England; Mr Allen has consumption and wants somewhere quiet to die.
    After foiling Madsen's attempt at sending Crowell down for murder, Rutledge makes a connection between Partridge and a Gerald Parkinson, who abandoned his home and daughters after the death of his wife. A scientist investigating potentially lethal gases to be used in warfare, he was on the watch list of Martin Deloran the War Office. Deloran doesn't want the police digging up facts about the dodgier activities the War Office may have had a hand in, causing some awkward moments for Rutledge's unpleasant boss, Chief Superintendent Bowles.
    Rutledge must look into Partridge's past and the reasons for his wife's death and the lingering hatred harboured by his remaining family. His investigations will dredge up the horrors of gas attacks during the war, and of course, lurking in Rutledge's mind is the voice of Hamish McLeod, the fellow officer Rutledge had shot for disobeying an order - the ghost that continues to haunt him.
    This is the tenth Inspector Rutledge novel, and it would be nice to see Rutledge moving on from his terrible wartime experiences. Still it is only 1920, but perhaps his acquaintance with Meredith Channing, who has impressive powers of insight, offers some hope.
     In many ways this is a book of two halves. The first half concerns the Yorkshire discovery and the Crowells, which is all quite interesting. Rutledge does a clever job of proving Albert Crowell's innocence. But once he's ensconced in Berkshire there seems a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the cottagers under the white horse, and Partridge's family members nearby and his old stately home. This all got a bit monotonous sadly, and was disappointing after reading some excellent books in this series. Let's hope it's just a temporary blip, and further titles live up to the promise of the earlier books.

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

It is easy to pick up a Maisie Dobbs novel, because you can be assured it will be a pleasant, diverting read, which will take you to a new aspect of between the wars Britain, with plenty of mystery, murder and drama thrown in. Even if Miss Dobbs could do with a good shaking at times. It must be all that yoga and her carefully developed sensitivity towards what lies beneath the surface of people. This is what makes her such a clever investigator, I know, but it seems to come at the expense of a sense of humour.
    Anyway, enough said. I still managed to romp through this book so it obviously held my interest.  In Among the Mad, Maisie and Billy are on their way to meet a client, when Maisie's attention is caught by a war veteran sitting on the pavement who has obviously fallen on hard times. Sensing a desperation in his manner, she is just turning to talk to him, when he blows himself up with a grenade. Fortunately, all she receives is a bump on the head, for soon she is immersed in the case.
    Letters have been received by the government referring to the death as a warning that it must take more care of ex-soldiers who have no jobs or anyone to care for them - or else! Maisie's name is mentioned, and Special Branch are taking an interest, under charismatic Scotsman, Chief Superintendent MacFarlane.  Maisie is called in to assist, not only as a witness, but to give psychological insight. D I Stratton is part of the team as well - he's appeared in previous books, and if you remember he has long carried something of a torch for Maisie.
    Examining the letters, Maisie suspects a returned serviceman who has suffered trauma and might well be an ex-patient of a mental institution. She uses her old nursing contacts to visit a psychologist in one such asylum, who offers a pessimistic view of what life can be like for those released from their care with no home to go to.
    When several dogs fall victim to a poison gas attack at the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, it appears the letter writer has chemical expertise as well. Maisie's investigations take her to a place called Mulberry in Berkshire where some 'hush-hush' type experiments involving poison gas are conducted. It seems the Germans weren't the only ones doing this. MI5 are on the spot and there is an interesting power struggle between MacFarlane and a creepy MI5 operative named Urquhart.
    Meanwhile Billy's wife Doreen has fallen into a terrible depression over the death of her daughter from diphtheria. She needs medical help, but ends up receiving some draconian treatments at an asylum. And Maisie's socialite friend Priscilla is frequently teary-eyed and turning to drink because her dear little boys remind her too much of her brothers lost in the trenches.
    We are truly among the mad in this story, and Winspear does well at showing just how easy it is to reach that tipping point between sanity and mental illness. If this sounds a bit grim, she cleverly builds the pace with plenty of dashing about in police cars, and the actions of the Special Branch team. There is a desperation in their work, for a madman capable of using gas could kill thousands of revellers celebrating New Year's Eve and the hours are rushing by.
    There's also a flicker of interest between Maisie and Stratton, and Maisie discovers that she's finally over long lost love, Simon. But whether anything else will develop with Stratton will have to wait for another Maisie Dobbs adventure.
    All in all, this is a fairly satisfying mystery, although there are a few problems in the plotting that I wondered about. The reason for Maisie being mentioned in the first letter seemed feeble; and why weren't more leads followed up to discover the connection between the veteran with the grenade and the letter writer? But these minor quibbles don't really detract from what is a very engaging story, and I am sure I shall read more in the series, because now and then Maisie Dobbs is just the ticket.

The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons

This is one of those charming books, rather like Mr Pettigrew's Last Stand, which turn up every so often and make you ask: why aren't there more books like this?
    The Gallery of Vanished Husbands really only concerns one husband; in this case it is Juliet Montague's.  George is an emigre from Hungary, who turns up just after the war to work at a London optometrist's where he gives Juliet an eye test. Juliet at seventeen is a good Jewish daughter, and being somewhat bored working at her father's optical lens making factory, is ready for the next great adventure - marriage.
    Unfortunately, George turns out to be a gambler, and when their youngest is no more than a baby, he disappears for good, taking with him for reasons known only to himself, a painted portrait of Juliet as a child. Juliet is left with two children to raise alone, and the title of a deserted wife, aguna, making her something of an embarrassment - a woman who cannot keep a husband.
    The story begins with Juliet visiting London on her thirtieth birthday, money in her purse for a much needed refrigerator. Passing artists displaying their work in Bayswater, she finds herself talking to Charlie, offering suggestions, for although she has no talent as an artist, Juliet has a critic's eye. Instead of the refrigerator, she commissions Charlie to paint a new portrait of herself.
    So begins a friendship and business partnership, and Juliet, eventually giving up her job at her father's factory, is thrust into the heady London art world of the 1960s. Earning the concern and disapproval of her parents and their Jewish neighbourhood,  Juliet becomes owner of Wednesday Art Gallery, where she is immersed in the bohemian world of Charlie and his young artist friends.
    It is through Charlie that she meets Max, once a war artist whose grim experiences have left him something of a recluse, living in a cottage in the Dorset countryside, painting birds. Juliet sells his work, because it gives her that 'tingle', in spite of it being more figurative than contemporary. She can never persuade Max to appear at exhibition openings at the gallery and eventually takes her children to Dorset one summer holiday in order to meet him.
    The novel weaves the slow development of their relationship, with Juliet's eventual determination to track down her husband to ask for a divorce, taking her surprisingly to California. While her relationships are the cornerstones of the plot, each chapter features a new portrait of Juliet. Another thread is the difficulty of fitting into a traditional culture and being a good mother while developing a career. The legacy of the war and the Jewish Holocaust are shadows from the past, while the crazy 1960s create daunting new challenges for its characters as well.
     This is a wonderful book with a different view of the time, and has an engaging heroine in Juliet, who seems at first such an ordinary girl, but who manages to lead an extraordinary life. If you are interested in art, the book offers a wonderful glimpse of how a picture comes together, and if you are not, you may be tempted to give art another go to see what gives you that 'tingle'.

