The Books I Read In March

 Fiction

'Judgment [sic] on Deltchev' by Eric Ambler

Ambler is suitably admired for his ability to produce thrillers that while fictional almost sound if they are true. He brings in current affairs and provides both engaging and exciting novels. This one, published in 1951 is set in a fictional country in the Balkans. It has a feel of Yugoslavia of the time, but with elements of Romania and Bulgaria too. There is no mention of a Communist Party, instead the People's Party of the novel clearly is a Stalinesque party. As in many Eastern Bloc countries there are vestigial other parties, in this case the Agrarian Socialists, of which the eponymous Yordan Deltchev, is a leading member and has been part of the coalition government before the recent coup by the People's Party. He is a diabetic and as one myself, the withholding of his medication was especially chilling, one I could almost feel the effects of as I read.

Apparently this was based on the 1947 show trial in Bulgaria of Nikola Petkov (1893-1947 executed) a leader of the  Bulgarian Agrarian National Union and former Communist. However, it also reminded me of the 1952 trial of Otto Katz, that I read about last month:  https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-books-i-read-in-february.html Though Katz was a spy rather than a politician it brings home how current such trials were when Ambler was writing. Deltchev is being tried for apparently taking part in a plot to assassinate the People's Party leader and stage a counter-coup. He is seen as suspicious because at the end of the Second World War he favoured negotiating with the Americans rather than the Soviets, to invade the country to expel the Germans. As the novel proceeds it is revealed that the plot was not as imaginary as is first assumed.

As is typical in Ambler's novels there is a protagonist from outside. In this case it is an American playwright, Foster (we never know his first name) who is sent to cover the trial for US and perhaps British newspapers. His interactions with the authorities, how tight parameters are set on his actions, the smarmy 'helper' he assigned, the compromised foreigners working for the regime, are all conjured up well and must have seemed very chilling at the time though now from spy novels of the 20th Century and even now, are familiar to readers.

As Foster comes in contact with members of Deltchev's family and various members of the secret police, it is clear that behind the trial there are internecine battles between various elements of the regime, one set of which try to kill Foster. His escape from two armed men closing in on him in the nighttime streets is well handled. Ambler's protagonists tend not to be men of violence themselves, but them getting out of jeopardy is portrayed realistically and naturally has an appeal to the reader who is liable to be similarly ill-equipped for such situations despite all the modern-day social media claims about being able to wrestle a bear.

The ending does go in a direction which is unexpected, but make sense in the context of the regime featured. It is not a spoiler to say that like Petkov and Katz, Deltchev is sentenced and executed. Ambler packs a lot into what these days is a short book (192 pages in my edition) so there is a good pace, but not rushed. His descriptions of not just people but also the places are well handled and engaging. While at times quite a bleak read, I will certainly pick up any more Ambler books which cross my path.

'The Santa Klaus [sic] Murder' by Mavis Doriel Hay

This was the third and final crime novel written by Doriel Hay and published in 1936. It is set in the country house of Sir Osmond Melbury, where his family assemble each Christmas. This year he has decided for assorted children that there will be a Santa Klaus (he insists very much on this name) to distribute presents to the assorted children. However, once this is over, he retires to his study, perhaps to receive a telephone call and then is found shot through the head by a single bullet and a window open. In some ways the novel reminded me of 'Hercule Poirot's Christmas' (1938) by Agatha Christie. However, while Melbury interferes in his children's lives, in particular over who they can marry, he is curmudgeonly rather than outright cruel as Simeon Lee is in Christie's book.

You might wonder why we do not see Doriel Hay's books dramatised with the frequency that Christie's are. Perhaps the stakes are not as high as in the Christie equivalent. In addition, Doriel Hay does not have a strong central detective. Much of the story is told by Colonel Halstock, the Chief Constable of Haulmshire (a fictional county), a friend of the family, though the typical detection work is done by Inspector Rousdon, who is not overly competent. The actor Kenneth Stour, another friend of the family, is involved as the amateur detective allowing a point of view which would otherwise be missed. Christie naturally has Hercule Poirot doing the main activities, but in the conclusion to the story he discusses the case with Colonel Johnson, the local Chief Constable. It was typical in the early 20th Century to appoint former army officers to these roles heading county or city police forces. Before the Second World War, along historic lines, a county might have a number of different police forces, sometimes associated with a single town or part of a county.

As mentioned with the character of Stour, perhaps a reason why playwrights and screenwriters have not adapted Doriel Hay's books is because of the question of points of view. As I noted with 'Murder Underground' (1935) https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-books-i-read-in-february.html Doriel Hay worked hard to provide a different perspective to the 'standard' approach of crime novels of the time. In that one the detective did not turn up until late in the book and Doriel Hay was more interest in the theories, the obfuscations and the amateur efforts of the murdered woman's fellow residents, than she was working through a clue-based or police procedural approach. 

The first five chapters of the book are written from the perspective of a different family member or guest. We learn later that this is the 'homework' assigned by Stour to get a feel for what was happening in the days before the murder, before Halstock takes over the narrative. Stour does get to contribute later, but only covering a brief period. These accounts reminded me of Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads' (1982/88-2020) soliloquies and they show Doriel Hay's skill in characterisation. She does let rip in showing all the attitudes of the British Lower Upper Class and their associates. Unfortunately, ultimately, the novel rather vindicates such attitudes, but I guess we see that too in Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, etc. and it is perhaps too much to expect Doriel Hay to diverge from this despite it undermining the mystery.

To a greater degree than we see in Christie's books, Doriel Hay shows how not big lies, but various misportrayals and suppression of certain facts, really hamper the investigation. There is a bit too much 'coming and going' around the Santa Klaus performance, subsequent pulling of crackers and a locked 'hidden' door which is just fed into by the various characters, not out of real malice, but due to discomfort or embarrassment, seed small lies through what they say. In part while it is no critique of this social class and the Upper Middle Class in which some of the characters are from, it does show the sense of entitlement of these people and how their small embarrassments are felt to trump even a murder case. Overall, I found this an engaging book and especially the 'talking heads' section and the persistent 'white lies' of many characters were refreshing. Yet, you can see why, especially the first section would make dramatisation a challenge especially give the established format we tend to have these days with 'country house' murders on television.

'Clockwork Prince' by Cassandra Clare

This is the second in the Infernal Devices series. I read the first one, 'Clockwork Angel' (2010) back in 2019: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-books-i-read-in-november.html?m=0  This continues the adventures of Tessa Gray, the young American woman with the ability to shapeshift to look like other people who has come to London in 1878 and is drawn into the world of the Shadowhunters, the half-angel people fighting against dark forces housed in the London (and York) Institute, Clare features them in this trilogy and her Mortal Instruments series (2007-14). 

The book has the same basic set up, with a young woman from outside the context, unfamiliar with her special abilities coming into the Shadowhunter community and dealing with werewolves, vampires, warlocks, etc. The warlock Magnus Bane, who is probably immortal, turns up in this book as he does in the Mortal Instruments even though they are set over 130 years later. Following the standard Clare formula there are a pair of Byronic young heroes, Will and Jem, for Tessa to fall in love with and be torn between. There is also family complications both for Tessa who confronts her evil brother working with Mortmain, the one building the clockwork robots and seeking to destroy all Shadowhunters. Meanwhile his partisans are seeking to take control of the London Institute from within and Tessa is involved in the effort to keep the friendly Charlotte in charge.

Early in the book I worried it would be a tedious rehash of the Mortal Instruments story, but in fact it steps up a gear and becomes more engaging as the young people to chase after the antagonists across London, using their various abilities. The scene where Tessa disguised as an Institute member who has betrayed the Shadowhunters and encounters her own brother is well handled. The battle against the giant robot in the East End warehouse is also well done.

At times the novel is rather trope-heavy and occasionally dips into a Hollywood perception of Victorian London, e.g. the "opium" den. Some Americanisms slip in inappropriately such as the numbering of floors which is done differently in the UK to the USA. However, generally these flaws are avoided. It is also good to see an appreciation of the class system rather than all the servants being characterless machines themselves, especially Sophie the Institute maid, who despite her lowly status falls for a couple of the Shadowhunters despite such relationships being forbidden. There is also an oblique reference to syphilis which haunts so much Gothic literature of the era through "demon pox" being an important element in the story. I recognise this book is not aimed at readers like me, but once it gets going it was a pretty enjoyable romp.

'Flashman and the Tiger' by George MacDonald Fraser

As with the Sharpe books of Bernard Cornwell, I religiously read through all the Flashman books which were available in the mid-1990s only for MacDonald Fraser to have what he perhaps might have termed an "Indian Summer" when he wrote a few more that I am only now coming to. This one published in 1999 is actually a collection of three short(ish) stories set at different times though largely when the protagonist, Harry Flashman is in his sixties or older.

The first is 'The Road to Charing Cross'. It has a rather convoluted lead in across a number of decades, with Otto von Bismarck who in the 1860s set Flashman up in a kind of Prisoner of Zenda role and who seeks revenge. Flashman ends up in Vienna, having been on the inaugural journey of the Orient Express, trying to prevent the assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph by Hungarian nationalists. It is quite clever how it is not clear who are the people he can rely on and also the limits of his physical abilities at his age. There is a scene where he is beaten around an abandoned Austrian salt mine but the usual torture scene in Flashman novels is absent. There are longueurs especially around his interactions with two women who might be German or Hungarian agents and how one of them toys with him at the end. It added little to the story. The bit at the end of Flashman being at Charing Cross Station and dragooned into accompanying General Gordon (who he knew from China) to fight the Mahdi in Sudan seems like a set-up for another novel. Thus, overall, though the middle part is adventurous, the story is rather made up of parts not perfectly fitted together and at times, overly long.

The second is 'The Subtleties of Baccarat' which involves Flashman and his wife, Elspeth, who shows a vicious streak beneath her rather simple pretty exterior in a genuine court case around cheating at baccarat. It became renowned as it involved the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Flashman is staying at the house, Tranby Croft, where, in 1890, the games took place and Elspeth is at the table on the second night. Flashman is eager for a scandal to develop and Elspeth has her own motives which only are revealed at the end.  By a number of witnesses, Lieutenant Colonel Sir William Gordon-Cumming of the Scots Guards was accused of adding to his bets after the winners had been announced. The case actually came to court and Godron-Cumming lost. He was expelled from the Army and retired from public life, fortunately having a rich wife and an estate in Scotland where he could hide. To present day readers the whole case seems rather ridiculous, but Wikipedia has really extensive coverage of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_baccarat_scandal The story is crisp and succeeds both in bringing out a larger role for Elspeth, who rather often is a 'her indoors' character in the novels as well as bisecting fictional Flashman with historical events of the time.

