Monthly Archives: November 2011

Review: The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

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This is a book I would like to have read for a book club as there are several aspects of it that I can’t quite make up my mind about and I’d enjoy discussing some of these nuances with others.. They are the sorts of things I can’t really go into in any depth in the review because it would constitute unacceptable (to me) spoiling so this is less of a review and more of a series of questions I cannot really answer.

Lizzie and Evie are 13-year old best friends. One day as they leave school Lizzie is picked up by her mother, leaving Evie to walk home alone but she disappears. In the frenzy of police interviews and schoolyard gossip which follows Lizzie is left to piece together what happened and yearn for her friend’s return. A few days after the disappearance Lizzie remembers something that directs the investigation towards a local man who has also disappeared but it is not clear early on whether the two events are connected.

The book is told in the present tense from Lizzie’s point of view, neither of which are my favourite forms of narrative and in combination they could have sounded the death knell early on. However Abbott has used both the point of view and the tense to perfection, using the first to beautifully depict the self-absorbed narcissism of being 13 and the second to envelop the reader cloyingly in Lizzie’s world. I was definitely seeing things from this particular 13 year-old’s perspective rather than utilising any of my own experiences of being that age though. As the book progressed the language and thoughts Lizzie started to express seemed far too adult and atypical for girls of that age. I suppose one could argue that the circumstances Lizzie found herself in prompted a faster than normal maturation but I did not get the feeling that this is what the author was trying to convey. Then again, Lizzie is the ultimate unreliable narrator – there are dreams, memories and longings that become quite mixed up so readers are not sure what is real and what imagined – so maybe it is in keeping that her narrative voice is not entirely authentic? Or maybe there is an even bigger gulf than I imagined between life in the US and life here in Australia?

Part of the reason I grew less accepting of Lizzie’s voice was that all the young girls in the book (i.e. Evie and and her older sister Dusty in addition to Lizzie) are depicted with the kinds of thoughts about sex and sexuality that I don’t think are typical. One would have been believable but, for me, three was far less so, especially as they all arrived at their beliefs independently. In the same way I found it difficult to swallow that all the dad-age men in the novel were somewhere on the spectrum of sexual predator. I guess Abbott was exploring the ‘you never know what’s lurking in suburbia’ theme but I certainly found the book less successful as it went on when just about everyone turned out to be at least slightly debauched. To me, one or two such characters are more believable than an entire cast but perhaps I am missing a larger point?

Both the time and place of the book are left very vague and I assume this is a deliberate strategy to focus our attention more keenly on the people at the heart of the story and their very narrow world of neighbouring houses. I imagine Abbott thinks we don’t need to concern ourselves with anything larger than that in terms of place and this aspect of the novel worked well. An interview I read with Abbott suggests the book is set ‘in the 1980′s’ (I think later in the decade but am not really basing this on much other than use of the phrase ‘school lockdown’)  which fits with the novel’s general sense of a more innocent time than today. I thought the adults, including police, were perhaps a bit too naive but then in the suburbs of my youth (I turned 13 in 1980) we lived in the shadow of the unsolved and high profile disappearances of 5 children in two separate incidents some years earlier, so perhaps in this one respect my own experience was not quite the norm.

I really would not classify this as crime fiction but I don’t mean that as a criticism in any way, I simply think it has wider appeal and really follows none of the conventions or tropes of the genre. If it were a book written by someone who wasn’t already identified as a crime writer I think this would more easily have slipped neatly into a general or literary fiction category.

If you had asked me at somewhere just after the half-way point of this novel what my rating would be I’d have anticipated a 4 or even a 4.5 for what was a very compelling story quite beautifully written (Abbott really does have a way with words). But then the book started to lose its punch for me by having virtually everyone turn out to be the same kind of creepy character and every relationship containing some element of abuse. And just to be contrary with myself I found the ending disappointing because it was all a bit too neat and not as dark as I thought the story deserved. Overall though I’m glad I read the book and it is one I can imagine discussing with gusto with other readers of it and possibly even having my opinions of it changed over time.

