Review of The Dark Room by Minette Walters

Or Minette Walters Number 7 for me. I’m not saying her books are formulaic but they do seem to follow a similar psychological pattern. Having said that they are enjoyable and do keep you working throughout the story to try and nail the real culprit.

This one starts with the main character, Jane Kingsley or Jinx lying in a special clinic with amnesia just having been involved in a car accident when it appears that she tried to kill herself. That’s not all,it would appear she’d tried to gas herself in her garage.

Of course, two bodies are soon found in a ditch in a Hampshire woodland. This is Leo Wallader and Meg Harris both friends of Jinx. Indeed, Leo was her fiancé until recently when he had announaced that He and Meg had got together and were going to get married.

Into this pot you can stir in Jinx’s gangster type father, wastrel brothers, alcoholic stepmother.
You can see that things are set up nicely to find potential killers.

Of course, 10 years before, Jinx’s first husband, was brutally slain in his art gallery by an assailant still not apprehended.

The plot twists and turns and when you think you’ve nailed the potential assailant, you’re persuaded against that solution. In some ways, the guilty party comes out of nowhere in true whodunit style. At the end of the day it is believable but still somewhat contrived.

I will continue reading Minette but do feel that I’ve read her best books now and don’t think they will live up to The Ice House or The Sculptress.

Review of Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Digging to America is the most recent novel to be published by Anne Tyler and was one of this month’s book group selections. After reading and part enjoying The Amateur Marriage I was looking forward to this book and wasn’t disappointed.

Again the book is set in suburban, everyman Baltimore with ordinary people as the players.
The book starts at the local airport when two families wait to meet the Korean infants that they have arranged to adopt. One family, Brad and Bitsy are in every way your typical American family. Loud, opinionated and wanting to get their whole family along to the ‘Arrival’ of their new child, Jin-Ho. The other family are a second generation Iranian couple who are quietly waiting their child, Susan, on their own.

The book continues by interweaving the families and their politics as the two respective babies grow up. BItsy decides that the two families should celebrate the arrival of both children on an annual basis. So the book is episodic. This doesn’t detract from the story though.

It becomes an interesting commentary on immigrant assimilation in modern America. Sami and Zuba are a very pleasant couple who are keen to fit into American society and seem to embrace Bitsy and her artificial celebrations. On the other side Bitsy seems to want to cling to some cultural identity which America seems to lack, whether it is Iranian, Korean or whatever.

One of the more interesting characters, Maryam, the mother of Sami is atypical of the other immigrants. She is a widow who has lived in America for 40 years but still seems to cling to a lot Iranian culture and lives a very simple life on her own. One of the narrative threads through the middle of the book is her relationship with Bitsy’s father, Jim, who is widowed soon after the start of the book. They seem to fall in love and enjoy each other’s company but when Maryam realises what she might be losing she backs right off.

The book ends on a positive note when Bitsy and Brad decide to drag Maryam out to the Arrival party thinking that she feels awkward about meeting Jim. All that has happened is that she’s slept in though and eventually she realises that these people are her friends and want her company for who she is and not because they’re trying to get her to marry Jim.

The book is quite amusing at times, particularly when Bitsy has a party to celebrate her second adopted childed, Xiu Mei, giving up her pacifier or binky. She decides to tie each one (over forty of them) to helium filled ballons and then release them to the sky. Of course, they all end up littering her neighbours’ gardens!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book which I probably wouldn’t have looked at twice if I wasn’t involved in the book group. In many ways it was an interesting read but at no time was it challenging and difficult. Not so sure about my next book group read, Disobedience…..

Review of Seventy Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler

Seventy Seven Clocks is the third to feature his irascible duo, Bryan and May. This time they are on the trail of a gang of Indian thugs who are murdering their way through a thoroughly unpleasant English upper class family. The job falls to the Peculiar Crimes Unit to try and stop the killing spree and find out the reason for the Whitstable family being targeted.

This time the book is set in the winter of 1973 the era of the 3 day week and power cuts when Ted Heath’s government couldn’t cut the mustard any more. In fact, the themes of darkness and light form the core of the story. At the core is an amoral cabal formed by the James Whitstable in 1882 to protect his business interests in England and around the world.

Can’t go into too much detail without giving away the plot though. Suffice to say that Bryant and May haven’t change their ways or methods of detection. At the outset they are separately investigating the vandalism of a Pre-Raphaelite painting in a special exhibition at the National Gallery and the mysterious death of a lawyer at the Savoy Hotel. Soon after a link to the two events is established and the story takes off from there.

Each of the deaths is carried out in a mysterious, arcane manner. For examples, the lawyer dies as a results of venom from a Cottonmouth snake, William Whitstable blows up in a tube train, a tiger is released in one family’s house etc. In fact, I’m surprised that there are any members of the Whitstable clan left by the end of the book.

This series seems to get better and better as it goes on and I’ve certainly noticed that my reading pace has picked up from one book to the next. Luckily, I’ve been lent the next one to read when I want. Unfortunately, I think that is the last for the time being :-(

Review of Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

I wasn’t sure about this one when I found that it was the Book Group’s second selection for the month ( the first being Digging to America by Anne Tyler). The subject matter here was the Orthodox Jewish community in Hendon in North London and one particular family there. Don’t know much about Judaism and I can’t say that I’m driven to study the Torah. Fortunately, it was quite short and after starting it I did manage to get into it and found it quite interesting and informative.

Ronit is a bad girl! She is a lapsed Orthodox Jew living in New York, working as a financial analyst and having an affair with a married man. She does nothing to observe the niceties of her religious and ethnic persuasion. This is despite her father being a rabbi and Rav back home in Hendon.

The book starts off with the Rav dying and the whole community going into mourning for the statutory one week to one month period. Ronit is forced to return home and pay her respects.
The only reason she goes, so she tells herself, is to retrieve a pair of silver candlesticks she remembers from childhood

She stays with her cousin, Dovid, also a rabbi and his wife, Esti. Apparently, she had an unresolved adolescent, lesbian affair with Esti while she was at school. At the start Esti is very quiet and evidently still has strong feelings for Ronit. Fortunately, her husband, Dovid, is aware of her lesbian tendencies and is tolerant of them.

The book takes you through the Jewish ritual of Shabat and a Hesped which are central to their lives and mourning. The characters are very well drawn and although in many ways the culture is alien to me, it is brought alive by the writing. At the start of every chapter there are small sections of parables or lessons from the bible which could rankle but don’t and lead in nicely to the chapter.

One quirk or pretension depending on how you look at it is the difference in font used when the story is seen through the eyes of Ronit or the eyes of Esit. Obviously, this is designed to contrast the difference in observance of the religious customs by these two very different ladies. Towards the end they become somewhat blurred.

In the end, I would give the book 6 or 7 out of ten. Not a bad choice.

Review of One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn is the follow up to Kate’s darkly amusing whodunit, Case Histories.
It features her laconic, world weary now ex-private eye, Jackson Brodie.

At the outset, we learn that Jackson is now living in comfort in the Pyrenees thanks to being left a load of loot by an old lady in Oxford. He is mostly happily involved with Julia who we also met in the last book. They are in Edinburgh where Jackson has agreed to finance a play that Julia’s company are putting on at the Festival Fringe.

The whole book seems to hinge on a road rage incident which features at the start of the story in which everyone in the book that matters is involved or is a witness. The story stems from here and follows four main strands.

The first strand is that of Martin, who is a writer of emasculated crime fiction a la Biggles style and seems to be making a success of it but hates it to bits. Throughout the book he seems to falling to pieces before our very eyes but at the end delivers the coup de grace which gives him eternal redemption.

The second strand is that of Grace Hatter, who is married to an unscrupulous builder who spends the whole book in intensive care while his wife muses on her life with him. This strand becomes boring very quickly but is important for reasons which I can’t divulge here. She feels too sorry for herself by far but is doing her best to spirit her dodgy husband’s money away.

The third strand features Louise, a police DS and single mother who struggles to make sense of the crimes in the story while worrying about her 14 year old son and aging moggy, Jellybean.

The fourth and most important strand features our erstwhile, reluctant hero, Jackson. He becomes involved in something he’s not sure about but because he’s bored out of his mind being a tourist in Edinburgh he decides to become a PI again and give an (illegal) helping hand to the police.

Throw in a dodge agency which hires out cleaners and call girls and a foul mouthed comic who thankfully gets killed very quickly and you have a very entertaining and interesting crime novel which keeps on trying to escape its milieu.

Very good stuff. Are there any more on the way, Kate?

Review of The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

Despite the fact that this is a Richard and Judy recommended read, it is a very well written whodunit in the best tradition with a bit of psychoanalysis thrown in for good measure.

The story is set in 1909 in a fast developing New York City where a sexually motivated killing occurs in a new, luxurious apartment building. Soon after a similar attack occurs on a young debutante but does not lead to her death.

Initially, the main investigator into the attacks is the city coroner, Hugel and the police detective, Littlemore. They try and investigate the murder in the midst of police corruption which is rife in the NYPD. Hugel is certain the killer is George Banwell, a very wealthy New York businessman who is currently engage in constructing the Manhattan Bridge. Littlemore thinks so initially but turns away from this solution. In fact, at the start he is portrayed as clueless but through the story develops into a very fine, incorruptible detective.

What raises this book above the average though is the introduction of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung into the mix. At the beginning of the book they are arriving in New York to carry out a series of lectures at an upstate university. Their sponsor and host is Statham Younger a young, American psychoanalyst who idolizes Freud. They become involved in the search for this sex attacker and try and analyse his motives and reasons for the attacks.

