The Books I Read In March

 Fiction

'The Sussex Downs Murder' John Bude [Ernest Elmore]

Published in 1936, this was the third crime novel by John Bude. It is focused on Superintendent Meredith who was promoted at the end of 'The Lake District Murder' (1935) which I read in January: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-books-i-read-in-january.html For some reason he has relocated from Cumberland to East Sussex, being based at Lewes. Conversation with an imprisoned criminal suggests Meredith had been stationed in that region in the 1920s but the reason for his returning there if that was the case, is not explored. The car of a man John Rother is found abandoned on the Downs close to the genuine location of Chanctonbury Ring and not far from the lime-producing business that he and his brother ran. This did take me back to the 1980s when with a friend's family we would be taken to the seaside at Angmering which is mentioned and on the way back the parents would stop at 'The Limeburners' pub which is still at Billingshurst, indicating that industry in the area.

While Rother is believed to have been murdered and that his brother and sister-in-law are suspected at various stages. As in the preceding two books, in a realistic way, a number of theories are put forward only to be dismissed. Matters are complicated by reports of sightings of Rother and a man in a cloak, as well as human bones turning up in the sacks of lime which the Rother company has sold in the region. As with the previous two books there is quite a lot of going back and forth around the area, though this does give Bude an opportunity for his descriptions of what like the other two locations he has featured, are beautiful parts of England. Bude manages to have an 'open' environment for his novel but restricts the suspects in a convincing way. The police procedural work with numerous dead ends is characteristic of his novels and works effectively. Working out which is the true path among them adds to the mystery and the resolution while unexpected is a feasible one. I have a couple more Bude novels to read and look forward to them.

'Feersum Endjinn' by Iain M. Banks

I always prefer Iain M. Banks's books which do not feature the Culture and this is one of them. Instead it is set in the vast spaces of a decaying space elevator - the Fastness - and in the kind of internet, the cryptosphere into which individuals minds can be uploaded when alive but especially when they are dead. Thus the novel is often like 'The Matrix' (1999) as if it started from outside the matrix and went in. This can cause confusion especially as extraordinary machines and creatures exist in the real world as well as the virtual one. There are four characters and we jump between them in turn. Count Alandre Sessine VII is a member of the ruling elite who is killed multiple times - individuals can have eight physical lives and then eight more in the cryptosphere. Sessine has to find out who keeps trying to kill him. Hortis Gadfium III is the leading scientist of the elites but is conspiring to overthrow the regime due to the inadequacies in the rulers response to the approach of an interstellar molecular cloud - a forge for stars - which threatens Earth. Bascule the Teller has an innate ability to go into the cryptosphere to find dead relatives for people. In this novel most of his time is spent trying to locate an intelligent talking ant which has been abducted into the cryptosphere. Asura is a function of the cryptosphere who is 'born' as a woman but without memories and she proves to be a kind of tool for resolving the problems once she can navigate her way around snooty families and people who want to eliminate. The four characters do finally come together to provide a resolution.

I agree with other reviewers who feel this novel is a mess. Banks had been publishing since 1984 and in science fiction since 1987. Though this came in 1994, it does seem like an early novel. It has the flavour of something a teenaged author keen to leverage in every 'cool' idea they can think of to the detriment of the writing. Part of the challenge with this book is that it is difficult to know when the characters are inside or outside the cryptosphere because the Fastness with rooms kilometres across and with exotic vehicles feels as peculiar as any context the cryptosphere throws up. Having four characters does allow Banks to get in so many political and technical aspects, but these are in a very disjointed way. Perhaps this is why in many of his science fiction books, Banks does an info dump. Here, the approach of showing not telling might be commended but makes it very hard work for the reader. On top of this Bascule's experiences are written in phonetic language (as with the novel's title which means 'Fearsome Engine), seeming to mimic how a kind of Artful Dodger character from East London would speak. This further slows up the book as you wrestle with some words that in themselves are esoteric because of the science fiction context.

Overall Banks was probably in the worst of both worlds with this novel. He was still clinging to the conceits that a teenage author would insist on having in their book, but because of his success by 1994, no editor was going to press him hard to make the book flow more effectively or drown the reader in the mass of 'brilliant' ideas he felt compelled to include.

