Category Archives: crime fiction

Review: A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths

Posted on
15

In the fourth book to feature forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway the mystery starts early on. Ruth has been asked to attend a local museum for the opening of a coffin which was found at a construction site and is thought to contain the remains of a medieval Bishop. She arrives to find the museum’s curator lying on the floor. Not being certain if the man is alive or not she phones an ambulance and the police. The man is pronounced dead on his arrival at hospital and the police investigation steps up a notch which introduces DI Harry Nelson to the action.

Of course anyone who has read the previous novels in this serious would have been waiting for this meeting as Ruth and Harry have a personal history which was left at a rather dramatic point at the end of The House at Sea’s End. I’m trying not to give spoilers to this or previous books so I won’t say much more, other than to reflect that I thought Griffiths did a good job of capturing the awkwardness realistically. She’s also done a good job of encapsulating the essence of the personal lives of Ruth, Harry and their friends and colleagues so this would be a decent place to start the series if you are interested in trying it out but don’t feel you have the time or energy to read the three earlier books.

The mystery element in this novel is stronger than has been the case in the previous novels which, while entertaining, were all fairly easy to stay ahead of, especially for seasoned crime readers. Here there are several threads that need to be sorted out including the very basic question of whether or not the museum curator was murdered or not. There do prove to be two potential motives including a possible connection to claims being made for the repatriation of Australian Aboriginal bones and skulls in the museum’s custody. Ruth’s old friend Cathbad is a member of a group which has requested the items be returned to Australia for a proper burial, as is her new next door neighbour who is an academic visiting from Australia. He is also a member of the same tribal group to which the bones belong so he has a personal stake in the repatriation of the items. The issue of such repatriation is becoming increasingly vitriolic in the real world but Griffiths handled its complexity and sensitivity well. In particular Ruth’s needing time to weigh up the pros and cons on a personal and professional level rang very true. I’m always a little wary of ‘foreign’ books which throw in Australian characters or tackle other subjects I am familiar with but Elly Griffiths has done well on both counts here.

It’s fair to say that most fans of this series are at least as interested in the personal stories of Ruth, Harry and friends as they are in the whodunnit aspects of the books and those fans will not be disappointed with this instalment. Ruth’s daughter has her first birthday in this book but Ruth still frets about her mothering skills and seems a little preoccupied at times so she is not quite the dominant character in this book as she has been in the past and Harry’s dry humour is also quiet for a while when he undergoes a particularly nasty trauma. While I did miss the presence of my favourite two people a little, there were many developments in the lives of the lesser characters to keep me interested. I have quite a soft spot for Cathbad who is a lab technician at Ruth’s university but is also a Druid and seems willing to participate in any vaguely spiritual ritual he thinks suitable for a given situation which often has unforseen circumstances.

I look forward with much anticipation to the arrival on my doorstep of the annual instalment of this series and, once again, the reading experience lived up to my expectations, providing a very enjoyable and satisfying read with just a hint of what might happen in the next book.. I read A ROOM FULL OF BONES in a single day (again the housework was neglected) and had a very contented smile on my face upon completion, you can’t ask for better than that.

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A Room Full of Bones has been reviewed at Euro Crime

I have reviewed the first three books in the series: The Crossing Places, The Janus Stone and The House at Sea’s End

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My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Quercus [2012]
ISBN 9781849163699
Length 344 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #4 in the Ruth Galloway series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Posted on
19

I had no real plan to read this book until I noticed it won the UK CWA’s Gold Dagger award earlier this month and was the only book from the shortlist for that award which I had not read. As I was not blown away by any of the shortlisted books I was curious to see what kind of book the winner was. 

In Amos, Mississippi Silas ’32′ Jones is the lone police officer, sharing his office with the town clerk and spending most of his time on mundane duties like directing traffic or extricating snakes from mailboxes. When the daughter of the town’s wealthiest family goes missing people start pointing the finger at Larry Ott, better known as Scary Larry. He garnered the nickname 25 years earlier when another young girl went missing and Larry was the only suspect in her disappearance. Though that case was never resolved the entire town believed has always believed him guilty of her murder and he has been a virtual outcast all the while. Even Silas, once Larry’s only friend, has kept his distance from Larry ever since that night.