Carl Jung comes across in a very strange way but this isn’t surprising because soon after this time he splits from Freud and ploughs his own psychoanalytical furrow.

Although the story is a fiction it is base on a visit by Freud and Jung to New York in 1909. Other elements of the story are also historically accurate.

It is impossible to say too much more about the story without giving too much away except to say that the novel is very well written and enjoyable. It manages to convey a very authentic picture of early 20th Century Manhattan.

A small gripe from me would be that it has been done in a similar style before by Caleb Carr in his book The Alienist which is set in the same period and also used a psychologist to help find the murderer. Having said that this book is very different in its plot and how that works out.

Review of Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre

Another excellent book to add to the Brookmyre canon! It sat on the shelf for a while but the wait was worth it.

The books starts off on a disappointing note when it is revealed that Brookmyre’s cynical, journalist character, Jack Parlabane, is narrating the tale from the after life due to his recent demise. This is sad, but I suppose all writers have to move on sometimes. But all is not what it seems, don’t read on if you want the plot of the book spoiled.

The major subject of this book is that or spiritualism or woo as everyone seems to call it. Although it is a fiction it very clearly expresses the author’s own coruscating views towards the whole business of psychics.

The book is basically the tale of how an American psychic, Gabriel Lafayetter and his learned friend ‘Easy’ Mather set themselves up with a chair of spiritual learning at ‘Kelvin’ University to fleece rich businessman, Bryan Lemuel. Jack Parlabane becomes involved as the cynical journalist overseeing some tesing of Mr Lafayette which is being carried out to confirm his ‘psychic’ powers. As well as this he is unbelievably, rector of the same institution!

The story is told in turn by three of the main characters of the story. First, of course, there is Jack with his usual wit and aplomb. Then we have another journalist, Jillian Noble, who manages to get herself conned by Lafayette and Mather into believing and writing and selling a whole book about an experience she has with them. Thirdly, you have geeky student, Michael Loftus, who for various reasons, thinks his place in the world is to try and debunk spiritualists like Lafayette.

The book takes a while to get going but unlike one or two of his recent efforts, it is not weighed down by a lot of verbose prose making the tale unnecessarily longer. In fact, this one is a reasonable 351 pages. It is certainly more enjoyable than a Tale etched in… and poses some interesting questions about the place of psychics in our society and how seriously we should take them. I think we know what side of the fence Mr Brookmyre stands on!

Review of The Last Breath by Denise Mina

The Last Breath is the third book in the sequence by Denise Mina featuring the wannabe journalist from Rutherglen, Paddy Meehan.

The new book moves action on 10 years from the end of The Dead Hour. Paddy is now a salaried journalist with her own column in The Daily News. Of course, she has the accoutrements that go with it, a nice Volvo, a flat in Kelvinbridge and the respect of her peers.

Of course, with getting older, baggage gets heavier. In particular, she now has a 6 year old kid called Pete by ex-partner and comedian George Burn. As well as Pete she has an unfulfilled relationship with her flatmate, Dub Mackenzie who shares a flat but not a bed with her. In the background, you’ve got her mother Tricia and her sister, Mary Ann who is a num.

The book starts off with the death of Terry Paterson, a journalist and ex-boyfriend of Paddy’s. Unsusually, it is Paddy who has to identify the body because Terry’s parents are both dead from long ago. The rumours are that the IRA were involved although this is strongly denies by them and even the police are happy to concede that it wasn’t a killing linked to the Troubles.

Paddy’s not so sure and starts to look into it and when a photographer, Kevin Hatcher, a colleague of Terry’s dies in strange circumstances things start to get hairy for her.

Paddy finds an IRA connection in the shape of a boss, Martin McBree, from the province who seems to be getting protection from the Secret Services in some kind of deal. This man seems to have appeared in one of Kevin’s photos. When portfolios and other of Kevin’s stuff goes missing later, its clear that this holds the key.

Again this book is very easy to read and moves along at a fair lick. In this story, Paddy is a more mature, better developed character who has more concerns about her since her father has now died.

An interesting sub-plot here is the return of Calum Ogilvy who was one of the child killers who Paddy helped find in the previous book. Here he is released from prison and Paddy is asked to help her ex-boyfriend, Sean Ogilvy, out in picking him up from prison. He comes across quite clearly as a damaged person but Paddy bonds with him in an unexpected way and if there are more books in this series he’ll probably feature in some way. Again, Denise Mina, has shown us why she is the Queen of Scottish Crime!

Review of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead is a book which was given glowing praise from two members of the Battlefield Book Group. I’ve never come across Marilynne Robinson before so I was unsure what to expect if I bought or borrowed the book.

Fortunately, it turned up as one of this month’s book group read and although the S.O. and I won’t be able to go along to the next meeting I was still curious to see what all the fuss was about.

The book received a lot of praise when published a few years ago and indeed it managed to win a Pulitzer prize for fiction. The US equivalent of the Man Booker prize. So it was obviously a worthy choice for book group.

Ostensibly, the book is one man’s long letter to his 6 year old son before he dies. This might seem like a vague idea lacking plot. However, although I found it hard to warm to the book it did grow on you and made you think of life and beyond.

The narrator is Reverend John Ames, a church minister who lives and preaches in Gilead, Iowa. It is 1956 and Rev Ames is suffering from a heart complaint which is soon to end his 76 year old life. Surprisingly, he has a 6 year old son to Lila, a woman he met through his congregation some years previously. He is writing this journal to his son as he knows it is unlikely that he will not remember much of his father when he gets older.

In the bible, Gilead, is described as the hill of testimony, so it is an appropriate name for this story which tells of the testimony of Rev Ames.

In some ways, the book is very difficult with its religious language and philosophizing. In other ways, this can be looked at in a secular way and applied to modern life.

It is quite clear, that part of this narrative is a way for Rev Ames to clear his own mind before he does pass away. In particular, he has problems with his god son Jack Ames Boughton, who is the son of his closest friend. It becomes clear through the book, that this person has caused a lot of pain to his family and Rev Ames when growing up and that Rev Ames doesn’t seem to be able to trust him in any way.

However, he does realise, that he must forgive him any ‘meanness’ from the past before he passes on.

At the same time, his friend, John Boughton, is dying and this brings the Godson back to Gilead. Here he confesses to having a child by a African American woman from Tennessee and whose family will not accept Boughton in any kind of way. This is causing him a lot of pain. Unfortunately, he can’t say anything to Boughton senior because he is dying.

So there are lots of issues in this book, not least those of grace and forgiveness of other people for their actions and statements.

The book doesn’t end with the death of Rev Ames but with the departure of Jack Boughton back to Tennessee and his wife and child.

My only niggle with the book is the lack of plot which makes reading of it difficult at times. Persistence does pay off though.

Review of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

I bought this after reading some of the reviews and since the good people at Amazon were offering at a bargain price I had to have it.

The story is a bit strange in that it is narrated by Death or the Grim Reaper. Some of his interjections and asides are quite amusing and informative once you get used to them. They were a bit annoying at first though.

The tale related is about a ten year old girl called Liesel Meminger. At the start she is on her way with her mother and brother to Munich. Now its never clear why but the children are to be fostered by Hans and Rosa Huberman in Molching on the outskirts of Muncih.

On the trip there, Liesel’s brother dies and is buried in a village near the railway line. This is the first time the death encounters Liesel and is also the first time that she steals a book. By the graveside she picks up the Grave Digger’s Handbook which has been dropped by an apprentice grave digger.

Eventually, Liesel gets to Molching and is left with the Hubermans. Rosa, her foster mother is a foul-mouthed washerwoman who’s heart is in the right place and Hans is an unemployed painter who plays accordion in the local bars. It is he who helps teach Liesel read properly and instil in her a love of books.

From this point we read about Liesel’s love of reading and books and her life growing up in the town of Molching through the start of the war.

Part of the way in Max Vandenberg, a Jew from Stuttgart turns up and is taken in secretively by the Hubermans. The connection is with an old buddy who was a buddy of Hans in the trenches in WWI. The Huberman’s risk everything to hide Max. In turn, he entertains and educates Liesel.

Unfortunately, Max has to run away when Hans gets involved in a scuffled with soldiers during a routine march of Jewish prisoners on their way to Dachau. His safety is compromised by this action.

Some people have said this book is about the holocaust. I think it is more about a young girl’s experience of the war and the people around her. It is also about her love of books and what relief they bring to her life to ease the burdens of the war. The holocaust does affect her in the form of Max and his escape from the Nazis and also the marches of the Jews through Molching. But in my opinion the book is only partly about this.

It took me a while to get into it but at the end I really enjoyed the Book Thief and although I didn’t cry at the end, it was certainly very sad. Having said that there was still room for a smile.

Review of The Island by Victoria Hislop

The Island is a book about leprosy, love, genealogy and history but not necessarily in that order!

This month the Book Group decided to read two titles, I can’t remember why but did think at the time that it was quite a lot to ask. Haven’t said that I could’ve chosen not to read one of them. However, I was fortunate enough to have a few days in France earlier in the month when I found the time to read Brick Lane, leaving The Island to be read later.

Interesting footnote about the writer: Victoria Hislop is married to Ian Hislop, well known writer and broadcaster of Private Eye and Have I Got News for You fame. Having read the island, I’d be interested to hear how Mr Hislop found it.

The book starts out in the UK with Alexis who is determined to try and find out something about her background from her mother. Up to that point, her mother, Sofia, has always been tight lipped about her childhood in Crete. Since Alexis was about to visit the island on holiday she though she could investigate her family history. Her mother relented somewhat and gave her a letter of introduction to Fotini who still lived in the village where her mother came from, Plaka.