'The Birds and Other Stories' by Daphne Du Maurier

Spoilers do feature in this review.

This is a collection of six short stories published in 1952. They can be characterised as being in a genre like Someone Like You' (1953) and 'Kiss Kiss' (1960) by Roald Dahl, better known summed up by the later anthology title, 'Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected ' (1979). 

Unsurprisingly, the title story, 'The Birds' is nothing like the 1963 movie of the same name. Instead it is a dystopian story set in south-west England where climatic changes lead to all birds becoming suicidally aggressive smashing their way into people's houses and killing people out in the open. The story focuses on a farm labourer and his family and their attempts to survive in the early days of the attacks. It reminds me quite a bit of 'The Day of the Triffids' (1951) by John Wyndham, but Du Maurier manages to get that dystopian context without having to use genetically modified monsters and in so doing reminds us how nature even as we know it can be dangerous. The issue of climate impact also makes it speak to what we see today.

Four of the stories, 'Monte Verità', 'The Apple Tree', 'The Little Photographer' and 'Kiss Me Again, Stranger', show how evil really comes out selfishness, that obsession of the individual for their own interests with no recognition of their impact on others. 

In 'Monte Verità' women disappear into a secretive community on a European mountain top. A man loses his wife to this community and his friend eventually goes to seek her out. The ending is very confused as the place once he finally penetrates seems to have no form of subsisting over the years and not to offer any great reason for the women to remain, though maybe Du Maurier is suggesting departure from the world of men is a reward itself. The women seem immortal but suffer horrifically from disease. I suppose the reader is rather riled that it is neither somewhere otherworldly or an Earthly paradise or at least feasible as a community in the absence of something beyond this world.

'The Apple Tree' is about a very desultory marriage but is very unsettling in that after her death through a sickly apple tree the wife continues to harass the widower as much as she make his life miserable when alive. The device of using the tree as a way to haunt the man is well done. Like a lot of horror, the inability to escape from what has apparently been destined by the malevolent force, adds to how unsettling the story is.

'The Little Photographer' is about a wealthy woman staying on holiday in southern France who begins an affair with a local disabled photographer but tires of him and casts him over before murdering him. She is then blackmailed by his mother. The settings are well portrayed. However, none of the characters are likeable and the three main ones are each out for themselves. I suppose what we see is a battle between the three for dominance and the two women, I suppose, end up with a compromise solution, but which in both cases is unappealing.

Like the other stories, Du Maurier does place them well in their time and place with details of how people went about their lives in the early 1950s and preceding decades. 'Kiss Me Again, Stranger' is about a young man picking up a cinema usherette who while amenable to his advances is unsettling and subsequently turns out to be a serial killer targeting airmen whom she blames for bombing her house during the Second World War.

'The Old Man' is a story of the observation of animosity in a family which leads to a killing. However, the twist in the nature of the family being portrayed. Du Maurier generally plays fair with the reader, though making sure to not give away the final twist.

Overall, while not the kind of stories I enjoy, I could see skill in them and a clear demonstration that horror can come from the relatively mundane as the director Alfred Hitchcock recognised when he used one of Du Marurier's ideas to trigger a very different movie but similarly bringing the unsettling out from what might be deemed everyday.

Non-Fiction

'Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe: 1648-1789/91' by Raymond Birn

This book was published in 1977 and it is interesting to see how much more engaging it is than 'The Seventeenth Century' (1929/1947) by G.N. Clark which I read in January: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-books-i-read-in-january.html The tone is much lighter and engaging and it does not assume that readers in English will automatically know French and Latin too. While it does come to the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment its prime focus is much more practical and it tends to show the changes in ideas in how they were applied to behaviour, business and industry. It establishes a good basis in terms of the economy and society and works well to distinguish the regional differences across Europe, so Eastern Europe and Scandinavia get less neglected than they can tend to do in survey essay books. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that the two 'highlights' of the period, i.e. the Thirty Years' War and the French Revolution, are explicitly not covered. However, while this can irritate a little it does mean that this is a useful book for seeing the outcome of the former and the precursors of the latter. As the title suggests it shows how the blend of absolutist rule with various crises, came together to impact on society and economies, to lead to the following quarter-century of warfare across the continent. In that regard it is a useful 'bridging' text that through keeping to its bounds allows appropriate analysis of this 'in-between' period.