'Flashman and the Tiger' is probably the best story of the three. Not only does it feature Flashman escaping the Isandlwana massacre of 1879 in a thrilling well written section but has him meeting the fictional Colonel Sebastian "Tiger" Moran better known as the antagonist of the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Adventure of the Empty House' (1903). Flashman subsequently actually gets involved of the climactic scene of that story, hiding close to where Holmes and Watson apprehend Moran. Moran is threatening both Flashman's granddaughter Selina and her fiancé. However, as with the previous story with Elspeth, Selina is revealed to be less of the 'model Victorian lady' than might be expected. Fortunately Holmes's arrest of Moran solves Flashman's immediate problem.

Overall, while with some highlights and all the standard sexual references and Victorian lingo that you would seek from a Flashman novel, this collection is good in parts but at times rather weaker.

Non-Fiction

'The Peloponnesian War' by Donald Kagan

I came to this book having played the computer game, 'Assassin's Creed: Odyssey' (2018) which is set in Greece in the 420s and features many actual people active there at the time. Saying that while I think people would be happy with the portrayal of Socrates, lawyers for Alcibiades, politician, general and turncoat, might have had something to say about how effete he is shown. While the game proved very useful in familiarising me with the geography of Greece in this era, especially as the war raged through so many regions and seas, it only featured a slice of the 27-year (Second) Peloponnesian War. Kagan wrote a 4-volume history of the war, published 1969-87. This book published in 2003 is a 511-page concise history of the conflict.

As reviewers noted Kagan had that skill that makes popular histories like this work. This conflict was immensely complicated. The basis is the repeated battles between Sparta, a monarchical militaristic state with a regional dominance and Athens, a restricted democracy, with a strong navy and a growing empire across the eastern and central Mediterranean. The strengths of each being so different made it hard for either to strike a 'knock-out blow' against the other. You can also understand how people have likened it to the Cold War. In addition, both these states were at the centre of shifting alliance blocs and there were numerous other city-states with their own armies and navies and their own territorial and trade objectives. In addition, many saw political upheaval moving between oligarchic and democratic systems of government, periodically supported by Sparta for the former and Athens for the latter. We must also not forget the Persian Empire, at the time controlling what is now Türkiye with both sides seeking to gain its support.

Having read this book I went on to play the 'Wrath of Sparta' (2014) scenario on 'Rome II Total War' (2013) and it really shows up the challenges of trying to sustain any control, especially over islands that opponents can land on at any time. I am not going to rehearse all the various details of the war here, it would take ages. However, as we have so many records from it Kagan is not only able to outline the actual battles, but also the politics that went on behind them. This led to prevarication of all sides. There are numerous cases in which military blundering, especially in terms of logistics, led to defeat, notably in the Athenian invasion of eastern Sicily. 

As noted above, Kagan moves through briskly, but very importantly with clarity, having sub-sections so that the reader is not lost amongst the narrative. Also beneficial are the numerous maps throughout the book which are really helpful not simply if you are unfamiliar with all the ancient towns and regions, but also show the specific challenges from holding particular towns or forts. The other welcome thing is that throughout Kagan stops the narrative to ask a series of rhetorical questions. Some of these are challenges to previous historians who have made lazy or biased interpretations of what was happening. Many, though, you feel that Kagan has been asked down the years by his university students. This is great for the reader for whom such questions might have also arisen.

Overall this is an engaging book which does a very difficult job very well. It is worthwhile reading to learn more about this conflict which does have so many parallels from the 5th Century BCE to the 20th Century CE. I now feel confident if anyone speaks about Pericles or Lysander, even Cyrus or Nicias. It might not help me win any computer games, though saying that, I do now know why it is essential that Corinth needs to control Naupatkos or as Sparta, Pylos.

'New Jerusalems: The Labour Party and the Economics of Democratic Socialism' by Elizabeth Durbin

Checking details of this book before writing this post, I have found that hardback editions like I possess are selling for £124-£140 on Amazon. So, if anyone wants one, please contact me here and I will sell it to you for £70 and will cover the postage cost.

Anyway, this book was published by Elizabeth Durbin (1937-99) in 1985. As well as an economic historian in her own right, lecturing mainly in the USA, she was the daughter of Evan Durbin (1906-48 drowned) who had been a leading Labour politician and provided much of the development of the party's economic thinking in the 1930s. That is what this book focus on, looking at the discussions among those in the party from its foundation up to the Second World War who explored how a Socialist economy could work, especially in the face of the Great Depression of the 1930s in particular the mass unemployment that hit Labour supporters and trade unionists so hard. She brings out the various groups that were established in the party to work on these ideas and in particular focuses on the men (and occasional woman like Barbara Wootton) such as Hugh Dalton, Hugh Gaitskell, G.D.H. Cole and John Maynard Keynes. 

It does start with a concise but very good articulation of how economics as a discipline in Britain (with particular input from Austria) was evolving from the end of the 19th Century through the first half of the 20th Century. This is very useful and shows the contrary views such as those by Von Hayek which the more Socialist economists were pressing against. The book also shows how the development of liberal economic perspectives notably of Beveridge and Keynes also impacted and at times bisected with a more 'Socialist' path. Of course, by 1948 even the Labour Government had abandoned Socialist economics in favour of the Keynesian approach which remained in place until the advent of New Right thinking driving the move to monetarism from 1976 onwards. 

At times, though Durbin is right to note that the Liberals were economically more radical than Labour. The inability to break free of the classical perception of economics from the 19th Century was a challenge throughout and one that Labour really never achieved, though picking up on some new methodologies such as marginal cost pricing. It is interesting to see the work that went into discussing the shape of a future British Socialist economy especially the New Fabian Research Bureau and the numerous pamphlets, some of which are now lost forever. There were extensive debates about whether joint stock banks and land should be nationalised and just how a Socialist economy could demonstrate consumer choice if prices were controlled and the economy planned.

The ins and outs of various policies, is handled well by Durbin and importantly it gives Dalton, the Chancellor of Exchequer 1945-47 a greater status, showing him to be a thoughtful economist rather than the blundering fogey he can rather appear in histories of the Labour governments. However, overall, though well told especially for a non-economist reader, you do wonder at how much effort was expended to so little end. Labour did gain more MPs at the 1935 election but was a long way from a majority. Labour MPs were welcomed into Churchill's wartime coalition but largely because they had abandoned much of the policies which had been discussed pre-war. Even when Labour attained power in 1945, really the only Socialist economic policy put in place was nationalisation of a number of industries. The welfare state policies were largely taken from the Liberal, Beveridge and after three years any Socialist planning was abandoned in favour of the policies of Keynes, another Liberal. I found it an intellectually stimulating book, but ultimately a discouraging one as it showed how little UK economic policies can be considered that stray even a short way from the orthodox 'rules' that are so in favour of the wealthy rather than wider UK society.

The Books I Read In September

 Fiction

'Metropolis' by Philip Kerr

This is the last of the Bernie Gunther novels, the second published posthumously. Unlike the ones leading up to it, rather than straddling two time periods and going into the 1950s, this one is focused purely on Berlin in 1928. Consequently, despite Gunther encountering a range of celebrities and indeed spurring the development of the movie 'M' (1931) is more of a down-to-Earth detective story, not involving espionage, and all the better for that. Gunther is new to the Murder Commission in the Berlin police and is charged with the murder of four prostitutes and then with the killings of disabled war veterans. The two topics can be seen as quintessential foci for a Weimar Republic novel, something emphasised when Gunther meets both George Grosz and Otto Dix, attends rehearsals for the 'The Threepenny Opera' and spends time among representatives of the criminal rings and the Berlin night clubs. It is almost as if for this final book, Kerr put in every element which a reader might expect for a novel in that context.

I do find the 'name checking' rather tiresome and it rather exposes the 'wiring' of the novel too much. An encounter with one of these famous people of the era would have been sufficient. However, setting this aspect aside this is a decent crime novel and like the best of Kerr's work really gets you into the place and the time while providing a convincing series of events. As the last novel, it is nice that it effectively takes you back to the first in the series, 'March Violets' (1989). While the quality of the Gunther novels varies and his 'conceits' can be irritating, for the large part they are really engaging and much less of the unnecessary tangle that those of Volker Kutscher set in the same context are prone to. I will miss the Bernie Gunther books.

'City of Heavenly Fire' by Cassandra Clare

This is the sixth and final book in Clare's The Mortal Instruments series and like the preceding ones follows on directly from the one before which I read in July: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-books-i-read-in-july.html  As you might expect this one works to the climax with the protagonists of the novels coming to the final showdown with the heroine Clary's estranged half-brother, Sebastian/Jonathan who is threatening to conquer Idris the home of the Shadowhunters. It requires all the young people to go into a hellish realm to fight him and save all the Shadowhunters especially in stopping them being termed into obedient zombies of Jonathan, and naturally the Earth. It does rather feel like a typical YA story, given the range of abilities, more like the Famous Five, than the Buffy team. Clary and her love of all the books, Jace, have sex, even though I am concerned they are underage - something the TV series was careful to alter - and have holy lava running through them. In many ways especially in the other realm, while they still all have the sassiness of New York teenagers, it is more like a usual fantasy novel quest. While a lot of people get killed, even relatively major characters, there is a satisfying ending for the world and even for Simon, Clary's childhood friend and vampire who is stripped of his powers. 

The series is almost an archetype of YA fantasy coming out from the USA. Perhaps reading it when it came out 2007-14 it would have seemed fresher than now. However, now so much of it is common across a whole host of books. However, credit must be given to Clare for her deft control of her material and knowing what her prime audience are seeking. It does appear as if she is developing characters in this one for a follow-on series, but as yet that has not manifested and perhaps suitably she has gone on to similar, but as far as I understand, not directly connected stories.

'Stonemouth' by Iain Banks

I do not know if I am picking the wrong books to read from Banks's work, but after 'The Crow Road' (1992) I feel I am seeing too much of him writing kind of family epics set in different parts of Scotland. This one is set across a few days in the fictional town of Stonemouth, on the North-East coast of Scotland, north of Aberdeen. It does really pander to stereotypes of Scotland, with bleakness, violence, suicide (mainly from a bridge, one of Banks's obsessions) alcoholism and drug abuse being dominant. In some ways it is also like a Western. Stewart Gilmour now successful in lighting buildings artistically returns to the town to attend the funeral of an elderly man he had known well. The town is divided between two crime families. Historically he fell in love with, Ellie Murston, the daughter of one of these and was engaged to marry her. As the novel unfolds we find out what he did that so angered the woman's brothers who chased him from the town, so I will not give that away. Gilmour has to seek permission from both the families to return to the town even for a matter of days. He does reconnect with old friends both male and female from the place and much is about the different roads they have followed in the years since.

