Friday, February 23, 2007

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.

Thursday, February 22, 2007


Restless by William Boyd


William Boyd is a well-established writer who has been writing decent contemporary fiction for over 20 years. Some of his stories have made it to the big screen eg A Good Man in Africa and Stars and Bars. In some cases he’s even written the screenplays for the big screen.

I’ve been a fan of William Boyd’s since reading the New Confessions bases on the Rousseau book of the same name and it was with some expectation that I sat down to read Restless his latest prize-winning effort. Although he was pipped at the post for overall book of the year by Stef Penney, Restless is a very deserving winner of the prize for best novel of the year.

Restless tells the story of Eva Delectorskaya a beautiful Russian émigré living in Paris at the start of World War II. She is recruited for the British Secret Service by the mysterious Lucas Romer. Under his patronage she is trained to become the perfect spy. In the background of this wartime tale we are brought up to date, well to the long, hot, summer of 1976, where Ruth Gilmartin is visiting her mother, Sal, in her cottage in the sleepy, Oxfordshire village of Middle Ashton. Little does she know that her mother has a mysterious past.

Sal has been writing her memoirs and decides to tell her daughter the truth of her past. Obviously, this is difficult for Ruth to take in but she does believe it and whilst reading about her mother’s adventures founds out something about herself.

The tales of Eva’s spy training and exploits during the war are very well written and believable. For the most part Eva’s job was to obfuscate the media with fictitious stories and make the enemies and allies of Britain move in certain ways. In the beginning, she works in Brussels, then is moved to New York. It is while working form New York, she works out that things aren’t all they seem with the organisation she works for and she makes a deliberate decision to get out when one of her missions goes badly wrong and one of her colleagues ‘kills himself’.

It isn’t until we get back up to date and finish reading her memoir we work out what has gone on in the last chapters of the book which have a somewhat melancholic feel to them.

Overall, this is an exciting, well paced story that is very well written very much from a female perspective.

Monday, February 19, 2007

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Redbreast is the latest book by Jo Nesbo to be translated into English from the Norwegian. Now you would think it was the sequel to The Devil’s Star rather than the prequel ie written before. Sadly as is so often the case with translated books that isn’t the case. Although reading The Devil’s Star before The Redbreast does tell you one or two things that you probably know already, it doesn’t really spoil the story and plot.

The Redbreast is partly set in contemporary Oslo and partly on the Eastern Front where a group of traitorous Norwegians fought on the side of the Nazis. The Redbreast of the title was the nickname of one of a particular group called Daniel Guderson/Uriah.

The book flashes back to follow Uriah’s story. After getting badly wounded he is sent to Austria to convalesce and then falls in love with his nurse and ends up eloping with her. There is more to this story, however, I don’t wish to spoil your enjoyment of this fine book.

Back to contemporary Norway and Harry Hole has been assigned to the POT section in the Police. This is the equivalent of the Special Branch and for Harry although it is a technical promotion, he is in the doghouse for shooting a Secret Service agent during the recent US presidential visit. Though he is not to blame he as usual was the fall guy.

While working in POT, Harry becomes involved in the search for a rare, unusual but particularly powerful weapon called a Marklin rifle. Harry travels to South Africa, Vienna and back in his attempt to trace who has bought this very expensive gun. Also caught up in the middle of this are a group of neo-nazi thugs who are involved in the killing of Harry’s partner, Ellen.

This book recently won an award in Norway for the best crime novel ever. Now, I don’t know how many crime novels a year are published there, but this is indeed a deserved accolade.

The book is long and complex but never flags over its 500 or so page course.
Suffice to say that it keeps you gripped from beginning to end

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner

More Scandinavian Crime?

Yes and no. It is set in Finland but this time it is written by the German writer, Jan Costin Wagner and translated into English.

Doesn’t sound like your typical crime thriller and it isn’t.

In this story, from the outset, we know who the killer is a young museum guide called Vesa. In the course of the book he carries out 4 killings. Each by smothering. The book enters the killers mind and finds it a very strange place.

The policeman who is in charge of the hunt for the killer is Kimmo Joentaa. At the start of the book his young wife has just died of Hodgkin’s Disease so he comes across as a character very much on the edge. However, he seems to be able to get into the killer’s mind and use his grief to help him trace and identify who the killer is.
The book is very well plotted and in essence is a story about the nature of death rather than being specifically a crime novel.

If you’re looking for a white knuckle ride of a thriller then this isn’t the book for you. However, if it’s a chilly, philosophical look into death and its effect on people then this is for you.