Material Witness

About an hour into the unabridged audio recording of Brisingr, the third part of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, it became clear to me that I had not read the first two parts of the cycle properly.

If I had done, I would have been sufficiently appalled by the poverty of the writing to abandon Eragon early on, and the second volume Eldest would never have made it past the door.

There are two explanations for not noticing (or minding) how badly written those books were: perhaps I made allowances for Paolini's youth. He famously wrote Eragon as a teenager. Or I simply drifted over the text scan reading for sense and plot rather than following every word closely. Listening to a book is an entirely different experience to reading one. The listener is a prisoner of the speed of the narrator. Certainly on the Audible / iPod format, there is no speed reading, ignoring paragraphs, skipping through irrelevancy. And so you listen to every last word. And in this case, that meant experiencing a certain amount of pain at the laboured, unrealistic dialogue or the laboured, hackneyed over-long prose that links the narrative. (A book is easier to put down, but an audio book is a welcome friend in the car, where I predominantly use it, and having used my monthly Audible credit on Brisingr, I was damned well going to use it.)

Paolini rarely uses one sentence when a page will suffice, rarely allows the reader to work something out for himself when he can a fulsome explanation can be provided. 

The Boston Globe's Sarah Smith put it well: "He (Paolini) is to English as a dog to a chainsaw: he worries it, and worries it, and devastation spreads around him."

On top of that the plot is a casserole containing ingredients borrowed from every famous mythical story you can think of, although primarily Star Wars - the baddies in the Inheritance Cycle control the "Empire" - and the Lord of the Rings: humans, elves, dwarves and other beings club together to fight the forces of evil.

But, and there is a but, for all that it is still just about entertaining enough. There are still just enough interesting characters - although not Eragon sadly - to sustain interest, and some of the diversions from the plot are interesting enough: power struggles in the kingdom of the dwarves and within the clans who make up the "Varden", the alliance that fights the empire. Some of the magic too is fascinating, and Paolini clearly has a vivid and creative imagination in the way that he wields it, even if sometimes it is swung as Claymore rather than thrust like a rapier.

And the audio was actually pretty entertaining. It was read by actor Kerry Shale who showed a repertoire of the most fabulously convincing accents: New York, the deep South, the Indian sub-continent, Scottish, Irish and a range of English from upper class twit through west country wurzel and on to Ray Winstone cockney. Terrific. Shale did his best to bring life to a sometimes turgid tale. The one character he didn't quite get hold of was Arya, the elf. At one point I thought she was probably supposed to be a Finn, but was never quite sure.

Perhaps another reason I am down on Brisingr is that it did not bring the Inheritance Cycle to the promised finish, but instead ended clumsily and abruptly offering one final instalment. In an end-of-audio interview conducted by a fawning US publisher with a chalk-screech laugh that attacks the central nervous system, Paolini explains that he had anticipated a certain ending that was changed when Eragon reacted differently in a situation to the way the author had expected.

This resulted in an extra hundred pages in Brisingr - comfortably the worst passage - and eventually a fourth book as Paolini felt this third work would just have gotten too long. He should have left well alone and finished while he was still ahead.

So asked Ben, 8-year-old comic genius and undisputed star turn of BBC's fabulous sitcom, Outnumbered. In the same episode Ben, brilliantly played by Daniel Roche (left, with Hugh Dennis) is also revealed to have replied to the standard wedding question of "Does anyone here know of any reason why these two people should not be married?" with the response: "She's a man!"

There have been some funny sitcoms around of late: Extras and Gavin and Stacey being the two that spring to mind. But none as funny as Outnumbered, which has the rare

It's 2.15am. I need to be up in about 4 hours. But I am about two-thirds of the way through an absolute ripper. The one path leads to a day of exhausted misery , struggling by on coffee and two and a half hours sleep. But the other path... Well, down the other path lies the conclusion to the most gripping pure thriller since Tell No One, one of the a´last "one-sitters" I can recall.

Five years ago, five years younger, I'd have pushed on through. As it was, I was sorely tempted. For Too Close to Home, read "Too Damned Good to Put Down".  

