Lazy Sunday Service

The most frustrating thing about buying books online is the time one can wait until the order is mailed. I ordered ten books four weeks ago and they are still not shipped. I've plenty on the TBR so there's no panic, but it's still annoying. I guess it's time to email the seller to find out what the heck is going on. In the meantime, I've made a start on Belinda Bauer's The Beautiful Dead.

My posts this week
Review of A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee
Unwilling do-gooder

Unwilling do-gooder

Henry shuffled to the front door and tried to remember the last time he’d had visitors. There’d been some do-gooders at Christmas whom he’d sent packing.

There was a girl under the porch, her right eye blackened.

‘Are you okay, lass?’

‘I need help.’

‘I haven’t a phone.’

‘He’s looking for me.’

‘Steph!’ A man’s voice from across the Oak Field.

‘Please. Just keep me hidden. I’ll leave once he’s gone.’

‘You need a doctor.’

‘I need a new life.’

Henry hesitated.

‘Please.’

He let her in, an unwilling do-gooder. No doubt the visitors for the year would soon double.



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage, 2017)

India, 1920. Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee of the Calcutta Police Force are escorting Prince Adhir from a meeting with the Viceroy at Government House to the Grand Hotel when they are forced to stop and the Prince assassinated. The following day they corner the assassin, who takes his own life. As far as the Viceroy is concerned that is the end of the matter. Wyndham, however, wants to know who send the assassin, the answer to which he believes is in the kingdom of Sampalpore. The Viceroy expressly forbids Wyndham from pursuing the case as Sampalpore is a semi-autonomous state, run by a Maharajah and a local government. Since Banerjee knew the Prince he is sent to attend his funeral, with Wyndham taking holiday leave to accompany him. Their real aim is to continue the investigation and they soon become embroiled in the complex family and power struggles inside the Sampalpore court, which reveals many suspects. The question is can they untangle the conspiracy before they too fall victims to a killer intent on reshaping Sampalpore’s future.

A Necessary Evil is the second book in the Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee series set in 1920s India. In this outing, the two detectives travel from Calcutta to Sampalpore, an Indian state rich from trading diamonds and run by an aging Maharajah, to investigate the assassination of a Prince. While Banerjee is there as an official attendee at the funeral, Wyndham has travelled on holiday leave, having been told to drop the case which has seemingly been concluded with the suicide of the assassin. While the Maharajah asks Wyndham to find the power behind his son’s killer, few of the royal court and government are pleased with the outsider’s presence, and their investigation is actively hindered. The tale has all the hallmarks of a very good police procedural: an interesting puzzle, well-drawn and engaging characters, a balance of investigation with character development and back story, strong sense of place, nice pacing, plenty of intrigue and twists and turns, and interesting framing and contextualisation. With respect to the latter, Mukherjee does a very nice job in detailing the complexities of Indian society, politics, and pre- and colonial history without these ever swamping or distracting from the investigation at the heart of the story. The result is a thoughtful, entertaining and colourful tale. A series that I’ll certainly keep following.

Lazy Sunday Service

A day of flies and flying ants, reading Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell, and generally just fecking about in the humid heat. Not sure what I fancy reading next. Maybe a some popular science.

My posts this week
Review of The Confession by Jo Spain
Review of A Book of Scars by William Shaw
Somewhere safe

Somewhere safe

‘And you’ve no idea where you put it?’ Carol asked.

‘I put it somewhere safe.’

‘And that’s?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Tom scratched his head. ‘I just know I put it where it wouldn’t get damaged or stolen.’

‘Great. So it could be anywhere!’

‘Not anywhere. Somewhere hidden.’

‘Well, we have all the time in the world given we can’t sell the house without the building regs cert.’

‘Calm down. We know it’s here somewhere. Look, I’ll take the attic; you take the bedroom.’

‘How about I strangle you instead?’

‘You’d still have no cert.’

‘But I’d feel better about it.’