The book feels pretty much like an Ian Rankin novel, with the portrayal of tacky wealthy houses and seedy pubs and clubs in the town. The fact that violence can occur almost in an instant and something that happened five years earlier with harm to a sense of propriety rather than anything else can be sufficient for someone to draw a gun, is chilling and realistic, but you did wonder if we needed to see it again. Rankin, among many others, has this well covered. Ironically Banks brings in another common thread from his novels, that of the rather pathetic man in love with the (almost) unattainable woman, that we saw in 'Walking on Glass' (1985), The Crow Road' and 'Espedair Street' (1987) which I have all read this year. 'Stonemouth' could be seen as a (bleak) romance, not quite a 'Romeo & Juliet' story but certainly about trying to have a relationship when others feel they have a right to police it. I see that the novel was dramatised for television in 2015, but I saw too many episodes of 'Taggart' (broadcast 1985-2010) to want to seek it out.

'Jumping Jenny' by Anthony Berkeley [Anthony Berkeley Cox]

This novel from 1933 is another in the British Library reprint series. Like Cox's other books I have read: 'The Poison Chocolates Case' (1929) - https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-books-i-read-in-august.html and  'The Murder in the Basement' (1932) - https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-books-i-read-in-march.html in this one, the author seeks to subvert the standard approach to crime writing of the time, something he was familiar with from being the founder of a club for crime fiction authors of the time. The setting is a party at a large country house populated with upper middle class people all dressed as murderers from history. There is a gallows tree on the roof from which hang three mannequins, one female. This proves to be the site of the death of the most obnoxious guest Ena Stratton, a noisy exhibitionist who whines when not the centre of attention. Roger Sheringham, the crime writer and amateur detective is one of the guests. However, in contrast to most crime novels of this ilk, when accused of the murder himself, he goes to great lengths not simply to prove he was not the perpetrator but also to clear the man he thinks was the killer but happens to be a friend of his.

While the setting is a well known one, Cox is deft in his writing and you really engage with the story as Sheringham works hard to persuade the other guests that his account of what has gone on, and that Ena committed suicide, is the correct interpretation, in particular around the location of a specific chair. Once more in Cox is gently critiquing crime novels and how they contort things to make the story work, to a lesser extent than in 'The Poison Chocolates Case' but in a way which is of interest to anyone who has read the classic crime novels of the era. The ending has twist upon twist which simply brings that critique right home.

'Cursed' by Benedict Jacka

Well, as I said when I read the first book in this series, 'Fated' (2012) back in December 2018, https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2018/12/books-i-listened-toread-in-december.html I did come across the next book, this one, and bought it. It is written in the first person as we see Alex Verus, a mage with the ability to see the future, trying to run his business in Camden and train his apprentice Luna to control the unluck curse she has. Quickly he is drawn into attacks on magical creatures that live in modern day London and is particularly concerned for Arachne, his friend who is a giant spider that happens to be a dressmaker living under Hampstead Heath. With the character and the milieu of the Light and Dark mages established in the previous novel, there is less of the info dumping in this one and this means the action can move on more briskly. Jacka maintains the 20-something character of Alex and how he is perhaps too easily trusting and love/lust gets in the way especially when dealing with Luna and Meredith a charmer mage.

In general Jacka steers clear of predictable tropes and manages to world build well both in terms of the magic world and contemporary London (though Hampstead Heath is far less deserted at nighttime than portrayed in the novel, but I can see why he did not reflect that here!). It seems to 'work' both in terms of magic and the magical items. There is some real jeopardy and the betrayals are handled well. The series now stretches to 12 books and Jacka has a blog which he keeps up to date, which provides lots of background information on the books and his other activities: https://benedictjacka.co.uk/  'Taken' (2012) is the next one in the series. Again I will not rush to buy it, but if I see it, I would get it.

'Midwinter' by John Buchan

This novel from 1923 has many of the usual Buchanite traits, notably rich descriptions of the landscape, though in this case of the West Midlands, Peak District and Cumbria rather than anywhere in Scotland. It also has a protagonist being pursued all through these landscapes. However, aside from those aspects the book is a shambles. It is as if Buchan had too many ideas and did not know how to fit them all together. The story focuses on Captain Alistair Maclean who has come to Scotland in 1745 with the Jacobite army led by Prince Charles Edward. Maclean is sent ahead as the army moves from Scotland into England to sound out potential support in the south Midlands and co-ordinate offers of support from Wales.

It becomes apparent that among the English sympathisers someone is intercepting vital messages and betraying the Jacobite cause. Ill-informed the Jacobites advance too slowly and cautiously before retreating from Derby back to Scotland where they are crushed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This could be a gripping story but Buchan handles it poorly. Maclean does eventually identify the traitor, but the result is an anti-climax. He falls in love with Claudia Norrey one of the English sympathisers but she is devoted to her slippery if rather guileless husband and Maclean slowly realises he could never win her heart even if he killed that man.

Maclean does face jeopardy most clearly in being held to be thrown into a maelstrom in a pothole. However, much of the novel, he is sick, exhausted and imprisoned while the invasion advances around him. When he meets government supporters and even a general of the government army, they have genial chit-chat and there is no threat, just convoluted genteel conversation. Apart from some short stretches all sense of jeopardy is neglected. In addition there is an deus ex machina, the eponymous Midwinter, a kind of travelling man who has an extensive network of common men able to aid him and his friends at the drop of a hat or in fact the whistling of a tune. They are a neutral force in the conflict but able to rescue Maclean repeatedly.

Samuel Johnson, the dictionary composer appears as the former tutor and mentor of Claudia Norrey and keeps crossing paths with Maclean, ultimately doggedly following him across the country. While Johnson tempers Maclean's reactions to those he feels deserve death he appears more as a point of curiosity as a real life character in a fictional story but at a time when his whereabouts were unknown. He adds little except to drain more of the drama from the book. We do not even get to witness the Battle of Culloden which might have been a suitable climax, instead, Maclean through his tardiness and failures notably his personal obsessions takes on blame for the failure of the invasion.

While the descriptions are good, the life has been taken from this story and it is not a patch on 'John Burnet of Barns' (1898). If you want a decent novel set around the Jacobite invasion I suggest 'The Flight of the Heron' (1925) by D.K. Broster instead.

Non-Fiction

'Akenfield' by Ronald Blythe

When I bought this book, in a Penguin edition published in 1969, I thought it was fiction. However, it turns out to be an oral history of a rural village in eastern Suffolk. Though in reality it has a different name, the stories recounted to the author were all genuine. By interviewing people from a whole range of roles and standings in the community, from those on the bread line to the landowners, and public servants like police, teachers and trade unionists it aims to get the story of the place in the 20th Century and look at the changes the 1960s were bringing, in terms of society, the economy and agriculture, especially the training of new farm labourers. There is some nostalgic charm to it, such as the comments about bell-ringing. However, other parts are as bleak, almost as harrowing, as a book by Studs Turkel. What it alerts you to is while a lot of the focus of the 1930s Depression is on industrial closures, the countryside suffered just as much and in fact a kind of neo-feudalism reasserted itself, with the workers on poverty pay and at risk of losing their tied cottages. It also highlights the migration of Scottish farmers to take up abandoned farms in Suffolk.

For all the gloom of the accounts - and despite the improvements of the post-war era, the future still looks bleak at the time of writing, especially in terms of the fragmentation and segregation of village society - it is fascinating to hear the words of the different people. Sometimes they go off at a tangent which Blythe is happy to keep in. Social and oral history were really seeing a real burst of interest at the time the book was published and you can see why it was acclaimed. These days it is very useful for anyone writing a story set in the English countryside of the time, much less rose-tinted than some portrayals we see. It is also useful especially for that leavening of the story of the Depression which reached far beyond the Jarrow Crusade and South Wales coalminers in terms of its impact.

The Books I Read In July

 Fiction

'The Armageddon Rag' by George R.R. Martin

This book published in 1983 is probably the best I have read by Martin. It has some supernatural elements, but these are handled subtly and are in the background for much of the novel, to the extent that I would classify it as magic realism. The story is about novelist and former music journalist Sandy Blair (a man) who is asked by a magazine editor who he previously worked for, to dig into the murder of music promoter, Jamie Lynch. This soon leads Sandy to reconnect with old friends from the hippie era, across the USA and to track down the former members of rock band The Nazgûl which broke up following the assassination of their lead singer, Patrick Henry 'Hobbit' Hobbins during an open-air concert at West Mesa in 1971. One of the most fantastical elements is that any band would be permitted to use that name, the name of the Ringwraiths in 'The Lord of the Rings' (1954-55) given how assiduous Tolkien's estate is in taking legal action against anyone making use of his legacy, no matter in how minor a way. 'The Armageddon Rag' is a 21-minute long track filling the whole B side of their last album. 

Martin was born in 1948 so was 21 in 1969 at the peak of the hippie movement. In many ways this is a contemplation of that movement. While not explicitly set in the Reagan era, it does reference to business and societal culture of that time as a means of reflecting what 'went wrong' with the hippie movement - various characters express a range of views on this. Steadily Edan Morse begins to reassemble the band and introduces a lookalike to replace their dead lead singer. Morse may have been involved in radical direct action in the 1960s and it increasingly appears he is using supernatural means to get the band back together and to be a success with old and new fans alike, culminating in a performance at the West Mesa venue.

The book is in part a murder mystery, but is it also a paean to hippie culture. The discussion of the fictional band also reminded me of 'Espedair Street' (1987) which I read in April: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html While acclaimed at the time, it did not attract a wide readership and has clearly been re-released on the back of the dramatisation of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-2011) series and its prequels. However, I feel the drawing of the range of characters, the representation of the performances, the mystery and the very subtle but credible supernatural perspective is a good mix, perhaps could be seen these days alongside Stephen Leather's Jack Nightingale series. Anyway, it was an engaging read that I enjoyed more than I had anticipated.

'John Burnet of Barns' by John Buchan

This was the first novel that Buchan published, at the age of 23. It is a melodrama set in late 17th Century south-west Scotland and is particularly strong in making use of the geography of that region. You could trace the protagonist, Laird John Burnet, across many of the same landscape features today. Initially this is the story of a young scholarly man's life and his love for a neighbour, Majory Veitch. However, his path crosses with his bullish cousin, Gilbert Burnet. 