In the end I found what amounted to a natural break in the story and turned the light off at about three.

Finding that break was not easy. Linwood Barclay has written a book with more twists than a four foot corkscrew. Every chapter, it seemed, ended with a stunning revelation. It felt like the soap-operaisation of the mystery novel. But unlike Neighbours, none of them felt unrealistic or contrived, but rather a natural turn for an unpredictable story.

Linwood Barclay made his name with one of the best-selling thrillers of 2008 No Time for Goodbye, a story that inspired instant and, largely accurate, comparisons with Harlan Coben, occupying, as it did, the increasingly popular thriller territory in which extraordinary things happen to ordinary people. 

He's back on the same territory here, but this is a step up in class from No Time. This is real Harlan Coben territory: A book that grips you by the throat, shakes you up time and again and doesn't let go until the final page is read.

The Cutters are an average family living in up state New York - wife is an events coordinator for a small but celebrated college, husband runs a lawn-mowing business, teenage son schemes about how to get his girlfriend alone and get it on. But his one scheme - hide out in the neighbours' house as they depart for a weekend away - so he can let his beloved in the moment they leave - takes a fatal turn when the neighbours' return home unexpectedly after an hour and are then mown down by gunmen in their kitchen.

The son, who understandably lies about his whereabouts at first, is quickly rumbled and finds himself in the unenviable position of being suspect A before the weekend is done. Suddenly there is a hunt for the real killer going on involving a celebrity local author who may or may not have plagiarised his one great work, a comically reactionary self-obsessed local politcian, and a connected B movie actress.

The action comes thick and fast, and it's, well, it's just great. If you like thrillers, you'll love it. And that friend, the one you don't know what to buy for Christmas, the one who only reads one book a year, he'll love it too. Except, despite the fact I think I've seen it in a bookshop at Heathrow, I don't think it's published until January. So maybe you could get it for his birthday.  

It is a measure of Michael Connelly's mastery of his art that he has been able to slip into the production of courtroom thrillers as if he we were putting on a pair of well-worn and much-loved sneakers.

The cover of The Brass Verdict comes with a warning for the king of legal fiction from Mark Billignham: "Move over John Grisham - Connelly has written the ultimate legal thriller". That is a reference to the phenomenally successul novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, in which Connelly launched new creation Mickey Haller into the literary world. 

The comparison is apt. Connelly's first two courtroom dramas are slick, enthralling and handled with the same sure touch as his Harry Bosch detective series. They have the same "easy readability" as a Grisham book while maintaining complex, satisfying plots.

At the heart of The Brass Verdict is that great staple of LA-based crime novels: Hollywood and the games of power, money and sex that make it the world's favoured venue for gossip, intrigue and innuendo.

When the wife of the head of a rising star Hollywood studio is murdered alongside her lover in what looks like a crime of passion, mogul Walter Elliott quickly finds himself facing a murder trial. When Elliott's lawyer is also murdered, suddenly Mickey Haller, returning from long term sick leave (see The Lincoln Lawyer), is back in the big time after inheriting his dead friend's entire casebook.

Haller is confronted by evidence that, while largely circumstantial, he believes could be sufficient to convict his client and therefore sets out to find the "magic bullet" evidence that will enable him to win the case. At the same time, the unsolved murder of his friend Jerry Vincent, Elliott's previous lawyer, also preoccupies him as he learns that he too might now be a target. He learns this from the investigating LAPD officer, none other than Harry Bosch.

The bringing together of his various characters is something that Connelly is never scared of doing -reporter Jack McAvoy also appears in this book, as he has done with Bosch before - but I am usually not keen on it, as it often feels a litte contrived.

In this instance Connelly overcame these objections in me largely because the view of Bosch he offers from another's perspective was fascinating: silent, brooding, dark, surly and complicated. 

Haller, by contrast, is light entertainment. Funny, wise-cracking and quick-witted. His more open disposition towards others gives Connelly a little more scope to puruse dialogue and the dynamics of relationship than Bosch usually does, and changes the tone and style the novel.