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The End of Everything has been reviewed all over the place but I’ve linked to ones that provide some range of views: Book Smugglers (warning there are a few spoilers here but it’s a good review which raises some interesting discussion points), Just a Normal Girl in London, Mostly Fiction, Readings Bookshop blog

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My rating 3.5? 3? I’m really not sure
Publisher Pan Macmillan [2011]
ISBN 9780330533829
Length 244 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone
Source I borrowed it from the library

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: This Thing of Darkness by Barbara Fradkin

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Retired psychiatrist Samuel Rosenthal is beaten to death late one Saturday night in an Ottawa alleyway. Officially the case is being investigated by Sergeant Marie Claire Levesque, new to the Ottawa Police, and she becomes convinced the doctor was killed as part of a mugging gone wrong. A group of black youths was spotted on a surveillance camera and Levesque spends her energies on tracking them down. Her boss, Inspector Michael Green, is not sure the case is as clear cut and he also starts to investigate the case, enjoying the feel of being back out in the field. He tackles several lines of enquiry including the notion that Rosenthal was killed by one of his former patients or possibly even his own estranged son. Green and Levesque disagree on process and priorities for most of the novel which impacts the investigative process at several points in the story.

I found this a fairly confusing book to read, with an over-abundance of plot lines that all received fairly cursory attention. For my enjoyment the book would have been better served by focusing more in-depth on a couple of these only, though I’m sure this is a matter of personal preference. An aspect that really grated on my nerves was the inclusion of the possibility that the motivation for the crime was one young Muslim man’s extreme fundamentalism. There is absolutely no evidence of any such thing and the thread peters out into nothing at all, but that didn’t stop Inspector Green throwing out a few random “facts” about Muslim extremism.  The young man in question was born in Somalia and had experienced sustained violent abuse at the hands of a parent and the case does touch on the possibility that this upbringing had an unexpected impact on the boy but there was plenty of scope for this to be explored in more depth rather than yet another go-round of the ‘Muslim = terrorirst’ theme. I can’t even begin to imagine how truly awful it must be for the vast majority of Muslims who are perfectly normal, well-adjusted people to have their religion automatically linked with the notion of terrorism whenever it is mentioned.

This is the seventh book of the Inspector Green series and I did feel a bit like I was attending a party uninvited as there were a fair few oblique references to past events. That aside though the focus on the personal lives of the various members of the team was a stronger element of the novel, though I must admit to finding Green both unlikeable and not entirely convincing. At one point for example he his indirectly responsible for the death of an innocent young girl and is at least partially to blame for the heart attack of a colleague. He seems to shrug off both of these events with only the most cursory of nods to any emotional impact on himself and neither incident changes the man’s behaviour at all. I found this a little hard to swallow.

In the end I suppose this was a perfectly serviceable police procedural but I didn’t find anything in it that stood out our would make me want to read more of the series. I do appreciate this is probably at least partly a result of coming to the series so late but I do think a series should be able to be joined at any point in its progress.

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This Thing of Darkness has been reviewed at Reviewing the Evidence

Apart from a liberal use of the words loonie and toonie I didn’t notice anything particularly Canadian about the novel, but I’m counting this as book 2 of the North American leg of my Global Reading Challenge for the year

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My rating 2.5/5
Publisher Napoleon and Co (this digital edition 2009)
ISBN  9781926607146
Length 344 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series #7 in the Inspector Green series
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: Purge by Sofi Oksanen

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Aliide is an elderly widow living in an isolated house in a half-deserted Estonian village in the early 1990′s. One day she finds a young girl collapsed outside her house and, against her better judgement (who might be watching and who will they tell?), she brings the “dishrag of a girl” into her home where she, warily and sparingly, provides some nourishment and general aid. About all we know for sure for some time is that the girl’s name is Zara and she is from Vladivostok. Over the course of the novel we travel backwards and forwards in time to learn the histories of the women who have both had traumatic experiences which have left deep physical and psychological scars.

Purge isn’t only a story of violence and abuse perpetrated against its two protagonists but is testament to the ease with which such behaviour has always been, and is still, accepted as the natural way of things in many cultures. Its sadness lies not only in the stories of two women but in the fact that these stories are shared by so many (we did, after all, just observe the international day for the elimination of violence against women). However the strength of the novel lies in the clever and engaging way Oksanen teases out the stories and compels the reader to discover how the two women ended up where they were. Aliide’s story in particular also plays out against the backdrop of some momentous events in the region’s history, including the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and there is a very credible depiction of the impact of these events on the day-to-day lives of the average person. This aspect of the novel made me realise how little I know about these events from recent history when compared with events in western Europe or America.

The two central characters are very strong though not, perhaps contrary to expectations, entirely likeable. Aliide is an especially prickly character and while some of this is explained by the horrific traumas she has experienced there are other things which cannot be so easily justified. I liked the fact she was portrayed in this way as it made her far more believable than I think she would have been without these very human flaws. The secondary characters, including the various people who torment the two women are also well-drawn and all too credible.

