Trapped on the sixth floor

Claire spluttered into consciousness.  A fire alarm was ringing and the room was already tinged with smoke.

‘Gemma!’

‘What’s happening?’ Her roommate coughed.

‘The building’s on fire!’ 

Claire opened the bedroom door gingerly.  The corridor was filled with black smoke, streaks of orange dancing across the ceiling.

‘We’re trapped!’  She darted to the window and stared down at the street.  ‘Get in the wardrobe, it’ll keep out the smoke.’

‘And then what?’

‘We wait for the firemen to find us.’

They clambered in and closed the door.

‘Claire, I’m scared.’

‘Here, hold my hand.’

Nearby, something crashed to the ground.




A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Bitter Water by Gordon Ferris (Corvus, 2012)

A year after being demobbed from the army after the end of the Second World War, and a few months after a traumatic run-in with the Slattery gang, Douglas Brodie is working as a rookie journalist for the Glasgow Gazette.  An ex-policeman and ex-soldier, Brodie has a nose for trouble.  His woes start when his editor, in the absence of the established crime reporter, sends him to the scene of a murdered councillor, the chair of the planning committee for the city.  Shortly after, he’s accosted by a former soldier who wants him and advocate Samantha Campbell to help his friend, who’s been arrested for breaking in to a house.  They reluctantly agree, but the man is nevertheless sent to prison.  Then a series of brutal attacks start to take place around the city, the victims accused of committing unpunished crimes.  With the Gazette’s crime reporter poking around the death of the councillor, it’s left to Brodie to write about the vigilante attacks, but he’s soon drawn into a game of cat and mouse with the gang and other forces.

Gordon Ferris’ writing is easy on the eye and he tells a colourful tale that rattles along a fair clip, with plenty of action and twists and turns.  The story is entertaining, but one has to often suspend belief for it to work, with too many elements relying on characters not pursuing the logical course, the police being hopeless, and the public to a person siding with the vigilantes.  The result is a kind of mix of detective novel and action adventure.  The characterisation is quite nicely done, especially Brodie and Samantha Campbell and their will-they-won’t-they relationship, though many fitted the stock character mould (the dullard inspector, the red-haired barmpot, the world weary journalist, the upper class lout, etc).  The historical contextualisation is not laboured and there is a decent sense of place.  Overall, an enjoyable read that keeps several threads moving along and knots them in a blockbuster conclusion. 

Review of I Will Have Vengeance by Maurizio De Giovanni (Hersilia Press, 2012, translated by Anne Milano Appel)

Naples, March 1931, and Maestro Vezzi, one of the world’s greatest tenors and a favourite of Mussolini is found stabbed to death in his dressing room at the famous San Carlo Theatre.  There’s plenty of suspects, given that nobody who knows him has a good thing to say about him other than he’s a brilliant opera performer, but everyone seemingly has an alibi given they were either absent or taking part in a dress rehearsal.  Commissario Ricciardi is assigned the case and sets to work with his loyal colleague, Brigadier Maione.  Like Vezzi, Ricciardi is not well liked, being distant and direct, relentlessly pursuing cases as if he has a personal stake in the outcome.  Ricciardi’s affliction is that he can see death scenes and the final few moments of a victim’s life and associated sorrows, which then haunt his investigations.  With pressure rising from Rome, Ricciardi makes slow progress as he tries to find a clue that will crack open the case.

I Will Have Vengeance is a locked room mystery set in an opera house.  The story has a well realised sense of place, especially with respect to the San Carlo Theatre, and nice historical contextualisation, placing the reader in Naples in 1931 and its warren of streets, sights and sounds.  The plot is well constructed and has a couple of decent red herrings and blind alleys.  The story seemed to wobble a bit towards the end, but De Giovanni finds a plausible and fitting resolution.  The real strength of the book, however, is the characterisation.  There is a well penned set of supporting actors, but star of the book is undoubtedly the troubled and mournful Commissario Ricciardi, who’s haunted by the ghosts of the dead that surround him and conducts a love affair which involves no contact or words.  Whilst the story is generally well told, I did on occasion find myself skipping back pages or re-reading sentences to decipher meaning, which was a slight distraction.  Overall, an interesting and engaging historical mystery and I look forward to catching up with Commissario Ricciardi in the future.