Separatey, by and large, Haller and Bosch bring the various cases towards conclusion with a combination of clever courtroom drama, behind the scenes cop work and a little conspiracy. It is well written, with memorable characters and a dynamic, smart narrative. 

But there is just one false note that stopped the book getting the five star rating the first 400 pages deserved. The ending - after the case and the verdict has been delivered, you know the bit where the characters resolve those last few details - just felt all wrong. Ridiculous almost. And, here's the word again, utterly contrived and unnecessary. No spoliers here, but you'll know when you get there.

The moment I realised my Sony Reader was a keeper was a strange one, as I suddenly found it offered one entirely unexpected benefit: you can read it while you eat.

I was sitting alone in a TexMex restaurant in Helsinki reading The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross on my new device, when my food arrived. Usually this moment prompts the complicated business of continuing to read while also trying to eat.

Now I appreciate this might sound a bit silly. But those who spend a lot of time travelling will know that means eating alone more often than not, and personally I used to find this the most lonely moment of the day. And so I read - as do a lot of the others "singles" I see in hotels and nearby restaurants. And that is easy before the food arrives but when it does? Paperbacks are virtually impossible to keep open with one hand, never mind two. Hardbacks and trade paperbacks might tuck under the plate to keep the page open. They might not. It might sound silly, but for me it's an issue.

But not the Sony Reader. Set it down flat, read the page and then when finished hit the little turn page button. Simple. (The only drawback, it occurred to me was that spilling a glass of wine on it would probably be fatal.)

Simplicity is the key to the success of the whole device. Simple to set up. Simple to download books. Simple to use with an intuitive user interface. Great battery life.

And then there is the reading experience. Clear crisp typeface on a screen without glare in the font size of your choice, which is particularly useful if you have problems with my sight. My mother does and now is beginning to think that the Reader might be the answer to her quest for large type books.

Initially it seemed very odd and novel to be reading a book in this way, but that feeling did not last long, and within 100 pages of The Blue Zone, it felt as natural as holding a book and turning a page.

There are some drawbacks. While the Reader does look pretty good sitting on a shelf, with its smart (mock?) leather cover, it would cost about £4,000 to fill even a small shelf and the effect would not be quite the same as, say, the Everyman PG Wodehouse books I have. There is something indefinably wonderful about a book. (Which is to say that I cannot define it. I'm sure Stephen Fry would be able to). They are romantic in a way that a small metal tablet could never be.

And you can't really lend it to a friend. Or make notes in the margin, or throw it at the wall when the story or the writing is atrcious (memo to self: do not download Dan Brown novels onto reader.) And I suppose if the world ever completely ran out of energy sources it would not be much use beyond perhaps retraining as a beer mat. There is also an availability issue - plenty of titles are not available in the Adobe format Sony uses, although plenty are.

But beyond that I can't really see any downside. It looks good and it works extremely well. I can now take 96 books on holiday, all of them tucked into my jacket pocket, whereas previously there might have been space for perhaps five or six - not enough for a real holiday.

And this is the key for me. If I did not travel as much as I do, I would not have bought a Reader. But it makes taking sufficient books for a four night stay in Helsinki, without having to check a case, very very easy.

I will still read real books. I will still greedily horde them on groaning shelves. I will covet them as I visit bookstores. I love their look and feel, and nothing will ever replace that.

But I love my Reader too.

No critic could ever accuse RJ Ellory of lacking ambition. His breakthrough success, A Quiet Belief in Angels, was a genre-busting epic sweeping imperiously from a small town in the south devastated by a serial killer to literary circles in New York.

Given the hundreds of thousands of copies sold following a Richard and Judy endorsement, Ellory must have felt some pressure to follow this up with something equally special, but his legion of new fans will not be disappointed. A Simple Act of Violence is another sophisticated, complex thriller addressing one of the darker moments of recent American history: the CIA's secret war in Nicaragua in the early 1980s.