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Confession by Jo Spain (Quercus, 2018)

Harry and Julie McNamara are watching television when a man walks into the front room of their luxurious mansion and beats Harry into a coma with a golf club then leaves. An hour later JP Carney hands himself into a local police station and confesses to the crime. He claims he does not know the McNamaras, selected the house at random, and cannot rationally explain his actions. This seems somewhat dubious given that McNamara is a notorious Irish figure, famous for running the bank that collapsed the country. Recently McNamara was acquitted in the case being taken against him by the state for financial malpractice. Carney, however, is insistent he has no connection or axe to grind against McNamara. While Julie tries to come to terms with the attack, JP is moved to a mental illness clinic for assessment, and Detective Sergeant Alice Moody investigates the case, convinced there is more to the assault than a random explosion of violence.

The Confession is an in-depth character study of two people involved in a violent incident. JP Carney walks into the home of Julie McNamara and beats her husband, Harry, into a coma then hands himself into the police. JP grew up in a dysfunctional family, moving from London to Cork, then Dublin, as a kid. Julie met Harry - already the owner of a bank in his twenties - while a student and married him shortly after. They seemingly have little in common and their paths have not crossed. Detective Sergeant Alice Moody is convinced that there must be a reason for JP’s actions, while everyone else is happy for the case to be mothballed – Harry McNamara was famous for precipitating the crash of the Irish economy and JP seems to be suffering from mental illness. Jo Spain tells the story from the perspective of Julie and JP, giving a detailed back story of each, and also narrates Alice’s investigation. In this sense, the story provides the confessions of Julie and JP, revealing the context and fallout from the attack. The three narratives are all nicely told, creating a rich sense of the character and lives of Julie and JP. The hook is whether there is a reason for the attack. While the character narratives work well, the thread following Moody’s investigation is more problematic. Portrayed as a talented detective, the investigation strategy was sloppy and had one fatal flaw that nagged away at me for most of the novel and was acknowledged in the story right near the end when one of the characters exclaimed “how the fuck did we miss that?” Which had been my thought for quite some time. Overall, an engaging, character-driven read that suffers a little from a shaky investigative thread.

Review of A Book of Scars by William Shaw (Quercus, 2015)

1969. Helen Tozer has quit the police force and moved from London back to her parent’s farm in Devon. She is trailed there by Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen, who is on sick leave after being shot. The Tozer farm has been a miserable place since the murder of Alexandra Tozer five years previously, though the presence of Hibou, a young, former drug addict rescued by Helen has started to lift the grief. Helen though is unhappy working on the farm again, jealous of Hibou’s relationship with her father, and unsure whether she wants a relationship with Breen. Breen to pass the time starts to investigate Alexandra, opening old wounds as he finds fresh leads. His actions also unsettle some who questioned in the original case and not long after a police sergeant disappears. It seems that the case involves a lot more than the death of a young girl and has its roots in the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. As Breen and Tozer dig they uncover a shameful history of violence and revenge, one that is still being played out several years later.

A Book of Scars is the third book in the Cathal Breen and Helen Tozer series set in the 1960s. In this outing, it’s 1969: Tozer has left the police and Breen is recovering from being shot. While recuperating Breen starts to secretly investigate the violent murder of Tozer’s sister five years previously. A carefree teenager, Alexandra had been conducting an affair with a local Lord when she was snatched, tortured and killed. Breen’s sniffing about has unsettled some of those questioned in the original case. But the investigation takes a turn neither he or Tozer was expecting, leading them back to London and the disappearance of a sergeant in the drug’s squad and the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. Shaw has really hit his stride with this outing. Although a little slow and ponderous at the start, layers are added to the uneasy, complex relationship between Breen and Tozer, the mystery of Alexandra’s death is laid bare, and the story is politically-charged, uncovering the history of the Mau Mau crisis in Kenya and the politics of colonial rule and the violence and torture used to tackle resistance movements. The characterisation is nicely developed and the plot is compelling. The result is an engaging story that works on different levels – personal, institutional, political – moving all the elements of a good police procedural series forward.