Returning to Scotland from the Netherlands, John finds Gilbert has laid false charges against him of being a Covenanter, during the Killing Time (1679-88) when government forces under Charles II and then James II/VII persecuted and executed the Covenanters who favoured presbyterianism over the enforcement of an episcopal church, i.e. one with bishops. There are various adventures with John trying to escape capture by moving around the uplands of the Borders while trying to keep in touch with Marjory. There are lots of dramatic scenes and John is only really saved by the overthrow of King James and his replacement with the Dutch King William III. 

The language is aimed to sound very 17th Century anyway even for being written in the 1890s. The greatest challenge comes from Nicol Plenderleith, a very energetic local who offers himself as man servant to John and accompanies on his adventures. His speech is full of Scots terms and is rendered almost phonetically. Having moved to North-East Scotland (rather than South-West) helped me comprehend what he was saying a little better. Overall, this is a romp very much of its time, but has a richness due to strong portrayals of characters and a real connection to the landscape in which it is set.

'Greeks Bearing Gifts' by Philip Kerr

This was the 13th and penultimate book in Kerr's Bernie Gunther series which was published in 2018 soon after his death. It breaks from many of the others as it does not run in two time periods. Instead, following on from 'Prussian Blue' (2017): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-books-i-read-in-june.html it is now 1957 and Gunther is living in Munich and working as a mortuary attendant when he is blackmailed into helping foil a Stasi plan to undermine a new political party in West Germany. This then leads to him being recruited as a loss adjuster for an insurance company and in turn being sent to Greece to investigate the suspicious sinking of a private yacht on an archaeological voyage. Soon, when one of the men involved is murdered, Gunther is compelled by the Greek police to assist and he uncovers a plot to secure gold taken from Jews in Thessaloniki during the war and believed to be aboard a sunken ship offshore. There are a range of suspects each trying to shift the blame on to others and portrayal their role in Germany's occupation of Greece as a minor one.

This novel comes over effectively as a 1950s hard-boiled novel, building well on what Gunther has seen and done. Naturally it asks questions about individuals' complicity in wartime atrocities and the reinvention of West Germany and its people after the war. The plot is suitably twisty and gives a feel of Greece at the time. Unlike with previous novels because we do not see Gunther in the "now" the jeopardy is more genuine than when we know he must have escaped from whatever danger is shown as occurring in the past. His connection to an attractive young female Greek lawyer and her feelings towards him jar. Given his age he is old enough to be her father, if not grandfather. He could have been partnered with a contemporary, but in these latter books Kerr seems to have felt compelled to repeatedly show Gunther as alluring to younger women, when ironically women of his own age, including more than one wife, have left him. Overall, this is a solid crime thriller with a good feel for time and place.

'City of Lost Souls' by Cassandra Clare

This is the fifth book in her Mortal Instruments novels. It feels rather like an episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' with the Lightwood siblings of Shadowhunters: Jace, Alec and Isabelle, notably Jace, who is the protagonist, Clary Fray's love interest; Simon the vampire and his housemate/mentor Jordan the werewolf and his returned love Maia, also a werewolf, as his Clary's soon-to-be stepfather Luke. After the drama at the top of the tower block in the last novel, 'City of Fallen Angels' (2011) Jace has disappeared taken away by Sebastian/Jonathan, Clary's evil brother. The book is basically the assorted "gang" working without the knowledge of the authorities to locate Jace and retrieve him, in various ways.

 Being an uber-YA book there is a lot of romance and kissing. Jace and Clary hold off from having sex, which is a good thing given it is not clear whether they remain underage. In the movie and TV series, they are appropriately portrayed as young adults. However, the stories of the other characters, especially Simon (who is having an on-off relationship with Isabelle). We see more of Sebastian and the scenes in which Clary infiltrates the teleporting flat which he and Jace are using to move around Europe, are interesting. After all the various relationship tensions (including between Alec and his co-habiting boyfriend, immortal warlock, Magnus) there is another big battle, this time in a remote part of Ireland. While the creation of an evil army is thwarted, Sebastian escapes.

These books are almost an archetype of YA fantasy. There is a lot of angst around relationships and parents, and breaking the rules. However, it does move along briskly and after five books, the characters are rounded out. The uncertainties when Jace is shifting back and forth between evil and good(ish) personalities is handled competently. It delivers the kind of action you expect. The portrayals of Venice, Paris and Prague are well done.

'Dead Air' by Iain Banks

I am beginning to wonder if I misjudged the quality of Banks's writing. This was another poor effort, from later in his career, published in 2002. It is set around Kenneth Nott, who is a DJ on a talk radio channel that sounds rather like LBC or the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2. The novel opens with the character at a party when they hear about the 11th September 2001 atrocity in the USA. Aside from setting the date, nothing is done with that. From then on it simply wanders. Much of it feels like a Martin Amis wish fulfillment novel as Nott who has an established girlfriend has sex with a range of women who generally go off him after a while. He lives on a boat on the Thames, drinks a lot and goes to night clubs and parties. He talks with his co-presenter and his two close friends and sometimes refers to his early life in Scotland, which does tend to make you feel he is an avatar for Banks, perhaps this is even semi-biographical. He starts having a relationship with Celia, wife of a gangster. There are moments of jeopardy, one where he is kidnapped as the result of a road rage incident, one where he hits a fellow guest on a TV programme and particularly when he crosses paths with the gangster. However, it is only when he is threatened by direct violence that he seems to take anything seriously. For the rest of the time he does not take measure of his behaviour or its consequences.

Reviews on the cover of the book suggest it was intended to be satirical. Given the time that has passed, even though I was living in London at the time and saw and heard the kind of programmes that are shown, I cannot see if it is satirising anyone in particular or a compilation of people. I guess there is enough to satirise in so-called 'shock jocks', but in many ways the book just ends up portraying their behaviour simply in a fictional form rather than based on real people and the situations they got into. For a reader today, the challenges of US President George W. Bush and of global conflicts appear almost as if they could come from the current news, only the names have changed. There is really no character development, so we have simply spent time as audience for this slice of the character's life. It is credible, but by the end you do wonder what the point was. Certainly it does not come close to the kind of book the cover reviews suggest, even taking into account their usual exaggerations.

Non-Fiction

'Hitler's War Directives, 1939-1945' ed. by H.R. [Hugh] Trevor-Roper

This is a translated and commented on collection of a specific set of directives issued by Adolf Hitler throughout the Second World War. Naturally there is a shift in tone from 1943 to a similar but different sort of directive. The book does show what Hitler intended at each stage and some were never issued as events overtook the directive. As Trevor-Roper highlights, there is a mix of very high ambitions and then rather too detailed planning coming from a commander-in-chief. It does highlight some perhaps unexpected views of Hitler. He did seem to believe the British would surrender, but then that they would re-invade Norway when Germany invaded the USSR. He was obsessed with coastal landings throughout the war and gave many directions on protecting these, though ironically such preparations proved inadequate with the Normandy Invasion. He did fear an invasion of Denmark and ordered that as much effort be put into defending it as the Dutch, Belgian and French coastlines. An interesting book which despite its age - published in 1964 - is a useful reminder of things which it seems many mainstream commentators forget about Hitler's intentions when at war.

The Books I Read In June

 Fiction

'Prussian Blue' by Philip Kerr

Like many of the Bernie Gunther stories, this one is set in two time periods, 1956 - following on directly from the events shown in 'The Other Side of Silence' which I read in March: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-books-i-read-in-march.html and the spring of 1939. Gunther is chased out of the French Riviera by Stasi agents and the actions goes between him trying to reach West Germany and get clear of them and when he was sent to Hitler's complex near Berchtesgaden where an official has been shot dead by a sniper. There are reasons to connect the two time periods, but in fact it would have worked if simply the 1939 case had been shown. For this case Gunther is sent by Heydrich but is working to Martin Bormann. He encounters a variety of different forms of corruption not simply around the construction of Hitler's retreat at Obersalzberg but also a local brothel.

The brief coverage of the flight in 1956 only occasionally distracts from the fascinating portrayal of how extensively Obersalzberg was remodelled above and below ground, including evicting numerous local residents and demolishing houses. This provided the basis for motives among very many. This combined with the tradition of hunting in the region makes it a challenge for Gunther to identify the killer especially when dodging around internecine Nazi rivalry. The tightness of focus for the majority of the book on the neighbourhood in southern Bavaria, I feel makes this one of the more effective of the late Gunther books and it was a satisfying crime novel read, whether or not you are familiar with the details of the era.

'City of Fallen Angels' by Cassandra Clare

This is the fourth book in the Mortal Instruments Series series. I ended up with the final three books as well as the preceding three I read a few years back. As I noted having finished 'City of Glass' (2009): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2021/04/books-i-listened-toread-in-april.html that felt like the end of a trilogy. Thus, this one feels a little like an anti-climax. It occurs all in New York and the leads of the previous novels are generally living lives as young adults with exceptional powers. Simon the vampire features much more in this novel and gets into complicated situations dating both a shadowhunter and a werewolf and slowly a greater threat than the love lives of these teenagers comes to the fore. The latter parts of the novel work well on the basis of a fantasy novel and I am guessing the YA elements of much of the book did not overly appeal as I am certainly not part of that demographic. Saying that the book moves along steadily and despite the fantasy outlook and the particular preoccupations of the young people, the characters and what they do comes over as convincing. For example Simon fearing he might have killed a girl when losing control of his vampire hunger, is well handled.

'The Crow Road' by Iain Banks

After reading 'Espedair Street' (1987) https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html in April and having seen the dramatization of this novel back in 1996 I was optimistic that this would be a good read. Unfortunately, this book is less than the sum of its parts. Banks ranges back and forth in time to feature various members of the McHoan family and their neighbours across the social classes, in south-west Scotland. There are well written scenes, but sometimes you have no idea what time period is featured in the particular slice of text before it jumps on to something else. Featuring many of the same characters at different stages from 1945 to 1990, makes this very difficult. Sometimes the jump from one chunk to the next is only a matter of a few months or years, at other times it can be decades.

The book also suffers from that pretentious approach, which I guess might have seemed exciting or innovative back in the 1980s, of featuring a book in it which has the same title as the novel itself. In fact two embryonic 'Crow Road' novels are featured in the story and one has some of the same text as the one we are reading. None of this helps with clarity. By the end I realised why Banks had adopted this approach and that was because if it had all been written out 'straight' then it simply would have been a family drama across the decades. While there was a legitimate mystery it would still be akin to many other unexceptional novels. Fragmenting it and jumbling up the pieces seems to be aiming to instill a greater sense of mystery and somehow to make it more sophisticated than a Julie Garwood novel.