The story itself was well told and relatively easy to follow despite its somewhat choppy nature though I have to admit I thought the ending somewhat awkward and rushed. I’ve read quite a few reviews of this book and they all seem to take a different message or theme from their reading which is the sign of a really great book. For myself I thought it spoke beautifully about the dangers of longing for something (or someone) you can’t have, the lengths humans will go to for self-preservation and I enjoyed reflecting on the various implications of the novel’s title. It is, in parts, a harrowing read but a highly rewarding one.

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Purge has been reviewed at Petrona and The Black Sheep Dances and I am counting it towards my Eastern European Reading Challenge

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My rating 4/5
Translator Lola Rogers
Publisher Atlantic Books [2011]
ISBN 9780857890528
Length 402 pages
Format eBook (kindle)
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Are books failing me or am I failing them?

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There’s something I miss about reading only physical books. I can’t throw eBooks or audio books at the wall when I don’t like them (Well I could I guess but I’m not prepared to hurl several hundred dollars worth of gadgetry at a wall to make a juvenille point).

Although I am willing enough to stop reading a book I am not enjoying it doesn’t happen that often these days. This year there had been about 10 incidents before yesterday but as I have read over 150 books this year it’s not a bad rate (and half of them were books I tried for the Eastern European Reading Challenge which has, I admit, stumped me). But I stopped 2 books this weekend. Is it my mood I wondered? Or coincidence? And whose fault is it anyway?

The first book was a debut one by an Australian author and I picked it because it is set in my home town (partly at any rate) and is very topical. Billed as a thriller about the escape of some inmates of the one of the detention centres in which successive governments have chosen to house people who arrive on our shores seeking refuge from turmoil in their own countries I was looking forward to the book. It actually started out fairly well, introducing a few credibly Aussie characters and setting the scene for something interesting. But at page 121 (of 343) I realised absolutely nothing of interest to me had occurred. And the book was getting clunkier by the minute. Large tracts of preaching disguised poorly as exposition had started to make my blood boil by that point and so I gave up. I should point out for the record that I agree wholeheartedly with the political leanings of the novel (I am deeply ashamed of the way we treat these refugees) but, by crikey, if you must lecture me while I read at least have the decency to entertain me as well. I figured the author had definitely lost me when I realised I was only engaged by counting how many of my home town’s major roads would be named (we were up to about 11 by the time I threw in the towel as the two main charactes drove randomly all over town doing nothing that could be remotely interpreted as thrilling).

The second book I gave up on today was also Australian. Or sort of. The author has lived here for years but this book is set partly in his native South Africa, partly in England and partly  (I think) in Germany. Or maybe Austria. Or somewhere else in Europe I really wasn’t sure. Which is the point. I was at 17 of 42 relatively short chapters of the audio book – so near enough to half way – when I realised I had virtually no idea what was going on. Not a clue. I had listened to the opening 3 or 4 chapters three times and had replayed other parts twice but if you held a gun at my head right now I could not give you a sensible synopsis of the plot. My non-sensible synopsis is that there were two blokes in two different story threads. One was a bodyguard who lost all his clients on one particularly bad day (which happened in the first 2 minutes) and then he went to England and made some phone calls. The other bloke had been a hostage (?) for a long time in Beirut. And he wasn’t happy. Some might say the problem is with the audio format but nearly one third of the books I read are in audio format so by now I’m a pretty good listener. The book just didn’t make much sense.

If you are a non-finisher of books do you blame yourself for not being smart enough to get the meaning? Or do you blame the author for not writing a better book? Or do you just chalk it up to chance and move on to something else? Want to share your latest non-finished book and the reason you didn’t finish it (you don’t have to name the book or author if you don’t want to).

Review: Headhunters by Jo Nesbo

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After a hiccup (I had discarded the book once but you convinced me to give it another go) I thoroughly enjoyed Jo Nesbø’s The Redbreast and bought the rest of the series before I’d even finished the first book. I haven’t actually gotten around to reading any of them yet because every time I reach for the second book in the series I see its 600+ pages and decide to read something else. Something shorter. But a standalone novel is a whole different box of bananas and shorter than most of the Harry Hole novels so I was keen to read this one. Sadly for me it turned out not to be my cup of tea.