Lazy Sunday Service

Just got confirmation that an order of books is working its way through the post. I've swapped some time ago to using Kennys, and buying from an Irish online store (and owned by an old independent book store in Galway), rather than Amazon. They're somewhat slower at assembling the order, but I'm usually in no rush given there's always something on the TBR. This batch and those from the local book store should keep me going until the autumn.

My posts this week

Review of Straight Man by Richard Russo
Review of Spook Street by Mick Herron

Guttersnipe

Guttersnipe

‘I don’t understand people who get so drunk they end up sleeping in gutters,’ Kate said.

‘What?’ Jim staggered to a halt.

‘Her. Over there.’

‘Is she’s okay?’ Jim stepped off the kerb.

‘She’s just drunk.’

‘Then why’s she covered in blood?’

‘What?’

Jim wandered over.

‘Dead, I reckon.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘What’s it look like I’m doing?’

‘Stealing her handbag.’

‘Give that woman a medal.’

‘Jim!’

‘She doesn’t need it anymore.’

‘Put it back.’

‘With my fingerprints on it. Not likely. Come-on, let’s scarper.’

‘We need to call the cops.’

‘Ah, Jesus, Kate. They’ll find her soon enough.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Straight Man by Richard Russo (Verso, 1997)

William Henry Devereaux, Jr. has lived in the shadow of his famous father, a noted literary critic and philanderer, his whole life. He even followed him into academia and English Literature. There he has languished in a lower-tier university in a small town in the Pennsylvania rust belt, where he has remained faithful to his wife and his mother, and raised two kids. His one notable achievement was a single novel, published twenty years previously. He now finds himself as chair of a divided and divisive department at a time when large cuts in staff are muted. Unable to take himself, his colleagues or the university administration seriously, over the course of a week he careens through everything life can throw at him: suspected kidney stones, an irate set of staff, administrative scheming, strained friendships, the absence of his wife, the dissolution of his daughter’s marriage, and the return of his father, and to top it all off he threatens to kill a campus goose a day on live television unless he’s told the status of the department budget.

Straight Man tells the story of William Henry Devereaux, Jr., an English professor and department chair working in a small, lower-tier university, and his mid-life crisis as he tackles a series of work and family issues over the course of a week. Many of these crises are self-made or made worse, for the most part because he acts as a jerk. It’s described on the cover blurb as ‘funny and tender’ and ‘uproarious’ and Devereaux considers himself to be a bit of a wit. At one point Devereaux reflects: “Rourke’s position regarding me never varies. Despite the fact that I try to make everything into a joke, I’m never funny.” I’m afraid I share Rourke’s view, that despite Russo steering Devereaux into a series of what should be comic situations, they failed to raise a smile. For the most part, this is to do with the character of Devereaux, who I found mostly tedious and dull, and the explication around the situation. Rather than being a lovable wise-ass, Devereaux is far too often irritating and tiresome and he would certainly drive me to distraction if he were my department chair. The plot is quite slow to get going, with a number of meanders, but picks up in pace, action and interest in the second half, and there are some nice observations about friendship, family and academic politics at times. Overall, a literary novel of academic life that just about sustains interest to the end.

Review of Spook Street by Mick Herron (John Murray, 2017)

It appeared to be a flash mob, hundreds of kids dancing in a shopping mall, but then there was a real flash as a bomb exploded leaving dozens dead. British intelligence has tracked back the bomber to where he was staying, but there the trail goes cold. His first week in the job, and new director, Claude Whelan, is having a baptism of fire. The residents of Slough House, a dumping ground for failed personnel, are having a slower week, doing tedious, trivial work. One of their number, River Cartwright, is concerned about his grandfather, a Service legend, who now has early stage dementia. When an unknown assailant seeks to murder the Old Bastard, River entrusts him to a Slough House friend, not sure if the hit was orchestrated by the Service to maintain secrets, and sets out to discover who wanted his grandfather dead. Emma Flyte, the new head of internal policing at the Service, has a bombing to worry about, and a dead man in David Cartwright’s bathroom is an unwelcome distraction, as is the uncouth head of Slough House, Jackson Lamb. With River seemingly lost in action, Lamb’s charges swing into action with their usual sub-par efforts determined to run their own investigation and protect his grandfather.