A Little Murder by Suzette A Hill

If Barbara Pym had decided to write a murder mystery, it might have turned out a bit like A Little Murder, with its drolly amusing characters and persistent digs at ‘polite’ society. The murder in question concerns the death of aging social butterfly and high-class good time girl, Marcia Beasley, found shot dead in her home, naked with a coal scuttle rammed on her head.
    Marcia’s sensible niece, Rosy Gilchrist, is horrified of course – not that the two were ever close as attested by Auntie’s will, which left everything to a home for donkeys. The story takes place eight years after World War II, and Marcia’s wartime history soon rears its head. Perhaps not surprisingly Marcia used her glamorous looks in an undercover role, under the bed covers that is, worming secrets out of the enemy.
    At first you might be forgiven for thinking that Rosy is going to do a bit of sleuthing to get to the bottom of things. A dinner with Marcia’s ex-husband, and a visit from a fellow wartime spy, calling himself Richard Whittington, bring to Rosy’s attention Marcia’s surprising wartime career. But while she may have been an affective spy, Marcia was also known to be reckless.
    Whittington reveals that Marcia fell for one of her pillow talkers, sabotaging an op behind enemy lines. Could this be the reason for her murder, or was it a need to suppress potentially dangerous secrets? Rosy, well aware of the latent scandal in her aunt’s past, would like the whole sorry episode to evaporate. But Whittington and another chum from the war years, dachshund-toting, cigar-smoking Vera, are sure Marcia must have left an incriminating document in Rosy’s care – if only anyone knew where to find it.
    The novel is more comedy of manners than edge of the seat whodunit with a cast of farcical characters, including fastidious Felix, florist to royalty and his supercilious special friend, Cedric. There are the vapid Saunders who throw wonderful parties, and Marica’s dreary neighbours the Gills, who bore everyone with fundraising whist drives. Hill throws in just enough murders to keep you turning the pages, and while the pace might have been improved with a little less of the Felix and Cedric banter, the wittily stylish prose and 1950s London setting add plenty of entertainment.

Secrets of the Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford

Initially I wasn't sure how much I'd like Secrets of the Sea House. The main character, Ruth, has an awkward personality - she's inclined to lose her temper and has panic attacks. And then there's the mermaid theme that runs through the book, which could so easily have dragged the novel into the realm of fanciful nonsense.
    Mermaids first crop up when Ruth and her husband, Michael, move into the Sea House, a rambling old manse on the remote Scottish island of Harris. They are renovating the house to turn it into a B & B. While replacing some floorboards, builders discover the tiny body of a newborn baby, born with a mermaid-like tail appendage instead of legs. The body is over a hundred years old.
    Fortunately Ruth has a degree in zoology - she does drawings for academic publications - and knows just who to ask about this strange phenomenon, and receives a logical, scientific explanation. This was when I breathed a sigh of relief and really began to enjoy the book.
    When Ruth discovers she is pregnant, she and Michael are excited, but under pressure to finish the renovations before the end of the tourist season. Luckily Michael's brother, Jamie, and his new partner come to stay and chip in. But Ruth flips when she senses a ghostly presences in the house, and still has lingering bitterness about her own past. She has had a terrible childhood, her mother having drowned in a London canal, leaving her to be brought up in a care home. Is is possible that she will ever be a good parent?
   In the background are a host of charming island characters, particularly their neighbour, Angus John, who brings them milk every morning in a whiskey bottle. Meanwhile Ruth is determined to find out more about Reverend Alexander Ferguson, the minister who lived at The Sea House in the mid 1800s.
   The Harris parish was Alexander's first as a young minister in his mid-twenties and he has left good friends in Edinburgh and a trail of broken hearts. For Alexander has astonishing good looks, with his black hair and sharp cheek bones, descended as his grandmother would have it, from the Selkies, or seal people.
    Alexander is fascinated with Darwin's ideas of evolving species, and the old stories about mermaids, together with some fairly recent sightings, have made him obsessed with a theory to link humans with aquatic species, such as seals. With his ascetic habits and head full of notions, it comes as a jolt when Alexander has to take heed of his parishioners - particularly when he stumbles across Moira, a young girl with no home and ill from living rough.
    Moira's family has been victims of the clearances and the nasty Lord Marstone. Like other landowners turning to sheep farming, he has seen countless crofters packed off to Canada, or forced to eke out an existence on rocky or mashy land. Many died. Things get complicated when Lord Marstone's pretty daughter, Katriona, turns up at the manse wanting lessons in Gaelic.
    The novel weaves together the narratives of Ruth, Alexander and Moira, to create an absorbing story that delves into the past with threads describing the science of the day, and age-old folklore. The characters with their particular foibles, are well rounded and interesting, each learning some difficult truths and being all the better for it. In the end, I couldn't put the book down, and the bibliography hints at some interesting further reading on the clearances and legends of the sea folk.