The portrayal of various locations in Scotland, no matter in what era they are shown in, is handled very well and is a highlight of the book. In addition, the angst of a teenager/young man attracted to various women, is also written well, I imagine from the author's personal recollection.

I must say that unless I had relocated to Scotland in 2021, I would have really struggled to have understood some of the dialogue especially in the early chapters. If you are unfamiliar with mid- to late 20th Century Scottish version of English vernacular, this might prove a real challenge. Overall, though if interested in this story, I suggest you watch the BBC TV series instead.

'Surfeit of Suspects' by George Bellairs [Harold Blundell]

Published in 1964, this is the fortieth book in the Thomas Littlejohn series, by which time the protagonist is a Superintendent. It is set in the fictional Surrey town of Evingden where an explosion kills three directors of a failing joinery company. It soon transpires they were killed with dynamite and Littlejohn and his Inspector Cromwell are drawn into a complex fraud involving three shell companies. As is noted in the introductory essay by Martin Edwards who has this role for these British Library reprints, the outlook of the book even in 1964 was dated. Bellairs first book had been published in 1941 and you could certainly envisage this one being published a decade earlier. However, a lot of the motive for the multiple murders (and a suicide) are around the modernisation of the town including electric street lighting replacing gas lighting; the building of new shopping centres and housing estates leading to an increase in population. Thus, the very fact of the passing of an era forms the basis for the story and shows how the characters themselves are looking to engage with business in the 1960s boom.

The plot becomes increasingly complex and it is no surprise that Bellairs was a bank manager all his life. Perhaps a modern reader will be more familiar with shell companies and insider trading, but even so you have to pay attention, though the author takes you through the increasing layers steadily rather than in a rush. He does conjure up a feasible setting and his characters, none of whom are particularly likeable, come across as believable especially for that time and place. While if writing in 2024 Bellairs would probably be categorised as writing 'cosy' crime novels, the spite and selfishness, let alone their sense of entitlement, of these multiple suspects is well communicated. Even now, let alone when it was published, I feel sure readers can identify people very much like those portrayed.

Non-Fiction

'A History of British Trade Unionism' by Henry Pelling

This is a brisk and accessible account of trade unions in Britain (and indeed their connections to foreign unions) from the late 18th Century 'combinations' through to 1963 just ahead of the return to power of Labour and the final steps in the corporatism into which unions had been drawn during the Second World War. Despite the complexity of the numerous unions in British society, Pelling handles this well without simply focusing on the largest, to give a solid picture of developments at each stage. Both showing how extensive situations like the Taff Vale Judgement of 1901, the 1911 national strikes and the General Strike of 1926 developed and panned out but drawing on examples from across the country to show the range of experiences and indeed the frictions between unions.

I had my attention drawn to Margaret Bondfield, Chair of the TUC Council in 1923 and Minister of Labour, 1929-31, who I have to confess I was ignorant of and there may be others who played important roles in UK industrial relations that tend to have been forgotten. Perhaps most disheartening was recognising the challenges that many workers faced in the mid- to late 19th Century are those plaguing workers in the 2020s. Pelling charts the growth and steady success of trade unions but was oblivious to how much this was to be reversed in 20 years of his book being published.

Books I Listened To/Read In April

Non-Fiction

'The Awful Secret' by Bernard Knight

This is the fourth book in the Crowner John series set a few months after the melodramatic trial by tournament that ended 'Crowner's Quest' (1999). Sir John De Wolfe has largely recovered from the broken leg he received at the tournament and is back investigating. There are two main stories, one about the murder of a man washed up on the northern shore of Devon and then him being pressured to help a former Templar he knew in Palestine, who himself is murdered. One might expect that whenever Templars are mentioned these days there will also be something about the Holy Grail and the descendants of Jesus Christ. 

Though this book was published in 2000, ahead of 'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) it shows people holding the same views on Jesus's bloodline as in that book. However, unlike in most books of this kind, De Wolfe being a good Catholic of the late 12th Century sees the entire idea as blasphemous. This brings in interesting tensions as to how far a man will go to aid old army comrades, ones he did not know particularly well. While he assists the first former templar, even concealing him at his family's home, he feels obliged to aid the second, despite ultimately despising the line that he preaches. In many ways, De Wolfe is tricked and this makes him seem that much more human than all the laboured philandering which fill so much of these books. There is tension as he tries to help the second templar get away from Dorset.

There is an additional sub-plot with an invasion of the island of Lundy held by pirates though promised to the Templars and in subduing another village on the mainland coast indulging in piracy. These provide action scenes that Knight seems to have felt were necessary now in each of these books. Some modern commentators feel the secret is 'dull' though I think that is because some twenty years on these speculations about Jesus are very well known and not as surprising as was the case even back in 2000. I feel, though, that despite some flaws, this is a good book. De Wolfe does blunder and holds to attitudes which are appropriate for his time and background, rather than being a sudden convert to some radical new belief. I still have quite a few of these books to read. I hope Knight kept to the more realistic approach rather than making his protagonist an action hero and also toning down the unnecessarily high number of sexual encounters.

'City of Glass' by Cassandra Clare

While there are further two books after this one in Clare's Mortal Instruments series, this one does feel like the closing of a trilogy. It comes to a big climax with the antagonist, Valentine and a lot seems to resolved. Starting in New York like the previous two books, this one soon moves to the fantastical world of Idris (capital Alicante, but not the Alicante of our world) which has a kind of Victorian bucolic setting as if envisaged by William Morris. All the main characters from the previous books end up there. Given this context it does feel, even more than the previous two books, as a branching-off from the Harry Potter series. The various debates among the shadowhunters of Idris are reminiscent of the conflicting  views around dealing with Lord Voldemort. Again it is teenagers who settle the situation and also work to bring an alliance between the shadowhunters and the 'downworlders', i.e. vampires, werewolves and fairies. There is the same kind of mixture of political debates and teenage relationship crises.

I have commented how unsettling the underage sex (the main character is 14, rather than 18 as shown in the television series) and the incestuous thoughts between a brother and sister, which though, fortunately, is revealed to untrue. I do not know why Clare felt a need to include these elements. The incest in this book is part of a very well done subterfuge by one character, but it was unnecessary and I wonder why the publishers accepted it for a book aimed at the 'young adult' audience. There is some decent writing in this book and aspects which stand above the rather derivative ones. However, it is not a book I can like due to what I feel are inappropriate foci for it. Ironically I feel curious to see where Clare went with the remaining two books since she killed the incest and effectively had the prime antagonist vanquished.

'The Concrete Blonde' by Michael Connelly

This book was published in 1994 and is the third in Connelly's Harry Bosch series. I think it is the best of those that I have read so far which seems to confirm what for me seems to be increasingly true: that you need to give a crime novelist at least 3 books for them to get into their stride with a character. The book with video cassettes, pagers and US Vietnam veterans in early middle age, feels very of its time. What is galling, though, is the highlighting of black suspects being choked to death and unarmed suspects being shot dead by police feels like elements taken from the current US news, even 27 years later. Some things never seem to change in the USA.

Unlike the previous book, 'The Black Ice' (1993), this one is very taut. In part this is because much of the action takes place in the courtroom. Harry Bosch is facing a civil case brought by the widow of an unarmed serial killer known as The Dollmaker that he shot and killed four years earlier when the man was reaching for a toupee rather than a gun. This means Bosch is kept on quite a leash at times having to rush back to court. To confuse matters it comes to light that either he killed the wrong man or there is a copycat killer who has been active at the same time. The jeopardy that Bosch faces in investigating whether he did make a mistake with his suspicions or not adds another layer to the story. There are some decent twists and it is good to see the detective as being as flawed as anyone else. There is also the extra elements of his antagonisms with both the prosecuting attorney and his own rather ineffectual lawyer. We also see the complexities that his position makes in terms of his developing relationship with Sylvia Moore, the widow of a colleague whose murder he investigated in the previous book.

Overall, the novel manages to balance having twists and various layers without losing the reader. It gives what feels like a decent picture of Los Angeles, both the upmarket and seedy sides of it and in showing how dangerous it is for citizens at risk for their lives both from criminals and the police. Unfortunately in almost three decades, that situation has not changed. However, it does mean that Connelly's book has a currency rather than beginning to feel entirely like a historical crime novel.

Non-Fiction

'My Favourite People and Me, 1978-1988' by Alan Davies

I saw the documentary programme, 'Alan Davies' Teenage Rebellion' (2010) in which Davies went back to where he grew up in Essex and met with people he had known in his youth as well as celebrities he had followed, notably Paul Weller. I imagine a lot of that is based on this book published the previous year. It is a kind of free-flowing autobiography in sections concerning a single year in this period, but with chapters using people that Davies was interested in as the hook. Often, though, he does not really come to the individual until the end of the relevant chapter. 

Davies is less than two years older than me. He went to a private school, his mother died when he was young, he was abused by his father (the focus of his most recent biography but there are shadows of that in this book) who remarried a neighbour and they were much richer than my family, e.g. having fly-drive 3-week holidays in the USA; he was bought both a motor scooter and a car as soon as he could have them; I did not have a car until I was in my mid-30s. Davies was far more successful with women than me and far more into sport, especially football, but also tennis and motorbike racing, so those celebrities mean little to me. However, pop stars, the people in the news and what he thought about them, campaigns of the time, such as around nuclear weapons and animal rights, are things I know about. He tells his involvement in these things and what he thought about these people I can understand them. Though we were poorer than his family, we still felt ourselves in the middle class milieu and I knew people like him.

As you would expect from his TV performances, Davies recounts the topics he focuses on with wry humour than made me laugh out loud occasionally.  If you are interested in him as a person this is a good read and is very accessible. It would particularly appeal if you remember the era yourself or if you are interested in how (relatively well off) young people survived in an era before smart phones and social media and what issues concerned many of them, some of which now seem pretty forgotten. It would be nice to see more autobiographies using this approach which I find very refreshing and engaging.

'The Spanish Civil War' by Hugh Thomas

I was advised that as the years progressed from the first publication of this book in 1961, that Thomas revised it to move increasingly towards sympathy to the Nationalist side in the civil war. The edition I read was published in 1965 and though he had corrected some errors from the previous two, it did seem that his sympathies while supportive of the Republican government side are actually pretty balanced. He does not hold back from criticism of the Republicans' multifarious divisions that so weakened them and the vacillating attitude of the Moscow-backing Communists. 