The Books I Read In December

This year I read 59 books, the shortest being 160 pages and the longest being 634 pages.

P.P. 06/03/2025

I was interested to see where this put me in the survey of UK reading trends. Being a Remain and Labour voter, I do fall into the political category of greatest readers, but am not yet into the highest age bracket (over 65s) for reading. Women read more than men, though men are more likely to read non-fiction than women. Where I stand in terms of middle and working class is very difficult to determine nowadays. I always thought I came from a middle class family and was middle class. However, I have been strongly told that, largely because I am a tenant, do not buy new cars or have holidays, I cannot be middle class, so I do not know if I would boost the 66% of middle class people who said they read recently (there are few days when I do not read) or the 52% of working class people who say the same. I probably hang around outside the traditional class structure with elements from both. I do mourn the fact that the 'Fred Kite'/WEA well-read worker no longer seems to feature, certainly in analysis, maybe not much in society either.

I am in the 40% who have only bought second hand books in the past year, rather than the more than 50% who bought at least one new one. 23% of people pick an 'even' mix of fiction and non-fiction, whereas for me only 1-in-4 books is non-fiction, the other 3 are fiction. Due to commuting changes, I have stopped listening to audio books, so I am in the 61% who read physical books. I do not mind paperback or hardback, it is more what I can get second hand. I am in the only 29% who think listening to audio books is equivalent to reading a book. I am in the 4% of readers who read more than 50 books in the year and in the 24% who own more than 100 books.

Anyway, for these statistics see: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/06/new-poll-finds-40-of-britons-have-not-read-a-book-in-the-past-year

Fiction

'Tomorrow's Crimes' by Donald E. Westlake

Though he wrote across genres, I had not come across Westlake before. This is a science fiction anthology by him of stories published 1961-1984. Some, like 'Girl of My Dreams' are rather pat, more like a tale of the unexpected. 'The Winner' is a very grim dystopian story about future prisons. There is certainly a grittiness to Westlake's stories which I imagine he has brought over from his crime fiction. A couple of stories stand out. 'The Risk Profession' is a story of a loss adjuster going to investigate an asteroid mining camp, almost like in a Western but in space. The other is the novella at the end 'Anarchaos' about a man going to the eponymous planet which is tidally fixed to face its red sun to find out about the murder of his brother. It is very much a story about corporations and prospectors and for all the science fiction setting, also feels at times like a Western. Still, both are effective crime stories and also explore different science fiction concepts well. Again there is violence and suffering that makes the stories darker than you might expect even in a collection from that era. It is clear that there are quite a few books out there by Westlake but if I found one I would check it carefully to see what type it was, but if satisfied I would then give it a try.

'The Confessions of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc

I imagine like a lot of British readers I was drawn to the original Lupin stories, published 1905-23 (though with loads of follow-ons) by the French TV series, 'Lupin' (2021). That is the way 'Elementary' (2012-19) (and not 'Sherlock') was to the Sherlock Holmes stories, i.e. a modern take influenced by (late 19th Century/)early 20th Century stories. Unlike Holmes, Lupin is a thief, though one who is supposedly renowned even in his own time and loved subsequently as the TV series made clear. The Lupin books actually reference Holmes, but his closest British rival would be A.J. Raffles in stories by  E.W. Hornung (brother-in-law to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), 1898-1909. There is no indication who translated this particular collection into English.

This book was first published in 1913. The 10 stories show Lupin as amoral, with him as often stealing from other criminals as from ordinary people. Sometimes he comes up against his prime antagonist, Inspector Justin Ganimard of the Sûreté, though in 'The Red Silk Scarf' ends up effectively helping the police. In 'Two Hundred Thousand Francs Reward! ...' he tracks down a murderer and a disappeared woman after he catches sight of signals being flashed in his neighbourhood. He works out various mysteries such as 'The Invisible Prisoner' a thief who seems to have disappeared after raiding a house and for the benefit of others, 'The Sign of the Shadow' in which a strange painting is a sign towards a treasure of diamonds. There are stories which remind us of Conan Doyle's 'The Adventure of the Speckled Band' (1892) though perhaps not quite as bleak, such as 'Lupin's Marriage' with a very long con involved.