Lazy Sunday Service

I'm off to Stirling in Scotland tomorrow to present a talk at an education symposia on Tuesday, so I've made a start on Gordon Ferris' Bitter Water to put me in a Scottish frame of mind.  The book is set in Glasgow immediately after the Second World War and follows the exploits of Douglas Brodie, ex-copper, ex-soldier, and the newest crime reporter in town.

My posts this week
Review of The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black
Review of Entry Island by Peter May
Handbook proofs
Out in the storm

Out in the storm

Emma shouted into the wind from the shelter of a doorway.  ‘Mike!  For god’s sake!  Mike!’

Another huge wave broke over the promenade, its spray arcing up and crashing down. 

Mike turned and pointed, his face beaming as he struggled to stay upright.

‘Mike!  Stop being an idiot!’ 

Emma tried to signal to him, but he turned back, wading towards the railing, his camera raised to his eye.

The next wave thumped into the sea wall.  The fluorescent water rose up, towering over Mike’s figure.  Then it tumbled down enveloping him.

When the spray cleared the promenade was empty.

‘Mike!’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Handbook proofs

The proofs for The SAGE Handbook of Human Geography have arrived, all 732 pages of them.  The end is finally in sight!  I'm slightly biased, but I think it's a great collection of essays by a set of wonderful authors.  It should be published by April/May, hopefully.  The dust jacket is right.  Here's the line up.

Volume 1

Part I Imagining Human Geographies
1 Place, Tim Cresswell
2 Mobilities, Johanna Waters
3 Inhabiting, Jacques Lévy
4 Difference, Katharyne Mitchell
5 More-Than-Human Geographies, Beth Greenhough
6 Nature-Society, Andrea Nightingale
7 Transformations, Daniel Clayton
8 Critique, Alastair Bonnett
9 Geo-historiographies, Trevor Barnes

Part II Practising Human Geographies
10 Capturing, Matthew W. Wilson and Sarah Elwood
11 Noticing, Eric Laurier
12 Representing, Anna Barford
13 Writing (somewhere), Juliet J. Fall
14 Researching, Meghan Cope
15 Producing, Mia Gray
16 Engaging, Jane Wills
17 Educating, Jennifer Hill and Avril Maddrell
18 Advocacy, Audrey Kobayashi, Meghan Brooks, Sarah de Leeuw, Nathaniel Lewis,
Catherine Nolin and Cheryl Sutherland

Volume 2

Part III Living Human Geographies
19 Ethics, Elizabeth Olson
20 Economy, Marianna Pavlovskaya and Kevin St Martin
21 Society, Jamie Winders
22 Culture, Patricia Price
23 Politics, David Featherstone
24 Words, Cheryl McGeachan and Christopher Philo
25 Power, Louise Amoore
26 Development, Katie Wills
27 Bodies, Rachel Silvey and Jean-François Bissonnette
28 Identities, Robyn Dowling and Katharine McKinnon
29 Demographies, Elspeth Graham
30 Health, Matthew Sparke
31 Resistance, Sarah Wright

Review of Entry Island by Peter May (Quercus, 2014)

Sime Mackenzie, a detective based in Montreal, has recently separated from his wife and is suffering from chronic insomnia.  Given he’s a fluent English speaker in a mostly French-speaking force he is assigned to a team, that includes his wife, a crime scene investigator, being flown to the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence to investigate the murder of rich businessman on the remote Entry Island, stabbed to death in his own home.  Kirsty Cowell claims that she was attacked by a man wearing a ski mask, who killed her husband when he intervened.  Circumstantial evidence, however, suggests that she was her husband’s killer.  Lieutenant Crozes, who's charge of the investigative team, wants to wrap the case up quickly and is happy to take the obvious route.  Sime, however, senses that they are making a mistake, but his judgement is clouded by an acute lack of sleep, the presence of his estranged wife, and a sense that he shares a connection to Kirsty Cowell even though he’s never met her before.

In Entry Island, Peter May weaves together two stories, separated by almost two centuries -- a murder investigation on a remote island in the Gulf of St Lawrence and a doomed love affair on the Isle of Lewis between a crofter’s son and the daughter of the local laird.  The intertwining of the stories is nicely done, providing some interesting counterpoints between the two periods and how the past intervenes in the present.  Whilst the Lewis story is compelling, the present day investigation is less satisfactory, with a little too much melodrama at times, a rather contrived personal situation, a weak investigative plot that relies on the team ignoring evidence, including a second death and an attempted murder, and a resolution that didn’t ring true.   Nonetheless, some of the telling is very good, producing a page-turning read, with nice historical contextualisation concerning the Highland clearances and emigration to Canada, and a strong sense of place in Scotland and Canada.  The result is a story that is a little uneven, with a somewhat weak ending, but is still an engaging and entertaining read.