White Horse by Alex Adams

I don't often read dystopian novels - they can be a bit grim - but they are often compelling. White Horse ticks both those boxes for sure. Set over two time periods, beginning eighteen months apart, the story chronicles events following the spread of a terrible virus. Its flu-like symptoms can kill very quickly, or alternatively they can alter human form, turning people into monsters.
    The story is narrated from the point of view of Zoe. Before the virus she's mentally fragile, unable to get her act together since the death of her husband several years before. She works as a janitor at a pharmaceutical laboratory in New York, mopping floors and cleaning out the cages of the lab mice. It is obvious there's some weird stuff  happening here. Those injections her boss, the remote George P Pope, gives her - are they really just flu shots?
    Things take a turn for the worse when a mysterious urn appears in Zoe's living room. Her handsome new therapist, Dr Rose, tells her to open the urn, but Zoe hesitates, imagining some kind of Pandora's box episode. After all, is it a coincidence that soon after the urn's arrival, people in her apartment block began to get sick?
    The storyline flips constantly between this first period (DATE: THEN) and those labelled DATE: NOW where Zoe is making a difficult journey by bicycle, through Italy, heading for Greece. All around her the world is a post-apocalyptic nightmare. There is very little fresh food, and towns and cities, where supplies still can be found, are beset with dangers - survivors willing to kill for any fresh meat.
    At times feeling ill herself, Zoe is aware that she might be succumbing to the virus, but still offers to rescue an English girl, Lisa, who is also frequently sick. As if things couldn't get any worse, they collect another fellow traveller, a nasty piece of work who is only ever named as the Swiss. He has an agenda that is only slowly revealed, and which can only mean harm to Zoe.
   The backwards and forwards plotting feeds out just enough information to allow the reader to gradually fill in the gaps, as well as making you eager to read the next chapter. The doom-laden storyline makes you fearful for Zoe, and it takes a lot of restraint not to flip to the back to check that she will be OK. As I said this is a very compelling story, a little reminiscent of Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy. As it turns out White Horse is also the first book of a trilogy but, feeling exhausted from the harrowing events of the first book, I am happy to take a breather before the next book appears.

Murder at Deviation Junction by Andrew Martin

Jim Stringer is a railway detective, working out of York Station in 1909. It is just coming up to Christmas and the setting is a striking mix of the dark satanic mills, fire and brimstone connected with the Industrial Age, and snow.
    Jim has been sent to arrest a steel worker for assault at a football game, but somehow ends up discovering a murder instead. The contrast between the steel works and the snow drift that brings his train to a stop at a tiny station couldn't be more obvious. When a derelict shed is searched by the snow clearing gang, a long dead body turns up.
    Railway reporter, Stephen Bowman, who is sharing Jim's carriage looks distinctly uneasy - a young photographer named Peters had disappeared a year before, and it turns out his camera was stolen about the same time. Had Peters uncovered an incriminating secret that led to his death?
    Jim runs the risk of dismissal by pursuing the murder case, but he can't let it go. He has his interview for the position of sergeant coming up, and his young family needs the money a promotion would bring. But Sergeant Shillito has other ideas and would like to take Jim down a peg or too. Then there's Christmas to pay for and Jim's small pocketful of cash is slowly depleted as he hops on and off trains, sends cables and stands witnesses for meals and drinks.
    Jim's under a lot of pressure as his investigations lead him to uncover the story of the Cleveland Travelling Club - a group of five prosperous men who journeyed daily from Whitby to Middlesbrough in their own special carriage. It's not long before he finds that young Peters isn't the only mysterious death, several of the club members have died in odd circumstances as well.
    The case will take Jim as far south as London and into the wintry north of the Scottish Highlands, and all the while the clock is ticking towards Christmas and all the pressure of his interview and family commitments. There's going to be plenty of danger and Jim will have the chance to put his railway knowledge and skills as a fireman to good use.
    You don't have to know a thing about steam trains to enjoy the Jim Stringer series. Andrew Martin recreates the steam age, coloured with the voice of the Yorkshire working classes, making these books delightfully different. There is brilliant characterisation - Jim's fellow detectives add some lively banter as does Lydia, Jim's sparky wife who has feminist ambitions. While there is plenty of action, there is also wit and social awareness, making the books a reasonably intelligent read and as such all the more satisfying.

 

The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace

The Sacred River is Wallace's second novel following her immensely poignant and engrossing debut, The Painted Bridge, which took you into the heart of a Victorian mental asylum. It wasn't your typical Victorian mental asylum story though, with plenty of curious twists for the reader and an ending full of promise.
    The Sacred River puts a similarly positive spin on what seems a grim beginning, this time with the possibility of imminent death. Three women take themselves out of a wintry London fog to Egypt on the recommendation of young Harriet Heron's doctor. Ongoing asthma attacks have made her a permanent invalid at the age of 23, but she hopes to see something of life before she dies.
    A self-educated girl with a fascination for ancient Egyptian culture and hieroglyphics, Harriet persuades her doctor to recommend a sojourn in Alexandria. Her father's bank conveniently has a house there. Her mother, Louisa, is nervous of the idea, but a visit to a spiritualist convinces her that death is nigh, and she is determined to make the trip happen. She's a flighty woman, famous for her beauty, but not so good on practical matters - although she does pop a gun in the bottom of her trunk. The reader knows that this gun is going to surface at some stage later in the story.
    Meanwhile, her husband arranges for his no-nonsense sister, Yael, to go with them. She's very reluctant as she has her good works to attend to and the responsibility of caring for her elderly father, but eventually she gives in.
    On the journey Harriet meets Mrs Cox, newly married, and a dab hand with the tarot cards. Mrs Cox tells Harriet that she will meet her future husband on the boat and that she will have several children. The only eligible man in sight is Eyre Soane, a painter of landscapes, whose famous father once painted Louisa as a girl. There is clearly going to be journey into the past, and old scores to be settled.
    Fortunately Egypt has a revivifying effect on Harriet, giving her the courage to imagine a future. The arrival of a fierce wind set to last for weeks drives Harriet and her mother to Luxor, where Harriet gets absorbed in the ancient sites at Thebes. She meets the German archaeologist, Dr Woolfe, and helps at the dig Woolfe is working on by making drawings of hieroglyphs.
   Meanwhile Aunt Yael finds a purpose in life she has never felt before, starting a clinic to help the poor children of Alexandria, many of whom seem to be afflicted by eye infections.
    The book is on the one hand a story of self-discovery for three women as well as being a wonderfully engaging novel full of drama, romance, secret shame and vendetta. In the background the natives are restless, and violence lurks around the corner. The insight from Harriet's translation of ancient Egyptian symbols is intriguing and gives the book an extra dimension. The writing is excellent too - it is hard to imagine anything else that would make this book better - one of my top reads for the year.

Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd

It always helps move a mystery story along when the investigator has a side-kick to talk to about the case. Holmes has Watson, Poirot has Captain Hastings, Richard Jury has Melrose Plant.
    Charles Todd's Inspector Rutledge series is no different. This Scotland Yard detective is a veteran of the First World war; haunted by his experiences in more ways than one. He had to deliver the coup de grace following the execution of Hamish McLeod, his friend and fellow officer who refused to lead his men over the top again into likely death. While Rutledge distinguished himself in battle he carries the dreadful guilt from that day on the battlefield, as well as Hamish's ghostly presence inside his head.
    The two create some interesting dialogue - Hamish's Scottish voice is quite distinctive from Rutledge's, and he never holds back when it comes to airing his viewpoint. He is particularly present in this Legacy of the Dead. Bones have been discovered on a remote Scottish hillside belonging to a woman the age and size of an Eleanor Gray who may have disappeared two years before on a visit to Scotland. Her mother, the redoubtable Lady Maud insists that Rutledge finds out what happened to her.
    Rutledge is reluctant to visit Scotland as this is likely to make Hamish more vociferous than ever. For this reason he has been avoiding visiting his godfather near Edinburgh, David Trevor, whose son was Rutledge's boyhood friend, also killed in the war. Things are made more complicated when a series of anonymous letters in the town of Duncarrick, lead to the arrest of a young woman, accused of murdering Eleanor Gray and stealing her baby. The local policeman asks Rutledge to help prove her innocence.
    Fiona McDonald refuses to say anything in her defence about where her son, Ian, might have come from. When Rutledge visits her in the Duncarrick police station, it is clear from Hamish's reaction inside his head, that this Fiona is none other than Hamish's fiancé from before the war. Rutledge vows to clear her name, in spite of Fiona's fears that to do so will put little Ian in harm's way.
    It's a complex mystery, with lots of red herrings and a slow burning plot where clues are carefully assembled, before building to a thrilling climax where Rutledge gets to put into practice a trick with a knife he learned from the Scots troops under his command. Crucial to the storyline is the ongoing effect of the war on the disrupted lives of those left behind.
    Rutledge is an intuitive detective, who annoys his superiors and because his mind is so messed up, he's one of those sympathetic loners that fiction is so fond of. The Rutledge series is a collection of classic whodunits that are loaded with atmosphere, wonderful characters and plenty of suspense - perfect rainy weekend reading.

The Lewis Man by Peter May

I am not sure why I put off reading this, the second in Peter May's Lewis trilogy that began with the superb novel, The Blackhouse. Perhaps I thought there couldn't be anything else that you could throw at its main character, Fin McLeod, without stretching the bounds of probability. But I needn't have worried, this is every bit as terrific - with Fin looking into a cold case, not as a policeman but as a friend of the prime suspect.
     It all begins when the body of a young man is found in a peat bog on the Hebridean island of Lewis. An archeologist is called in as people assume it to be hundreds of years old and might bring some fame to the island as a historical find, hence the title.
    But a tattoo on the corpse's forearm depicts Elvis Presley and suddenly the police are looking into a murder from the late 1950s. A DNA match connects the body with an elderly man on the island, who just happens to be Mr McDonald, Marsaili's father. (If you remember from The Blackhouse, Marsaili was Fin's childhood sweetheart.)
    Woven in with the story of Fin's return to Lewis and his plan to rebuild the old family house, is that of Tormod McDonald. The sons of a seaman killed in the war, John, as he was then, and his brother were sent to an orphanage in Edinburgh at the death of their mother. Little brother Peter has been rendered 'simple' following a brain injury as a small boy. John has promised his dying mother that he will always look after his brother, but the reader knows that Peter is probably going to turn out to be the Lewis Man, and so it would seem that fate has intervened. From what we already know of Mr McDonald, this is likely to have haunted him the rest of his life.
   Now suffering from dementia and living in a nursing home, the past creeps back slowly into his consciousness, while Fin and and local policeman, George Gunn, try to discover what really happened. Fin wants to prove Mr McDonald's innocence before a cold case team from the mainland descends on the island and treat the old man as their prime suspect. Their investigations will lead them south to Harris, over the water to Edinburgh and to Charlie's beach on Eriskay. There will be parish records and cemeteries to peruse.
   Peter May creates a vivid contrast between the big city and remoter corners of Scotland, with wind blowing the tussocky grasses, big open skies and distant horizons. There's not a lot of money about and even less in his evocation of John's 1950's childhood and the harsh treatment of orphaned children. His depiction of dementia, particularly how the past merges with the present to create a different reality for Mr McDonald, is sensitively done. Fin's awkwardness with Marsaili and her son continue to add an interesting dimension to the series. Whether there can be any future in these relationships will have to wait for the last book in the series, The Chessmen.
 

A Half Forgotten Song by Katherine Webb

I started out thinking A Half Forgotten Song had all the hallmarks of a very engaging read, idea for a wet weekend, and I would finish it in no time.
    To begin with, Zach is such a sympathetic character. He is recently divorced, and his ex-wife and little girl are leaving England to live in Boston with the ex's new man. His art gallery is struggling, and the publisher who commissioned him to write a biography of British master, Charles Aubrey, is on his case to finish the book, or they'll pass the job onto someone else.
    So Zach is a guy under a lot of pressure. But in a burst of optimism, he packs a bag and heads off to the bucolic town of Blacknowle on the Dorset coast, where Aubrey did some of his best work. One of his models, Mitzy Hatcher, still lives here and Zach thinks she might know the origins of some Aubrey drawings that have come up for sale. Mysteriously titled 'Dennis', they don't fit with any other Aubrey work of the time.
    Mitzy is an emotionally fragile woman in her eighties, with a gypsy heritage, still living in the isolated cottage where she grew up. She gradually lets Zach talk to her. Mixed in with Zach's narrative, is the story of Mitzy's early life, when she got to know the Aubreys and fell under the spell of the charismatic artist.
    She's had a terrible time of it, scorned by the locals for being what she is, the daughter of the local witch/prostitute and destined for a similar career. But the Aubreys - Charles,  his exotic French/Moroccan mistress, and two daughters, Elodie and Delphine, Mitzy's special friend - are kind and make her part of the family. Charles in particular focuses a lot of attention on Mitzy, who has a simple, unadulterated beauty that fascinates him - he draws her at every opportunity - but this attention has dangerous consequences.
    It turns out that Mitzy harbours some terrible secrets, more than one or two, and Zach's ferreting leads him to meet another mysterious woman - Hannah, who lives at the neighbouring farm. The two are obviously attracted to one another, but Hannah, while defensive about Mitzy, has a few secrets of her own and is prickly when questioned.
   There seem to be just too many secrets lurking in the plot - even Zach's grandma has one up her sleeve. And I probably wouldn't have minded half so much, if such a lot of the narration wasn't from Mitzy's point of view. Her obsessive love for Charles gets every bit as tedious for the reader as it does for the Aubreys, and in spite of her tough time at home, she never really engaged my sympathy.
    This is a pity, as I'd really enjoyed Webb's earlier book, The Unseen and had hoped for a similar reading experience. Perhaps if the book had been a little shorter, the plot moved on a little more briskly, A Half Forgotten Song would have avoided sinking into melodrama and been a far more palatable novel.