Overall the stories are brisk and successful conjure up a feeling of the late 19th Century France. Though there are some grim elements, at times the tone is playful. Certainly with this collection, the reader feels that Lupin is a hero more than a criminal. If I find any of the other Lupin books, especially ones in which he is more straightforwardly carrying crimes I would certainly pick them up.

'The Cornish Coast Murder' by John Bude [Ernest Carpenter Elmore]

This book, one of two that Elmore published in 1935, is another from the British Library Crime Classics series. As Martin Edwards who curates much of the series notes, Bude rooted his novel, his first crime one, in a locale rather than a fictional county, in this case on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall. Saying that, the town of Greystoke which is featured, is fictional as the only Greystoke in England is far further north in Cumbria. Still you really get a real feel for the headlands and coves of northern Cornwall.

An unpopular local magistrate and landlord, Julius Trethgarthan is shot dead standing at the French windows of his living room during a storm. There are few suspects beyond the man's niece, Ruth, an author in the village, Ronald Hardy; a local midwife, Mrs. Mullion, and a local poacher Ned Slater; perhaps Trethgarthan's two servants, Mr. and Mrs. Grouch. The clear clues, especially footprints, restrict the number of suspects but also allow for a range of speculations about how the murder was carried out. The behaviour of Ruth, Ronald and Mr. Grouch all further muddy the waters. Some readers might be irritated by how additional information keeps on shifting the perspective on the crime. However, in some ways, for a 'cosy' crime, it actually feels authentic and with its clear context maybe why it appealed to readers at the time.

There are effectively two detectives, the local uniformed Inspector Bigswell and the vicar Reverend Dodd who lives near the scene of the crime and knows the Trethgarthans well. Dodd along with his friend Dr. Pendrill, are eager consumers of detective fiction, meeting up each month to share novels. There are references to genuine contemporary authors and while a latecomer to the genre (he also wrote science fiction and was theatre producer and director) Elmore was a founder of the Crime Writers' Association. 

Effectively having two detecting protagonists is a bit unusual. Their paths overlap at times and close to the end they are looking for clues in exactly the same place. Again this might irritate some readers, especially in terms of flipping point of view, but in fact it allows the author to bring in different bits of evidence from different places without having a single character having to hare all over the place. Both men also work out explanations which have to be discarded in time and it is quite refreshing for them not to lock on to the correct one quickly. For all its cosiness, the motive for the murder turns out to be as bleak as any in a crime novel.

I have four more Bude books to read set in different parts of England and I am quite looking forward to his slightly quirky approach which rather makes his writing distinct from some of his contemporaries.

'Excession' by Iain M. Banks

As readers of this blog probably know by now, I am not a big fan of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels, rather feeling that their all-powerful civilisation is rather tedious. Perhaps I hoped for something a little different from this one. It features the appearance of an immensely powerful object in space which attracts the attention of Culture spaceships and another squid-like race, the Affront. A lot of the interaction in the book is between sentient spaceships, something Banks seemed to really like doing. However, for many readers, or maybe I am alone, it does seem all a little impersonal, especially given how powerful these vessels are, one literally manufactures a warfleet within itself. The object, the 'Excession', which may allow access to multiple universes, becomes part of a conspiracy by a cabal of spaceships. The novel basically covers a whole assortment of vessels and a few humans and Affront beings sent towards it. A war between the Affront and the Culture breaks out when the Affront seizes a Culture storage asteroid holding many vessels from the last war.

The skipping between the various characters so much, reduces our engagement with each, even the two humans, Dajeil Gelian a woman who has remained in a pregnant state in a replica of a planet she last worked on inside a spaceship for forty years and her former lover, fellow scientist and philanderer Byr Genar-Hofoen who is obsessed with the Affront. The ship holding Gelian wants them to reunite and for the child to be born. On the way, Genar-Hofoen encounters people set up to resemble Gelian, though they like some of the other characters such as Leffid and Gestra Ishmethit, the warden of the storage vessel Pittance for 150 years, seem to serve no purpose.

