USA

"The perfect thriller for everyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment" may not exactly sound like much of a recommendation, and early on in NO WAY BACK, thriller fans could be excused for wondering what on earth they are doing in a story that seems obsessed with the mechanics and machinations of high-tech company restarts. Stick with it. All is not as it seems.

It goes without saying that Jimmy Thane has had a rather chequered background, and initially it seems like he's struck it lucky with the chance to steer a money sink company in the high-technology world out of the doldrums. The job's been given to him by an old friend, a venture capitalist with a lot of money at risk in this company. On the personal side, it's quickly obvious that his past has had a very direct impact on his relationship with his wife, which is fraught. And whilst things at work rapidly become quite complicated, somehow what's going on at home seems oddly passive yet tense at the same time.

With a story like this it's almost impossible to explain some things without getting into massive spoilers, so proceeding with caution, early on you may be wondering what on earth this is all about. Apart, that is from some very telling and quite funny observations about the various personality types that do pop-up in high tech companies with sales and marketing arms. But really there's doesn't seem to be a lot all that threatening or worrying, unless it was your money going down the company drain. There's also some rather obvious repetition which seemed a little overt and off-putting. It does seem to take quite a while for anything particularly "thrilling" to happen although all the time, there's something just not quite right about Thane, his wife, their relationship and the people around them. A lot of that, on the face of it, could be explained by his past, and yet, there's something else. Once the story gets into the revelation phase, lots of things start to fall into place, and a lot of things fall somewhere slightly different.

In many thrillers it's rather easy to see where the story is heading. The good guys struggle, the bad guys get it in the neck, world order is restored and everybody goes home for tea. Nothing is quite that straightforward in NO WAY BACK and it has to be said, regardless of how much you think nothing's happening, or that you know what's happening or where all this is going, stick with it. There's more twists and turns in this tail than your average ... twisty-turny thing.

MR PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE actually wasn't a book I was planning on reading, although there were whispers about it everywhere I looked. Then a friend mentioned that they'd enjoyed it and their observations are always spot on, so I thought I'd take a look. And I must admit I found it absolutely fabulous.

Of course there are a lot of elements that would appeal to somebody like me - a passionate love of books, and secrets, and the secrets that books can contain, a geeky sensibility where the solving of puzzles is regarded as perfectly normal, and the realisation that Google is ubiquitous in life. Combine that with some seriously funny observations (Google working on a form of renewable energy that runs on hubris ... snort), Kat trying to read a newspaper and not being able to work out the UI, and the various other not quite so in jokes scattered throughout and, well, it was fun.

It is also a bit of a mystery, a bit of a thriller, a bit of a story of love and longing, and a very big quest.

What's not to love.
 

The Great Depression is one of those eras in history that has been depicted in books and movies over and over again. Perhaps it's the obvious case of the more dire the circumstances in which people must find a way to survive, the more opportunity there is to explore those extremes, to consider how it is that the best and worst in people can emerge at times of great distress. It's also a period that lends itself to a certain style of cinematic portrayal, dark, dirty, deprived, depressed, it's hard not to think grey and bleak.

There is something cinematic about HARD TWISTED which incorporates lyrical passages of writing and descriptions, creating a sense of that grey bleakness. It provides a very realistic feeling of a dire world in which lives are lived on the extremes of hardship and people struggle with the endless grind of hunger and homelessness with no obvious way out. It's a story that resonates through lots of hard economic times.

Winner of the Best Historical Novel of 2010 in the South West Writers International Writing Contest, there are strong echoes here of other classic depression and hard-times based fiction with dysfunctional worlds, people on the move, on the lookout constantly for a way out, some relief from the inevitability. Told mostly from the viewpoint of 13-year-old Garrett, HARD TWISTED is the story of an ex-con, hustler, charismatic charmer who is really a dangerous, murderous psychopath. It's also the story of a 13-year-old girl in an impossible situation.