Thomas really benefited from the fact that he was writing when many of those who had been involved in the war from both sides, let alone eye-witnesses, were still alive. He is very good at balancing up the different perspectives, especially when it is difficult to know the truth and giving the reader a fair impression of what happened.

This is a comprehensive book, my edition was 911 pages long. Thomas gives background going back into the 19th Century and making it clear that the violence of the 1930s was part of a long history of such occurrences in Spanish history. He also shows how the fact that Spain had not been involved in the First World War had left many in the country ill-informed of the nature of war. Coming at the end of the 1930s, it was to experience all the horrors of the latest military technology, especially in terms of the aerial bombing of civilians. Before discussing the war itself, Thomas goes through the different political groupings. While the divisions on the Republican side are well known, he shows those among the Nationalists too, given the range of groups which joined what had been primarily a military uprising.

The book is good on the social and economic aspects of the war, yet also provides detailed accounts of the various battles, aided by dome simple but informative line-drawn maps. It makes clear that those who somehow pretend that General Franco, progressed slowly to avoid damaging so much of Spain are mistaken. He stated this but it is clear that even with massive support from Italy and Germany, his soldiers were often struggling to make advances but when they entered towns they carried out massacres which Spain had long become accustomed to. I had not realised how close the Nationalists came to grinding to a halt. Even in 1938 if the supply of German war materiel had dried up then, the war most likely would have come to a stalemate.

Thomas is good on all the various individuals who were involved and highlights things such as Irishmen fighting on both sides and the black American soldiers and commanders who fought in the Republican International Brigades, fighting alongside white comrades when the US Army was still segregated. Someone needs to make a movie about ex-Corporal Oliver Law, the black commander of the Washington Battalion. The age of the book is shown up by how Thomas feels to seem physical details such as how fat someone was or whether they had a lot of sex, are important for ascertaining their character.

The British come out of the story very poorly. I know some wanted the Nationalists to win, on the basis that while democracy was fine for Britain other countries were better under dictators. However, a lot of the British policy, blocking the elected government from buying arms and yet introducing a non-intervention policy so poor that tens of thousands of Italian troops fought for the Nationalists, just seems to be incompetence. It is only in the light of Neville Chamberlain's utter failings as prime minister that his predecessor Stanley Baldwin could seem even mildly competent. In many ways Britain's actions ensured that the Nationalists won, especially in the context of how close the fight was throughout, contrary to what now tends to be the popular view of it.

Overall, despite its age, this is a very good book if you want to really get into seeing what happened in the Spanish Civil War in detail. It remains a good counter-balance to rather lazy assumptions about the war which have slipped into popular history portrayals. It certainly shows that there are many more stories to the story of the war than is commonly recognised. Americans in particular seem to be missing out on the role which their nationals played in the conflict, at a time when, in other historical aspects, the role played by black people is being highlighted.

Audio Books - Fiction

'The Da Vinci Code' by Dan Brown; read by Jeff Harding

It is ironic that I ended up listening to this at some of the same time as I was reading 'The Awful Secret' (2000) as they feature the same theory about Jesus Christ being married and having children. When this novel came out in 2003, I was irritated at the efforts that people went to prove how 'wrong' Brown was, down to minute details about where a particular stone is in a corridor at the Louvre gallery in Paris as this somehow 'proved' he was something - lazy, misguided, trying to trick people - I am not sure. They seemed to forget that he had written a work of fiction and if they had dug into the details in a Jack Reacher novel, let alone a James Bond one, they would have found much the same. Listening to the book - having seen the 2006 movie years ago, in part, I realised why they felt compelled to set up such 'uncovering' of the book.

While there is chasing around Paris, London and parts of Scotland, the book is less an adventure and more a lecture. There are huge sections of exposition by one or more of the main characters to others. Fortunately, at least it is not all mansplaining as Sophie Neveu, police cryptoanalyst, is knowledgeable in her field and about Paris. However, what tends to happen is the characters go to a location, decipher what they find there and then talk at length about how the story of Jesus's wife, Mary Magdalene was suppressed, especially after the Council of Nicea which decided that Jesus had been a son of God and not entirely mortal. Added to that, down the centuries, the Christian churches, in this case primarily the Catholic Church saw benefit in underplaying or even dismissing the role of women in early Christianity so ensuring an entirely male Christian priesthood until recent changes in some Protestant churches.

There are some reasonable set pieces of action, escaping from the authorities. The role of Opus Dei looms large with a monk-assassin, Silas, aided in hunting down the protagonists and an Opus Dei member, Captain Fache, leading the French police investigation and granted great powers in doing it. There are a couple of twists with people not being who they seem which are fine. However, I would not say that the book gripped me. The exposition is interesting enough but in the years since the book was published, it has become common knowledge so it probably a lot less surprising than it might have been back then. I had always thought it a surprise that Jesus, as a 34-year old Jewish workman of the 1st Century CE, had not married. I did wonder if he was a widower, so the fact that he had a wife at some stage or another was never really a surprise to me. The fact that he was supposed to have come from a Jewish royal family as Brown states, seems more surprising as, surely, then he would not have spent his life working as a Nazarene carpenter. Anyway, overall the book is not bad, it is more that it is an adventure story used as a basis for delivering a series of lectures.

Jeff Harding is an American and has that rather breathless narration that seems so common with US audio book readers. His French accents do rather sound as if they are from the comedy series, ''Allo, 'Allo', but maybe that is what a lot of listeners expect. He does the female voices surprisingly well.

Books I Read In January

Fiction

 'The Dark Echo' by Michael Connelly

This was Connelly's first crime novel. He remains popular after almost three decades of publishing and I was given a number of his books. Published in 1992 it features Hieronymus 'Harry' Bosch a police detective in Los Angeles, working in the Hollywood Division after having killed a suspected serial killer. From the outset, it is clear Connelly is seeking to reproduce the 'hard boiled' detective novels of the 1930s and 1940s with lots of tough talking and jargon. Though he lives in a fancy house in the hills there is a lot of time in seedy motels. We know Connelly was a big fan of Raymond Chandler. However, unlike Chandler and Hammett, Connelly also has a slightly different trope that he can tap into. At times this book felt like one of those glossy thriller movies of the late 1980s/early 1990s, like 'Jagged Edge' (1985) and 'Fatal Attraction' (1989). The book was published the same year that 'Basic Instinct' came out. The sex between Bosch and Eleanor Wish, the FBI agent he is partnered up with certainly seems to stem from that kind of approach rather than being necessary to the story. The third trope which shapes the book is the Vietnam War experience one. The timing of the book is important as in 1992, American men who had fought in Vietnam in their late teens/early twenties were now in their early forties. Though it might not have been intentional, the book certainly reminds us how much harm the involvement in the war did to so many in the USA, let alone Vietnam.

The driver for the plot stems from the war, with Bosch being drawn into investigating the murder of an old comrade of his from when they both fought as specialists in clearing out the tunnels used by the Vietcong to move between villages; the 'black echo' referring to the sense of being in these tunnels facing an unseen enemy. The dead man's skills link into a complicated raid on safe deposit box depositories though aimed at two cruel South Vietnamese police officers who were brought to live lives of luxury in the USA. At times, as a result you feel there is a little too much going on, and I have not even included the twists and betrayals which also feature before the end. 

I guess that Connelly needs to be commended for keeping all the 'balls in the air' while generally not allowing the book to sink into a complex mess. It feels that there were certain things Connelly felt he had to include. He was slightly too young to have served in Vietnam, turning 19 only in 1975, but I imagine there would have been men of his generation around who would have experienced it. I tend not to judge an author by the first book in their series, because often they have to 'get over' aspects that may have been hanging around for a long time and subsequent books are better reads. In many ways, though he drew on so much that had been seen elsewhere, the combination just about works. At times elements seem pretty contrived: Bosch getting assigned to the case, the Internal Affairs handling of him, the very fast relationship with Wish and the stuff in the tunnels. However, maybe that rather than subtlety was what readers of the 1990s were seeking and no-one can deny his books are popular. I am certainly not going to throw away the rest and trust they will improve as I work through the Bosch sequence.

'The Jade Man's Eyes' by Michael Moorcock

It has been a long time since I read work by Moorcock, an author whose books I used to eat up as a young man. This is a little oddity, a 75-page novella published by a small obscure press, into marijuana, in 1973. It is set in the world of the Young Kingdoms and Elric of Melniboné, Moorcock's fantasy, infirm albino anti-hero who lives in a fatalistic world that the author intended as a counterbalance to the muscle-bound fantasy heroes like Conan the Barbarian of the time; the first Elric book appeared in 1961 and Moorcock was returning to producing Elric stories as late as 2010. This story was later revised and formed the third part of 'The Sailor on the Seas of Fate' (1976). It sees Elric and his companion Moonglum enlisted to sail up a river in a jungle covered region of the south-west of the world to visit the abandoned city of R'len K'ren A'a where Elric's own people originated before leaving it for the large island of Melniboné. Unsurprisingly the novella has a kind of 'Heart of Darkness' (1899) feel to it, with numerous members of the crew being killed by the part-reptile/part-flamingo locals. Elric comes back into contact with his demonic patron Arioch who ultimately is persuaded to lift curses from the city. As is typical with the Elric stories, there is a fatalistic sense throughout added to the decay he sees. It really needs to be read in that context rather than alone. However, it does remind me that the 21st Century has seen Elric books published that I have not read yet.

'The Blood of Rome' by Simon Scarrow

Though over the last couple of decades I have been aware of the range of action novels set in Roman times, it was only when, finding this in my local charity shop and seeing it was the 17th book in Scarrow's Eagles of Empire series (the 20th book came out last year) did I realise the scale of some of these and presumably how many copies they sell. Scarrow has written a lot set in Britain, but I think I was drawn to this one featuring two officers he has followed throughout when they are despatched to help restore a Roman puppet king from Iberia (a region of the Caucasus not in southern Europe) to the throne of Armenia in eastern Anatolia as a buffer between the Roman and Parthian empires. While there is obviously a lot of back story, it was not too difficult to pick up the threads. 

It is no surprise that Bernard Cornwell feels Scarrow as a rival (or at least he says so in a quote on the cover) as he taps into that approach which worked so well for Cornwell with the Sharpe series, though Scarrow does use modern swearing which at times seems rather odd. The challenge of ordinary soldiers, often, especially in this novel, frustrated by politics and trying to keep some kind of decency in times of very brutal war, is a solid basis. I was rather frustrated by the wrangling with the puppet, Radamistus, a cruel and brutal commander, but this seems to be based on historical fact and his behaviour meant, as shown in the novel, after being put on the throne by the Romans, he was soon deposed. Otherwise the battles, with good, but not excessive, detail of how the Roman Army functioned are solid. It sweeps along briskly. While I was not left with an urge to read more, I certainly would not look away if any more books from the series came across my path in the charity shop.

