Category Archives: Simon Lelic

Halfway Down the Stairs

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OK the title really doesn’t have any relevance as this is a post about being half way through the reading year and reflecting on my favourite books so far. But I never think of the word halfway without remembering my favourite A A Milne poem. As I wrote about way back in the early days of this blog one of my very favourite bookish presents was a copy of When We Were Very Young and Halfway Down is my favourite poem from it (other people can recite Keats and Wordsworth by heart, I can do A A Milne).

Anyway, on to the favourites. Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is collating people’s thoughts on this very topic so do stop by her blog and tell her your favourite reads so far this year. Given the overall improvement in the quality of my reading these days I could easily list a top 30 or 40 books but I suspect that is not the spirit of things so I’ve whittled it down to a favourite ten. I’ll be curious to see how many of them survive to appear in my favourite books for the year. Could I possibly read ten better books than this in the remaining 6 months of Twenty Ten?

Books of the Month – May 2010

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That was then

I finished 15 books in May and, thankfully, had no DNFs (though I might have done had I not been too warm and lazy to get out bed and find a book other than this one). Only four of these were audio books though that was enough for me to achieve the obsessed level of the 2010 Audio Book Challenge (1 challenge down, 3 to go).

My pick of the month is Simon Lelic’s A Thousand Cuts which I read in print. It’s a very sad book but beautiful in its way and I found it extremely difficult to put down. It blurs the genre boundaries too and I’ve already recommended it to people who don’t normally read crime fiction.

Honourable mentions for the month go to

  • Shona MacLean’s debut historical mystery The Redemption of Alexander Seaton for transporting me virtually to a fascinating version of 17th Century Scotland
  • the latest installment of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe series Midnight Fugue for being one of the most cleverly plotted books I’ve read in ages
  • Elly Griffiths’ The Crossing Places for introducing me to someone I think will become one of my very favourite characters, Ruth Galloway

I didn’t realise it until after finishing the list but the three honourable mentions are all audio books.

New Additions

It’s pretty easy to tell when my life is a bit pants because there is a correlation between the amount of books I acquire and my crankiness level. This month’s acquisition of 28 books should make most of you very glad you only know me virtually. My frenzy of buying, mooching, dowloading and saying yes to an unprecedented number of ARCs has gone part way to mitigating my bad mood. Among my new treasures are

Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s My Soul to Take which I am very much looking forward to reading, having enjoyed Last Rituals.

Imogen Robertson’s Instruments of Darkness because it seems I haven’t had my fill of historical crime fiction and am continuing to try new authors in this genre.

Affairs of State by Dominque Manotti is one of only a handful of books I’ve bought in an Australian bookstore this year as most books I buy these days make their way here from Book Depository with its cheaper prices and free shipping down under

What to read next?

I’ve still got three challenges to complete for this year but with 7 months to go I’m not panicking. Before the winner is announced on July 23 I also want to read the four remaining books that are on the shortlist for the Crime Writer’s Association International Dagger (an award for books translated into English). So in June expect to see reviews for

Rob Kitchin’s The White Gallows (its official publication date is 12 June and I want to have it read and reviewed around that date) (plus I’m itching to get to it)

Johan Theorin’s The Darkest Room (one of the six International Dagger hopefuls)

Petros Markaris’ Zone Defence (which I’m going to use for the final European leg of my global challenge)

The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (a Mexican novel that I had to work hard to find so I could have a third country represented on the North American leg of my global challenge)

Hopefully there’ll be a whole lot more besides these but I don’t like to be too prescriptive about what I’m going to be reading as I never know where my mood might take me.

Chart of the month

Review: A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic

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I read this book because Maxine told me to (and even sent me her copy because she is so lovely). I have learned (the hard way) to listen to her and only to her :)

As the book opens we learn there has been a shooting at a London school and that three students, a teacher and the gunman are dead. Lucia May is the police Detective assigned the case but everyone, including her boss and the school’s headmaster, assumes she will wrap it up neatly and quickly. However as she interviews those connected to the shooting she unravels the thousands of moments of bullying and torment that led to the shooting and realises it’s not an open and shut case.

Most of the short chapters in the book are a succession of the interviewee’s sides of Lucia’s discussions with those connected to the shooting including students, parents and teachers. Although we jump quickly from one voice to another I never once had difficulty in working out who was talking or following the action. The different perspectives are depicted cleverly, without gimmickry of any kind and are stunningly realistic. Some of them hit me like a punch to the stomach while others made me weep with sadness. But despite being knocked around by the conflicting emotions I simply could not stop reading.

Interspersed along the way are more traditional narrative chapters told from Lucia’s perspective though these have no less emotional impact. As the sole woman in a squad of men all but one of whom continuously tease her about things like being raped, participate in gross practical ‘jokes’ at her expense and physically torment her, Lucia’s working life is unbearable. The cloying sense of dread that she feels whenever she has to interact with her colleagues is, again, incredibly realistic. She is demonstrably affected by her situation physically and psychologically but, perhaps because there are parallels between her circumstances and the events that led to the shooting, she perseveres with her investigation.

In one sense this book is an easy read being relatively short and not, to me anyway, appearing to have a single unnecessary word. It flows beautifully and is truly compelling. In terms of content however it’s hard going. The violence of the shooting is not described in graphic detail but the violence, fear and torment prevalent in this community is portrayed in the written equivalent of full colour so that you can’t just read and forget. These people and this story will stay with me for a long time.