I love books which draw me in their world and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter does so masterfully. The combination of exquisitely poignant characters and a totally absorbing depiction of small town Mississippi, complete with dialogue rich in local idioms and, at times, confronting language is simply perfect. As I read I could almost feel myself slowing down to the deliciously languid pace of the novel and Franklin’s writing made it easy for me (who has never been closer to Mississippi than a few days spent in Louisiana many moons ago) to conjure up images of the town and its people in my mind. Even when I was only a few pages into the book I felt like I was there in Amos and I was reluctant to tear myself away, which accounts for me staying up late into the night to finish the book in one sitting.

Although ostensibly about the mystery of the two missing girls the book, for me anyway, was mostly about the two men, the disparate tracks their lives had taken and the ways they coped, or didn’t, with their various hardships and guilty secrets. After being introduced to the men as adults we learn about their pasts, both shared and separate, and only the coldest of readers could fail to be won over by them both, even though (or perhaps because) neither is perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In a relatively short space (the entire book is only 270 pages) with scenes of stark symbolism and authenticity we see the events that shape the boys into the men they will become.

I am always wary of the much-hyped book but in this instance all the buzz, awards and kind words are well deserved. For a book in which poverty, racism and domestic violence feature heavily it is remarkably gentle and, ultimately hopeful. It somehow straddles the line between harsh realism and overt sentimentality to be that rare thing: a perfect reading experience. I would recommend it to everyone.

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My rating 5/5
Publisher William Morrow [2010]
ISBN 9780230753051
Length 274 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone
Source I borrowed it from Kerrie – thanks :)

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 Screaming of the Innocent by Unity Dow

Posted on
9

I was prompted to add The Screaming of the Innocent to my global reading challenge list by this excellent review at Petrona. My short summary review would simply be: read the book yourself, you’ll be glad you did.

The Screaming of the Innocent is set in the author’s native Botswana and tells a harrowing tale about a young girl who goes missing, the men who are responsible and the ease with which they engineer a cover up of their actions. The girl is 12 years old and one day she is spotted playing with her friends by a local businessman, Mr Disanka, which seals her unfortunate fate. He calls upon two men he knows who share his heinous interests and together they plan what they’ll do with the girl. Although at this point there is no graphic depiction of what is done to the girl, the passage in which this odious individual, who is thought to be a good man despite his many mistresses and other moral lapses, identifies the girl as ‘perfect for his purposes’ quite literally made my skin crawl.

We then jump forward five years and meet Amantle Bokaa, a young woman in her 20s, as she begins an internship at the clinic in the same village from which the girl disappeared. When carrying out some cleaning at the clinic Amantle finds a box marked Neo Kakang: CRB 45/94 and when she tracks down the village resident who shares the name Kakang the box is opened to reveal a set of blood-stained clothes. The villagers, including Motlatsi Kakang, are stunned because the clothes clearly belong to Molatsi’s daughter Neo who went missing five years earlier. They were told at the time by police investigators that the girl had been killed by lions.  Amantle, being a remarkably strong young women, then takes it upon herself to uncover the facts behind Neo’s disappearance and what she soon realises must have been the official cover up of those facts.

The subject matter of this book is undoubtedly dark but, because it is based on a real case of ritual killing, there is a purpose to that darkness. This is not gruesome violence for the shock value of it like so many ‘thrillers’ contain these days; this is actually quite a restrained depiction of events which will keep occurring in the real world unless they are exposed in this way. But perhaps the most important thing to know is that despite the utter wretchedness of many of the events in the book there is a sense of optimism and hope too. The introduction of Amantle and the friends she co-opts to her cause is a master stroke on the part of the author, allowing the reader to imagine the possibility of a brighter future for Botswana and its poor people, especially its women.

For Amantle is a delightful character who, as the youngest of seven children in a traditional Botswanan family, was selected to be the first one who would go to school. We learn via flashback some of Amantle’s personal history and it becomes clear how she developed into such a smart and resourceful young lady who is prepared to stand up for herself and those she identifies cannot do so for themselves. She is not entirely alone, engaging the help of a young female lawyer friend who in turn ropes in another chum or two and you get the sense that the author sees these young people as a big part of her country’s future.