It is the story of Norwegian executive recruitment specialist Roger Brown (I never did discover how he ended up with such a thoroughly English name though concede this is probably my fault…my mind did wander on occasion) whose life spirals out of control in an increasingly gruesome way. Roger has a great job and a beautiful wife who he professes to adore but he feels he needs more money to fund his lifestyle so he has second job as an art thief. In a way, though not the way you might expect, it is this second job that gets him into trouble and sets up the main plot thread of the novel in which Roger matches wits with Clas Greve, a candidate for a top CEO job who ultimately becomes Roger’s arch enemy. The two play a game of cat and mouse across the Norwegian countryside and leave the landscape littered with bodies.

This book didn’t really tick any of the boxes on the list of things I look for in a good thriller and it had quite a few of the things that make me turn off (including scenes featuring poo). I found the characters flat and uninteresting which is probably the biggest problem I can have with a thriller. If characters are to be unlikeable I want them to be really unlikeable; the kind of people whose painful demise I guiltily yet eagerly anticipate. Here I just thought the two main characters were dull and I didn’t much care which of them lived, died or got the girl. The main woman was a non event; being defined only by her relationship to the men in the story and having a laughingly unbelievable relationship to her husband.

The story was a bit better than the characters but its cartoonish quality resulted in me not really being able to care about its many, increasingly implausible twists and I found myself picking apart relatively minor things like dodgy physics and technology. In a book I am enjoying I let that kind of thing was over me but here I wasn’t really engaged by the story and so the things stood out more (I can’t go into more detail without spoiling). Another thing which leapt out rather disconcertingly was the clunky product placements for brands of fridge, beer, furniture, clothing and so on. I go to some lengths to avoid being advertised at constantly so it really annoys me when it happens as part of a narrative. For me the ending to the book lost it half a star on my personal rating scale, seeming to lose the guts to be a tale of true noir right at the crucial moment and having a very clunky denouement.

I have something of a soft spot for high class thieves (blame my mother’s yen for Cary Grant which resulted in me watching To Catch a Thief dozens of times as a kid) so I was probably predisposed to liking this novel but it was not to be. To me it felt like a loosely connected series of vignettes in which bad stuff happened to not very nice people (and one poor dog) and not a lot in the way of thrills. As always alternative opinions are available and you shouldn’t just take my word for it.

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Headhunters has received more positive reviews at A Common Reader, Nordic Bookblog Petrona

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My rating 2/5
Narrator Sean Barrett
Publisher Random House Audiobooks [2010]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 7 hours 50 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

You’ve missed the point. Again.

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First, some facts…

Sue Grafton’s V is for Vengeance was released in the US last Monday.

I want to read it.

I can buy the hard cover from Amazon US.

I can buy the audio CD from Amazon US (though I cannot buy the audio download from Audible US)

I can buy the hard cover, the trade paperback or an audio CD from Book Depository in the UK or Amazon UK. Both of these sites offer free shipping to Australia.

…and an assumption…

Based on past, extensive (most of my books in the last 3 years have been bought from one or other of these stores) experience it would take a maximum of 10 days to arrive on my doorstep, usually around 6-7.

…one final, stupid fact…

I cannot buy the book in any format from any store in Australia at the time of writing (and it doesn’t appear as a pre-order on any book website I access regularly)

….and a guess

The book will cost $10-$15 more if I wait to buy it in an Australian store than the cheapest offering currently open to me ($19.19 from Book Depository with free shipping, Australian RRP for trade paperbacks is usually around the $33 mark).

What the BISG says about it all

In summary the Book Industry Strategy Group thinks this is all fine and dandy. Read on if you want a more detailed ‘analysis’ (i.e. mini rant).

The BISG had as its overall aim

to work with industry and government to develop a comprehensive strategy for securing Australia’s place in the emerging digital book market, while making the Australian book industry more efficient and globally competitive.

and it delivered its final report to the Australian Government last week.

Recommendation 4 of the report deals with Parallel Import Restrictions (PIRs) which were established as part of our copyright law in 1991 and which prevent the importation or selling of a book if there is a local holder of rights for the same book (in turn, the local rights holder must make the book available within 30 days of the book’s publication elsewhere). The aim of these restrictions was to level the playing field for local sellers (who face problems not of their making in the form of the ever-present tyranny of distance and a small population relative to other English-speaking markets) and to offer the best chance for works by local artists to thrive (I swear I have tried but I never did understand this part of the argument).