With so many characters, the narrative is really fragmented and you do feel as if you are going through the motions as the different groups and individuals work their way to the Excession, some directly, some getting very distracted. In fact the portrayal of some of the places along the way are far more interesting than what happens towards the end. As it typical with Banks, there is a lot of info dumping as if he really wants every reader to know everything about the Culture and other species. The ending is a real anti-climax and further reduces the value of what has gone before. There are some engaging scenes but too much of the book reads rather like a flight manifest.

'Hombre' by Elmore Leonard

I realised coming to this, an out-and-out Western that it was a genre that I had not read in since 'All the Pretty Horses' (1992) by Cormac McCarthy who is now in disgrace but was acclaimed at the time. I have read Elmore Leonard books, but more usually his 20th Century crime novels. This edition was produced by Orbit books to make available to people familiar with various movies, the books that they were based on. I assume this was why my late mother, a movie fan as well as an avid reader throughout her life, bought it. The movie 'Hombre' was released in 1967 and starred Paul Newman. The novel was published in 1961. 

It is a very contained story set in 1884. It mentions Florence but that is in South Carolina and the book also mentions Bisbee so seems to be set in Arizona, certainly close to the Mexican border and near to where the Apache tribes had been forced to live. With the rise of railways a stage coach company is being closed down. One employee, Carl Allen, a young man who surprisingly speaks no Spanish, is the narrator of the story. Along with his former boss, Mr. Mendez, as driver, Allen accompanies five other people in a specially hired coach out of the small town of Sweetmary. One of them is the 'Hombre' ['Man' in Spanish], John Russell who is perceived as part-Apache having lived with a tribe as a child and then with a Mexican before becoming part of the Apache Police. The others are Dr. Alexander Favor, an Indian Agent, i.e. liaison between the US government and tribes, his wife Audra; Kathleen McLaren who had recently been released from being captured by the Apaches and Frank Braden who proves to be a criminal.

The coach is held up by confederates of Braden looking to steal the money Favor swindled on supplying food to the Apaches. The rest of the novel is about the passengers trying to get clear without being killed by the bandits. Russell is very much in the mould of the strong, silent, rather cold hero, who always knows what to do that is right. Probably reflecting discussions around civil rights, there is much discussion about whether he should even be allowed to travel in the coach. Different perspectives on the Apaches and their treatment are aired in the tense periods when the passengers are trying to stay clear of the bandits. The book almost becomes philosophical at the end in discussions about what one should risk to help others and what defines a 'man' and a 'hero'. 

Overall, then, this has many of the elements of a classic Western. It really portrays the harsh landscape very well. In some ways it sticks to the archetype of the lone gunman, but in others especially in the discussions between the passengers, looks to engage with broader issues around race and though touched on euphemistically, violence towards women. While different to the other Leonard novels I have read, this one is as equally as engaging as those.

Non-Fiction

'Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries' by Denys Hay

This is another of those Longman General History of Europe books that I have picked up down the years. Unlike the last one I read, by Franklin L. Ford, back in May 2020: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/05/books-i-read-in-may.html which covered only 50 years, this one as the name suggests straddles two entire centuries. In general Hay handles it well, starting with social and economic structures which can be referenced no matter which period or region he is focusing upon and this forms a sound basis. Religion, perhaps unsurprisingly gets a lot of attention and he is generally sound on the multiple Papacies and the often forgotten precursors to the Reformation which appeared in the preceding decades. The book is good on Eastern Europe, Russia and the Ottoman Empire which all tend to get neglected in terms of general histories. It is not bad on 'Italy' sensibly breaking this down into separate regions. It struggles a bit more with 'Germany' and really fails to communicate the Hundred Years War any more effectively than any other account I have read. However, the writing is brisk and explains mostly with sufficient detail yet without bewildering the reader with too much which can be the case with such a long time period with many complex especially geopolitical developments.