The book employs a number of different viewpoints and timeframes. Much of it is the direct relating of current day events, mostly from Garrett's viewpoint, interspersed with the voices of other characters. Parts of the book are introduced by snippets of testimony at what is obviously a trial, the nature of which is revealed as the book progresses.

There is much to admire about this book, and yet, there were problems which meant that this reader often found herself lost and fighting a growing sense of disinterest. Which confounded me completely. Whilst there is absolutely no doubt that the word pictures being drawn were beautifully done, there was something indistinguishable about the character's voices, not helped at all by a total lack of quotation marks to indicate what was / wasn't dialogue. No idea why, all it did was make me toil backwards a lot - checking what / who / said / observed / saw / did / didn't. Confused... moi... frequently.

That confusion meant that whilst the multiple questions of why - why he did what he did / why she stayed - the interesting and instructive bits, especially as you knew who, and what wasn't that hard to work out, kept disappearing. It was disappearing into beautiful, dense, poetic, lyrical writing no doubt about that, but it was there, just out of reach, for so much of the book whilst this reader worked backwards and forwards through the text, trying to get focus.

Maybe it was ultimately that I came away from HARD TWISTED feeling like I'd been invited to a party where everybody else spoke in a different language. Beautiful to listen to, lovely to watch people interact, no idea why I was there. I got so bored with the constant tracking backwards and forwards, with the low-key, laid back glacial advancement, with the cleverness of the structure that I got frustrated with myself. It's doubtful that anybody else is going to have that reaction - the authority with which the time period is described, the way that the life is so beautifully drawn, undeniably mean it's going to be a book that other readers are just going to get. As much as I kept thinking I should be loving this book, I didn't loathe it, but I certainly obviously didn't get it.

You can't help thinking that this is an interesting idea for a book, the story of one of the most famous real-life spies, told from the point of view of Philby's own life. Now the book and it's publicity material is quite tricky about the background of this book. Whilst there's nothing there to indicate whether or not this is a true story or fictional, it's written in a way that implies that the whole thing is the true story of Kim Philby's early years.

YOUNG PHILBY is however, a novel. It expands on what is known about Philby's life after Cambridge University (where he, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt formed the truth-life Cambridge Spy Ring), but embroiders the facts with the fictional imaginings of the author, Littell, about how he came to learn his spycraft, and the people and influences that guided his activities. Told from a variety of different viewpoints, YOUNG PHILBY takes the reader back to the time at which Philby is recruited, time that he spends with his handlers, lovers and friends, the time in which he learns and masters the art of surviving as a double agent.

You'd think, because of the inherent danger in the life that Philby was setting up for himself, this should be an extremely compelling story, even allowing for the fictional excursion, but for some reason it just didn't come alive for this reader. Part of the problem seemed to be that the story is told from a series of different viewpoints, which I rapidly found almost impossible to tell apart. Men, women, participants, observers, there's was a constant tone throughout the book that didn't clearly distinguish each of the various players. The other problem was that everyone seemed cynical, bored, frequently arch and whilst that could have been trying to create some sort of overall feeling of insouciance, what it ended up doing was make everyone seem rather bored. Which kind of made this reader rather bored with the lot of them.

Because tone is such a very personal thing, and because there are also readers who don't mind the fictional playing a bit loose and fast with real life history, YOUNG PHILBY is a novel that could really work for other readers. Ones that like the cynicism, that can find depth in the people, that are intrigued by the imaginings of what could have happened in Philby's life, and who rather enjoy the peek behind a fictional curtain on real-life espionage.
 

One of the most difficult things about reviewing books is what to do when presented with a book which uses devices and has a style that is normally something I'd avoid, due to personal preference.  Doesn't mean that it's a bad book, and it certainly doesn't mean that the book won't have a legion of fans (in fact it probably should just about guarantee it).  I'm also aware that problems are considerably more obvious when there's other things going on that aren't working for a reader.

Needless to say, MURDER IN THE ABSTRACT is not the sort of book I would normally read.  In fact I'd probably go a long way in avoiding such a book, but in the event that an author is kind enough to offer a copy, I feel duty bound to read.  