In the background to all this Alexis is trying to make up her mind about her boyfriend who she had been with for a few years. To be honest this part of the book is superfluous and is really a contrivance to bring you into the real part of the story about Spinalonga.

Alexis arrives in Crete and in due course travels to Plaka to meet Fotini. At that point the book turns back the years to the 1930s as Fotini relates her mother’s story. This is the real part of the book.

Fotini relates the history of Alexis’s family and their intertwined relationship with the island of Spinalonga. Spinalonga at that time was known as leper colony for the whole of Crete and part of Greece. At this time leprosy was still endemic in Europe and an effective cure had not been found.

The general info and history of leprosy are very interesting in the book and certainly make you want to visit Crete and the island of Spinalonga. I suppose most people don’t release that leprosy still affected the greater part of Europe until after WWII. I certainly didn’t.

At the start of the story the colony is well established and is maintained by Georgiou who is married to Eleni the local school teacher. This couple are Alexis’ great grandparents. Eleni has 2 daughters, Anna and Maria. Soon after the start of the story, Eleni is diagnosed with leprosy and is exiled to Spinalonga. It is here that the family’s association with leprosy starts.

The book details Eleni’s life on the island and although it is hard at first, she does come to terms with the situation and the other islanders, there are about 200, help life become tolerable and at times enjoyable. This part of the book is quite informative and interesting.

At this point, Eleni’s condition and she dies quite quickly for a leprosy sufferer. At this point her children develop, grow up and form the ‘soapy’ part of the book with their lives and loves of two different contrasting men. Andreas, then Manoli for Anna and then Dr Kyrsitis for Marian. At this point the book does become a little sentimental and predictable, although the ending isn’t that obvious. We do find out why Alexis’s mother, Sofia has been so secretive about her family. However, she does journey out to Crete at the end and make it up with her daughter.

Overall, The Island was quite enjoyable but ultimately a bit too melodramatic for me. Don’t think I’ll be looking out any future titles of Mrs HIslop’s.

Review of Ghostwritten By David Mitchell

Ghostwritten was David Mitchell’s first book released to acclaim in 1999.

In similar style to his other books it is nine different tales linked together by a common theme.

Each story is based at a geographical location, Okinawa, Tokyo, Hong Kong etc so the book is like a circumnavigation of the world taking you from Japan to the US in 9 different stages.

Some of the stories are quite straightforward to interpret. eg the Tokyo tale is about Satoru, a teenage who works in a specialist Jazz music shop and his meeting of his love, Tomoyo, who is about to start her education in Hong Kong. Then the story moves to Hong Kong to an investment banker who has been caught with his pants down on some dodgy dealing.

All the tales in the book are interesting and moving in some ways, though sometimes they don’t really have a conclusion.

Some of the tales are really prescient. Clear Island tells of a future when the Americans are bombing the hell out of an Arab state in the Middle East and a young mother, Mo, is trying to escape American weapons manufacturers who need her to make their smart bombs even smarter.

At the end of the day, this book is about the human condition and how it manifests itself in different countries and cultures and how people may or may not deal with that. Some of these tales have a happy ending but for the most part they do leave you thinking, What if?

Although it is similar in ways to Cloud Atlas, particularly in the way the tales are linked, at the end of the day this is a very different book which deserves to be enjoyed for its own merits.

Review of Brick Lane By Monica Ali

Brick Lane was Monica Ali’s first book which was released to glowing reviews a few years ago. It was certainly a book that I noticed and had every intention of buying and reading. Things being the way they are this never happened until I picked it up in a second hand book shop.

Of course, all that meant was that it was there to be read but had to find a way of getting to the top of the pile. In due course, this was engineered by requesting it as a book to be read by the Book Group.

On a recent trip to France, I took the book and duly munched it as my SO would say. That’s not to say it was a bad book or a pulpy book. Far from it, however, the circumstances were such that I could read a lot when away on holiday.

The novel tells of the story of Nazneem, a Bangladeshi girl born in a small village near Dhaka in Bangldesh in the sixties. At the age of 18 she is sent to the UK to be married to Chanu, a Council Worker in Tower Hamlets in London. There is no argument with this, obviously this is expected of a Muslim girl.

They become ensconced in a Council flat near the eponymous, Brick Lane, where Nazneem learns to look after her husband.

Now, Chanu is a dreamer who likes to think he’s going places because of his education in Dhaka and continuning education with the Open University. He always talks of the expected promotion which never arrives. As they say, he always talks a good game.

Then Nazneem falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy. Everybody is happy until the baby falls ill and sadly dies in hospital.

There the first part ends. During the course of the narrative it is broken up with Nazneen’s correspondence with her sister, Hasina, back in Bangladesh. She starts off being married, then runs off to work in the factories of Dhaka. Hasina does seems to have a hellish time of it and Nazneen would dearly love to bring her sister to the UK.

After the baby’s death time moves onto to 2001 where we find that Nazneen now has two daughter’s, Shahana and Bibi. Bibi is the well-behaved, dutiful one and Shahana is the one with the attitude that parents all dread.

At this point, Nazneen starts doing piece work at home on her sewing machine to help bring money in because Chanu has walked out on the Council in disgust. Through this she meets Karim, who helps open her eyes on what life is all about and they soon engage in an affair.

Through the second part, Chanu is determined to return home because he feels has done his best in the UK and thinks that the grass is greener back in Bangladesh. You can see that the story is building up to this force trip back home and you know that Nazneen doesn’t want to go and neither do her daughters.

The whole story is also building up to social unrest in the area lead by Karim which end up in rioting in Brick Lane.

The story is very well written and is a fantastic first novel. The characters at time are larger than life, in particular, Mrs Sharma, the moneylender stands out.

Review of The Bullet Trick by Louise Welsh

The Bullet Trick is Louise Welsh’s long awaited follow-up to The Cutting Room, here seedy, melodrama about one man’s search for a snuff movie.

The Bullet Trick is a bit of a gothic crime story. It’s set in Glasgow, London and Berlin and tells the seedy story of William Wilson, a conjurer down on his luck and running for his life at the start of the story.

The tale is told in flashback. The background tells us that Wilson has been a conjurer for most of his adult life and it is something that he is very good at it. Unfortunately, he has his demons, drink, wanton women etc.

At the start of the story he is doing a gig at a club in Soho for a retiring policeman. During the night he gets involved in a long standing murder/missing person story and he is entrusted to an envelope by the club owner, Bill.

After the gig he travels to Berlin to work in one of the city’s erotic cabarets. Just after arriving he finds out that his pal has been found dead I the club with his lover, Sam. Wilson suspects foul play, in particular he knows Chief Inspector Montgomery who was retiring is involved.
He’s glad to be in Berlin and away from the spotlight.

In Berlin, he meets Sylvie, a bit of a vamp if ever there was one. She aids him in his act and leads him down the garden path eventually getting him into all sorts of bother. Ultimately, he gets asked to go one last version of his famous Bullet Trick to make a wad of cash. This he believes, ends in tragedy and he runs back to Glasgow to drink away his misery.

Fortunately, back in Glasgow there is something of a renaissance for young Wilson and it is there in the old Pantechnicon theatre that the story plays out.

This book is very well written and has an engaging though dour leading character in Wilson.
It reads in a very similar way to the Cutting Room and in some ways is a similar kind of book.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and do look forward to the next Louise Welsh story.

Review of the Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks

This book was touted as a return to form by Iain Banks after his lacklustre Dead Air. It was supposedly a return to the territory of Crow Road. Another family saga.hmm!

In recent years, I believe Iain’s best work has been in his science fiction efforts. In particular, The Algebraist, was a stunning effort and was just about his most readable work yet. As well as this, he produced, Raw Spirit, an amusing look at the whisky industry in Scotland which came across as a romp for him and his friends.

Garbadale (saves me writing out the title all the time!) is about the Wopuld clan, a large sprawling family who to put it bluntly are multimillionaires, thanks to a board game called Empire! ( the games seems to be similar to Risk). Everyone in the family seems to be part of the family business which was started off in the 19th Century by the great grandfather whose name I can’t remember.

The book starts off in the present and starts off in amusing style with Fielding Wopuld looking for his cousin Alban in a scheme in Perth. He the suave, sophisticated, wealthy businessman looking like a fish out of the water in this flat where Alban is crashing at the moment. A few years ago, Alban, was the blue eyed boy in the family business who suddenly decided that he wanted nothing to do with the family and wanted out to pursue a career in forestry. He disappeared for no-one to know where he was. Fielding had traced him to his current abode in Perth because he need his help to try and canvas the family prior to an EGM to discuss a takeover bid by the giant American software giant, Spraint who wanted to buy them out.

This in essence is the plot. My main complaint is that it is pretty thin and at the end of the book is pretty superfluous because even after the vote, it doesn’t seem to matter what happens and what Alban recommends.

Despite this, the book really recounts Alban growing up in the family estates at Lyncombe in Somerset and Garbadale in Wester Ross. In particular, his relationship with Sophie is probably the crux of the whole tale – their teenage affair at Lyncombe and its consequences.

The story is told as a linear narrative interspersed with flashbacks which works fairly well and keeps the reader guessing what might happen at the end except when you there you know pretty well what the twist is.

This certainly, is Mr Banks’ best ‘straight’ book in a while and for my money the best since Whit. I thoroughly enjoyed his prose and wit and some of the characters he created. In particular Alban is a likeable, liberal thinker who starts the book not knowing what he wanted and to be completely honest not entirely certain where he was going at the end. You know he wants to marry his girlfriend, Verushka (VG), but not able to because she doesn’t want that kind of relationship.