The Books I Read In March

Fiction

'The Murder in the Basement' by Anthony Berkeley [Anthony Berkeley Cox] 

I have been given quite a lot of the classic crime novels that the British Library has found great success in re-releasing over the past decade. Most are from the 1920s and 1930s (some earlier, some later) and were often good sellers at the time but have been forgotten by subsequent generations. This was the first of those books I had (not by date of publication but by surname of the author) that I have. Berkeley is not well known these days but was actually a founder of the Detection Club which counted renowned crime authors in its membership.

This novel is a classic of the genre, revolving around a corpse found in the basement of a semi-detached London house that a married couple have just moved into which after the body is finally identified, proves to be linked to a small fee-paying preparatory school just north of London. The private school setting is one that turns up often in books of the time, this one was published in 1932; even Hercule Poirot has a case at one. 

Berkeley has two protagonists that he had used in a previous novel Chief Inspector Moresby and author Roger Sheringham who has a connection to the school. The novel is effectively divided into three parts.The first focuses on identifying the corpse. Then the middle part is actually a novel in the novel that Sheringham has written detailing the tensions between various members of staff as a basis for Moresby's further investigation. The third part is tackling the issue of the prime suspect and whether it can be proven that they did and even if they should be the prime suspect.

The first part of the novel can rather lead you to think this is a going-through-the-motions novel. It is very police procedural in identifying the corpse with what was available at the time. However, Berkeley lifts the novel through the conceit of the novel in the novel and then in the third part, disentangling issues around the prime suspect. You come away feeling that it is greater than the sum of its parts.

'The State of the Art' by Iain M. Banks

This is a collection of science fiction short stories by Banks. The fact that at the end of the month in which I read it, I struggle to recall all of the stories, says something as I was not overly impressed. This may be because it was published in 1991 and as a result the 'unfailing inventiveness' which the review from 'The Guardian' states now may seem well established tropes and indeed rather pretentious. There is a sentient plant in 'Odd Attachment' plucking a human apart. 'Descendant' is about the relationship between a crashed spaceship pilot and his intelligent space suit, that actually felt like a story from the 1950s or 1960s as is 'Cleaning Up' about alien technology appearing all over the Earth at random. The concepts they explore are well known now. Perhaps the strongest stories come from Banks's Culture setting. 'The State of the Art' about Culture explorers coming to Earth and getting too involved, while quite commonplace is reasonably well handled as is 'A Gift from the Culture' about a super-powered weapon to be used for an assassination.

In many ways this book shows that Banks was grounded in the science fiction of the preceding decades. He even explores a Moorcockian set-up with fragmented text in 'Scratch'. Thus, if you are new to science fiction this book will be a good introduction that is quickly consumed and highlights many themes that 20th Century science fiction concerned itself with. For me, though, I had been expecting more and so reading it was rather mundane.

'The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard' by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is a collection of 8 short stories featuring a French hussar during the Napoleonic Wars. Many have likened him to Harry Flashman in (1969-2005), Gerard is not as intelligent as Flashman, but certainly has that self-belief. He thinks that he is very successful with the ladies, but in fact we never have anything more than his word for it, probably due to these stories being published in literary magazines at the end of the 19th Century. While they are brisk, Conan Doyle does really show his skill with the short stories, which in fact most of the Sherlock Holmes adventures were as well. There is a good attention to detail as Gerard finds himself in different parts of the war, from what would now be Poland across to Portugal. Conan Doyle brings out the different arms of the forces and nationalities too and these form a sound basis for witty stories. My edition was only 188 pages long so you could get through it in a single sitting. I do recommend it, if this sounds like your kind of thing.

'The Other Side of Silence' by Philip Kerr

This is the 11th Bernie Gunther book and features him working as a hotel concierge on the French Riviera. In contrast to the previous novels, despite for some brief asides to 1937 and 1944/45, most of this one is set in 1956. Set at the height of the Cold War and during the Suez Crisis it is much more of a spy novel than a crime novel. As is typical, Gunther crosses paths with someone from his past, in this case an SS captain, Harald Hennig that he knew in Berlin before the war and then in Königsberg [Kaliningrad] near the end of the war. The story features real people particularly the British author, Somerset Maugham and his nephew both of who lived on the Riviera at the time. Maugham is being blackmailed and is encouraged to use Gunther as a go-between with the blackmailer. It soon is revealed, however, that the scheme is more about getting to the British intelligence agencies as Maugham previously worked for them. Following the defection of Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, there appears to the East Germans and the Soviets a way to embarrass the British especially with their allies the Americans who are increasingly dubious of them.