This is one of those books that oozes its setting, both physical and psychological, from every page. The traditional values which are increasingly at odds with modern thinking, the entrenched poverty, the heavily hierarchical social structure in which women at each layer have to struggle more for their share of what is in offer are all present. But so are the beauty of the landscape, the strong sense of community that develops among the rural villages and even, albeit briefly, some flashes of humour such as when the young people have to spend a night camping and the city-living lawyer is terrified they will all be eaten by lions.

If the book had depicted only a single note of despair and sadness I would, I think, hesitate to recommend it but knowing that it also contains the seeds of reason to be optimistic I do think it’s well worth reading. It is emotionally harrowing (the ending particularly so) but not gratuitously so and, on balance, I am glad that I read the book, despite the sadness and sense of impotent outrage it engendered.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The book has been reviewed at Petrona

As well as being a writer Unity Dow is a human rights activist, former High Court Judge and earlier this year was nominated as one of Newsweek’s 150 women who shake the world.

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My rating 4.5/5
Publisher Spinifex Press [2002]
ISBN 1876756209
Length 215 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone
Source borrowed from the library

Review: An Ordinary Decent Criminal by Michael Van Rooy

Posted on
5

After a strong start I’ve let my completion of the Canadian Book Challenge limp along for the past few months but have finally gotten around to reading the 13th and final book which allows me to (virtually) reach the summit of Mount Logan (all the challenge’s steps have been named after Canadian mountains).

Monty Haaviko has killed, stolen, sold drugs and spent quite a bit of time in prison. But, at 32, he’s changed his name (though almost no one calls him by the new one), has recently married a woman he loves, is the proud father of 10 month-old Fred and has just moved to Winnipeg determined to go straight. However when his house is broken into by three men one night and all of them end up dead at Monty’s hands few people, especially not the Winnipeg police, believe that he was sincere in giving up his life of crime. Monty, ably assisted by his wife Claire, have to prove his innocence and come up with creative ways to stop to the campaign to run them out of town.

I can’t remember who or what prompted me to get hold of this book (other than its Canadian-ness) but I’m very glad I did as it is a refreshingly unpredictable tale.  Monty borders on being a little bit too clever at MacGyvering his way out of problem situations to be 100% credible but Van Rooy has used enough gentle humour and self-deprecation in his protagonist to make me want to believe in the character and I ended up willing him on to success at defeating his enemies with only length of rope and a drill bit. I also like the fact that his definition of ‘going straight’ is different from what mine would be (no killing but petty theft and the odd small con job seem to be OK) because that is more believable than someone managing to make a switch in one fell swoop. Perhaps the most likable characteristic about him for me though is that he never once downplays his violent, criminal past or tries to brush it off as someone else’s fault. He just wants people to accept that he’s done all the prison time he was sentenced too and is now a changed, or at least changing, man.

The plot unfolds well, almost in two parts as first Monty deals with extricating himself from the immediate legal problem of having killed intruders in his house and then moves on to sorting out the bigger problem of the campaign against him. There are lots of really terrific scenes in which Monty spots potential set-ups and manages to wriggle out of them before they do much damage (during which I learned many helpful hints for turning to a life of crime should the urge ever arise) and it’s fun to watch him turn the tables on his tormentors. My one quibble is that I never quite swallowed the motivation behind the tormenting but that’s a small thing really as I could well believe it was happening regardless of the reason.

I really had no expectations of this book by the time I plucked it from the TBR pile so was chuffed to find characters and a storyline that were unusual and engaging. It was one of those books I took every opportunity to read (e.g. gobbled up some pages while standing precariously on the bus) because I really became quite desperate to find out what would happen next. It does require a higher-than-usual suspension of disbelief but it’s worth it for the large dose of fun and the opportunity to question one’s ingrained stereotypes about good guys and bad guys. 

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Though only in his 40′s Michael Van Rooy passed away earlier this year, so this and the two subsequent Monty Haaviko books are, I assume, all that we’ll see.

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My rating 3.5/5
Author website http://www.michaelvanrooy.com/
PublisherRaven Stone (2005)
ISBN 0888013132
Length 341 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #1 in the Monty Haaviko series
Source I mooched it

Review: Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

Posted on
8

As always when I hit a bit of a rough patch in the reading department (more about that later) I turned to a recommendation from the ever-reliable Maxine for something that I could nearly guarantee would be a good read.