In this Ellory is the beneficiary of fortuitous timing. As Americans, and indeed the world, ponder the role of their country in what promises to be a landmark election tomorrow, it feels like a good moment to spend some time pondering another chapter in the life of that great nation that divided opinion so thoroughly.

Ellory brings memories of Nicaragua into the present decade with another serial killer investigation, this time in Washington DC where the deaths of four women present the embattled police department with a seemingly unfathomable mystery: how are four apparently with no histories, no place in the  vast records of state, linked other than by the modus operandi of a cold-blooded killer.

Charged with discovering the link, under intense pressure from elected officials desperate to present their voting public with a resolution, is Detective Robert Miller. We learn that Miller has returned to active duty following his acquittal for the killing of suspect  in murky circumstances some months earlier.  Miller is a very modern hero: cynical about the system and those who run it for their own ends, and wounded by his own very public exposure to its sharpest point. He is also something of a workaholic, a lonely man who has developed little life outside his all-consuming job.

But he is driven by a strong determination to seek justice for those no longer able to find it for themselves and by empathy for others who find themselves rejected by mainstream society and trying to  exist on its ragged fringes. He is sympathetically, skilfully drawn by Ellory and carries the narrative effortlessly. His increasing exasperation with a series of investigative trails that turn to dust is convincingly realised.

The reader has somewhat more insight than Miller, and his counter-balancing partner Albert Roth, as Ellory mixes the investigation with the memoirs of a man recalling his indoctrination and incorporation into the CIA two decades earlier. This story is compellingly told and one view of the Contra scandal - the one that holds that it was a misguided, evil horror story - is carefully and quite brilliantly brought to life.

As the two stories converge, Miller gradually begins to realise that there is no shortage of people in Washington with no official history, but whose untold stories resonate around the world.

A friend whose judgment I generally concur with in literary matters, told me she thought A Quiet Belief in Angels was "derivative". I can understand where that viewpoint comes from, although I do not agree with it. There is something familiar in elements of this book, glimpses of great conspiracy stories and CIA movies, but I think there is great originality in their presentation, in the way they are woven into a wider tapestry that is able to portray fascinating vignettes of American society and politics whole maintaining a strong and compelling narrative.

For those with the patience to explore a long and detailed novel - which is by no means a staple of a genre which appears to hold that a 330 page whirlwind is the ideal serving for modern readers - A Simple Act of Violence should be very fulfilling indeed.

During a bizarrely varied journalistic career - highlights included unprofessionally dancing on a desk in the press box at the end of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final and holding an umbrella for David Trimble outside the Ulster Unionist Party HQ in Belfast - one of the best assignments I ever had was driving around New England and upstate New York interviewing newspaper editors about their endorsements for the 2000 Presidential election.

I trawled up through Westchester towards Troy and Albany before cutting across New Hampshire and Vermont into Massachusetts and down to Rhode Island where, if memory serves, I spent the weekend watching college football. The poll I took of editors was hardly scientific. I talked to whoever agreed to meet me, about 8 in all I think. And of course, I was in largely blue states (only NH voted for Goerge W Bush.)

Nonetheless, to my surprise, I did find Bush supporters and endorsers and to my even greater surprise found them to be articulate, coherent and rational - unlike the man they endorsed. And I met one memorable character, James Rousmaniere, the editor of the Keene Sentinel, who very kindly gave me his copy of the seminal US political work, Why Americans Hate Politics by EJ Dionne, which I subsequently passed on to the man who is now editor of The Times. (I note that the Sentinel, which endorsed Al Gore in 2000 has endorsed Obama.

It seemed to me like a great respoonsibility, endorsing candidates. I would happily have endorsed Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and probably did in any number of bars, internet chat rooms and water cooler environs. But this time around, as I have an actual platform, albeit not with quite the influence of the Keene Sentinel or The Times, I have decided to do so formally. 

First a discIaimer: I do not have a vote, being a UK citizen. I do have an interest, however, both as a keen longtime student of American history and politics, and in a different sense as an individual who believes that the US has and will continue to have a profound impact on the rest of the world, and if governed the right way that could be a positive impact again after 8 years of almost incomprehensible behaviour on the world stage.