I didn’t really like Sophie or the way she came across and I suppose the twist at the end was the final closure needed to put a line under their childhood romance.

Great Aunts Beryl and Doris were a hilarious couple who we met early on when Fielding brought Alban back to Glasgow. They played a bit like Mapp and Lucia on speed. Very funny.

All I can really say is read and enjoy. Who needs a good plot to enjoy the maestro’s prose.

A short post script to say that it was nice that Mr Banks didn’t have to mess about with Scottish Geography too much when describing the fictitious area around Garbadale House which was supposedly located around Loch Glencoul north of the Inchnadamph Hotel. The only true anomaly was Loch Garve where Alban and Sophie went fishing.

Great Scottish Run

Just a quick note to say thanks to the SO for her kind comments about my performance on Sunday morning. On a personal level I was pleased to finish the race on under 2 hours but was a little disappointed that I faded quite badly two thirds of the way into the race and was not able to make any impression on previous personal bests. Maybe I'll have to stick to 10K races in the futureL:-)

Great Scottish Run

I'm so proud of Gordy! He conquered the Great Scottish run last sunday in great style and was very much still in one piece yesterday. I'm sure he'll tell you all about it.

Review of The Return by Hakan Nesser

Yet another in the procession of Scandinavian writers being translated and released in the UK/USA to be gobbled up by followers of the crime genre.

Not to say that this novel doesn’t bear comparison with the finest of Henning Mankell because it sits up there with his best.

Of course, this being only the second of Nesser’s books to make the jump to English (the first is Borkmann’s Point), they are not being brought out in the order they were written. I found this slightly annoying with the Wallander series but overall found that it didn’t diminish the quality of reading.

The Return focuses on the discovery of a headless, armless and legless torso in the woods by a bunch of school children. When the police investigate, after some work they find it is the body of a ex-convict just released after serving a sentence for murder and who had also served a previous sentence for another murder 30 years previously.

The main character in these books is Chief Inspector Van Veeteren who at the start of the book is just about to go into hospital to have a tumour removed from his large intestine, so he directs the investigation from his bed and his foot soldiers do all the leg work.

Although the book is quite dark in tone due to the Inspector’s serious illness, there is humour to be found. It is amusing that Van Veeteren is in constant search of a beer and a smoke. He even manages to get his beer in hospital!

The investigation proceeds along slowly while he convalesces in hospital. Then when he is released he is told that enough time has been spent on the case and that the investigation should be wound up.

Of course, Van Veeteren decides to proceed in his own time to finish off the case. The main reason being that he suspects that the victim as actually innocent of the earlier crimes and that his killer feared his own unmasking by him. Of course, Van Veeteren suspects the establishment of trying to avoid being look bad with a faulty conviction.

The plot is quite complicated but connects well. Van Veeteren seems an interesting character and I look forward to reading Borkmann’s Point.

Small point, it is not clear where the story is set although to me, the place names and character names do not seem Swedish. It could be Holland or…..

Review of Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich

What can I say about Stephanie Plum? Well….she’s an attractive, 30 something, Jersey girl living in Trenton with her hamster, Rex and her off and on policeman boyfriend, Joe Morelli.

Of course, the thing we have to swallow here is that Stephanie’s become a bounty hunter working for her brother-in-law, Vincent. Now, she certainly isn’t in the same league as Domino who we recently saw portrayed on the big screen and she doesn’t fall into the same league as Dog the Bounty Hunter who you can see on reality TV on cable.

To be honest, bounty hunting is a device to get Stephanie involved in a bunch of hair-raising escapades which raise a smile but also make you root for her when she’s trying to pick an FTA up.(Failure to Appear in Court).

The amazing thing is that Ms Evanovich has managed to sustain this series for what is now 13 books. I started losing the plot at Up to the Nines but recently received this one from the S.O. as a birthday present.

Although I probably won’t bother reading more unless they are gifted to me, I did enjoy #10. It has the usual humour and stupid behaviour of Ms Plum and the usual on/off romancing with Morelli and her bounty hunter colleague, Ranger.

Of course, half the stuff was unbelievable. I mean, why do you think a street gang called the Slayers would put a hit out on a harmless piece of fluff like Stephanie Plum? Or that Stephanie and two other women from the bail bonding agency would go and kidnap a gang member to beat out some information from him!

Of course, you always have her grandmother, Masur, and the big 1950s Buick to raise some smiles. In every book she seems to lose at least one car and is force to borrow the power blue '50s Buick. In this one, her car is written off at the very start.

Grandma Masur should get a franchise of her own. She usually has the best wise cracks in the book and her love of a good funeral goes beyond simple voyeurism.

I probably wouldn’t buy another but I still enjoyed this book very much. Possibly more so because I haven’t read one recently.

Review of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

MP gave me this as a recent birthday present and of course as soon as they are received birthday books go to the top of the pile and are read first!

I knew nothing about the writer or the context of this novel but was intrigued since it was set in Afghanistan, a country much riven by war in recent years.

The book is essentially about two women, Mariam and Laila who are thrown together by tragedy and circumstance in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and their marriage to the brutal Rasheed.

The story starts off in the border town of Merat and tells of the circumstances of Merat’s life there until the age 15. You know from the start that life hasn’t been easy for her. We quickly find out that she is a harami, an illegitimate child. He father is the wealthy, Jalil, who made one of his servants, Nana, pregnant. Obviously, this means that they have both been cast out of Merat, although, Jalil, does visit Mariam once a week. This is the highlight of Mariam’s week because life in their mud hut is difficult. Mariam dreams of living with her father.
Unfortunately, this is not to be and after her mother kills herself she is married off to Rasheed who lives in Kabul.

Soon after reaching Rasheed’s house, things are very different. First she has to learn to wear the burqa and obey his rules. She has to learn to look after Rasheed – cooking, cleaning, produce children. The last is more difficult and doesn’t work for them.

We also learn of the cruel temper of Rasheed. One time she doesn’t cook the rice properly and she is made to chew on pebbles as a comparison to eating uncooked rice. This off course damages her teeth.

At this point, we learn of Laila and her carefree life in Kabul with her family and her friendship with the boy across the way, Tariq. This contrasts greatly with Mariam and it is enjoyable and sad to read about her ambitions and crush on Tariq. Basically, her existence is carefree.

Of course, in the background, are all the political changes and invasions which tear Afghanistan apart. First the monarch is removed, then the Russians invade, then the Mujahiddeen destroy the country through their factional fighting and then of course, the Taliban take over with all that entails through the strict application of Shari’a Law.

It is during the Mujahideen fighting that Laila loses her parents and is taken in by Rasheed and Mariam. Of course, Rasheed, realises that he must marry Laila, to make it proper. She agrees because she thinks that Tariq is dead and buried. In addition, she realises she is pregnant to Tariq and needs a cover for this. Thus she becomes ‘indentured’ to Rasheed.

At first, Mariam hates Laila, because she has basically been replaced and Laila starts producing offspring and although her first child is a baby, Aziza, the second is a boy, Zaimal.

Of course, there are beatings etc. In fact, the story is brutal at times, making you wince.

It is during the tribal Mujahideen wars, that times get very difficult for all of Kabul, and when Rasheed’s shoe business gets blown up by a rocket, they start to starve. In fact, it gets so bad that they have to put Aziza into the local orphanage to be cared for.

I won’t go on except to say that it is not all doom and gloom in this book. It is a very vivid portrait of a country that has been going through the mill for a long time. The people portrayed have an immense amount of spirit and courage to go on in the adversity that they have faced.

Apparently, the title comes from an Afghan poem and refers to how Kabul looks when the sun shines on it. (Or used to!)

Review of Black Ice by Michael Connelly

The Black Ice is Michael Connelly’s second novel to feature the Hollywood detective, Hieronymous ‘Harry’ Bosch.

The Black Ice of the title is a new designer drug concocted from heroin, cocaine and PCP, which is being hawked in LA by a Mexican drug baron. I don’t know if its real or not, but it certainly sounds potent.

Harry hear over the wire of the discovery of the dead body of a fellow copy, Cal Moore, a member of the drug team. He knows he shouldn’t but decides to go across town to check out what has happened to him. His excuse is that he is vaguely involved in a case he’s working on, the murder of a known dealer, Jimmy ‘Kapps’.

As soon as Harry pops his head round the door of the apartment where Cal has been found, his chief is on him ordering him not to get involved, that the IAD team are looking into it.

When back at the station his lieutenant is on at him about trying to solve some cases because the numbers of unsolved crimes are too high, and then hands over the all the cases of one of his colleagues, Porter, who has requested a transfer. One of the cases is a dead Mexican, Juan Doe, found in a dumpster at the rear of a restaurant known as a regular haunt of Moore’s drug team.

The case continues to build up for Harry when he finds that Cal wasn’t a suicide as first suspected but was in fact murdered. After this he begins to put things together and connect his Juan Doe to Cal’s murder and thereafter to the murder of Porter, the lush, who Harry inherited the Juan Doe case from.

As the momentum builds up, Cal realises he must go down to Calexico/Mexicali on the border with Mexico to look into a company who sterilise medflies to control their population in California. This is the front he believes that is being used to smuggle Black Ice out of Mexico.
Calexico is also the hometown of Cal Moore and he thinks there are reasons there for the way Cal has behaved recently.

In addition, there is a very powerful drug baron, Zorrillo, who is based down there and is probably tied up with the whole story.