Spook Street is the fourth book in the Slough House series following the exploits of the ‘slow horses’ – personnel deemed as liabilities by the British intelligence service, who’ve been shunted sideways into a backwater and given menial work in the hope that they’ll leave of their own accord. In this outing they harbour a former spymaster and tangle with terrorists, trying to clean-up the spymaster’s history and discover what’s happened to his grandson, one of their own. Undoubtedly, the strength of the series is the colourful cast and their interaction. Herron breathes life and personality into all his characters, reveling in all their quirks, failings and back stories. And he’s also not afraid to kill them off and introduce new ones. The dialogue is sparkling, especially conversations involving the irascible, goading Jackson Lamb, the boss of Slough House. And there is much dark humour throughout. The plotting is nicely done, with a strong opening hook and plenty of intrigue, and Herron keeps the action moving towards a nice denouement. The first half of the book is truly wonderful, and while not quite sustained throughout, the read is very engaging and entertaining. Another fine addition to an excellent series.

Lazy Sunday Service

The first batch of my latest order have turned up. First up is going to be William Shaw's A Book of Scars, my original copy of which I managed to leave on a train when half way through. This edition (right) has a different cover to my previous copy (left). I think the original gives a better sense of the rural setting of the first third of the book; the new one feels more like a sci-fi novel rather than one set in the 1960s. Anyway, never judge a book by its cover!

My posts this week

Review of Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid
Review of Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II by Prit Buttar
June reviews
Never tired of the view

Never tired of the view

Marie poured water onto her marigolds and looked out across the city. She’d never tired of the view from her flat.

She heard him, before she saw him. A war-cry.

He came into view at the balcony above.

Time slowed as he passed.

He smiled and waved, like a passenger from a train as it trundles through a station.

Then he accelerated and disappeared, followed by a thump and the wail of a car alarm.

He was spread-eagled on a bonnet, staring up.

No, she’d never tire of the view. She plucked an orange marigold and let it float down.



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid (Sphere, 2009)

When teenager, Jennifer Maidment, is found brutally murdered, West Mercia police struggle to find a lead that will direct them to the killer. They reluctantly decide to bring in profiler, Tony Hill. Hill has his own reasons to visit Worcester – his work with Bradford police has dried up due to a new chief constable looking to cut costs and restructure, and the father he never knew has left him a house and narrow boat in the city. DCI Carol Jordan is unhappy at losing access to one of her key assets and friends, especially since someone is murdering teenagers in Bradford in quick succession. Her team have little time to dwell on Hill’s absence as they struggle to work out what links the victims and identify the killer; though Jordan carves out time to investigate the mysterious past of Hill’s father. It seems that Hill and Jordan are investigating similar crimes, but the partitioned nature of British police forces means neither is aware of the potential links. Their loss is the killer’s gain and the murders are increasing in pace and geographic spread.  

Fever of the Bone is the sixth outing in the Tony Hill (profiler) and Carol Jordan (DCI) series. As usual, it focuses on decoding the psychology and catching a driven killer. In this case the murderer is targeting teenagers, but Hill is convinced that the killer is not motivated by the same kind of desires that usually underpin such crimes. Hill is also dealing with some of his own personal issues related to his father, and Jordan is handling a threat from the new chief constable to disband her elite unit. The strength of the story is the engaging narrative, page-turning plot, and characters. The tale quickly hooks the reader in and propels them along, with the attention captivated as much by the personal lives of the police as the crime and its resolution. McDermid nicely elaborates the personal and professional tangles of the Jordan’s whole team, not just her star leads, as well as giving a good sense of the victims and their families. Where the story falters a little is the coincidences that permeate the tale, especially the link across sites through Hill. Also, there’s a side-line cold case mystery that is solved in part using a technology solution that I’m not convinced by (wearing my professional hat) and kind of fizzles along in a very linear way without ever sparking into a more interesting sub-plot. But these are just minor niggles as the story is a compelling and entertaining police procedural.