If I did have a vote I would cast it for Barack Obama. There are a number of reasons for this, not all of which I will go into. First is that he appears to offer a new and fresh direction, at a time when such is most needed. While his plans and policies appear somewhat vague and unsubstantiated - such is the way in modern politics - his fresh perspective, calm demeanour and clean campaign (in relative terms) suggest a different type of politician. His response to the charge of inexperience - that the alternative is more of the same - is a powerful message. Look what the insiders and the dynasties have done to and for America. Not much good lately. He will be well received by America's allies and perhaps offer a new relationship with some of her enemies. 

Another reason Mr Obama is the outstanding candidate is that the alternative is appalling. Put bluntly, I could never vote for a ticket which included the appalling Sarah Palin. The more she speaks the apparent it becomes just how clueless she really is. Does anyone really believe she could be President if, and let's not beat about the Bush, the septuagenarian heartbeat of John McCain were to cease? What a grim prospect.

And what of Mr McCain himself? In previous years I have been an admirer of his fearless and principled brand of independent political thought. It takes guts to support unpopular policies, such as the Iraq surge, and yet Mr McCain held true to his beliefs throughout the primaries and won through. And the surge seems to have worked.

But that John McCain seems to have disappeared and been replaced by a poltician prepared to do absolutely anything to succeed, running one of the most vicious and vitriolic political campaigns I have witnessed, one which appears to be based on promoting fear and uncertainty and which is underpinned by lies and half truths. It is a truly dispiriting sight.

And so Mr McCain seems to have litte to offer other than a vision of America that says the future is frightening and unpredictable and Americans should shy away from it and stick with the conservative politics of the past, while Mr Obama claims that this brand of politics has failed and must be replaced by a new discourse, even if he has not really articulated what that discourse is.

So it is a choice of hope over fear, the future over the past. And the choice should be Barack Obama.

As if these weren't scary enough times, what with economic apocalypse and snow in October, Halloween is here with us: scooped out pumpkins, gangs of rogue children demanding confectionery and Jamie Lee Curtis on the television.

But there may be a better way to celebrate. Light a fire, pull up a chair, open a bottle of blood red wine and settle down with the Everyman Library's Ghost Stories.

Telling scary stories is a fine art. Even more than in other genres the suspension of a rational belief system, even if just for a few minutes, is essential for a reader to be receptive.

And so it makes sense for this smart little anthology to go to great writers: Edith Wharton, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry James and Guy de Maupassant. Each with something a little different.

Two of the highlights here are P.G. Wodehouse's distinctive tone and style in Honeysuckle Cottage, the story of an unusually haunted house and W.W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw. The latter is a story I feel I have heard many times before, and this chilling tale is clearly a much-copied idea.

As ever with Everyman this volume, edited by Peter Washington, is as stylish as it is substantive and would make the perfect halloween gift.

A few weeks back I wondered here whether publishing his first standalone book after 10 years of solid Rebus was a nervous moment for Ian Rankin.

But I suspect that pales into insignificance compared to the pressure of publishing your debut novel when you are the son of Elmore Leonard.

I imagine the sword is decidely double-edged for Peter Leonard, whose novel Quiver was published by Faber earlier this month. On the one hand the name recognition can't hurt, but then imagine having to deal with the inevtiable comparisons with a prolific and celebrated master of the genre often called "the crime writer's crime writer".

All I will say by way of comparison is that the force is strong in the family. This is a terrific debut.

Leonard's story revolves around a colourful cast of criminals pursuing the estate of a wealthy Nascar driver who was killed by his own son with a crossbow in a deer hunting accident. The action shifts seamlessly between well-heeled suburban Detroit and forested northern Michigan as the widowed Kate McCall follows her troubled son to their rural cabin when he can no longer cope with the consequences of his tragic mistake.

Hot on her trail are small-time losers Celeste and her intellectually challenged boyfriend Teddy who are acting in a loose and explosive coalition with hit man DeJuan. Also on the scene is Jack, ex-con ex-boyfriend of Kate whose intentions may not be honourable.