The BISG had quite a bit to say about the PIRs including a repetition of the Government’s 2009 finding on the issue, namely

The Productivity Commission found that the PIRs placed upward pressure on book prices, restricted commercial decisions for booksellers and were an ineffective mechanism for offsetting cultural externalities for Australian works;

and goes on to provide an update on the situation as it is now

…through its research and consultations the Book Industry Strategy Group notes that over the last two years, the Australian market has become more integrated with international markets. In 2010, Australian consumers purchased around 18 per cent of print books online, of which 53 per cent (or $150 million) was from an overseas online bookseller, thereby placing considerable pressure on Australian booksellers.

and admitted that the PIRs probably have the exact opposite of their intended effect

the 30/90 supply conditions of the PIRs no longer provide the same level of protection for the Australian industry as they did previously. As consumer expectations about price and availability increase, the PIR conditions may in fact advantage overseas suppliers and steer consumers away from books authored and produced in Australia. The emergence of online sales has created a buyers’ market and expecting consumers to wait 30 days to purchase a book that they can access immediately through overseas suppliers is no longer feasible.

And went so far as to state quite explicitly that

Consumers in Australia need access to print books and ebooks as soon as they are available in their market of origin and as soon as publishers can realistically get them to our markets. This is a change that recognises the impact that e-retailing and technological change is having on booksellers and publishing (highlighting my own)

But despite all of this the BISG does not recommend the immediate repeal of the PIRs and instead suggests

That the Australian book industry (authors, printers, publishers and booksellers) formalise an agreed, industry-wide code of practice that will reduce the timeframe for retention of territorial copyright from 30/90 days to 14/14 days without the need to amend existing legislation.

It’s enough to make a reader weep.

They’re saying they acknowledge PIRs don’t work, they acknowledge they’re hurting the industry, they acknowledge that over half of the books bought online by Australians are bought overseas (and we can guess this figure is growing) but they’re still not ready to give up the PIRs entirely.

In a strange way I think I’d have had a modicum of respect for them if they’d dug their heels in but this half-arsed recommendation proves they’re not a strategy group; they’re a bunch of insipid, fence-sitting, do-nothings unprepared to admit that the industry has been wrong about this issue since 1991.

There is, honestly, enough source material for an entire year’s worth of rants in the rest of the 108 page report but I’m not sure I have the energy.

For now I’ve got to go order a book from the UK.

Review: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint

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Inspector Singh of the Singapore police is close to retirement age but having done something to annoy his superiors he’s the officer chosen to go to Malaysia to look after the interests of a Singaporean citizen in trouble. Former model Chelsea Liew has been arrested for the murder of her Malaysian ex-husband Alan Lee and Singh is meant to observe Malaysian police and ensure that she receives a fair deal. The problem for Singh is that everyone believes her guilty (and who would blame her given Lee’s years of abuse and the bitter custody battle they were in regarding their children) and if she is convicted she will receive the death penalty.

As seems to be happening more and more with my crime fiction reading of late the mystery element takes a back seat to other aspects of this novel. In this instance it’s not a bad thing at all as there is so much else of interest going on, reminding me once again how suitable the conventions of crime fiction are for writers to explore a range of issues and ideas. Here Flint has included everything from relatively innocuous (though fascinating) observations about the differences between Singaporean and Malaysian cultures to tougher subjects such as the problems that can arise in Malaysia which operates under common law for most things but has formally adopted Sharia law to deal with family law matters for Muslims. By using an example of a remotely possible case in this world of dual laws Flint has offered real food for thought and by resolving this thread in a somewhat unorthodox manner she offers no easy solution to the complexities that must inevitably arise in this type of scenario. Very realistic! It’s a powerful storyline and, for me, made more so because it plays out simply, without any proselytizing.

Although tradition might demand the reader has some sympathy for the victim of a murder it is somewhat difficult here. Alan Lee appears not to have many redeeming qualities, being an abusive husband, horrible father, callous businessman and all around despicable human being. This does give Inspector Singh something to work with when he becomes convinced of Liew’s innocence and tries to convince the local authorities of it. As a character Singh is something of a stereotype being portly, smarter than average and a bit of a loner. He can be quite funny too, especially when dealing with his sister (who lives in Malaysia and provides her hospitality with opinionated homespun wisdom). Although we do meet two local investigators we don’t get to know them in much depth as, unlike most series of this type the Inspector will be off to another country in the next book so there’s not the impetus to develop ‘the investigative team’. Instead we spend time learning about the suspects, especially Alan Lee’s family. I really enjoyed this approach to storytelling.