The book is quite complicated and does take its time to get to the denouement. I mean, there’s even a graphic bull fighting scene which I’ve never some across in a book before!
There are twists and turns and Harry is as laconic as he was in his previous outing, Black Echo,(cf). All very enjoyable.

Review of The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

The Black Echo is the first book in a sequence featuring the detective, Hieronymous ‘Harry’ Bosch. (Yes, he was named after the famous painter!) I had managed to get hold of a volume with the first and second novels to feature this particular detective some time ago, so I looked forward to meeting with him in this first tale.

Harry is a cop who’s recently been demoted to working in the Hollywood Division of LAPD and the book opens with him investigating the possible O.D. of a drug use at the Mulholland Dam. The body being found in a tunnel well know as a place for vagrants to doss.

When Harry arrives to investigate he finds that he knows or use to know the dead man, Meadows. Like Bosch Meadows was a tunnel rat during the Vietnam War. Although he had telephone contact with him recently, he hadn’t seen him in 15 years. He did know that the guy had a drug habit which seemed to be the source of all his troubles with the police over the last 10 years or so.

Harry isn’t happy about the circumstances around the death and doesn’t believe that it’s a simple overdose. Certain facts make him believe that Meadows was killed elsewhere and put in the tunnel in such a way to look like a drug overdose.

As he delves deeper into the case, Harry finds that it is linked to a robbery, a month ago, when a gang tunnelled into a safety deposit room in a bank and made off with the contents of dozens of boxes. Meadows used to be tunnel expert so it looks like he was involved.

At this point the story takes off and over 400+ pages it weaves its merry way across the Los Angeles canvas upon which it is painted. The plot is quite intricate and some would say convoluted. I disagree, I thought it was well constructed and never too long winded. In the first book of any new character, you have to give the writer some time to set out who he is and where he’s coming from.

If you’re interested the Black Echo of the title refers to the feeling the soldiers had when the entered the tunnels in Vietnam.

Onward to the follow-up, The Black Ice!

Corbetting in Knoydart

Looking down the west ridge of Sgurr a Choire Beith towards Barrisdale Bay

View from the top of Ben Aden looking east towards Loch Quoich and Sgurr Mor

Corbetting in Knoydart

We had planned for some time now to make a return to Knoydart. The S.O. had munros to do and I knew that there was a lot of scope for Corbett bagging. After discussions with a couple of friends we piled into our friend G’s Saab estate at the end of July and headed up to Kinlochhourn.

The forecast was for a generally bright day with showers. This sounded good for the walk in to Barrisdale. Indeed G and I planned to walk over a Corbett, Sgurr Nan Eugalt on the way in.

However, the typical, Knoydart weather had other plans. By the time we got to the end of the narrow, winding road at Kinlochhourn, it was grey and chucking it down. We sat in the car hoping it would ease off and as luck had it the rain stopped for us to get ready.

Soon after we set off and trudged along the coastal path. The path is scenic and in better weather, very attractive. Today, though, it was a trudge and took us all over four hours to complete. Never mind, the bothy was relatively quiet when we got there so we managed to get a room to ourselves to kip in, although H decided to camp to save money.

The bothy was slightly different from my previous trip in that there were now bunks in the rooms and there was no stove to keep warm at. It could be that my memory of 10 years ago are a bit fuzzy though!

After a quiet night and a reasonable sleep we woke to cloudy skies and drizzle. Not a good sign! The SO and I managed to struggle out of bed for breakfast and talked about what we fancied doing. I had my mind set on Sgurr a Coire Beithe, which was relatively near to the bothy. I think the SO fancied Luinne Bheinn, although I knew she would have problems convincing G to get up and go. Other people at the bothy had big plans; Luinne Bheinn and Meall Buidhe; Ladhar Bheinn; and one intrepid walker from Stirling even planned all three!

I left quickly leaving the others to decide what to do. Soon I was tramping up Glen Undalainn towards the Mam Undalain. Although the guidebook route was up the West ridge I wanted to make it a bit easier by sticking to a path for the first part of the day. The climb up to 500m was quite straightforward.

The weather was miserable. I soon had goretex jacket and waterproof trousers on which remained the whole day. At the Mam I wasn’t sure which way to go because of the cloud cover so I headed up in the right direction by compass, weaving around the outcroppings of rock which seemed to guard the hill. Not long after, I reached a 800m top which was due west of the summit. I then took a bearing and headed for the top which was soon reached, but of course there was no view.

One annoying thing I found during the climb was that the photochromic lenses in my glasses had darkened up even though there was no sun! This made the day seem even gloomier than it was in reality. Obviously, there must have still been a fair amount of UV light getting through the cloud cover to affect the lenses.

At the top, I took a bearing to descend the West ridge and promptly went the wrong way! I had put the compass away and thought I knew which way to go. 5 minutes later I looked at my compass and couldn’t figure out where I was. After thinking about it for a few minutes I decided to return to the top and try again. Thankfully this was easily achieved. This time I kept the compass out and followed the bearing. Despite my dipping confidence this turned out to be the right direction and I was soon passing over the 800m top I had intially passed over.

After some damp descent, I found myself coming under the cloud cover and could see the bothy in the distance. Shortly, after I was on the main track and heading back.

On my return, I found that the others had decided against an ascent of hills and had walked around the bay and also walked towards the Mam Barrisdale.

The next day dawned somewhat brighter and after breakfast our group split into two parties. The SO, H and G went to do Ladhar Bheinn and I set off to do Ben Aden, the Corbett at the head of Loch Nevis. This was a long day for me, and I hoped the weather would be better.

Biggest headache of the day is that you have to cross the Mam Undalainn in both directions adding over 700m ascent to the day’s total.



Halfway up the glen, a shower reared its ugly head and proceed to try and soak me. This didn’t help my mood for the day.

I got to the Mam and found that Ben Aden was clear and showing itself off well. There appeared to be a couple of lines on the western slopes where it looked possible to find a way through the crags. I didn’t fancy going all the way round to the east side of the mountain, so when I had descended a fair bit, I went to cross the river at the foot of the mountain and did a splash dash across it.

After wringing out my socks I sat and ate lunch contemplating my route. At this point I realised I had committed to the climb and wasn’t going to back out now. Up to then, the weather and boggy path had made me doubt whether I could be bothered going up at all. The day before I was totally scunnered with the weather we were getting.

Anyway, here I was at foot of a 700m climb rising steeply in front of me. Nothing for it but to go up! I started up and soon found the going difficult. The ground was damp, tussocky and treacherous. After a while I got to the top of a grassy ramp and found that there were broken crags all around me. Remembering back to my first sight of the hill I contoured to the right and found a line through the crags. I continued this way and was lucky enough to find a safe line all the way to just below the top.

I made the top at 1.45pm, just an hour and a half after starting the ascent. Now for the hardest bit, going down! I had been lucky to avoid the cloud so far and I didn’t want to get caught on the way down, thus making my descent doubly difficult.

I took bearing for the corrie at the back of the hill as this looked the safest way down. Although, there was a bit of scrambling and a bit of backward and forward, the route down was generally OK, particularly when you picked up the main river down. Fortunately, although the cloud was beginning to envelope the hill, I managed to beat it in the speed of my own descent.

Finally, at the back of 3, I made it to the main Loch Quoich path. I was about to give myself a rest stop but had promised that I would cross the river coming out of Lochan na Breac first.

Initially, this seemed to be too wide and deep to cross. However, a short walk downstream found a good wading point. With boots and socks off, I easily managed across. In fact, the water was quite soothing on my feet. This gave me another chance to wring out the socks.

Now for the hardest part of the day, the trudge back to the Mam Undalain! Although this was hard work, it never got too bad and for the most part I was able to keep going and make good time. Although it was still wet it didn’t seem quite so bad coming from the other direction.

Once at the Mam, I had a drink and a final look at the view. At this point, most peaks were clear, so it was quite a wide panorama I had. Looking at my altimeter, I noted that I’d managed to complete nearly 1700m of climbing that day. Biggest day for a while I thought.

After returning to the bothy I found that the SO had had to turn back on Ladhar Bheinn because of problems with her feet and that G and H had not come off the hill yet. In fact they didn’t get off the hill until 9,00pm, an epic day of 12 hours! I think if I was in their company I would have gone crazy at the slow pace. Still at least they were safe.

Of course, on the next day we had to walk out. Fortunately, everyone managed to get up on time and we left for 9.00am. The dry weather meant we made good time and managed to get to the end of the road for 1.00pm.

Review of Pompeii by Robert Harris

The destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius is a lesson most kids learn at school early on and can be quite vividly described thanks to the words of Pliny and also the architects that dug it out of the ash, pumice and lava that engulfed it in 79 AD.

Another view you might take is that of the classic BBC comedy series ‘Up Pompeii!’ which starred Frankie Howerd as the slave, Lurchio. This looked at the hedonistic angle with lots of double entendres, suggestive language and the like. Subtle it was not.

Pompeii, the novel, is a historical fiction set over four days – two before and the eruption itself which lasted two days.

It follows the struggle of the local aquarius, Attilius, as he tries to repair a breach in the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct which feeds the whole of the Bay of Naples.

The picture that Harris draws of the Roman Empire ca 79 AD is very vivid and believable. The impression it gives is of a very civilised society that is happy with itself and its achievement. It is also obvious that in some respects certain issues are creeping into it that help to bring its downfall in a few centuries time, ie bureaucracy, corruption, complacence.

In the bookl, Attilius, is portrayed as a courageous, noble young man, who is there to make sure the job gets done no matter what.

After water starts drying up at the northern end of the aqueduct, he soon realises that there is a blockage further south and soon works out that this blockage is near Pompeii.