The most striking aspect of Leonard's novel, besides his obvious gift for dialogue, is his Hobbesian view of the criminal mind. There is no honour amongst thieves here, no trust, no loyalty. Only an eye on the main chance and a pathological ambition to take that chance, irrespective of who or what might get in the way.

This degenerate, but exquisite, characterisation is the heart of the book while its soul is Kate and her attempts at bringing her son back from the edge. The collision between heart and soul is tightly told and highly compelling, leading up to a chaotic and violent finale.

Bravo Mr Leonard. And encore!

(For those interested in the father/son angle, there is a fascinating interview on Peter Leonard's website, with Elmore asking the questions.)

As a general rule, I am not a great fan of picking established characters out of their natural habitat and plonking them down somewhere else. Too often  the stories feel manufactured, false and somewhat self-indulgent on the author's part. 

So it was with a little trepidation that I picked up James Lee Burke's Swan Peak, which has taken Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel from their native Louisiana up to Montana for a spot of fishing. Burke has history in Montana, where he has set a series that for a time ran in parallel to the Robicheaux books and which never reached the same heights - for me anyway. 

But then Burke splits his own time between New Iberia, La. and Missoula - and so if he does, then why not Dave and Clete?

Well, I should learn to have more faith. How often in the previous 16 Robicheaux novels has Burke let me down? Not often. And not here. 

 If it were not for the loving

Reading what is the fifth and final instalment in Charlie Higson's Young Bond series, the same thought kept coming back: this is really clever (and really very good).

To the young reader, such as my six year old son, who loves these books, these are swashbuckling and exciting stories of mystery and danger. The Secret Seven on speed. But to those of us who grew up with Fleming's Bond and his silver screen representation, they are something entirely different: Bond's historical and psychological back story.

And filling in the Bond background is a task that Higson has clearly taken very seriously: it is thorough and thoughtful and presents an entirely convincing series of events in the young man's life that explains why and how he became his elder self.

And it is a process that takes place over the full five books as Bond gradually withdraws into himself and becomes a hardened and self-reliant invidual as he increasingly learns that there are few people he can trust, and that by getting too close to others he has the capacity to hurt both them and himself. Higson actually imbues his Bond with a high degree of emotional intelligence - something almost entirely lacking in the filmed Bond, with a couple of notable exceptions, not least Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

His is a complex and interesting character, more likable than the adult Bond, which is probably inevitable and in By Royal Command, James Bond graduates from schoolboy adventurer to apprentice spy, leaving behind him his innocence and his youth. 

But the development of Bond is just one element of what makes these books so terrific. They are also great stories, excitingly told with the best of the drama and action of the films. By Royal Command is made more fascinating by being given a fascinating historical perspective.

It starts in the Alps, under the faint shadow of Nazism in Germany, where Bond is on a school skiing trip and has the uneasy feeling he is being followed. As he returns to Eton that feeling is intensified and eventually drawn into the disturbing world of pre-war politics where some factions are flirting with Hitler - Bond actually meets Edward (then Prince of Wales) and Mrs Wallis Simpson - and there are echoes of the Cold War that is to follow.

The narrative crackles through any number of dramas and sub-plots before Bond is back in the Alps for a hair-raising finale.

It's great stuff, and works on levels that will please both adults and kids.

It is rumoured that Higson is considering returning to Bond as a young adult during the war in a new series. I sincerly hope he does. He has added much to Bond lore with these five novels. 

I don't suppose it was ever really in doubt, but having read Doors Open, I am happy to confirm that Ian Rankin does not need John Rebus to write a great book.

Leaving his retired, irascible detective in his wake, Rankin has added to his canon with a refreshing twist on the great heist story, telling the tale of three of the unlikeliest art thieves you can imagine: a software millionaire, a retiring art professor and a banker. (OK, so perhaps the banker is not quite so unlikely any more, there must be a growing number of them contemplating career change right noww...)

One is in becuase he is bored, one because he resents the fact that so much great art work is out of the public view in warehouses and the third because he wants something on his wall that even his bosses at the bank can't have.