Bruno Courrèges is the Chief of Police in the town of St Denis in the Dordogne region of France, population just over 3000 people. Bruno’s job is to know everyone in town, understand their business and family connections and maintain a balance between upholding all the laws of the land and being realistic when it comes to some of the more oppressive requirements of the European Union. In order to draw readers into this world, one which most of us would have little first-hand knowledge of, Walker introduces the town and Bruno as almost equally important, and delightful, characters. We learn a lot about their respective histories and their current activities. The town is trying to retain its unique traditions while joining in the new ‘single Europe’ and so there are funny, but insightful, incidents that involve skirting around the regulations for cheese-selling and other such important issues. At the same time Bruno is establishing a home for himself, having been a soldier and orphaned at a young age, and has refurbished a house (which sounds delightful) and become involved in local sporting clubs.

This rather idyllic (though realistic) setting receives a jolt one day when an elderly Arab immigrant is brutally murdered, with a swastika carved on his body. This event, assumed to be a race-related crime, is outside the scope of Bruno’s expertise so a regional squad is brought in to investigate, though they rely on Bruno’s local knowledge so he remains involved in the investigation. For a book that some might see as a ‘cosy’ kind of tale, it tackles head-on one of the hot-button political issues of our time, large-scale immigration by people of a different ethnicity or religion. Walker deals with it intelligently and in a balanced way, outlining legitimate and realistic concerns on both ‘sides’ of the issue, and I couldn’t help but think it’s a shame more news services aren’t so erudite and thoughtful in exploring this topic.

Without giving away too much I have to mention the resolution to the book, which gave it an extra half a star on my scale. Bruno and his boss, the Mayor, have to consider whether or not to identify the culprit(s) to the wider community and the other police authorities involved to ensure a prosecution. The older I get the more I like seeing this kind of theme explored as it seems to me our various legal systems don’t always produce the result that does the most good. I liked the way Walker tackled this idea here; his characters did not develop a sudden and fervent belief in vigilantism, nor did they take action without carefully considering the implications of not informing the higher authorities for everyone, not just the immediate victim and culprit(s). Would that such things happen more in real life.

Bruno, Chief of Police is a thoroughly engaging and surprisingly thought-provoking novel that I recommend to readers (or listeners) of any sort as I think it offers something for everyone and Ric Jerrom’s narration is superb. There’s little overt violence (Bruno is proud of never having used his service weapon) but tough and somewhat dark issues are addressed alongside the lighter side of life, including descriptions of several meals that are guaranteed to have your mouth watering. This one’s a keeper and I’ve already lined up the second one in the series to listen to soon.

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Bruno, Chief of Police has been reviewed at DJ’s Krimiblog and Euro Crime

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My rating 4/5
Author website http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com/
Narrator Ric Jerrom
Publisher BBC WW [this edition 2009, original edition 2008]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 8 hours 10 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Bruno, Chief of Police series
Source I bought it

Review: Bait by Nick Brownlee

Posted on
6

This is the second book of the African leg of this year’s global challenge. Set in Kenya, it’s written by a British journalist and I was prompted to listen to it after hearing a rave about Ben Onwukwe, the narrator of the audio version

Bait is a story of violence. It opens with a young boy gutting a white man on the bow of a fishing boat off the coast of Kenya. The boat is then blown up with the body of the white man and the live young boy on board. Subsequently there are more violent deaths (several shootings, a harpooning, an attempted murder by crocodile and probably a couple more I’ve forgotten), several near-deaths and other violent outbursts. Amongst all of that is the story of Jake Moore, an ex-cop from Britain, and his partner Harry who run an ailing business offering big game fishing trips to rich tourists. They get caught up in the violence via several threads, not least of which is Jake’s encounter with Mombassa’s only honest cop, Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma. Initially investigating a disappearance Jouma (with help from Jake) eventually ends up on the trail of the nastiest kind of crime you can imagine.

The setting is the most distinctive thing about the book for me. Brownlee has depicted Kenya following the post-election riots of 2007; tourism has significantly reduced and crime and corruption has flourished. The wealth and luxury enjoyed by the owner and visitors to the Marlin Bay Hotel where much of the action in the novel is set is juxtaposed well with the extreme poverty endured by those outside the five-star compound.