Mouse and the Cossacks by Paul Wilson

Mouse and the Cossacks begins with a young girl and her mother moving into a remote farmhouse on the outskirts of Manchester. There is a sense that they are escaping, and one can only guess at the traumatic experience that has brought them here, because the first thing we find out about young Mouse, is that she cannot speak.
    Little by little we learn about another escape and the ensuing car accident which killed Mouse's high-achieving brother, Max. Although this isn't the reason that Mouse is unable to talk, that started some years before, the grief that surrounds the family make her likelihood of recovery even more unlikely.
    While her mother promises to think about a return to work and a new school for Mouse, the two remain at home, Mouse learning to cook and garden in an effort at routine and regular meals. She's a fighter, taking on her mother's grief as well as her own and the terrible guilt they both struggle with.
    When Mouse discovers a cache of unposted letters and memorabilia belonging to William Crosby, the owner of their house, another story emerges. William was an army officer at the end of World War Two, tasked with managing the influx into Austria of Cossack refugees. He falls in love with Anna, their interpreter, and is optimistic that in the reorganisation of Europe there will be for the Cossacks a permanent home. Churchill has promised to look after them, hasn't he, and William hopes to build his future around Anna.
     As history tells us, Churchill was tied by promises to Stalin at Yalta, and the Cossacks were forced to return to the USSR, facing execution or labour camps. Either way, many of them died. William, caught up in the middle of these events as a young man, has to do things he will always feel guilty about, while losing his one real chance at happiness. The resulting guilt and bitterness dominate the rest of his life.
    While things don't look too good for William, now dying in hospital, things must surely get better for Mouse, who puts so much energy into trying to fix things. She emails William's family to find out what to do about the letters; she sends text messages to her friend Lucas, inventing elaborate reasons why he cannot visit their house. Although she is sent to 'speech therapy', help comes from a different quarter, when she whimsically texts a random number, and unexpectedly receives a reply from a sympathetic voice telling her about a 'forgiveness machine'.
    Paul Wilson carefully treads a path around his themes of guilt, forgiveness and redemption to create a thoughtful novel with richly observed characters and a sad reminder about the plight of the Cossacks. Mouse as narrator is a wonderfully engaging character, as children dealing with issues way beyond their years can sometimes be. I enjoyed the book immensely and will be placing this writer on my watch list.
 

The Road Between Us by Nigel Farndale

It can be an unsettling experience to read a novel thinking it is about one thing, only to discover it is really about something quite different. This happened to me with The Road Between Us, a beguiling title that really could mean anything. The cover shows two men, one in the distance, the other wearing army uniform with a letter in his pocket.
    The men turn out to be Charles and Anselm, caught out by the authorities for 'conduct unbecoming' in a Piccadilly hotel room just before World War Two begins. They are both artists who met at the Slade, and they are devoted to each other.
    Charles loses his RAF commission and struggles to find something meaningful to do during the war, until he gets involved with a sailing friend rescuing troops from Dunkirk. This inspires him to do some drawings that are good enough to be published, and Sir Kenneth Clark arranges for him to be an official war artist. But all the while he's wondering what has become of Anselm, who has returned to Germany.
    Here, homosexuals are sent for 're-education' in work camps and this is how Anselm ends up in one of the smaller concentration camps in Alsace. There are some particularly grim chapters describing the horrors of the treatment of prisoners, who are mainly from the French resistance. The only thing that keeps Anselm going is the certainty that one day Charles will rescue him.
    Interwoven with this story is that of Edward, a career diplomat, newly released after being held captive in an Afghan cave for eleven years. His only hold on sanity has been the thought that one day he will be reunited with his beautiful wife, Frejya. His great friend Niall, who is there when he wakes up, has to tell Edward that his wife is dead, while his daughter, Hannah, has grown up to be the very image of her mother.
    Niall is there, a shadowy figure in the background, obviously concerned for Edward and Hannah, and the readjustments each has to make. But troubling questions hover: Did Frejya kill herself? Who paid the ransom that led to Edward's release? For the reader of course there is the question of what links the two stories.
    It's not long before it is obvious that Charles is in fact Edward's father, now in his nineties and suffering from dementia. It is a shame that they cannot talk to each other because both have suffered greatly in different wars and been redeemed by love. The mysteries of Edward's birth and upbringing, his connection with a wealthy German banker are not revealed until the end, giving the reader plenty to be curious about.
    I'd been looking forward to reading The Road Between Us because I had found Nigel Farndale's first novel, The Blasphemer, a truly powerful story, compelling, assured and thrillingly plotted. This novel is similarly well paced and immensely thought-provoking. There are many important stories to be told about the damage war can do. Tackling the subject of love without sentimentality, while going into the darker corners where love can take people, makes this a more daring and original story.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Debut novels can sometimes be such a breath of fresh air, a new voice with a different story to tell. The Rosie Project is just such a book, at times very funny, but also poignant and certainly romantic in a screwball comedy kind of way.
    The story is told entirely from the point of view of Don Tillman, a genetics professor. He is tall, fit, and looks a bit like Gregory Peck, but at almost forty he is still seeking a woman to share his life with. The problem is he has Asperger Syndrome - this reveals itself in his excessively ordered life, timetabled to the minute, a difficulty with small-talk, and an overactive brain that can turn out complex mathematical calculations at the drop of a hat.
    He has only two friends, Gene, head of the Psychology Department at Don's university, who happens to be a serial womaniser in spite of being married to Don's other friend, Claudia, who coaches Don with relationships and introduces him to her female friends.
    When it occurs to Don he can solve the wife problem with a questionnaire as a way to save time and factor out any unsuitable punters (smokers, women who can't do maths, vegetarians, the list goes on), he launches himself into the Wife Project with zeal. Then he meets Rosie. Suddenly hormones intrude and the Wife Project is put on hold. Rosie is very attractive, in spite of being a barmaid, a smoker and a vegetarian.
   Rosie wants help with tracing her biological father, a daunting problem as her late mother had something of a reputation. They narrow down a list of candidates to around fifty fellow med students who were all at the same graduation ball. This becomes The Father Project.
   What transpires is a series of hilarious scenes as the pair secretly gather samples from each candidate for gene testing. At one point, the two sign up to be bar staff at a conveniently timed med school reunion. Don exceeds all expectations as a newbie cocktail maker and becomes the life and soul of the party. At the faculty ball, Don arrives with a new candidate from the Wife Project who is perfect in every way except for a passion for ballroom dancing with more comic results.
    Simsion cleverly choreographs his scenes so that they have enough sensitivity that Don isn't simply the butt of every joke. This is in large part due to Rosie, who has her own demons and is refreshingly honest. She blatantly enjoys their exploits together for with Don there's never a dull moment - when he isn't being infuriatingly difficult. Which is quite often.
    And it is much the same for the reader. Don is so interesting, and the characters of Rosie and Gene such a contrast, they make his unusual way of looking at life seem even more unique. Yet he still engages our sympathy by being at times introspective enough to examine the aspects of his character that are challenging to others. When he finally embarks on The Rosie Project, he does so with all the energy of his previous endeavours, and becomes a true hero.
 

Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie

This isn't perhaps one of Agatha Christie's most well-known novels featuring expat-Belgian Hercule Poirot - and after all there were so many - but to me it is well worth a look. It has many features that make it eminently readable.
    Poirot is investigating the death of a cleaning woman in the little town of Broadhinney. She has been robbed of a hidden stash of savings and her bedroom thrown into disarray.
    Because the town is so small, the only lodgings to be found are at Long Meadows, home of the Summerhayes - a genteel couple recently from India, trying to save their inherited stately home but with scarcely a bean and no understanding of housekeeping. There are dogs bounding in and out of the draughty living-room, the food is terrible and Poirot's mattress sags woefully.
    While Poirot shudders with each slam of a door or grimly contemplates his lunch, time ticks on. He is trying to save the life of the convicted murderer - the unappealing James Bentley, Mrs M's lodger, who has no social skills and despondently accepts his fate as he waits in prison for his day of execution. But Superintendent Spence has his doubts and has asked Poirot to intervene so he can retire with a clear conscience.
    Rather than hunting for suspects among any old tramp or dodgy passer-by,  Poirot's investigation turns to the more upmarket customers who Mrs M used to clean for. She was a nosy person and seems to have connected one of her clients to a potential scandal. An article in a tawdry Sunday newspaper had caught her eye, which, complete with hazy photographs, asked what had happened to four women involved in murder decades ago.
   Poirot is just in the middle of interviewing potential suspects, when who should turn up, but his novelist friend, Ariadne Oliver, biffing him on the head with a carelessly flung apple core. Ariadne is staying with the Upwards - Mrs Upward is an invalid, while her son, Robin, is the playwright adapting one of Ariadne's books for the stage.
    Ariadne is hugely uncomfortable with the ebullient young man's arty ideas and would rather go home and hide away with her typewriter and a bag of apples. I always enjoy her outbursts of misery regarding her Finnish detective character, in which some biographers see an echo of Christie's own views on Poirot.
   The comedy of both protagonists' accommodation and the good-humoured chaffing between Ariadne and Poirot offer plenty of light relief from the nastiness of murder and the image of a young man on death row. Not that there's ever any doubt that the real criminal will be brought to justice before the hangman begins to ready his noose.
    As usual there is a dramatic living room scene in the penultimate chapter where all the suspects wait patiently for Poirot to unmask the real villain. Somehow, in spite of this very familiar narrative structure, Christie throws in enough red herrings and twists of plot to bring plenty of surprises the reader's way before the end.

The Adoption by Anne Berry

I really enjoyed Anne Berry's first two books, The Hungry Ghosts and The Water Children, so was really delighted to get hold of her third novel. She is a brilliant writer, her language is powerful and imaginative, but she is not easy on the reader, which would suggest her books make an impact. The Adoption is no exception.
    The Adoption - now there's a title that doesn't beat about the bush - tells the story of three women, beginning with Bethan, who makes the mistake of falling in love with the German POW who helps out on her parents' farm in Wales at the tail-end of the war. It is the beginning of 1948 when she gives birth to Lucilla, a single parent under the watchful eye of her mother, her lovely Thorston banished and her daughter set for adoption. She is a sympathetic character, even if she is unable to stand up to her parents. Blighted by guilt and misery, she allows them to determine the course of her life.
    Then there's Harriet, unlovely and full of stern self-righteousness. She marries Merfyn, a fellow member of the temperance league and in spite of her fine housekeeping skills - though she's more of an incinerator than a cook - their union produces no children. Somehow they adopt Lucilla, aware of her doubtful parentage, but hopeful that careful upbringing will nip any unpleasant characteristics in the bud.
    Poor Lucilla can't help it but she's doomed to be her natural parents' child and never really fits in. She has her mother's love of the great outdoors, her passionate temperament and her father's artistic talent. These traits are not appreciated by her adoptive parents in their grim London house, and the story is a description of their incompatibility and constant battles.
    The plot weaves in present events, as Lucilla decides to trace her birth mother, with those of the past, her childhood and growing up. It is not a happy story, but thank goodness, Lucilla is a wonderful creation - rather wicked and roguish. The story of her visit to the cinema with her cousins (ghastly Frank and more convivial Rachel) along with stuffy Barbara, a potential sister for Lucilla, is hilarious.
It's a mercy that she meets Henry, and although they struggle to make ends meet, they are truly happy and create a warm and loving home for their family - complete with dogs and lots of fresh air.
   Anne Berry doesn't shirk from showing her characters warts and all. Lucilla never holds back letting everyone know how she feels and as such can be hard to handle. Bethan loses her ability to love again and Harriet, well it's difficult to imagine how anyone can be quite so nasty. Like Berry's previous books, this is a story about the terrible things people can do to each other. It is also about what it means to belong and it left me with a lump in my throat when I got to the last page. This is definitely a writer that makes an impact.