One of the (many) things that saddens me about the state of modern media is that coverage of real-world events like the one that is the subject of A Thousand Cuts is so superficial. For a couple of days there is outraged coverage about guns/bad parenting/heavy metal music/government regulations or whatever other nonsense is decreed as the evil of the day. After that, after the blame has been laid at the feet of some object or person far removed from ‘normal’ society all is forgotten. What Lelic has done is show how implausible it is that any such event could ever be so clearly linked to a simple identifiable cause and that it’s far more likely that we’re all responsible because of the things we do or say, and the things we don’t do or say, every day.

A Thousand Cuts is beautiful, intimate and sad. Read it.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 5/5

Publisher Viking [2010]; ISBN 9780670021505; Length 294 pages

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Thousand Cuts has the title Rupture in the UK, with one or other title the book has been reviewed at Euro Crime (by the aforementioned Maxine), Reading Matters,  Reviewing the Evidence, It’s A Crime (Or A Mystery)


Books of the month – April 2010

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In an effort to make my end of year selection of best reads a little easier I have decided to sum up each month’s bookishness here at the blog. Most people would have started in January but I’ve never been one to follow the crowd. Also I didn’t think of it until now.

That was then

I finished 15 books in April and threw another one on the DNF pile. Six of my completed reads were audio books which is an indication that the weather finally cooled down enough for me to get back into my regular routine of walking to walk every day (and sometimes home again too). Without wanting to sound all schmalzy I truly do feel grateful to be alive when someone tells me a great story as I walk through the city which I have almost to myself in the crisp early morning. Crunchy Autumn leaves underfoot are a bonus right now.

The pick of the month’s books was undoubtedly Arnaldur Indriðason’s Hypothermia. I am still reflecting on it and telling people about it and would be pressing my copy upon friends but for the fact I borrowed this particular book from the library (I’ve thought about opening my own branch but I’m not sure I want strangers reading newspapers in my lounge room all day to keep warm).  The one word I keep using to describe this book is beautiful. I’ll read it again one day.

Honourable mentions go to Deon Meyer’s Dead at Daybreak for introducing me to the compelling Zatopek (Zet) van Heerden and Margot Kinberg’s B-Very Flat for a fine modern take on the classic whodunit.

The other book from this month’s reading that I’m still talking about is Luis Miguel Rocha’s The Last Pope but only because it was the silliest book I’ve read in ages and I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of something more polite than that to say about it when I go to my book club to discuss it on the weekend.

More to come

For now at least I’ve given up giving up acquiring books. I spent most of 2009 completely failing to give up getting more books and I know what the definition of insanity is. So I’m allowing my TBR pile to grow at its natural rate and I tell myself that I’m sensibly planning for the apocalypse. Oh you can smirk all you like about that but who’d have been laughing if the Icelandic volcano ash cloud had kept planes out of the sky for a year instead of a week huh?

Through a mixture of purchases both new and second hand (damn the library’s book sale), gifts from my fairy godmother, library borrowings and a prize win from the Scandinavian Reading Challenge host I acquired 18 books this month (a net gain for my TBR of only 2 books which is not too appalling). Highlights of these acquisitions that I’ve yet to read include:

Matt Rees’ The Samaritan Secret is the third Omar Yussef mystery set in Palestine and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 books. There’s already a 4th in the series so I need to catch up and look forward to reading this one soon.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The audio version of Shona MacLean’s The Redemption of Alexander Seaton is a historical mystery that’s been discussed at several of my favourite blogs including the excellent Confessions of a Mystery Novelist. It’s set in Scotland in 1620 and tells the tale of a disgraced would-be religious Minister who sets out to uncover the murderer of the apothecary’s nephew in an effort to redeem his good name.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Simon Lelic’s A Thousand Cuts is a book I wanted to read after seeing Maxine’s excellent review at Euro Crime. The book views a horrific school shooting from the viewpoint of various people impacted by the crime including police, family members of victims and staff and students of the school.

None of these books qualify for my several ongoing challenges though so I’m not sure when I’ll be reading these. The actual titles next up on my reading list are

  • Michele Giuttari’s A Death in Tuscany to complete the Europe portion of the global challenge (I’ve had it on the go for a week, it’s kind of dragging)
  • Leif Davidesn’s The Serbian Dane as book 2 in the Scandinavian Challenge (I’ve read the first 50 or so pages and am hooked)
  • Glen Peters’ Mrs D’Silva’s Detective Instincts and the Shaitan of Calcutta to complete the Asian leg of the global challenge (to be honest I bought it because I loved the title)
  • Malla Nunn’s Let the Dead Lie which is her newly released second novel that I am dying to read after devouring the first (plus I can count it for the Aussie authors challenge) (she wasn’t born here and the book isn’t set here but she lives here so she is an Aussie OK)

Chart of the month

As everyone probably knows by now I keep a lot of utterly useless information about the books I read and sometimes I create charts out of it all just to give the illusion I’m not barking mad. This month let’s look at how many pages I’ve read so far this year. I have no analysis of these figures for you except to say that you can tell January is holiday month in Oz – even though I was at work no one else was which meant I wasn’t busy and could get much more reading time into my day.

Pages read per month