Ultimately though this felt like a film script more than a book to me. It’s full of action and imagery (most of it bloody) but not a great deal of substance and the characters were a bit too stereotypical and shallow to really engage me (the rich man is evil, the South African is a racist etc). To be fair I think perhaps if I was an occasional reader of the genre I would have liked it more, but as it stands the book fell into my ‘meh’ category which I broadly describe as a ‘book that’s OK to read but barely distinguishable from a hundred similar tomes and will be quickly forgotten’.

Given that I really did enjoy the narration from Ben Onwukwe the book probably would have scored 3 stars despite its flaws but for the very end. There’s a wrap-up where one of the characters explains the message of the book, in essence explaining in words of one syllable why it’s called Bait, that I found particularly patronising. When you add that to the colossal amount of violence and other elements I’ve described it’s just not a book I would recommend ahead of other African crime fiction such as Deon Meyer’s excellent South African books.

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Bait has been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise (where Kerrie enjoyed it more than I did) and The Game is Afoot (where I think Jose Ignacio had similar feelings to me though he is more polite).

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My rating 2.5/5
Author website http://www.nickbrownlee.com/
Narrator Ben Onwukwe
Publisher Whole Story Audio Books [2009]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 8 hours 6 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Jouma and Jake series
Source I bought it

Review: Southwesterly Wind by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

Posted on
9

The 20th of 21 books I am reading to complete the Global Reading Challenge is set in Brazil which completes the South American leg of my virtual tour. There is only the wildcard book to go before I can claim my extreme reader badge.

At his 29th birthday party Garbiel Alzira is told by a psychic that by his next birthday he will have killed someone. As the date of Gabriel’s birthday looms he becomes increasingly agitated at the thought the prediction will come true and so he begins to trawl Rio de Janeiro looking for the psychic and also asks the police, in the form of Inspector Espinoza in the Copacabana district of the city, to investigate the murder which has yet to be committed. Eventually someone connected to Gabriel does die but there’s no evidence that the person was even murdered let alone by Gabriel. Has a crime been committed and if so was Gabriel responsible?

One of the things I have enjoyed most about reading so widely for this challenge is discovering how the diversity of narrative traditions from different parts of the globe are being woven into the crime fiction genre. In terms of crime fiction as the English-writing/speaking world knows it, this book would barely register on the genre’s scale, owing far more to the Latin American literary, often poetic narrative style though there are only fleeting glimpses (thankfully for me) of the magical realism that has been prevalent in other Latin American books I’ve read for this challenge.  It doesn’t seem to feel the need to finish all the threads very neatly and much more of the ending is left up to the reader to imagine than would be the case with a more traditional procedural.

The characters are depicted in an observational style but there is depth to them too. When we’re introduced to Gabriel’s widowed mother, who he lives with, she is sitting in her ground floor apartment’s window watching for her son to come down the street as she does every single day and she almost hyperventilates when he is 40 minutes late. She is making herself a cushion to aid in her window-watching and has fashioned herself a ladder to help her climb up to her perch which shows, in words other authors would take two chapters to describe while Garcia-Roza takes about a page, how obsessed she is with her son and how pivotal her relationship with him is to her daily life. Espinoza is almost her exact opposite being fairly cynical, having no close family living in the country and not being remotely interested in domestic pursuits. He is however very funny and does have some nice relationships including one with his 13-year old neighbour who he allows to convince him to acquire a puppy. With all the characters Garcia-Roza kept me wondering whether they are who they appear to be on first acquaintance and I loved that. In fact the least successful person in the book was the central character of Gabriel who was a little more predictable from my point of view than the others.

Southwesterly wind really is quite a simple story but it captivated me so completely I managed to read the last half of it while at the hairdresser’s (one of the few places I normally don’t bother to try and read due to the cacophony created by the blaring radio, shouted conversations and duelling hairdryers). I really had no idea what would come next but I had a rather desperate need to find out and the writing style lent itself to the book being quickly devoured. It is one of those crime fiction novels that I can imagine recommending to all sorts of readers, not just fellow mystery lovers, as it is first and foremost an intriguing yarn about intriguing people. It just happens to have a crime at its core, or the possibility of one at any rate.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I haven’t been able to find much in the way of other reviews of this one but Glen at International Noir Fiction provides some thoughts on the entire series including Southwesterly Wind.