Aside from this excellent review at Crime Scraps most reviews I have seen of this book (and the series which now totals four) talk about it being light, fun and cosy and I think this is a little misleading. The crime at its heart does happen ‘off-stage’ so to speak and there are not extended passages of violent description so in that way the book is, I suppose, ‘cosy’ but I found the subjects it explored anything but light and frothy. In addition to the issues mentioned above it also deftly tackles the environmental impact of deforestation in the region and the treatment of local indigenous communities, neither of which are subjects I would consider light.

Although now a proud stay-at-home mum in Singapore Shamini Flint has worked as a lawyer in both Singapore and Malaysia which provides an authentic feel to this book. Although it’s not first and foremost a legal thriller there are many scenes in which the law and its application is discussed and dissected in a thought provoking way. Amongst all of this we are treated to a solidly entertaining whodunnit as well, which kept this reader guessing to the end. Although I will happily read the next installment of this series in paper form I am really hoping that it will be released in audio format too as the narration of this book by Jonathan Keeble was (as always) excellent.

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Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder has been reviewed at Crime Scraps.

I’m counting this as book 2 of the Asian leg of my Global Reading Challenge for the year

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My rating 4/5
Author website http://www.shaminiflint.com/index.html
Narrator Jonathan Keeble
Publisher Hachette Digital [this audio book 2011, original edition 2008]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 8 hours 34 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Inspector Singh Investigates series
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Aussie Authors Update #4

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My reviews of Aussie crime fiction are published exclusively at my other blog, Fair Dinkum Crime, which I co-host with fellow Australian blogger and crime fiction fan Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise. But I like to do an occasional wrap-up of my Aussie crime fiction reads here at Reactions to Reading

THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL by Geoffrey McGeachin

Synopsis: It’s two years since the end of the second World War and Charlie Berlin has returned to Australia, having been a bomber pilot in Europe then a POW in Poland, and is still haunted by things he saw and did. Upon returning to work as a Detective Constable in Melbourne he is sent to rural Victoria, on the border with New South Wales, to investigate a spate of armed robberies, the latest of which resulted in a paymaster being badly injured. He arrives in town to be greeted by a young constable, Rob Roberts, who will drive him around (and report back to the local Sergeant who is not entirely happy to have someone from the city on his turf) and the two form a complementary team of investigators with Charlie supplying the experience and Roberts providing the local knowledge.

Review summary: The historical aspects of the novel are extremely well done; feeling authentic through the use of interesting details but not overblown with evidence of the author’s research. McGeachin has done a first rate job in the crowded space of fiction dealing with the horrors of returning from war, capturing both the universal truths that are associated with the experiences and the peculiarly Australian, somewhat laconic way of dealing with the nightmares and other repercussions. The characters are nicely drawn and the crime solving is subtle but believable, hinging on Charlie’s methods of getting to know the place and its people so that the culprit will virtually reveal themselves.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime, My rating 4/5 Since I posted this review The Diggers Rest Hotel was awarded the 2011 Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction

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THE WONDER OF SELDOM SEEN by J D Cregan

Synopsis: Tells the story of Miles Jordan, a Melbourne-based author who wrote an award-winning book some years earlier but has been unable to recreate his success. Now his marriage is over and he’s broke so Miles is leaving Melbourne, in his beat-up old car and with his trusty dog Roley by his side, for a new life. He doesn’t get too far before he is offered a job and a roof over his head at a Lakes Entrance caravan park. There he enters into an ill-advised affair with the park owner’s wife and when that scenario looks like it could be dangerous for both of them Miles again moves on, this time ending up in the tiny village of Seldom Seen in Victoria’s high country. While Miles starts to settle in his new surroundings he doesn’t know that he has become a suspect in a murder that took place back in Lakes Entrance but his past does end up catching up with him.

Review Summary: The book mixes up the sub genres and is not a slave to the conventions of any. It has a very strong sense of place, a collection of local characters believably drawn and I enjoyed the book’s mixture of light hearted whimsy and dramatic moments.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime 3/5 stars.

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RIP OFF by Kel Robertson

Synopsis: The third book to feature fifth generation Chinese-Australian policeman Brad Chen. As the novel opens Chen is due to return to his job with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) after being on extended leave but he is called into service a few days early when a bizarre series of killings occurs across the country. In Perth then Adelaide several people are murdered in a similar fashion and their connection seems to be the fact that they had something to do with a large-scale financial fraud which left many ‘mum and dad’ investors penniless.