The Things We Never Said by Susan Elliot Wright

So many novels seem to be written using two alternating perspectives from different periods of time - like this one - and I always wonder if this makes them easier or more difficult to write. It certainly makes for a compelling plotting device.
    Susan Elliot Wright's debut novel uses just such a structure - one moment we're with Maggie, who wakes up in a mental asylum not knowing why she's there - the next it's Jonathan whose wife is expecting their first child, and their relationship is at times a little tense.
    Maggie's story starts off in 1962, as she begins her career as assistant stage manager with a theatre in Sheffield. Theatre is something she's always wanted to do, though her roots are in Brighton, in the kitchen of a hotel restaurant. Her brother's still there, and her parents are dead, so up in Sheffield, she's definitely on her own. Her digs are cheap and not so cheerful, but the landlady, Dot, has a heart of gold, so things could be worse.
    It's a wild and wintry night, when handsome Jack invites Maggie to a party. And so begins the terrible chain of events that lead to her mental breakdown.
    Wind the tape forward to the present day, and Jonathan and wife, Fiona, are exited at the prospect of being parents, only sleep deprivation and other little irritations find them snapping at each other and Fiona sleeping in the other room. They're both teachers, and Jonathan's job teaching English at a challenging comprehensive school in London puts him under additional strain.
    Furthermore he can't think how to tell his parents about the baby - his father will make snide remarks that will make Jono feel like a failure yet again. Fiona is impatient to tell her friends, but can't while the in-laws remain in the dark.
    Suddenly, events take a dramatic turn for Jonathan - his father dies, and a difficult student accuses him of assault. With Maggie, we surface from the mental ward to her slowly recovering memories of the events that put her there. Eventually both stories will collide and the reader can probably guess what is in store. In spite of this, the novel is hugely engaging, the characters vital and their situations at times heart-rending. The support cast of minor characters are fantastic as well - particularly Vanda, Maggie's friend and flatmate who does a performance on stage with a live python.
   I found this a brilliant debut novel, that doesn't necessarily tread any uncharted territory, but tells its story with such compassion and a sound sense of the drama that makes a story work. I do hope Susan Elliot Wright has another book up her sleeve - I shall certainly be keen to try it.

An Uncertain Place by Fred Vargas

You can tell a lot about a character from how they handle a simple event such as making a journey. Fred Vargas's novel, An Uncertain Place, begins with Commissaire Adamsberg late for a train. He has ironed his shirt for once as he is to attend a conference in London.
    While his sidekick, Danglard, paces the platform waiting for his boss, impeccably attired as always, Adamsberg is bailed up by his neighbour, a one-armed Spaniard, demanding help with the birth of a cat's kittens in the garden shed. It's all a bit messy, and makes Adamsberg even later.
    On the train, while the Commissaire remains unperturbed, Danglard is unnerved by the train's passage through the Chunnel, resorting to drinking champagne and telling stories - he turns out to be amazingly erudite - while their wide-eyed young sergeant, Estalere, listens with amazement.
    The conference gets barely a mention, but a tour of the sights by English policeman, DCI Radstock, turns up a weird mystery outside the entrance to Highgate Cemetery, where someone has deposited a collection of shoes, seventeen altogether, complete with severed feet.
    At first this seems an odd digression, for soon the French police are back on their home turf, investigating the particularly brutal murder of a rich and unpleasant elderly man, Pierre Vaudel. His body has been completely reduced to blood, splinters of bone and viscera. Initial investigations point to two suspects: the gardener and odd-job man, Emile, who has a record for GBH, and Vaudel's son, who was for many years disowned by his father.
    However, we all know that there must be a more convoluted solution to the mystery, one that will take in the dismembered feet from Highgate. There will be a conspiracy at a very high level of the judiciary system, Adamsberg will make another journey, into eastern Europe this time, to uncover the importance of the name 'Plog', and a rogue young man known as Zerk will intrude on Adamsberg's usual nonchalance in a way he could never have foreseen. Meanwhile, Danglard becomes distracted by the unusual interest he has aroused in a woman he met at the conference and there will be several cats and dogs that are key to the plot.
    If that isn't enough to keep the reader entertained, there is Vargas' wonderful dialogue, which makes her characters so interesting and often laugh out loud funny.  Danglard is the Commissaire's go-to man for his encyclopaedic knowledge of history, old cases and who's who in the police force. But other police officers are just as gifted, such as the former Vietnamese colleague who talks in Asian proverbs, often made up, or Veyrenc with his striped hair and habit of breaking into poetry.
    Somehow all these attributes become important to Adamsberg and his way of making odd connections to solve a very unusual series of crimes. One can only sit back, enjoy the ride and marvel at the intricate mind that has created the story - and look forward the next Fred Vargas novel, of course.
 

A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell writes two kinds of novel: dark and moody detective novels, usually featuring troubled Swedish policeman, Kurt Wallander, or stories set in Africa. I've read quite a few of the Wallander books, which are never anything short of terrific, but A Troubled Paradise is the first I've read of Mankell's Africa books.
    As a historical novel this seems a new departure for this author. It is set over a hundred years ago in Mozambique, at that time a colony of Portugal.  But there is at the heart of the book, a kind of mystery, which is based on a little known fact that Mankell came across: that a Swedish woman was for a brief period the owner of a flourishing brothel in the port of Lourenco Marques -  now Maputo. Where she came from and what she did after that, no one seems to know.
    Mankell teases this out into the story of Hanna Renstrom, a teenage girl from an impoverished rural family in the north of Sweden,  sent by her mother to the city to make her own way in life. After a stint as a maid, Hanna is given the opportunity to work on a steamship as cook. Soon after, she is married to the third mate, only to be widowed a short time later when her husband dies of an unknown fever off the coast of Africa.
    Unable to contain her grief, Hanna decides to stay at the port where her husband is buried at sea, escaping her ship by night and making her way to what appears to be a hotel. Hanna suffers an illness here herself, is cared for by the exotic looking female staff and only realises a few days later that the hotel is really a brothel. As the weeks pass, Hanna feels unable to leave, the decision to return to Sweden is too difficult to make, but no obvious alternatives appear either.
    Fortunately Hanna has some money, a widow's pension given her by the shipping company, so no immediate departure is necessary. This gives Mankell the opportunity to describe through Hanna's eyes the environment created by the white Portuguese colonists, where blacks far outnumber the whites who have all the power and use harsh measures to maintain control.
    There is an intense discomfort in this relationship, and Hanna is appalled at the treatment of blacks by their bosses, their lack of rights and the brutal punishments that meet the merest of misdemeanours. But making friends with the black prostitutes and other native staff also creates distrust and uncertainty. Many of her efforts to help backfire, and she is shocked to find she reacts violently when one of the prostitutes drops a tray.
    Mankell creates some wonderful characters: the unpleasantly evil nurse, Ana Dolores; the lovely and worldly prostitute, Felicia, who becomes as close to Hanna as any of the girls; the wise yet volatile brothel owner, Senhor Vas; the crocodile farming, guard-dog breeder, Senhor Pimenta, who makes a fortune out of people's fear. Even Vas's pet chimpanzee, Carlos, has loads of personality, and Hanna recognises in herself his same the sense of displacement.
    Over the course of the novel, Hanna has to grow up. She has come from an incredibly sheltered background, but learns to read and speak Portuguese, to run a business, to figure out who she can trust and who she cannot. She gains enough confidence to champion the cause of a black woman who murders her white husband, and this doesn't earn Hanna any favours.
    There is certainly much to think about here, but the extraordinary setting, the engaging character of Hanna and the events that happen to her provide a very absorbing story. There is as much pace in the book as any of Mankell's gripping detective novels, with the bonus of taking you to a very different place and time, albeit a grim and tragic one.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R King