Throw into this mix a stoned forger, a Norwegian Hell's Angel, a struggling gangster and an ambitious, pushy, un-Rebuslike, and unlikeable, copper and you have the ingredients for a tasty Scottish casserole.

It is written, as you would expect, quite beautifully although with a very different tone to Rebus: it is more light-hearted, less introspective and, well, just more fun really.

And although Rankin does not stray far from his well-beaten track, this is a crime novel set in Edinburgh, it feels very different.

Personally I look forward to seeing another book from Rankin set in the Rebus hinterland, perhaps focused on the career of the now unshackled Siobhan. But I think the decision not to jump into that immediately - if Rankin ever has plans to return to the world of Rebus - was the right one.

Doors Open is an entertaining read, and will be enjoyed both by fans of Rebus and those who have never come across him.

The Turnaround  has finally brought me to a conclusion I have gradually been moving towards for a while now: that George Pelecanos is now the finest writer in the genre.

It is not a statement I make lightly. For one, I feel as if we are in something of a golden age of crime, thriller and mystery fiction at present, with dozens of writers from all over the world producing magnificent novels. Second I am not always comfortable with comparisons between these writers, because there is such glorious variety in them that it is not easy to compare like with like.

But even so, Pelecanos' work is special and he is currently operating at such a high level that it is almost impossible not to be moved, educated, entertained, depressed and delighted by his books simultaneously.

Another problem I have is that I am not smart enough to articulate exactly what it is that makes him quite so brilliant, but that's no excuse not to try.

In a recent article in the Guardian, David Simon, creator of The Wire - for which Pelecanos has written - bemoaned the fact that politicians and the mainstream media has stopped asking the one critical question about the great social, cultural and economic schism of the US: "There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed."

The only question that matters, Simon argues, is: Why?

The Wire attempts to answer it. And so does George Pelecanos. 

Pelecanos does it by telling stories about society's smallest constituent parts: human beings. Black and white, rich and poor and the good, the bad and the vast majority who sit in the middle.  Each of their stories helps us come to an understanding about Washington DC - where his novels are set, far away from the ivory towers of the Capitol and the White House -  and why it has such a high crime rate, why tracts of it are no go areas to the police and authorities, why so many young black men, in particular, have so few life choices, and why so many of them make the wrong ones.

But his books are not as pessimistic as this might indicate. The stories are also reminders of the resilience and goodness in the vast majority of people.

In telling his tales Pelecanos he reminds us that behind the crime statistics there are a million personal tragedies, comedies and triumphs.

And it is done beautifully. Pelecanos has an extraordinary facility for the minutiae of human life and in writing with empathy for his characters. He is not judgmental, avoids hyperbole and in doing so shows life as it is, rather than stylising and editorialising it for a modern audiencethat is used to being led by the nose by the media.

On top of this: they are great stories, compellingly told.

The Turnaround is his best novel yet. It primarily tells the story of two men on the opposite sides of a violent, fatal incident in the early 1970s and how their lives, and those of the people with them are transformed by the event.

Alex Pappas is a young white teenager, just reaching adulthood, when he is the passenger in a car with two other white boys who drive into a black neighbourhood and hurl abuse at a group of young blacks. As the drunk stoned white boys in the car then try to make their escape, they turn into a dead end and are quickly trapped by the blacks. One escapes on foot. One is killed. Alex is beaten and scarred for life, physically and emotionally.

In the group of blacks that evening is Raymond Monroe, an angry young man with no direction whose life is sliding the wrong way.

Almost four decades on, Pappas is managing the family coffee bar, consumed with grief for the loss of his son in the Iraq war. Monroe, who has a young son on the front line in Afghanistan, is a physical therapist at the Walter Reed military hospital, with he treats the victims of the war on terror.

A chance encounter prompts Monroe to reach out to Pappas and try to right some of the wrongs of that evening 40 years ago. But at the same time, others involved that night are also plotting to settle scores.

What follows is moving and mesmerising: a trip through modern urban America that is a literary tour de force.