He assembles a team of workman, including the lazy, corrupt, Corax, and sails across the bay to investigate.

There he meets up with Ampliatus, the local proto Mafia boss, a freed slave who has Pompeii in the palm of his hand. Fortunately, Ampliatus is happy to lend him manpower and materials to help repair the aqueduct. At this point, Pompeii still has a supply so everyone is happy.

All the while there are signs that all is not well with minor earth tremors, rumbling and puffs of smoke from Vesuvius.

Obviously, we as an audience, know what’s going to happen when Vesuvius blows its top, but I suppose we’re rooting for some people hoping that they can survive.

Attilius manages to find his blockage and repair it before the eruption but decides to climb Vesuvius to find out what’s going on. Stupid idea you might think! At the top he finds the body of the former, aquarius, Exomnius, who died while investigating the volcano. At this point, Attilius realises, that Exomnius knew something was up and that Vesuvius might be about to erupt.

He descends the mountain and as he heads towards Herculaneum, the eruption starts.
The picture painted is awe inspiring and it has to be said besides earthquakes, volcanic eruptions on this scale are about the most violent thing that the world can produce.

At this point, its every man for himself and the whole bay starts fleeing.
Attilius decides he must get back to Misenum and find out what he can do to help.

Without going too much into detail the book continues with Attilius and Pliny attempting a rescue with the Roman Navy sailing across the bay. Unfortunately, this is doomed to failure and ends up with the fleet being sent every which way by the wind and the eruption.

The book ends as the eruption ends and it seems our hero may be dead or is he….?
After rescuing the bad guy’s daughter, Corelia, he holes up in the new bathhouse in Pompeii.
Legend has it that a couple was seen walking away from the ruins of Pompeii!


This is J adding a few comments as I've finished the book a couple of weeks ago. I liked it enough to finish it which is more than I can say about the last book group book. However I felt the book was generally too modern and out of keeping with the roman era. I read Pliny (older and younger) at school and felt the way he was portrayed very different from the way others have in the past.

Review of Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds

Redemption Ark is the second book in the trilogy which narrates humankind’s epic battle with the Inhibitors who are trying to ‘cleanse’ the Universe of all intelligence life forms.

The first, Revelation Space, was the first book I had read by this writer after a recommendation from a colleague. I have to say I was very drawn to the Universe that Mr Reynolds has creared. He has great imagination but also enough technological savvy to know not to go too far with some of his ideas. The fact that his day job was until recently a scientist with the European Space Agency obviously has its benefits.

First off, the second book in any trilogy has the problem that it is setting up the finale of the sequence. (Here that book is Absolution Gap, which is already weighing down my bookshelf).
With that in mind, I was looking forward to my re-encounter with Reynolds’ universe.

My first problem, was that I had forgotten much of what had transpired in Revelation Space, so I had some catching up to do with some of the storylines and characters, but didn’t take long because the story was very quick in getting going.

There are basically three plot lines followed from the start: 1, The conjoiners, lead by Skade, and their waging of the war with the Demarchists and her own ambitions to recover, the so-called hell class weapons. Initially, allied to the Conjoiners, there is also Clavain, an ancient (over 400 years old) who may be doubting his loyalties. 2, The Triumvir, Ilia and her friend Ana Khouri who are still parked in orbit around the Resurgam system in their plague infested starship, Nostalgia for Infinity. They are busy trying to evacuate the planet as well as trying to fight off the Inhibitor menace with the hell-class weapons, which just happen to be aboard their vessel. Only problem being, the mad captain who has been subsumed by the melding plague into the ship. 3, Antoinette Bax and her partner, Xavier, who run a merchant ship, Storm Bird, out of the Rust Belt. They become involved when Antoinette needs help being rescued from a Gas Giant where she was scattering her father’s ashes. That help happens to be Clavain.

It might all sound very complicated and I suppose at times it is. But this doesn’t get in the way of an exciting, intelligent, absorbing novel which does set up the finale but is a very good yarn in its own right.

This is the third book I’ve read by Mr Reynolds and I must thank him for helping me regain my interest in a genre I had mostly given up on except for the occasional tome by Iain M Banks.
I look forward with some anticipation to Absolution Gap.

Review of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

This is one of those book’s that everyone recommends you read and you put it on the mental list of must reads. It remains imagined until the point you actually buy it. In my case this was in a bargain bookshop in Beverley for a fiver. Part one accomplished. The next part is building up to it. A holiday is probably a good time but it is a very heavy weight paperback, which would be worthy of most airport stalls although taking up the best part of your luggage allowance.
So after sitting on my shelf for a year or two I decided to try and fit it in between two book group meetings (ish).
For most people this is probably the longest book they’ve read. In the edition I read it came in at 1470 pages long, which is much longer even than Lord of the Rings. It compares with that other well known Indian saga, the Mahabaratta.
Basically, the story is a soap opera about four extended families living in Brahmpur (a fictitious city) and Calcutta and in between.

The Suitable Boy of the title refers to the search for a husband for Lata Mehra who starts the tale off at her sister, Savita’s wedding to Pran. This succeeds in linking the Kapoor and Mehra clans.

The book goes on from there and introduces and draws in many different and interesting characters who all have a tale to tell and a different aspect of Indian life to portray.
For example, you have the sad tale of Rasheed, who initially, is earning extra cash to finance his studies through teaching Urdu to the daughter/sister of Saeeda Bai, local good time girl and chanteuse. Maan Kapoor has the misfortune to fall in love with Saeeda Bai and from the start dotes on her. Eventually, he agrees to spend a month in the country with Rasheed who is also teaching him Urdu. It is here that we first find the extreme poverty there is in India. It is also here that we see the contradictions of his life that Rasheed has to deal with and which eventually makes him crack later in the book.

Then you have the three completely different characters who are vying for the affections of Lata. First off is her fellow student, Kabir, who she falls head over heels for. He’s intelligent, handsome, dashing but most of all his is a muslim, which makes him totally unsuitable. As soon as her mother, Mrs Mehra finds out, she is packed off to Calcutta to spend some time with her brother, Arun, and his wife Meenakshi.

In Calcutta, she meets Amit, a poet who is one of the Chatterji family who live in Calcutta. He seems to be a bit of a layabout but is very charming and clever. He is contender number 2.
Finally, you have Harnesh, who is basically a shoemaker who ends up working for Praha Shoes in Prahapore. He is recommended by her mother and goes through the standard process of formal introduction etc.

All the way through the book you know it’ll end with Lata’s Wedding but you’re never sure who she will choose.

The Indian love of their religious festivals both Hindu and Muslim comes across very vividly throughout the story. Some of these end tragically. One with a mass trampling by the river Ganga and one with the collision of a muslim and hindu procession ending up in a full scale riot in Brahmpur.

A Suitable Boy is a very rich, vivid and colourful book that portrays every aspect of Indian life in the early 1950’s.

There’s even politics and law in parts of the book. The General Election of 1952 plays quite a large part and Pandit Nehru, the first PM of an independent India, even makes a guest appearance.

There is so much more to say about this book that I could write on for pages more.
Suffice to say that this was a fabulous book that everyone should read and enjoy.
As a post script, my only small quibble is the lack of an Indian glossary for some of the colloquialisms used which are untranslated. I should have written them down to find meanings but haven’t. So it was left to using the context to work out their meaning.

Review of the Princess of Burundi by Kjell Erickson

I was lucky enough to receive this as a gift from the SO recently and after the heavyweight that A Suitable Boy is, it came as a bit of ‘light relief’.

Having said that this was, of course, a crime novel from a newly translated Swedish writer, so it wasn’t going to be happiness and light!

The edition I received was an American one, so the spelling and language are aimed at an American market. This doesn’t really spoil the story unless you’re a pedant like me about language.

The story is part of a sequence set in the city of Upsalla, which is located just north of Stockholm. Hopefully, the books will be translated in sequence not like a more famous Swedish crime fighter located in Ystad!

The story’s opening is a bit disjointed but it basically focuses on the murder of John Jonson, an unemployed welder who is knifed to death and dumped in a waste snow facility on his way home after shopping in the week before Christmas.

It turns out that Jonson is a quiet, introspective kind of person who loves tropical fish and has been a bit of a bad boy in his youth and although his brother, Lennart, is still a bit of a wastrel, he is basically a decent person. His death widows his wife, Berit and he also has a sun, Justus.
In parallel case, there is a bit of a nutter, Vincent Hahn, who happened to be at school with John, who has gone off the rails and is attacking people and ends up killing a couple before he is picked up by the police.

The police investigation is led by Otto who is having trouble at home with his wife, Rebekah. This isn’t helped by his attraction to Ann Lundell, a colleague, who is currently on maternity leave.
The story moves quickly on and while the character who carried out John Johson’s murder and his motives take some time to come out, it is well thought out and plotted.

The only thing that doesn’t stand out in this books are the investigators. They come across as an efficient, well-oiled unit with several sketched in characters. However, no one person stands out as a lead investigator. Possibly, this is the intention with Ann Lindell, though in this story she is on the fringes until half way through. This may be because, we have arrived fully formed in the middle of a sequence of books as so often happens with translations.

Given these quibbles, the book is on the whole very good and well recommended to fans of Scandinavian crime.

Review of The Woods by Harlan Coben

Another year… another Harlan Coben thriller. Again, the theme is murder and disappearance in the past.

Some might say that he’s flogging a dead horse. I don’t think so. Although I do have some criticisms, for the most part this is another excellent, page turning thriller which delivers its fair share of thrills and spills.