The only way I can think to handle this is to discuss the elements that make up the book.  Firstly the author has created a first person voice, in the central character of Dani O'Rourke.  Dani is a fund-raiser for the Devor Museum, forced into the role of investigator not just because the death of an artist occurred from the window of her office.  It's a rather brave step that - using a first person narrator.  An author is placing a lot of faith in their character to be somebody that appeals to the reader.  That's not to say that you necessarily have to like the character, but you do have to be able to get inside their head, identify with their actions and their opinions.

From there we have a plot which is a combination of a police investigation at the start which morphs into a classic amateur detective scenario.  Dani is, however, less of an investigator and more of somebody who, being intimately involved with the dead, and having that connection of her office being the scene of the crime, sort of functions as a bit of a catalyst for events that occur around her.  I'm not even sure I'd go so far as having her discover things, rather she's the sort of person who seems to cause things to happen around her, right up to the end with the grand confession scene.  I'm not sure that anybody is going to have a lot of trouble picking the why of the ultimate conclusion, but the who has a bit of a twist in the tail.

Whilst the pace of the story is very good, there are some elements to the colour and movement which don't stand too much consideration.  Why the police investigation suddenly disappears into the background.  How somebody who on one hands thinks themselves to be somehow too close to the action, can then see things that don't quite add up in her immediate environment, but never actually put two and two together and come up with some observations.  How it is that one of the major suspects in a crime freely moves around great tracts of the countryside... none of those elements quite made sense when considered clearly.

My personal problems with the book could very well be more about me than the book itself. I'm not much of a fan of light, fluffy, chatty, girly chick-lit style books - for it to work for me there's got to be a deft touch of humour, and humour is very much a personal thing.  I'm also not the sort of person who does "brands".  So discussions of handbags, shoes, clothes, fingernails, put me off... really badly, unless, again, there is a discernible sense of humour about the whole thing.  Perhaps because of those elements, I saw a lack of depth in the plot and the characterisations, which could be a whole lot less of a problem for somebody who really enjoys the overall style. 

Reading THE INSIDER by Reece Hirsch I realised that the sub-genre of legal thrillers is one that I rarely read, let alone anything set in one of those huge corporate styled legal firms that seem to take up huge building and do all sorts of incomprehensible "commercial" things.  So with that in mind, I'm uncomfortably aware I'm not the most most informed commentator on these types of books.  Will Connelly is a lawyer working his way up the corporate ladder in his firm, finally making it to partner, although seeing one of his main competitors for the position fall from an upper story window in the building early one morning perhaps should have been some sort of a warning.  As is the idea that new partners in legal firms should, at all costs, avoid mysterious Russian women in bars.

The author does an excellent job at taking the reader into the day to day workings and machinations of a large corporate legal firm, without being deathly boring, and there is quite an overall feeling of tension and imminent danger in the storyline.  Readers are going to have to happily swallow the threat felt by a single male lawyer from that world who gets involved with the wrong woman, but once the action shifted into the world of murder, insider trading and terrorism things really start to belt along at break-neck pace.  There is a point part way through the book where it seems that Connelly hasn't quite got the idea of when you've dug yourself into a corner - stop digging!  So I was interested to see how Hirsch was going to get him out of the increasingly complicated problem.  Which he did with some aplomb and all loose ends tied up, which is exactly the sort of ending that a lot of readers absolutely love.

I'm not sure how popular Hirsch is going to be with corporate lawyers, particularly those with firms looking for young and upcoming partners.  I suspect reading this book might make your average graduate wonder about their career choice.  But for fans of legal type thrillers, THE INSIDER has a lot to offer and, in the event of further books, could easily become a series worth following.