Review of The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black (Picador, 2007)

In the late 1950s, two years after his fateful investigation into the death of Christine Falls, pathologist Quirke is still working in a Dublin hospital.  He’s made an awkward truce with his daughter, who is now in her early twenties, and he’s given up drink.  When an old acquaintance from his college days asks him not to perform an autopsy on the body of his dead wife to save her from the stigma of suicide, Quirke cautiously agrees.  Deirdre Hunt has been recovered from Dublin Bay.  Only she didn’t drown.  Nevertheless, Quirke decides to keep that information to himself and to perjure himself at the coroner’s hearing.  Fascinated by the case, however, he starts to poke around only to find his daughter having an affair with Deirdre Hunt’s business partner.  Moreover, Inspector Hackett has become interested in the death and Quirke is left wondering if he made the right decision to help Billy Hunt.

Compared to many contemporary crime fiction novels, which have a relatively quick pace and are packed with melodrama or dramatic action, The Silver Swan is quite sedate.  Benjamin Black’s (John Banville) style is understated, atmospheric drama, told with a steady cadence of unfussy prose.  It is well suited to portraying the drab city streets of Dublin and the conservative and reserved society of Ireland in the 1950s and its hidden, seedy underbelly.  The book hinges on two events that at first seemed unlikely: Quirke’s decision to lie about an autopsy and his withdrawn and distant daughter taking up with the victim’s flamboyant business partner.  However, the first makes some sense when placed into the context of Ireland in the 1950s, when suicide carried significant stigma, and the second works well in terms of introducing a certain edge to what is generally a quite a flat story.  The plot is nicely set out and the characters well drawn, with Quirke a reticent, taciturn and troubled investigator.  Overall, a tale that takes a different path to most crime fiction.

Lazy Sunday Service

If you're interested in the property crash in Ireland, then I've recently done two 10 minute interviews on RTE Radio 1.  The first on This Week on January 5th (postcast here) and the second on Drivetime on January 17th (podcast here).  I've also written two blog posts explaining where things are at and what that might mean.

Is a new house price bubble forming in Dublin and could creating more supply temper price rises?
House prices in Dublin might be rising, but we’re a long, long way from a normal market

I did a fair bit of media work last year, including 3 television interviews, 11 radio interviews, and interviews with journalist that resulted in 15 mentions in international newspapers and 29 in national ones.  It's not something that I proactively court, and I turn a fair bit down when its not my area of expertise or pass them to colleagues, but I do think it's important for academics to contribute when they can, so I'm happy to participate in debates when asked.

My posts this week:

Pulling a thread
Review of Broken Harbour by Tana French
New year splurge
Big data: draft of encyclopedia entry

Pulling a thread

Chloe draped her arms over Neil’s neck and nuzzled into his neck.  ‘What are you doing?’

Neil kept his eyes fixed on the laptop screen.  ‘Pulling a thread.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I thought I was finished.  Then I tinkered with the second paragraph, which meant I had to re-jig the third, which led to a redrafting of the whole first section.’

‘And how is it now?’

‘Still unravelling.  It’s like a run in your tights.  One slight nick that’s unfurled into an ugly ladder.’

‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’

‘Soon.’

‘You’ll be hours.  It can’t unravel on its own.’

‘Mmmmm.’




A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Broken Harbour by Tana French (Hachette, 2012)

Jenny and Pat Spain thought they had the perfect life.  They were happily married, had two darling kids, and they’d bought a dream home on a new estate in Broken Harbour.  Then the Irish economic boom came to an end.  Their house was poorly built and situated on an unfinished estate far from friends and family and Pat lost his job.  Added to that was a sense that someone was entering their house and stealing things and a strange animal was living in the attic.  Then the police get a call to say that the children have been smothered, Pat fatally stabbed, and Jennifer is fighting for her life.  Michael Kennedy of the murder squad is assigned to the case with rookie detective Richie Curran.  Kennedy is a model professional, but Broken Harbour is the site of a dark episode of family history that threatens to disrupt the investigation.