Paul Copeland is a prosecutor for Essex County in New Jersey. His wife has died of cancer in the recent past and his sister disappeared from a summer camp 20 years ago along with her boyfriend and two other friends who were found dead at the time. Paul himself was a team leader at the camp.

Then Paul is asked by some New York cops to try and identify a body they’ve recently found. Paul identifies it as one the supposed victims from the camp all those years ago. This makes him think, maybe his daughter isn’t dead. This sets the ball rolling.

Meanwhile, he’s embroiled in a court case in which he’s prosecuting 2 rich kids accused of raping a black stripper. This forms the major subplot of the book and in itself is well told.

Some of Coben’s characters from earlier books appear in this one. Loren Muse, an investigator and the siren, Cingle Shaker.

All in all, the book is well paced and taut with the usual Coben humour. This brings me to my only criticism. Paul Copeland comes across as Myron Bolitar. Why? Is Mr Coben losing the plot and mixing up his characters? Never mind, that doesn’t take away from the story

Review of An Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

This was a Book Group selection that’s been sitting beside the bed for the last 4 weeks.
Since Book Group is this week I felt that I better read it.

Wasn’t sure if this was my thing. I’d heard of Anne Tyler but not read any of her books, putting her down (unfairly) as a chic lit writer.

Mustn’t grumble as I was happy enough when we picked the title at the last book group meeting.

After munching it over the weekend I found it a very interesting, rewarding book which gave a snapshot of an American relationship which ultimately was destined to fail.

The marriage is consummated after a whirlwind war-time romance between Michael and Pauline. He’s sensible, aloof and dour. She’s bright vivacious, emotional. Do opposite’s attract?

Yes and no. Here they do spark off each other a lot and through the numerous spats they have over the course of the book, you think – why do they bother? I suppose they lived in an age when people were expected to try and work out their differences themselves. Hence, the 30 years before Michael eventually walks out.

Given the emotionality of the core relationship. The book was very good at providing snapshots of suburban American life through the 50’s and 60’s. Each chapter moves the action on a number of years and quickly fills in the details of the intervening years.

Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot and would not be against reading any of Ms Tyler’s books.

Review of Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster

What was Paul Auster thinking about when he decided to write this metaphysical, self-reverential piece of navel gazing?

The basic premise is that Mr Blank is locked up in a room with no window and no memory of what has passed before. He has a bed, bathroom, chair and desk. On the desk is a pile of photographs and a manuscript.

Mr Blank gets several visitors who I’m told have appeared in other Paul Auster’s books and who each impart some sort of information.

Through the book, Mr Blank reads the manuscript and then is expected to finish it which he does in a flash of inspiration. Then at the end he starts reading and it turns out it’s the same story that we’ve just been reading!

Although I’m a fan of Mr Auster, I didn’t particularly take to this book, mainly because I didn’t really understand it and also because it didn’t really have a conclusion. Fortunately, it was very short (130 pages) so it didn’t take too much of my time. Pity

Review of Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

Picked this up in Voltaire and Rousseau in the West End for 70p. I’d already heard of the film directed by Clint Eastwood which starred Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. In fact, we had rented it on DVD a few years ago and not been able to watch it before time run out.

The book was well reviewed given the blurb on its inside cover and it even had a sticker stating that if you were not 100% satisfied with the read you could get your money back. I wonder how many people got in touch?

The book starts off in the ‘70s telling of three boys called Jimmy, Sean and Dave. Two of them live in the poorer area, The Flats and the third, Sean, lives in the more well to do Point. (It’s never that clear but it is all set in the suburbs of Boston.). These boys are only really friends because their fathers meet up on a Saturday afternoon to watch the ball game.

Then an incident occurs which is to affect them for the rest of their lives. Dave, is abducted by two paedophiles, right in front of Sean and Jimmy and although he does return alive to his family, four days later he is psychologically affected as we find out later.

The book then moves to the present day when all three boys are now grown men with families and the various problems that can bring.

Sean has grown up to be a policeman. He is married but separated from his wife. Through the book he gets calls from her where she doesn’t speak at all. Towards the end we find out why.

Jimmy had a life of crime in his late teens and ended up serving 2 years in prison. His wife died during that time but he still had his daughter Katie. He was now married to Annabeth, sister to the notorious Savage Brothers. He was now running a successful convenience store.

Then you have Dave. He was married to Celeste and had a son, Michael. Although he was working, it was poorly paid and they were always struggling to make ends meet. They were both worried about rising rents and being forced to move.

Soon after the exposition of the story, we get into the mea. Jimmy’s daughter, Katie, is murdered on her way home from a night out with her two pals. This was in essence a hen party, because she was about to elope to Las Vegas with her boyfriend, Brendan.

At the same time as this, Dave, is involved in an incident with a ‘mugger’ and comes home covered in blood.

Of course, you know that Sean is going to be in charge of the case.

From this point on the story is a combination of the police procedural and dealing with the issues and emotions arising from the circumstances.

The book is well paced, moving and powerful in lots of ways and in my opinion was very deserving of the good crits.

As post script, I bought the DVD for £3 this week and watched a day after reading the book.
Have to say, that it was one of the best transfer of books to the big screen that I’ve seen for a long time. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins were excellent. Another feather in the cap for Clint Eastwood who doesn’t seem to be able to make a bad movie.

DH and his mum at his graduation. He graduated in Natural Sciences with Chemistry with first class honours! I'm sooo very proud of him. HOORAY for G!

Review of The Man Who Walks by Alan Warner

Alan Warner is one of the current new generation of Scottish writers who like to tell us how it is in Scottish life – a violent, scabrous, ribald, drug addled and alcohol fuelled culture which descends into chaos and surrealism at times. In a similar vein to Irvine Welsh.

Alan Warner comes from Oban and bases much of his writing there, only he calls it The Port. In fact he has a thing about giving people or places nicknames in the Man Who Walks (TMWW from this point on). For example, the main protagonist is The Nephew who comes across as a youngish guy who works for his family doing odd jobs and looking after his uncle who is otherwise known at TMWW. There’s Boomtown a village up the coast from Oban, although I’m not sure where this refers to. Aluminiumville, which is a reference to Fort William and so on.
It doesn’t spoil the story if you’re not sure where he’s referring to but if you do then it gives you a sense of time a sense of time and place.

The book starts off with the TMWW already disappeared but he’s made off with £27000 from the family business. The Nephew is promptly despatched to find him and bring him home. There follows a series of hilarious and ribald exploits as the Nephew makes his way slowly up to Ballachulish. Apparently, there’s a hotel bar where he is famous for heading to.
And so the travels go. He reaches Ballachulish after 3 or 4 days on the lash and drugged up to this eyeballs, finds he hasn’t been there, he’s not even allowed into the place, then he decides to head up to Aluminiumville and look for him there. Cue more partying!

The book is a bit episodic in some ways, with some philosophical musings in between. Some of the situations, our hero finds himself in are hilarious though and have to be read to be believed. For example, the time when he is in his ex-girlfriend’s house and is so stoned, pissed, high on antihistamines that he can’t find the toilet and ends up peeing into his ex-girlfriend’s daughter’s crying/peeing doll is one that takes the biscuit.

Towards the end he runs out of steam and his past catches up with him and thinks take an unpleasant turn. I won’t spoil the denouement for you but will say that this was as good as anything that I’ve read by Mr Warner and would recommend it to anybody who is a fan of his style of prose. Five stars out of five!

Review of The Scold’s Bridle by MInette Walters

The Scold’s Bridle is one of Minette Walters’ earlier works being published in 1994. It managed to win the CWA’s top, gold dagger award in that year for the best crime novel of the year.

Knowing this, I made it top of my pile of Minette Walters’ books to read and got round to it after finishing “The Tenderness of Wolves” which in man senses was a crime novel.

As usual, the tale is set in sleepy Dorset, a popular locality for Ms Walters. I suppose its easier to set your stories in an area you know well and have lived in most of your life. Some may complaint about the repeating canvasses for the setting of her stories, but I think that at the end of the day in most her books the particular county in which they are set is irrelevant, it is the crime and the way the characters involved interact with each other that form the most important part of the story.

The book begins with the death of Mathilda Gillespie, a middle aged spinster who lives alone in Cedar House, a mansion in the village of Fontwell. At first, it looks like suicide. She is found in a bath of water with her wrists slashed. Unusually though she is wearing what is called a Scold’s Bridle, a medieval kind of mask, used to keep gossiping women quiet in the Middle Ages. This is decorated with flowers and she is also found to have a high level of barbiturates in her system.

In due course, the police begin investigations, talking to neighbours, local people etc. They soon find that Ms Gillespie was not well liked in the village and one or two people may have had a motive to kill her……
In turn, several, interesting, well drawn characters are woven into the fabric of the tale and we find out that Mathilda has been the victim of abuse and rape in her past. Added to that are the diaries she has kept for many years and you’ve got a plot filled to bursting.

The story moves along quite swiftly and before you know it, you’ve reached the end, breathless, not quite believing the denouement.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and look forward to the next one in my pile in the bookcase!

Review of Frankie and Stankie by Barabara Stapido

Frankie and Stankie is a Whitbread nominated novel from 2004 which tells the story of Dinah growing in the context of a racially aggravated Durban in South Africa.

It was presented to me as a book to be read for the first meeting of a Book Group I joined at Langside Library. I had never heard of it and probably would never have read it if it hadn’t been given as a book group read.
I have to say that I enjoyed the book very much despite the fact the book seemed to be written with a female audience in mind.

Dinah and her sister, Lisa are born to German immigrants who move to South Africa during the second World War. They grow up in 40’s post war, South Africa just as all the Pass Laws and segregation laws are passed by a far right wing South African government in the 1950’s.