Review Summary:  I now know just enough about Brad Chen to want to go back and learn about his earlier cases. As well as being a wholly believable character he’s also an interesting mix of traits, having played footy at the highest level and now completing his PhD thesis and being one of the most dedicated house cleaners I’ve ever read about. I love the way Robertson depicts Chen dealing with the racism he encounters too. I recommend RIP OFF widely, especially if you’re after a ripper tale, like a laugh or love to revel in the joy of a beautifully constructed sentence.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime. 4/5 stars

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THE OTTOMAN MOTEL by Christopher Currie

Synopsis: Simon Sawyer is 11 years old when he and his parents travel to Reception, a small town on the east coast of Australia, to visit Simon’s grandmother who the family have been estranged from for some years. On the advice of one of the locals Simon’s parents decide to do some sightseeing before their visit to grandma and Simon stays at their motel by himself. He dozes off when he wakes at 10:00pm that night he realises his parents have not returned and he soon learns that no one has seen them since the afternoon. He is taken in by a widowed B&B owner who has an odd collection of family and guests.

Review summary: There’s a real sinister mood to the novel as readers are introduced to a succession of gloomy characters such as the ageing and secretive crab fisherman, the guilt-ridden policewoman, the widowed B&B owner and his peculiar children. Simon is believably drawn, capturing the mixture of burgeoning independence and fear at possibly being all alone in the world quite beautifully. A solid debut novel and will be keen to read more from its young author.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime 3.5/5 stars

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THE DONOR by Helen Fitzgerald

Synopsis: The Donor has a simple, though hideous, premise. Will Marion’s twin teenage daughters, Georgie and Kay, both develop a rare genetically inherited kidney disease. They will die without each having a transplant and Will is desperate for a solution but what is the right one? Should he find their mother? Try his parents? Donate one of his own kidneys? But to which daughter? How far would a man go to save his children?

Review Summary: I read the book in a single afternoon which is due in equal parts to its short (at least these days) length of around 60,000 words and the compelling nature of the story. The very ordinariness of the people and their situation is easy (and therefore terrifying) to identify with and you can’t help but turn one more page to find out what will happen.  The presence of a vaguely surreal sense of humour throughout saves the book from being anywhere near the maudlin, ‘misery-lit’ category so popular in some literary circles.

The full review is at Fair Dinkum Crime 4/5 stars

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Aussie Authors Update #1
Aussie Authors Update #2
Aussie Authors Update #3

Review: The Track of Sand by Andrea Camilleri

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The previous two installments of the Inspector Montalbano books that I’ve read have been enjoyable despite seeming a little surreal, particularly when it comes to the local politics they depict. But as I read The Track of Sand while the Italian political system crumbled (again) in a heap on my TV screen I couldn’t help but be reminded of the old adage that truth is almost always stranger than fiction. In fact a book featuring a disappearing horse carcass, pathologically uncommunicative neighbouring police jurisdictions and a protagonist haunted by vaguely erotic dreams is positively tame in comparison the farce that is Silvio Berlusconi.

Montalbano wakes one morning to see a horse lying on the beach outside his front window. When he investigates he discovers the horse is dead, “its whole body bearing the signs of a long, ferocious beating” which makes Montalbano furious to the point of imagining he could do the same to the horse’s killers. He calls for his offsiders to come and help him collect evidence and review the crime scene so that they might track down the animal’s killers. Unfortunately the carcass disappears before the team has a chance to do everything they need to do and the investigation becomes somewhat haphazard. They do eventually learn that the horse is likely one (of two) kidnapped from the stables of a wealthy man and this introduces the beautiful Rachele Esterman, horse rider and seducer of men, to the picture.

I don’t imagine anyone reads this series purely for the plots. There always seems to be some woolly meanderings and illogical moments; here, for example, almost the entire mystery would have been avoided if only one of three supposedly intelligent and experienced policemen had taken a single photograph of the dead horse. There’s a rather clumsy link to another case too that seems to assume more knowledge than the reader of this book could have. But there is so much else to enjoy about the novels that it’s easy enough to let slide these relatively minor problems.

Montalbano’s fury on behalf of the poor horse and determination to locate the culprits, his obsession with finding good food (and his reaction when served stuff of lesser quality), his fear of getting older and his sporadically autocratic behaviour make him a well-rounded, if not always likeable character. His almost prudish reaction to his unorthodox seduction by the gorgeous Rachele is probably all too credible (because apparently the word no is not in his vocabulary). Though this was one of the things which prompted me to reflect on the disheartening depiction of women in this book and the series overall. On my limited exposure to one quarter of the series I can only remember women being seen as victims, his sexual partners or his cleaner. If he hasn’t slept with Ingrid then she’s the exception but there’s so much unresolved sexual tension between the two I’m not sure she can count as a fully formed character in her own right.