There is also one additional element to The Turnaround that makes it particularly powerful. One of the things I have always liked about Pelecanos is that he writes about Washington DC and describes the effects of the power games played out there  without ever explicit reference to politics. And here, again, through Pappas' and Monroe's links to the military and the Walter Reed facility he vivdly brings to the life the terrible cost of war without overtly making judgment on it.

If I read a better work of fiction this year I will be pleasantly surprised.  

You can't accuse Alex Scarrow of fearing the big theme. Last time around, in Last Light one of the most under-rated thrillers of 2007, he took on "Peak Oil" and the destruction of civilisation as we know it.

In 2008, a US Presidential election year for anyone living under a rock, he takes on the story of a group of lost nineteenth century settlers in the mountains of the western United States, and their influence on a modern US Presidential election. Throw in some religious fundamentalism, a touch of conspiracy and something of the supernatural and you have enough themes to support three novels.

The set-up of October Skies is excellent. In 2008, reality film-maker Julian Cooke stumbles across the story of a lifetime: the untouched remains of a camp deep in the forested mountains of Wyoming. When Cooke also finds the vivid but incomplete diary detailing why the camp is there he quickly realises he has the extraordinary story of a lost group of settlers who are defeated by the merciless weather of the west as they follow the Oregon trail to the riches and freedom of the west coast.

Intertwined with Cooke's attempts to use the story to revive his flagging career, is the 1856 narrative of Dr Ben Lambert, the diarist in question. Lambert, an English gentlemen, is travelling the Oregon trail in an attempt to find an adventure that will allow him to turn his back on his medical career for one as a writer. He joins a party of settlers that leave the last outpost somewhat late in the autumn for the gruelling trek, risking the wrath of the weather gods who, along with understandably hostile natives, determine whether or not travellers cross the mountain in time.

Lambert's party is in fact two parties: one splinter group of Mormoms leaving the restrictions of that nascent religion under the influence of a charismatic leader promising them redemption in the west; the other is a party made of a disparate group of families simply seeking a new life.

As an early winter takes its grip of the unforgiving terrain, the two groups quickly fall into an uneasy truce governed by mutual suspicion which keeps them apart across different sides of the dwindling supplies of food sitting in the middle of their makeshift, inadequate camp. When a member of the religious group is found brutally murdered the truce quickly breaks down into something more sinister and dangerous.

So far, so good. Scarrow brilliantly brings to life the mountains and the desperation of a battle to survive the onslaught of winter. Some, predictably, lose their moral compass quickly without the structures of civilisation to keep them in check, others behave heroically.

He also paints a nice portait of a journalist scrambling around to keep his exclusive and find a way to bring his story to the widest audience (and at the highest price, both in terms of dollars and for his reputation.

The first two thirds of the book I enjoyed enormously, and indeed the 1856 narrative of the latter third, where the combination of madness, megalomania and religious fervour provoke a violent finale. 

But back in 2008 the story unravels into a fairly unconvincing scenario and it seemed at times as if Scarrow was too keen have the two endings mirror one another,which was a pity because it just took a little gloss off what otherwise was a great read.

Reflecting on that, and indeed Last Light, I wonder whether the author, a brilliant, vivid storyteller has just a little too much imagination.

I guess it is a test of sorts - Ian Rankin's first novel without the curmudgeonly copper Rebus in a decade - which seems an odd sort of thing to write about a man who has enjoyed the success that the Scottish author has.

But  I think it's true nonetheless. The blank canvass may be liberating, but I think I'd be nervous moving away from what has been an incredibly successful partnership and there will be a lot of people out there looking closely at this book to see how Rankin gets on without his cohort.

I'm only 50 or so pages into Doors Open, which is being published by Orion next week, and I'd having to say he's coping OK. The book was a keeper within about 4 pages, with an explosive opening, colourful characters an intriguing set-up and Rankin's typically easygoing prose.

It's lighter than the average Rebus - fewer miserable detectives - but stays close to his favourite Edinburgh haunts: bars and the gangland. Although I don't recall Rebus spending too much time in art galleries.

So far, so good. Review next week.