To my mind, the very best crime fiction in the world provides a window into the world in which it is set.  Be that the psyche of the people, the machinations of the society, how a community is structured and operates, the laws and mores, even the way in which authorities deal with the disorder, how they implement authority.  DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is set in Shanghai in 1990, a year after Tiananmen Square, an ancient city with a population tightly controlled by the Communist Party.  Poet Chen Cao is an unlikely policeman, forced into the job by the party system, he's caught between a love of poetry and his own innate sense of responsibility.  A loner, a romantic soul, he heads a special unit which is given the task of investigating the brutal murder of Guam Hongying.  A National Model Worker, the death of Hongying is viewed as much a political situation as it is a crime.

DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is a very intricate book, exploring many aspects of the society in which the action takes place.  Firstly the character of Inspector Chen Cao, a maverick (as much as you can be under totalitarian control), he's a poet, a loner, a romantic soul forced into the life of a policeman.  Enjoying the very small privileges that come with rank, he's also uncomfortable with their existence.  He's more fortunate in his friendships - both with long-term friends and with his colleagues.  

The second aspect of the book that is carefully explored is the victim herself.  Her status as a National Model Worker means that her death hits the desks, and the minds of the upper echelons of the Communist Party.  Her treatment, in death, as it was in life, is slightly different.  The way that her status, and her life was regarded is a particularly interesting aspect of this book, as it leads to the final component of the book worth mentioning -  Chinese Society in its own right.  Possibly the strongest aspect of the book, because the culture and political system of the society imposes itself over every aspect of it's people's lives.  From the way that the investigation is regarded, to the way that Hongying and Chen Coa lead their lives, every move everybody makes is somehow choreographed by the ever present "Party" and its cadres.  

The parts of the book that don't work quite as well are the plot, and some of the messages that the author is attempting to impart.  Second part first - there is some rather heavy-handed repetition of the ills of Communist China.  Whether or not you agree or disagree with the messages being delivered, constant repetition doesn't help.  The first part - the plot - well got more than a bit hazy at times.  Sometimes this was because we'd wandered so far from the central point of the book memory faded, at other points it was simply because plot points sort of got "dumped" into the narrative.  Either way, it's not the most complex or unexpected resolution to the death of an attractive young woman.

It also isn't on the fast, tense, light read side of the scale.  This is a book which will require a bit of concentration, some acceptance that as with many debuts, there's a bit of work going on to establish a character and his place in the world.  But as a lead into a new series, this book has ticked yes to a lot of questions.  This is undoubtedly a series that I want to catch up with.  In a hurry.

DIE A LITTLE is the first in a series of books from Megan Abbott flagged somewhat unhelpfully as "modern noir".  I'm not at all sure what that should imply in terms of expectation, but whatever caused it, something didn't really work about this book for me.

Leaving aside the fact that the cover is absolutely wonderful and the title is glorious, the style very atmospheric and the build up interesting (woman with a "past" who marries a cop, cop's sister smells a rat, digs), something about the delivery of this story simply flat out didn't hold my interest.  I suspect part of this is because the "sister" whose viewpoint is paramount, didn't seem to fit with the noir stylings.  For a while I wondered if the "bad girl" telling the story, might have helped, but ultimately I think the problem was partially the complete lack of suspense.  Noir can be predictable to my mind, but it shouldn't be flat.  It shouldn't drone on leaving a feeling of impatience for the damn thing to get to the point.

I suspect part of the problem really was that the focus on the sister's viewpoint isn't supported by her being a character that you can get involved with.  It wasn't too long before I was forced into thinking I'd be on side of the bad girl wife, regardless of the question.

Okay - I confess this book is the point at which I gave up on this series.

Not that there weren't a few reasonable stories within the collection, but mostly because I'm really very very over the idea that all women are either tramps, or manipulators (or both), or victims, or pathetic, or stupid (well smart if they are manipulating)... and so on.

Even allowing for sensibility differences between when these stories were written and now, I just kept wondering if these authors had wives, or daughters, or mothers that they liked much.  And I do know the difference between "fiction" and "reality" but this collection was so relentlessly, tediously predictably clichéd that it was a real struggle for me to finish.