It seems we just can't get enough of Sherlock Holmes. Along with countless movies and TV series, there are plenty of literary reinventions of the great detective - among these are the Mary Russell books by Laurie R King. There are twelve titles in the series, so I thought I'd start off with the first one, which explains how Russell is introduced to the great Holmes, now retired and in his fifties, slowly mouldering away in the country, writing tomes on various forensic topics and keeping bees.
    That is until fifteen-year-old Russell almost trips over him while ambling across a field in Sussex, reading a book, dressed as a boy with her long yellow plaits tucked up in her cap. Russell lives at the adjacent farm with her aunt - she inherited the farm from her mother, her parents are dead along with her little brother and, like Holmes, she is damaged. The sharp-tongued dialogue that passes between the two quickly reveals to each of them that they have met their intellectual match, and they repair, engrossed in conversation, to Holmes's house for tea prepared by Mrs Hudson.
    Over the following years, Holmes becomes Russell's mentor, while Russell's intellectual banter breathes life into the old boy and Dr Watson and Mrs H couldn't be happier. Pretty soon some cases come along. There's the case of the Barkers, oddly enough they keep a huge menagerie of dogs, but it is the recurrent illness of Mr Barker that has his wife seeking help. Russell takes the lead on the next case, the theft of a cash box and several hams from a village pub, which is quickly wrapped up and helps her prove her worth.
    The case of a kidnapped senator's daughter, stolen from their encampment during a rustic tour of Wales, is much more sinister and indicates the work of an evil criminal gang. There can be no room for error in this one or a young girl will be killed. Holmes and Russell enter the scene of the crime heavily disguised as gypsies complete with horse and caravan.
    It looks like the book will be a series of stories each dealing with a particular crime, but after this Russell heads back to Oxford, where she is studying theology and chemistry. Suddenly her life seems to be under threat, her college rooms have been broken into, and Holmes has saved her from a bomb going off. He too has had a near miss, which has left him with lacerations on his back, and the two must go into hiding.
    This last case takes up the remaining half of the book, as the two play an elaborate and time-consuming hoax in order to bring the master criminal out of his lair. It is all cleverly done, but somehow I felt the change in pace meant the plot seemed to wallow. There is a lengthy stretch where Holmes and Russell visit Palestine, for no obvious reason other than to give the criminal the slip and attend to some business for Holme's brother Mycroft, which is not explained.
    Fortunately the pace picks up again towards the end, there's an exciting showdown and the scene is set no doubt for the next book in the Holmes and Russell series.
    King has done a very good job of recreating the style of the original Holmes and Watson books by Conan Doyle, for a modern audience. However sometimes she tries just a bit too hard and there are clunky usages. Perhaps this is because Russell is the narrator and as such, an occasional pedantic tone comes through from her character. Like Holmes, she can be very irritating. For this reason and the uneven pace of the plot I feel I am in no hurry to read the rest of the series - a pity.

The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna

When an Englishwoman arrives in the small Croatian town of Gost with her family, she surprises the locals with her delight in the blue house she has bought as a summer retreat, a cottage that hasn't been lived in for over a decade. With her husband stuck at work in London, Laura will need someone to help with repairs - and luckily, her neighbour, Duro Kolak, is soon on hand to help out, becoming the hired man of the title.
    Duro lives alone in a shack nearby with his two dogs, making ends meet by doing odd jobs and hunting, though really he can turn his hand to anything. He can speak English too, which is just as well for Laura, who is surprised when shopkeepers cannot understand her requests.
    Over the weeks that follow, Duro helps renovate the house, fix the roof, and organise an electric water pump. In the outbuildings the family discover an old car, a red Fico, which Duro resuscitates much to the delight of bored teenager, Matthew. Laura's daughter, Grace, uncovers a mosaic on the outside front wall of the house and a tiled fountain which Duro encourages her to restore.  He takes the family to the waterhole he swam in as a boy and on outings to nearby towns.
    On the surface, the story seems to be about the relationship, often awkward, between the English family and this helpful local. One can't help but wonder why this intelligent, middle-aged man continues to live in a town which his own family have deserted. He doesn't really have any friends either - he chats tensely with Fabjan, owner of the local bar whom he patently despises. There is an obvious rift between Duro and his old schoolmate, Kresimir. Duro seems too genial to be an obvious loner. And why are the local people of Gost so curiously unhelpful towards the English family, who bring a little extra money to a town with little economic viability?
    Just as the mosaic's picture emerges, so too does Duro's own history, a story bound up in events of the war for independence of the early 1990s when Gost was surrounded by Serbian forces. The war took its toll on many families, including Duro's own, as shells were lobbed at houses and snipers took potshots at innocent people. It also brought out a simmering resentment which turned ordinary people against their neighbours, leading to unspeakable acts of violence.
   The truly awful nature of these events is slowly revealed, interwoven with the experiences of the English family, and the restoration of the blue house, which becomes a stark reminder of things the people of Gost would rather were left dead and buried. Everyone except Duro, that is.
    While he is an easy character to scoff at - Laura's husband calls Duro her 'pocket Romeo' because of his short stature, and he is certainly vain with his daily regime of chin-ups, press-ups and stomach crunches - Dura turns out to be a real hero. Perhaps it is the tragic events that have dogged his life, but instead of becoming bitter, or running away, Duro stands watch, waiting and daring to remember.
    Animatta Forna has written a wonderful novel about the lingering effects of war, what it can do to a community and how individuals carry on with their lives afterwards. She is a stunning writer, creating the place of Gost in the reader's imagination, a summer landscape full of flowers, odours and heat. The serious nature of the story leaves you wanting to know more about events that you may dimly remember being played out on TV screens twenty years ago. It is as if, like Duro, she is daring you not to forget. On top of this The Hired Man is a terrific piece of storytelling - I found it really hard to put down and will be eager to read Forna's previous books.