Thursday, March 29, 2007

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!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007


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!


Thursday, March 22, 2007

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.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

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.