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.

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.

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

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.