'Crowner's Quest' by Bernard Knight

This is the third book in the Crowner John series and by the end, as this goes from December 1194 to January 1195, they have covered four months. Following tight after each other in this police procedural series does at times make it feel like a medieval equivalent of 'The Bill' (broadcast 1983-2010). Sir John De Wolfe the sole coroner for Devon, has just two assistants so he does feel a bit like (Chief) Inspector Morse who always seemed to be lacking staff for the tasks he needed to do. Knight is good on the historical detail and especially the legal complexities of the newly created role of coroner in relation to the existing sheriffs. The philandering nature of De Wolfe, though it brings in other characters, seems rather forced. In this story, though it is used against him when he is framed for a rape. 

There are some good elements, the finding of the hanged body of a canon reminded me of 'The Name of the Rose' (1980). However, certainly in contrast to the preceding book, 'The Poisoned Chalice' (1998), which had a tautness to it, this novel by Knight becomes rather overblown. De Wolfe becomes involved in a renewed plot to replace King Richard I with his brother Prince John and there is a rather madcap hunt for treasure buried by a Saxon lord. The book climaxes with a joust to the death. Though there have been incidents of combat in the novels, De Wolfe and his large henchman, Gwyn, being old crusaders, this rather epic tone sits rather uncomfortably with the series. I wondered if an agent or publisher had encouraged Knight to 'take it up a gear' in terms of drama. In contrast, I imagine many readers who might have come to this after Ellis Peters's Cadfael series would be looking for something more cerebral and slow-burning. However, I am conscious that Knight was writing at a time when there was a flurry of medieval detective novels, which I have not read, and so their nature may have impacted on his work. In addition, as with the philandering - two of De Wolfe's lovers feature in this book - I do feel at times as if it is the author, as an ageing man (he was 67 when the book was published) living out his fantasies through his character who is around 40, so old for the times.

It is not a bad book, but after a promising start, it went off in directions that stretched my credibility and that undermined my enjoyment of the attention to detail and the generally rich portrayal of 12th Century life, making use of real places and often actual people, of the time. I do have a number more of these books to read and hope they get back on track.

'City of Ashes' by Cassandra Clare

This second book in the Mortal Instruments pentalogy follows much the same pattern as the first, City of Bones' (2007). The heroine, Clary, while very much part of the Shadowhunter world, is still a beginner. In this book, her father, the evil Valentine, moves to seize the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul Sword which can compel Shadowhunters to tell the truth and can also summon and control demons. Valentine aims to carry out a ceremony to reverse the sword's alignment enabling him to create a demon army. For this he needs the blood of a werewolf, a vampire, a fae and a shadowhunter. Many of the characters from the first novel reappear, though Clary's mother is in a coma throughout the book and we are introduced to Maia a teenaged werewolf. Clary's special ability to create magic runes unavailable to most shadowhunters is also revealed. There is a lot of chasing around New York trying to recapture those Valentine has taken to sacrifice for his ritual. There is the usual bickering between the five main teenaged characters, the shadowhunters, siblings Alec and Isabelle their kind of adopted brother, Jace who is actually Clary's real brother; plus Simon her best friend and now boyfriend, who is turned into a vampire. Alec and Isabelle's mother turns up as does an Inquisitor who suspects Jace but actually muddies the water in the teenagers trying to reach Valentine.

The book moves along at a brisk pace, but you do feel it is a little formulaic. There is another climactic battle, this time in Valentine's boat on the river, full of a demon army. The most interesting character is camp warlock, Magnus Bane, who is now dating Alec. It all rather feels to have come out of the same 'factory' as the Harry Potter stories, with the young adult elements mixed in. There are unsettling references to underaged sex - Clary is only 14, much younger than show in the TV series - and there is clear signs of incest as she is deeply attracted to her newly discovered brother, Jace and is compelled to reveal these feelings by a faerie queen living under a pond in a New York park. There was enough to be going on with, with Clary being fancied by her best friend who is now a vampire and I am not sure why Clare felt compelled to add in these uncomfortable elements, though I gather from online commentary that they are kind of de rigueur these days for 'young adult' fiction, to distinguish it from children's books. The first book felt quite fresh, though it used familiar tropes. This book suggests Clare had already ran out of ideas. I have the third book and will see if she managed to pull it back or simply do yet another replica.

Non-Fiction

'African Profiles' by Ronald Segal

This book was published at the same time as 'A Short History of Africa' (1962) which I read last month; they were both part of a Penguin series of books. This one features 400 pen portraits of African male politicians which had been significant in the preceding 30-40 years. It starts with South Africa and is a good reminder of the roots of apartheid and then moves up the continent to finish with Egypt. Really only the Spanish colonies are neglected. Some countries are dealt with alone, others grouped with those ruled by the same colonial power or in other groupings. What is fascinating is, despite the diversity of countries, how many stories are so similar. So many of these men rose up through religious schools, a mix of Protestant, Catholic or Islamic. They often studied abroad and many became teachers or worked in civil service roles such as with the railways or post office and journalism was often a route for them to come to prominence.

While very dated, the book is a good reminder of elements of African history which have often been forgotten. I had not been aware of the extent of 'compelled labour' a modern form of slavery, in the Portuguese colonies or the fact that at various times South Africa had considered annexing many of its neighbouring states. The obsession with the federation of states, seen as a way to overcome the arbitrary borders imposed by colonisation, keeps coming out. Segal certainly seems to feel it is the only way for economic success, despite the failure of the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria, let alone the federation, failing at the time of North and South Rhodesia [Zambia and Zimbabwe] and Nyasaland [Malawi]. There are even fantastical schemes mentioned such as the Rhodesias combining with Kenya, Uganda, Tanganiyka [part of Tanzania] and even Somalia. There is even belief of an entire continental federation. Yet, Segal highlights cannot fail to discuss the issues around tribalism and regionalism and is good on the break away of Katanga from the Congo and of course the Biafran crisis still lay ahead, though he highlights the challenges of regionalism in Nigeria.

Segal admits at the start of the book that he is partisan and his analysis of different leaders is very erratic as a result. He is certainly opposed to monarchs as in Ethiopia, Tunisia and Morocco. He seems unable to see, despite the evidence, how easily many nations were moving towards being one-party states with their leader of the time or a subsequent one, becoming leader for life, often over decades. Similarly he seems to even see potential in Nasser's military coup in Egypt without suspecting the military would end up running many countries across Africa for decades to come. He anticipates that apartheid would be short-lived and end in a violent uprising in South Africa.

Obviously we have hindsight and it is easy to see the author as naïve, yet his book itself provides clear evidence of the roots of these trends repeated in various manifestations right across Africa. He does seem unnecessarily apologist for some leaders, especially Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, perhaps because despite their rather ambivalent attachment to democracy they seemed to subscribe to his visions for Africa. The book is useful in reminding us of African leaders often now forgotten, at least in English, such as Holden Roberto, Ntsu Mokhehle, Félix Houphouet-Boigny, Habib Bourguiba, Léopold Sédar Senghour, Sékou Touré and William Tubman. The book is an interesting reminder of Africa's development in the 1930s-50s and the people important in that process, though I imagine a book on this subject written today would not entirely leave out women as Segal does.

Books I Read/Listened To In December

 Fiction

'The Poisoned Chalice' by Bernard Knight

This is the second book by Knight featuring Sir John De Wolfe, coroner for Devon in the 1190s. You feel he has got into his stride with this book, Wolfe, his aides, his wife and mistress, plus the sheriff (also his brother-in-law) who he rubs up against due to the fact that new and old legal methods had not been reconciled. Though the book sees De Wolfe and his team travel down the coast to investigate the murder of survivors of a wreck and the theft of cargo washed ashore - a particular role for the coroner - Knight avoids showing them riding incessantly from place to place as he tended to do in the first novel, 'The Sanctuary Seeker' (1998). This book is a police procedural, but fortunately Knight has tightened it up. We see two other, inter-twined cases, involving a rape and the death of the woman from trying to bring about an abortion. In part due to the influence of the women's families these cases are not dismissed in the way they would tend to be some 800+ years later. Knight is very good on the different social standings and how these rather than guilt or innocence are often the decider of who is to be convicted. As in the first book, torture is readily on hand to get to the 'truth'. Overall, this is a competent, engaging book, with well developing characters and a great portrayal of a very different time and culture. I was heartened to see him tightening up the writing for this one and I look forward to reading the others I have been given.

'City of Bones' by Cassandra Clare

I picked up four books by Clare recommended to me by an assistant in my local charity shop. I read one from her other, though similar Clockwork series, a year ago, http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-books-i-read-in-november.html?m=0 and found it reasonable. This is the first in the Shadowhunters/Mortal Instruments pentalogy, set in contemporary New York. I had seen the movie and have now started watching the series on Netflix. Though the elements in each are same - a girl/young woman finds that her mother was part of a group of part angel/part human people, the Shadowhunters, who fight against demons, vampires, etc. in a world in which all the fantastical creatures are real. Her mother's best friend is revealed as a werewolf. The shadowhunters draw various runes on their bodies to give them magical powers. 

The story sees the teenage heroine Clary Fray discover not only the past of her parents but also go on a quest to recover the Mortal Cup which is sought by renegade shadowhunter, Valentine, who wants to use its powers to become all-powerful. Unlike the movie and series, in the novel, Clary is 15 rather than 18, so it is much more a children's book, though as in all children's adventures, Clary has more autonomy to run around New York than she would do in real life. There are various battles with vampires and rogue shadowhunters, in particular rescuing Clary's old friend, Simon - there is a lot of uncertain, wistful teenage possible romance involving Clary, Simon and shadowhunter, Jace, in a triangle - and seeking where her mother is held. There is some very fantastical elements such as flying vampire motorbikes and overall, a lot of the plot developments and encounters feel like a combination of the Harry Potter books and the 'Star Wars' movies. The climatic scene facing Valentine feels particularly derivative in this regard with the man himself some combination of Lord Voldemort and Darth Vader.

The novel is brisk and while for an older reader many of the tropes will be overly familiar, the pace and the various characters mean it is not a burdensome read. I have the next two books in the series and I am interested to see how the story develops, especially as the heroine becomes a normal part of the shadowhunter world. For a contemporary, urban fantasy it is not bad and maybe the tropes are reassuring or easier for younger readers to engage with. I accept that it was not written for people of my age.