However, as always, the book is filled to the brim with rich humour, stemming mostly from the dialect-laden dialogue and Montalbano’s internal monologue. It reminds me how dolts like me who can only read in one language are indebted to translators with the skill of Stephen Sartarelli. The surreal exchange between Montalbano and the linguistically challenged Catarella when Rachele Esterman first appears in the story is, alone, worth reading the book for. This is a very readable and (in an age when bloated 500+ page books appear to becoming ‘the norm’) delightfully short novel offering many moments of pure joy for the reader.

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The Track of Sand has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, Euro Crime, Milo’s Rambles

I have also reviewed August Heat and The Wings of the Sphinx

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My rating 3.5/5
Translator Stephen Sartarelli
Publisher Mantle [this translation 2010, original edition 2007]
ISBN 9780330507660
Length 279 pages
Format hard cover
Book Series #12 in the Inspector Montalbano series.
Source borrowed from the library

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: The Burning by Jane Casey

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If I had a dollar for every time someone has made some variation on the “you must be twisted to read all those books about serial killers” remark I’d be a rich woman. Well, moderately wealthy anyway. The comment always makes me grind my teeth as I try to respond politely when what I really want to say is “you are a moron if you think that’s all crime fiction is about”. I avoid serial killer books with the same dedication as I avoid religious proselytisers and green peas and would not, therefore, have picked up this book (with its blurb and cover that all scream serial killer) if I didn’t implicitly trust Maxine who reviewed the book at Petrona.

As the book opens we are indeed introduced to the presence of a serial killer in London. A drunk girl gets into a taxi but soon starts to feel something is wrong. The car isn’t going in the right direction and there are other hints something is amiss…she has heard about the killer named by the media as The Burning Man who has killed four women and she worries that she is in the car with him. When DC Maeve Kerrigan is called out in the early hours of the morning to the resultant crime scene it appears the killer she and the large investigative team assigned to the case have been looking for has finally been caught red-handed. But then another body is found and it too appears to be a victim of the same killer. The DI in charge of the case is unsure enough about this victim’s connection to the other cases to make sure that Maeve investigates the new case as independently as possible, though he doesn’t reassign the case because if it should turn out to be another victim of ‘their’ killer he doesn’t want there to be any legal problems with having had doubts about the case at all. This was one of the aspects of the story that made me feel quite sorry for the police and all the second guessing they must have to do and it made me wonder how often issues like this have a detrimental impact on real investigations.

All of that setup doesn’t take very long at all and so readers soon leave behind the hunt for the serial killer and follow instead Maeve’s investigation into the death of Rebecca Haworth who was an Oxford graduate and a successful PR woman. At this point we also meet Rebecca’s best friend, Louise, and from this point onwards some chapters are told from her perspective which provides a nice contrast to the scenes which unfold from Maeve’s point of view. Between the two we are slowly shown a picture of Rebecca that was a little different from first appearances and there does not seem to be a shortage of people who might have wanted her dead if she does indeed turn out not to be the Burning Man’s latest victim. The depiction of all three woman – Maeve, Louise and Rebecca – is skilfully done and their interlocking stories made the book fly by for me.

Although the book is more of a psychological suspense than anything else there are also elements of the police procedural too, especially the office politics of the work. Maeve is subject to relatively mild sexism and racism from her colleagues but she also has an intelligent and fair boss which provides a nice balance. Her personal life is not the picture of health unfortunately, as her wealthy boyfriend can’t quite understand the demands of her job, and this thread also plays out credibly across the novel.

I did find the resolution to this novel fairly easy to spot but I did enjoy watching how Casey would get us to the end I expected. The plotting is certainly logical and did have some nicely unpredictable twists along the way and the way that readers are drawn into the lives of the characters makes this well worth reading. If you’re looking for a book about the hunt for a serial killer you’ll need to go elsewhere but if you’re after a thoughtfully layered novel of suspense then you could do a lot worse than read The Burning.

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The Burning has been reviewed at Euro Crime, Petrona and The Book Whsiperer

I’m counting this towards my Irish Reading challenge as the author is Irish and one of the two main protagonists is of Irish heritage and this issue is addressed as one of the minor plot threads of the novel. Having read two books by male authors for this challenge I was looking for female Irish crime writers who set their books in Ireland and so far have come up blank so this will have to count.

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My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Ebury Digital [2010]
ISBN 9781409005018
Length 327 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series standalone (?).
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.