Broken Harbour won the Crime Fiction Book of the Year at 2012’s Irish Book Awards.  The story has a very contemporary feel, concerned with the murder of a family on a ghost estate in post-crash Ireland.  Where the book excels is with respect to providing a highly detailed account of an investigation that microscopically charts the procedural elements.  It also has a strong sense of place and in-depth characterisation.  These come, however, at the expense pace and length.  The style adopted is to reproduce the entire case, including whole conversations that often go on for pages without adding much to the plot.  It’s an interesting approach, creating a certain enclosed atmospherics.  However, it felt as if a good quarter of the text could have been edited out without impacting on the plot or its affective resonance.  At times the plot veers towards melodrama, some of the elements are difficult to believe, and it relies a little too much on lengthy confessions, but nonetheless it provides an engaging story.  Overall, an entertaining if overly long tale.

New year splurge

My to-be-read pile is not short of books at present, but that hasn't stopped me ordering the following books at the local bookshop in a new year splurge.

Maurizio DeGiovanni - I Will Have Vengeance
Ruth Dudley Edwards - Corridors of Death
Gordon Ferris - Bitter Water
Robert Gott - The Holiday Murders
Declan Hughes - All the Dead Voices
Marek Krajewski - The End of the World in Breslau
Seth Lynch - Salazar
William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch
Ali Monroe - Washington Shadow
Anthony Quinn - Disappeared
Eduardo Sacheri - The Secret in Their Eyes
Roger Smith - Capture
P.D. Viner - The Last Winter of Dani Lancing

Just a couple of days after placing the order I've now read a post over at Col's Criminal Library and I now have five new books on my wish list. 

Wiley Cash - This Dark Road to Mercy
John Florio - Sugar Pop Moon
JW Nelson - Joey's Place
Terry Shames - A Killing at Cotton Hill
Gregory Widen - Blood Makes Noise

I think I'll wait a while before seeking these out though; at least, until I've read a good few of the one's I've already ordered.

Lazy Sunday Service

I've just enjoyed another week of reading Irish crime fiction, working my way through Tana French's Broken Harbour and Benjamin Black's The Silver Swan.  The books are set sixty years apart, but both evoke a certain kind of melancolic Irish landscape.  I hope to post reviews sometime next week.






My posts this week
Is a new house price bubble forming in Dublin and could creating more supply temper price rises?
Review of Dead Lions by Mick Herron
House prices in Dublin might be rising, but we’re a long, long way from a normal market
Books by Irish authors read in 2013
Review of Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda
This isn't a video game

This isn’t a video game

His eyes fixed on the monitor, Hasker’s fingers tapped at the keyboard.  7,000 miles away the drone locked onto a small encampment, quiet in the early hours. 

‘Target acquired.’

‘Finish the job, son.’

They watched as four missiles landed in quick succession.  Figures stumbled through the wreckage and flames. 

Hasker pushed back his chair.  ‘I can’t do this any longer.’

‘Stay where you are, Hasker.’

‘This isn’t a video game.  Real people just died.’

‘They were terrorists.’

‘They were women and children and I just blew them all to hell.’

‘Which is where they belong.’

‘Which is where we’re going.’





A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda (Ecco/Dennis Lehane Books, 2013)

On a hot summer evening, teenagers Val and June decide to have an adventure.  They take a small inflatable pink raft and walk down to the shore in Red Hook in Brooklyn.  First they seek to join an old friend, Monica, who brushes them off, before pushing off into the sea, watched by a young man, Cree.  Early the next morning, Jonathan, a disillusioned music teacher, finds Val under the pier and carries her to a nearby Lebanese grocery run by Fadi.  From there she is whisked to hospital where she claims to have no memory of the night before.  A search is launched for June, but no trace can be found of her.  Over the following weeks a dark cloud hangs over Val, Jonathan, Cree, Monica and Fadi, each of them feeling out of sorts as they come to terms with June’s disappearance and their relationships to each other and the local community.

Most crime novels dwell on the crime itself and how it is solved, with the lead characters being the detectives and/or criminals.  Visitation Street takes a different approach, instead focusing on the friends and community in the aftermath of a crime whilst still moving the story to a resolution.  In so doing, Ivy Pochoda tells a layered tale that has a great sense of place and social depth, dropping the reader into the world of Red Hook and its inhabitants, with keen observations regarding race, class, family, and urban life.  Her characters are very nicely portrayed and their interactions and dialogue realistic.  The plot has a nice cadence, the prose is evocative, and the telling has a strong emotional register, especially a sense of foreboding, without ever slipping into melodrama or psychological suspense.  The result is a thoughtful literary crime novel that also offers an illuminating social commentary on life in a Brooklyn neighbourhood.