'The Little Breton Bistro' by Nina George

I really have no idea why I bought this book. I guess I was looking for contemporary fiction different to what I generally read. I had been aware of the phenomenon of 'up lit', contemporary stories with a positive message, being popular over the last 5+ years and I guess this was my introduction to the genre. I had not realised that rather than being written in English or French, this had actually first come out in 2010 in German and only translated into English in 2017. It features a 60-year old woman, Marianne, who tiring of her uncaring husband of 41 years, decides to commit suicide while on holiday in Paris. Recovering from her failed attempt in hospital, she finds a painted tile of the resort in southern Brittany, Kerdruc and decides to go there. Kerdruc is a genuine place but in George's hands it becomes a Breton equivalent of Brigadoon. Fortune shines on Marianne all the way and not only does she get there with minimal difficulty, she gets a job at the 'Ar Mor' bistro, despite lacking cooking skills and any mastery of French, let alone Breton.

Not everything is perfect in Kerdruc and Marianne keeps trying to kill herself with less and less success. She makes friends with a white witch who has dementia and her husband who has Parkinson's. A local sculptress is dying of cancer. Various younger people have unrequited love or a partner who has left them or they were unable to marry and so on. However, so much is resolved without difficulty and with no reference to the government or other authorities, that you have to deem the book at best magic realism and possibly even fantasy. Towards the end, with Marianne meeting ghosts of her relatives, it steps over that line. As it is, Marianne finds a perfect sexual partner, becomes an adept sous-chef in a matter of weeks and a skilful player of the accordion; she drives around on a moped with no training or licence and similarly an old car. Though there is some reference to the year being 2009, much of what happens is divorced from time seeming to be in some vague sort of mid-1970s, perhaps earlier (especially with comments referencing French hatred of Germans stemming from the world wars) which seems so popular with such whimsical novels, especially when foreigners portray France. Of course, folk customs are still very strong and there is no reference to French or even Breton culture as it is in reality these days. The only convincing part for me was when Marianne's husband, Lothar comes to retrieve her from Kerdruc but that contact back to a more convincing portrayal is short lived.

Everything in the novel is handled in such a pat way, it is impossible to suspend your disbelief. Even the deaths are 'beautiful' rather than slow and agonising as they would be in reality. Too many relationships are sparked up or resolved in a way which does not happen in the 21st Century, even if it ever did. I accept that the book is written as a diversion, as a way to avoid it becoming like an equivalent of 'EastEnders' in southern Brittany. However, it is far too dependent on fortunate happenstance and things simply working out to be credible. This might be tolerable in a short story, but with a novel it becomes tiresome. Overall, it is rather like having to smile for a photo while on holiday but then keeping that smile fixed for weeks.

Non-Fiction

'A Short History of Africa' by Roland Oliver and J.D. Fage

This is another of the old history books I have had lying around for years. It was published in 1962 and occasionally, terms such as 'Sudan' referring to the entirety of of the savanna lands running east-west, south of the Sahara can cause confusion nowadays. Though the process of independence for African states was under way when the book was published, it was far from complete. However, with very little on post-independence, the book is able to focus much more on the pre-colonial era and this was the elements of the book I found most interesting. From the outset Oliver and Fage seek to overturn the all too common view that somehow Africa, at least in historic times, was somehow insulated from the rest of the world and sealed from it until the European powers began to start exploiting it and even then not fully until the Scramble for Africa of the 1880s. In fact, throughout they show that there was constant flow in and out of the continent and within it. 

They go into good detail about the rise and fall of various kingdoms down the ages and how these interacted, not simply down the Nile and across the Sahara but also that various foodstuffs we see as typically African actually originated in the Americas and Asia. I was also interested by seeing Africa not simply portrayed in regional groupings, like West Africa, but also the east-west physical geography bandings especially in the northern half of the continent. This is certainly a good book to introduce you to the various civilisations that are so easily dismissed or forgotten in general histories especially written from a Western perspective and the complex interaction between black Africans and the Arabs and Bedouin, plus the importance of Islam. It also shows how varied and complex the story of slavery was, both before and during the period of European intervention.

The attention to these earlier developments reminds you how brief the European colonial period was. As they highlight though there had been 'factories', settlements and strips of land around the coasts, it was only in the period 1883-1885 that there was the rush to take over almost every part of the continent. They are good on the fact that even though we all see that map of 1914 with so much of Africa in one colour or another, in fact penetration away from the coast was minimal before the 1920s and 1930s. For many countries in 80 years of being conquered they were being given independence. The economic facets are handled well and show that most 'colonies' were a drain on the metropolitan countries and only in exceptional areas where cash crops prospered on a large scale or there were gold or diamonds would any money be made. The one area where I feel they could have included more was on the various colonial wars that the European powers fought often over many years. Some of these are mentioned in passing and while, for example, the treatment of the population of the Congo, especially when ruled directly by the Belgian King is highlighted, there is nothing on the German attempts at genocide especially in South-West Africa [Namibia].

Overall, though an old book, this has a number of good reminders to general readers about facets of African history that seem swept over in easy assumptions these days. It certainly works hard to try to stop us seeing Africa as somehow sealed in a capsule until this was pierced by the rushed European moves to take control of the continent, simply for prestige rather than profit.

Fiction - Audio

'The Man with the Golden Gun' by Ian Fleming'; read by Kenneth Branagh

Published in 1965, this was the last of the full-length James Bond novels; released after Fleming's death in August 1964. Bond has sort of recovered his memory, following the amnesia suffered as a result of battling Blofeld at the end of  'You Only Live Twice' (1964) and him continuing to live believing he was a Japanese fisherman. He has been retrieved by the KGB and brainwashed into assassinating his boss in London, M. This all seems rather rushed. There is interesting detail on how MI6 filters out people contacting it. However, the avoidance of the assassination, let alone Bond being put back into service all seems rather pat. Bond is finally sent back to the Caribbean to track down Paco Scaramanga, the eponymous man with the golden gun, though in the novel it is a revolver firing silver, snake-poisoned covered rounds.

We see lots of elements from the previous Bond novels, not simply the return to Jamaica, Fleming's home, as in 'Live and Let Die' (1954), 'Diamonds are Forever' (1956) and 'Dr. No' (1958), but the reappearance of Mary Goodnight and Felix Leiter. Bond is employed, as he was by Auric Goldfinger, so giving him an easy access to the villain's base, in this case a half-built hotel on Jamaica. There is even a private railway as seen in 'Diamonds are Forever'. There are not only a KGB agent on Jamaica but gangsters, including from the Spangled Mob who turned up both in 'Diamonds are Forever' and 'Goldfinger' (1959), so again referencing popular themes in the Bond novels. Bond's job is to assassinate Scaramanga, but the world weariness bites hard and even when faced with him in a weak position, Bond baulks from this. The novel ends with Bond eschewing a knighthood and in contrast to the endings of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (1963) and 'You Only Live Twice' he is very opposed to 'settling down', in this case with Mary. It is almost as if aware of his own end, Fleming did not want to end Bond as a freewheeling individual, though we are conscious that, both mentally and physically, he is not up to it any more.

As is common with Fleming he certainly sets the novel in its time. There is a lot of discussion of the various crimes in the Caribbean, Jamaica's independence, the development of bauxite mining, sugar prices, permitted gambling and the issue of Cuba. However, Fleming shows poor foresight in expecting Castro to be out of power within the next few years or indeed the USSR to give up on the country. He has a peculiar attitude to Rastafarians who he sees as anti-white individuals deeply involved in the drugs trade and happy to make terrorist attacks on sugar plantations. It is a reasonable book, not the best of the series, in part because Bond running out of steam himself and ultimately deluding himself about his future means the book lacks life, certainly verve. We do not feel Scaramanga, despite all the plots he is involved with, represents a genuine threat and we do wonder why Bond struggles to kill him. Branagh voicing him as an American makes him seem too laid back and not as threatening as he should be. He is supposed to be a Catalan who had worked in the USA but then in Cuba. Christopher Lee would have done it so much better.

Aside from Scaramanga, Branagh is reasonably good with the voices. I did wonder if he had talked to Hugh Quarshie who read 'Dr. No' for help with the Jamaican accents which he does without them seeming like caricature. He is reasonable with the women's voices too. Overall, though he is hampered by the fact that the life had gone out of the Bond sequence by this stage and despite the listing of all that Scaramanga intends, we are rather disengaged the way that Bond himself is at this end.

'The Chemistry of Death' by Simon Beckett; read by Greg Wise

This book kind of marries the classic British crime novel - it is set in a small village in Norfolk - with the very gritty crime novels of the past three decades or so. It was published in 2006. The protagonist, David Hunter is a widowed doctor who takes up a post as a GP after the death of his wife in an accident. He has a previous life as a forensic scientist - in fact an anthropologist but with all the necessary skills. Beckett sets up the kind of traditional English village without indulging too deeply into stereotypes, though things like the authoress who has retreated to the village to write, the harsh vicar and the various 'yokels' do come close to this. The jogging and barbecues at leas feel he has brought it into the late, rather than mid-20th Century. 

The thing that really marks out the book as of our time is the extreme detail about the decaying bodies that are uncovered revealing a serial killer in the village one who (mainly) targets women and mutilates their corpses by inserting animals or animal parts into them. Hunter has a real skill in detecting what is going on from the insects infesting the bodies and the impact on the surrounding plant life. You need a strong stomach for some parts, possibly all the more jarring because this is a bucolic rather than gritty urban setting. Hunter is drawn deeper into the investigation, however reluctantly, with a crotchety police detective making use of what resources he can muster in such a remote locale. However, he keeps setting parameters that Hunter runs up against and has to start ignoring to actually get to the heart of the case.

There are a couple of twists, though the first is better handled than the second, by which time it all seems a bit contrived with Beckett not really playing fair with the reader into the three phases of epilogue. Some of the tensest scenes and we see these from the victims' views as well as Hunter's are overlong. I also found the pace of the relationships Hunter sparks up, especially with women, unconvincing given the setting is 2000s Britain and so many residents from outside the village have moved there to escape the interaction of cities, especially London.

Wise is pretty good with the voices, most of which are a range of indignant white men. He is not too bad on the women though they all sound very breathless. Unfortunately, while aware that the Norfolk accent is typically used on a social class basis, he has defaulted to 'generic rural local' accent rather than bringing in anything specific to that county.

It is a clever book, brisk for most of the time and handling its twists very well. However, I would be cautious buying a Beckett book again as I feel I have learnt as much as I need about the processions of maggots and blood staining of grass.