The book mixes history, humour and pathos in equal amounts and truly engages with the reader on many levels. Dinah is a very engaging character who tries to conform to the times and become what will be the perfect housewife only to turn against it and eventually meet and marry a political activist and move away from South Africa.

Quite clearly, the book is written across a semi-autobiographical landscape given the author’s background.
On the whoie, a very interesting choice for the Book Group. Next up is Tenderness of Wolves by Stefi Penney. Yikes! More chiclit!

Review of The Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters

The Shape of Snakes tells the sad story of Annie Butts a resident of Graham Road in Richmond.

Annie is a middle aged black woman who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and is shunned in her local community. The book tells the story of her death which occurred twenty years ago and is described in flashback by Mrs Ranelagh, a neighbour and friend who wished she could have done more at the time and is determined to proved that her death was murder and not an accident as decided by the local police and coroner.

After spending most of the last 20 years abroad with her husband, Sam and her two sons, Mrs Ranelagh returns to England to investigate Annie’s death and finally draw a line under the whole case which seems to have dominated her life for the last 20 years.

The major part of the book seems like an episode out of a Soap Opera. One of the families on Graham Road are the Slaters (no relation to the Slaters of Eastenders!) who all seem to be a bad lot. The father beats up the mother and kids, the mother doesn’t care, thieves and also beats up the kids and the kids thieve and rape the local populace. Then you have Sharon, the local prostitute who seems to have slept with all the men of the Street.

Not to mention the local bent, racist copper, PC Drury.

The plot of the book twists and turns as we learn more about the night of Annie’s death and as soon as you think who is the killer then you find out a little more and realise that you’re wrong.

In some ways, the plot is very manipulative but that’s the way of this kind of crime fiction. It does keep you guessing and turning the pages.

One small gripe.Why does Ms Walters insist on putting a taster first chapter of ther next book at the end of some of her novels? As a results, when you’re approaching the end of the book you think there’s still a fair chunk to go and there must be a further twist in the tale coming up.
So when the end does come it becomes a bit of an anticlimax!

G and his dad had had a walk up conic hill in the glorious sunshine, while his mum and I had fun shopping, drinking coffee and having a good girlie chat!

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Having read “The BlacK Book” last year finding it very hard work it was with some trepidation that I approached Snow, which is Pamuk’s most recent work of fiction.

In the interim, Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. This , however, tends to be awarded for a body of work or a political stance in contrast to the Booker Prizes of this world which are awarded annually for individual works of fiction.

Pamuk is very much a celebrity in his home country and recently courted controversy with the Turkish establishment with his open and frank views on the Armenian genocide. So much so that he was in the dock last year for “bringing the Turkish Nation into disrepute…” or something similar. Needless to say, the case was thrown out. I think its more to do with Turkey’s wishes to enter the EU.

Snow is a bit more straightforward than “The Black Book” and deals with the visit by the poet, Ka, to the remote eastern border city of Kars to write an article on the recent spate of suicides by young Isamic women living there.

The book is written mostly in the first person by a novelist, (possibly Pamuk himself), chronicling Ka and his experiences during his three day visit.

Snow plays an important symbolic part to the story which can be read in several ways. For me, it served to isolate the city and cut if off from the rest of Turkey and the world and let the author use Kars as a microcosm for the rest of the Turkey. In the book, Ka uses a picture a snowflake to represent different aspects of this life and his visit to Kars.

The major theme of the book is the conflict between religion and the state in Turkey. Turkey is unique in the Middle East in being a totally secular state based on the constitution drawn up by Kemal Ataturk early in the 20th Century. That it has survived as such is testament to the strength of the Turkish republic.
The conflict between state and religion is represented in the book by the wearing of headscarves by young women in college which is a banned act. The reason given for their suicides is the requirement for them to remove the headscarf while in school.

During the the three day visit to Kars, Ka witnesses and inadvertently takes part in a attempted coup by the leader of a theatre group called Sunay Zaim.

As you can imagine there is a lot going on in this book and at times it is quite difficult to follow all the issues that are being brought up.

Overall, Snow is a very insightful, thought provoking and challenging book that should be read by anybody who is trying to educate themselves on the Turkish State.

Fox Evil by Minette Walters

Fox Evil is not quite the most recent of Ms Walters’ books but the one before last.
In a lot of ways it starts off and to my mind, remains one of her more, minor works.

The one thing that slightly annoyed me about Fox Evil is the dated nature of the book due to the metaphor and use of foxes throughout to bring her imagery out. The problem is that the book was written before the ban on hunting with hounds came into force, so it is stuck in the past.

Having said that the story is an intriguing mystery based on a dying, aristocratic family, the Luckyer-Foxes who hail from a remote part of Dorset.

Nine months prior to the start of the book, Ailsa Luckyer-Fox, died in mysterious circumstances on her garden terrace. Although the eye of suspicion fell on her husband, the police were happy that he wasn’t directly involved in his wife’s demise.

Roll forward nine months and James has become a bit of a recluse and is the victim of a Chinese Whispers campaign alleging that he killed his wife and also that he committed incest with his daughter who bore an illegitimate child nearly thirty years ago.

This mystery plus the ‘adverse possession’ of a locally contested plot of land by a group of travellers are well plotted and executed by Ms Walters.

All her characters are well drawn and evoke the appropriate amounts of sympathy and fear from her readers.

Although its not her best, its still as good as many other crime hacks are putting out these days.

The Sculptress by Minette Walters

Next to read in my pile of books by the new queen of crime was The Sculptress. This was a CWA dagger winner from 1993 which was later serialised by the BBC with Linda Robson playing the lead role.

The basic premise of the book is that Olive Martin has served 5 years of a 25 year sentence after pleading guilty to the slaughter and chopping up of her mother and sister in their family home. Nothing at the start of the book suggests other than she was a deranged killer who was upset during a family row resulting in her actions.

The case is taken up by struggling writer, Roz, who with one hand twisted behind back by her publisher is asked to interview Olive in preparation for writing a book about the case.

Initially, she is very frightened of interviewing her because of her huge physical presence and reputation. This soon changes as she gains Olive’s confidence and begins to think that there may be a chance that she is innocent.

The story goes from there to following up leads by talking to locals, neighbours and an ex-policeman called Hal who is linked to the case through the restaurant he owns and Olive’s solicitor, Peter Crew, who seems to be a nasty piece of work.

In the middle of this, Roz., has her own personal problems trying to deal with her failed marriage, ex-husband and the tragic death of her daughter in a car accident the year before.

Everything is put together seamlessly in a style which as usual carries us forward at a great rate of knots. Excellent stuff.

Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell

Any of you who are a fan of David Mitchell’s previously Booker Prize nominated Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green probably read this before those. However, if you didn’t don’t be put off by the Japanese setting for this book. It is just as absorbing and interesting as his more recent work.

In his biog at the start of his books, it lets us know that David Mitchell has spent some time in Japan and reading through the book it is quite clear that he is very knowledgeable about parts of Japan and its culture.

Ostensibly, the book is about a 20 year old young man’s search for his illegitimate father who supposedly is a well off businessman. Unfortunately, his father and father’s legitimate family don’t know want to know and at the end of the day when he meets his father when delivering a pizza, you see what a horrible person he is and its probably a good thing.

The book’s more about a coming of age and a falling in love for one person in a complex, multi-faceted society that is Japan. It has it all – video games, daydreams, yakuza violence, the musings of a goatwriter!

At times the daydreamy bits go a bit off kilter and are hard to follow. The point in the book where he goes into hiding from the Yakuza is confusing at first because you don’t know if its reality or fantasy.

Having said that this is a very well written, absorbing work of fiction. It does encourage me to read Ghostwritten now.

Review of Apocalypto

Apocalypto is a Mayan word for the end of the world which was foretold as happening when an eclipse of the sun occurs and a sequence of events involving jaguars and other things occurs.

This is the basis of Mel Gibson’s latest directorial effort.

Its an interesting film on more than one level.
For one its an interesting depiction of the life of the Mayan Indians had in the mid 15th Century.
On another it is a very portrayal of man’s inhumanity to man when things begin to go pear-shaped.

The film just about works and first and foremost should be seen as a very entertaining piece of cinema which grabs you and drags along with to the very end of its two and something hours.

The film tells the tale of Jaguar Paw and his wife and kid who live in a small village in the forests of Mexico. Life is good…. Until a raiding party kills and rapes all the women, puts the men in stocks and drive toward the Mayan capital. It is here that we release that all seems to be going wrong in Mayan society… crops are failing, disease is prevalent and the people are not happy. Human sacrifice is the order of the day. Jaguar Paw and his chums are to be offered to the Gods to appease them. The scenes of sacrifice are very gory so if you’re of a weak disposition look away at this point.

Fortunately, just as Jaguar Paw is about to be decapitated, a solar ecipse takes place and its seen as a sign that the Gods have been appeased and the captives are taken away to given the chance to escape. Unfortunately, this involves running through a hail of arrows, spears and slingshots. Our hero manages to get through but not without getting an arrow through him.

At this point, the film gets a bit silly as our hero manages to run back home while getting chased by a bunch of fitter, bigger warrior, a fully grown black panther, jumping off a major waterfall and taking another arrow for his troubles.

Despite this he manages to get back to the dried up waterhole where his wife is hiding with the son. Only thing is the rains have arrived and the hole is filling up quickly…..

I won’t go on. The film is very good and a lot praise should go to Gibson for putting together a very marketable film using unknown actors and putting it all in a Mayan dialect so the whole film is subtitled.