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My rating 4/5
Translator Benjamin Moser
Publisher Picador [this translation 2004, original edition 2009]
ISBN 031242454X
Length 242 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I bought it

Review: The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell

Posted on
8

I have my favourite book fairy to thank for sending me this book which I read this week in readiness for discussion at my face to face book club on Sunday.

This has to be the most schizophrenic book I’ve read all year.

On one side of the scale there is storytelling at a genius level. It kept me gripped from its hauntingly written opening sequences, in which a brutal massacre in a small Swedish town is discovered, through several dips into the history of pre-communist China and the construction of the US railways using slave labour, through to vignettes in modern China, Zimbabwe and London. I read the entire thing in two sittings and was totally absorbed for the duration primarily because I never, once, knew what would happen next.

There are also some truly compelling female characters. Swedish Judge Birgitta Roslin, a married woman in her 60’s who is grappling with a troubled marriage and the fact her life hasn’t panned out as she imagined it would when she was a radical student, discovers she is distantly connected to one of the couples murdered in the massacre. Becoming somewhat obsessed with the case and finding herself with time on her hands she travels to the scene of the crime, becomes a thorn in the side of local police and uncovers the lone piece evidence left by the killer (which the police conveniently ignore). Through a circuitous series of plot shenanigans Roslin meets up with an even more intriguing woman, Hong Qiu, who is something vague but high-up in Chinese officialdom. She is dealing with even bigger personal dilemmas than Roslin, not the least of which is what to do about her corrupt and probably criminal brother, and is undergoing something of a crisis of conscience of her own. The Swedish policewoman in charge of the murder investigation, Vivi Sundberg, is not drawn in quite as much depth and although she offers glimmers of interest I thought she ended up being a bit forgotten among the other powerful women in this story.

In several other senses though the book is the literary equivalent of a basket case.

The writing style, or perhaps the translation, is choppy and awkward at times. There are jarring changes of storytelling pace, unnecessary detail and repetition in parts and more clichés than I would expect. Or want. The historical portions in particular appear to have been crafted for their depressive instructiveness ahead of their narrative drive.

It’s difficult to discuss the plot problems without giving away things readers have the right to discover for themselves so I will simply say the main plot is entirely unbelievable. Seriously, there are holes you could drive a fleet of trucks through and coincidences abound in precisely the way that does not happen. Not to mention the boat load of unexplained loose ends and the fact that the men are all caricatures of real people.

Most annoyingly for me though is the didactic display of politics. At times the political overtones of the book do make for thought-provoking reading, such as when considering the implications of a relationship between China and impoverished African countries of the kind Manekll’s fictional (or not?) Chinese leadership proposes. But too often this is achieved via dull and inappropriate lecturing rather than as seamless parts of the narrative.

I am also, for the record, more than a little tired of hearing that all capitalists are evil in human form.

On balance though I’ve decided there is more to admire than disparage in The Man From Beijing. It is an ambitious project that doesn’t always succeed but it did keep me up for two nights running and it did make me think about the world in ways I hadn’t previously considered. Even more importantly, as someone who has whined at length about formulaic plots I applaud any effort to produce something different from the norm.  In the end, I would rather read a novel that tries to do too much and fails partially than one which doesn’t try at all.

If you are looking for traditional crime fiction of the procedural or whodunnit style then this is not the book for you. But if you’re looking for something that explores small human issues such as the nature of obsession, the angst of ageing and the lengths a person will, and will not, go to for their family alongside broad issues of humanity like colonialism (past and present) the decay of the modern justice system and the future of the global economy then I’d suggest you suspend your disbelief and give the book a go. At the very least it’ll make you think.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5

Translator Laurie Thompson;  Publisher Harvill Secker [2010]; ISBN
1846552575; ; Length 368 pages

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Man From Beijing has been reviewed at a host of spots including Euro Crime and Mysteries in Paradise

Review: Murder at the Kennedy Center by Margaret Truman

Posted on
1

I read this book as part of my immersion into all things political while our Federal election campaign was running (although it looks like I might have peaked early as the two major parties are continuing to campaign, now it’s for the hearts of the minor parties and independent MPs). Thanks to Margot at Confessions of a Mystery novelist for the recommendation.