Review of Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II by Prit Buttar (Osprey Press, 2013)

The three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have been fought over and ruled over by other states for centuries. They gained their independence in the wake of the First World War, but were under pressure from the political manoeuvring of Russia, Germany, and Poland in the interwar years. They are rocked by the German-Soviet non-aggression pact prior to World War Two and occupied by Soviet Union in 1939, then by Germany in 1941, and again by the Soviets 1944-45, remaining behind the iron curtain as part of the Soviet Union until 1990. With the exception of Poland, no countries experienced as high a population loss through death and deportation during the war as the Baltic states (over 20 percent). To complicate matters, both belligerent armies included large numbers of combatants from the Baltic states, plus nationalist and pro-Soviet partisans were operating. Prit Buttar seeks to tell the complex story of the battle of the Baltics from all perspectives (each Baltic state, Germany, Russia; politicians, soldiers, partisans, civilians) from a somewhat distant, neutral perspective. To a large degree, he succeeds, starting with a general potted history leading up to independence post WWI, a general overview of the interwar years, then a detailed history of actions during WW2, and a summary of post-war outcomes.

Buttar covers a lot of ground and there is a lot of detail, but the narrative suffers from a couple of issues. First, the coverage is somewhat uneven, with great detail relating to particular military encounters, with less in-depth analysis concerning civilian life, the activities of partisans, the deportations and ghettos, and Baltic state politics. In part, this is probably related to access to archives and sources. Second, much of the history is laundry-list is style, noting which units were moving where and engaging which armies, etc., and while there are maps, they only relate to a few of the events. In part, this is to do with the scale of the encounters, involving hundreds of thousands of military combatants over a large area, but it makes following events almost meaningless beyond giving a sense of the scale. The result is an analysis that is broad in scope, packed with lots of detail, but is dry, a little uneven, and sometimes uninteresting to follow, and would have benefitted from more personal stories (which are included as very limited snippets). Moreover, some of the analysis jarred a little, especially relating to Jews, who are always talked about as a different group to Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Russians, as if one couldn’t be Latvian and Jewish, for example. They were no doubt singled out as an ethnicity, which is not nationality. Overall, an interesting read as to how the Baltic states fare in the early- and mid-twentieth century.

June reviews

A nice month of reading. The two standout reads were by authors who have both managed to keep long-running series fresh and interesting: Ian Rankin and Philip Kerr. My read of the month goes to latter for Greeks Bearing Gifts.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz ****
The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan ****
Rather Be The Devil by Ian Rankin ****.5
Bone Island Mambo by Tom Corcoran ****
Traitors by Josh Ireland ****
Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr ****.5
Without the Moon by Cathi Unsworth **.5

Lazy Sunday Service

The to-be-read pile is starting to look a little low, so in the interests of having a good choice in what book to read next, I've spent the weekend order books. The list includes novels by Belinda Bauer, Abir Mukherjee, Harry Bingham, Jordan Harper, Eva Dolan, Joe Clifford, Joe Bazell, John Lawton, Don Winslow, Joseph Knox, Mario Vargas Llosa, Leye Adenle, Lauren Beukes, Charles Stross, Nick Harkaway, Adam Roberts, Joel Dicker, Andrew Bergman and Joseph Kanon. There's a fair bit of diversity in that set of crime fiction in terms of style and setting. I've also, added to my want-to-read list for when I've worked through these, so I'm feeling comfortable that there's a good flow of books on the way.

My posts this week
Review of Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Review of The Rúin by Dervla McTiernan
Her last hope