In Washington DC Senator Ken Ewald looks like he has the nomination for leadership of the Democrats in the bag in the lead up to the next national election. However when a young member of his staff is murdered and his son is among the suspects his campaign is thrown for a loop. Mackensie (Mac) Smith is one of Ewald’s oldest friends and although he is now a law professor he was once a top-notch criminal lawyer and so is called upon to help the Ewalds and defend Ewald’s son should that become necessary.

As I have mentioned before I am a politics junkie. When there is not enough going on in our own political system to demand my full attention I follow politics in other countries, especially the US as I have relatives there and the system is quite different from ours and therefore fascinating to me. Consequently I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘Washington-insider’ aspects of this book. At first I thought it would be one of those where everyone on one side of politics is demonised and everyone on the other side is lauded as near-gods but it turned out, thankfully, to be a lot more subtle than that. The politics of the story quickly come into play when it seems that an exiled South American General and/or his supporters who are all involved with the Republican party might have had something to do with the woman’s murder and this plays out interestingly, although it does get slightly complicated and unbelievable towards the end.

Mac Smith’s girlfriend Annabel and the private detective he employs assist him in investigating the case and all three are good characters who each bring something a bit different to the book. I could have done without Mac and Annabel’s soppy dialogue but there’s not much of it so it was pretty easy to forgive and the rest of the time they are an enjoyable pairing. Tony Buffolino (the private detective) adds a humorous element to the story that I particularly enjoyed.

There are parts of the book that are a bit rambling and I could have done without every meal eaten being described in minute detail, but other than that this is a solid mystery with entertaining characters and is recommended especially to fellow political junkies.

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My rating 3/5

Publisher Ballantine Books [1989]; ISBN 9780449212080; Length 334 pages

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Review: Death Comes As The End by Agatha Christie

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I’ve been sampling audible.com’s Agatha Christie collection for a few months and this week thought I’d listen to something which offers a new (to me) narrator in a new (to Christie) setting.

In a departure from her usual settings Agatha Christie set Death Comes as the End in Egypt around the year 2000BC. It tells the story of a wealthy family headed by mortuary priest Imhotep whose household consists of 3 sons, a daughter recently widowed and various employees and faithful retainers. Having been widowed himself for many years Imhotep returns to the family home from a trip away with a concubine, Nofret. This act seems to trigger an upset in the delicate balance of power and relationships within the household and it’s not long before the body count starts to mount rather alarmingly.

Given that Christie’s second husband was an archaeologist it’s not surprising that she chose this subject to experiment with something new for her writing and I’m sure her access to experts in the field added to the historical accuracy of the setting and lifestyle depictions contained in the novel. And while I did enjoy these details I found the rest of the novel rather flat and uninteresting.

On reflection I think the main reason for this is that the book has no real protagonist and therefore it lacks focus. Ostensibly Imhotep’s daughter Renisenb is, I think, supposed to be the focus of events but she is not a terribly active participant in events and neither is anyone else. The plot really consists of a lot of dialogue in which the household members guess who’s doing all the murdering and pray to the odd god or three. I thought the culprit and their motive fairly easy to pick from the outset and as more and more family members are knocked off it seems blindingly obvious by the end (by virtue of the ‘last man standing’ theory if nothing else).

The thing that I have enjoyed most about my recent re-discovering of Christie’s novels is that the very best of them are clever classic’ whodunnits that stand the test of time and have at least one or two engaging characters who advance the plot in interesting ways. I’m afraid that, for me anyway, Death Comes as the End had neither of these key elements as in addition to the fairly pedestrian plot the characters were fairly one-dimensional and not up to her usual standards. And while I’m sure the historical details included here are accurate even they do not go far enough to allow total immersion in the period (I’d recommend the Egyptian series of Paul Doherty or Wilbur Smith if you want to lose yourself in ancient Egypt).

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My rating 2.5/5

Narrator Emilia Fox; Publisher Harper Collins [this edition 2006, original edition 1945]; ISBN N/A; Length 7 hours 11 minutes

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