Compared to the previous novels, this one has little action and much more dialogue, so feels more like a John Le Carré novel. It is a slow burn in terms of determining what is going on with the various blackmailing. The settings in rich houses and hotels on the Riviera in the 1950s is very well portrayed.  The scene which needs to be noted is how Gunther adeptly manages to turn what is being done to set him up, against his antagonists. Given what we know of the character, we know he has the skills, but Kerr renders the scene admirably. Gunther again gets to sleep with a woman young enough to be his daughter, though in contrast to The Woman from Zagreb' (2015), the previous novel in the series where this happens, this one has a more feasible explanation.

Overall, this is different to the other Gunther novels and may appeal more to those looking for a kind of classic spy novel rather than a detective one.

Non-Fiction

'The Pelican Guide to English Literature 1: The Age of Chaucer' ed. by Boris Ford

I read the 7th volume in the revised version of this series, 'The New Pelican Guide to English Literature 7. From James to Eliot' edited by Boris Ford back in August 2021: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2021/08/books-i-listened-toread-in-august.html  The various writers who contributed to that volume were very dismissive of the authors they were asked to comment, without exception judging them as far less competent than authors and poets of previous centuries. In Volume 1, fortunately, the attitude is much more positive. I imagine that is because the contributors were eager to promote medieval literature including the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland but also far less well known authors. The only one who really suffers disapproval is Edmund Spenser who while recognising he was an author in a transitional period, Derek Traversi feels was not as good as he could have been and was too derivative of outdated approaches something he puts down to Spenser's disappointing career in public service.

As Ford notes a lot of these texts are not easily available to the general reader, so entire texts are included in the second part of the book after the critiques of the first part. Thus there is an interesting range of stories and plays, particularly allegorical ones. As there is reference to work from different parts of England and indeed Scotland, you can see the regional variations in English of the time. Especially in 'Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight' (still attracting attention as the 2021 movie showed) we see specifically north-western English with words that seem drawn from Swedish, Dutch, German and French. A lot of the stories have religious themes which is unsurprising given as contributors note, the importance of miracle plays in culture of the time. In addition, what is shown in this book is simply what has survived and it is certain there were many other works that are now lost.

Thus, this is an interesting book for people who enjoyed Chaucer or Langland or who are interested in having an insight into what concerned medieval people (and what made them laugh) and what they would watch or have read to them. The thing is, while there are numerous footnotes outlining what various words mean and after reading a lot of it, you get a feel for some of the commonly used words, for the most part you are rather wading through Middle English texts and this needs a lot of attention and patience. I think the effort is worth it for what is revealed. However, this is far from being an easy book to read and will take you a lot of time and effort. Ironically the easiest chapter is the incongruous one on medieval architecture, which I am not sure why it was included.

'The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941' translated and edited by Fred Taylor

Fuller collections of Goebbels diaries have come to light since this edition was published in 1983. However, this one does provide a slice of them from which we can learn a lot. Josef Goebbels was both the Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Gauleiter of Berlin. As these diaries make clear he was very close to Hitler and indeed murdered his children and wife and committed suicide with Hitler in the bunker at the end of the Second World War when other leading Nazis had fled.

The diaries provide interesting insights into facets of the Nazi regime but reading them at this time, constantly made me hear echoes of populist attitudes and rhetoric which has become so common again in the 2020s. Throughout Goebbels is painfully smug. Any speech he, let alone Hitler gives, as well as their writing is assumed to be the most important thing in not just Germany's but the world's media. Goebbels even believed that this propaganda effectively killed former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in November 1940 when actually he died of bowel cancer.

Any Nazi event is seen by Goebbels as the biggest and best that has ever been hosted. Goebbels bitterly complains that all claims, especially those by the British are lies that must be vigorously contested and they, especially Churchill, will pay the price for this in the future. Yet, he also outlines all the lies he is pumping into other countries whether neutral or the enemy. This double standard is apparent incessantly and for someone living in 2024 seems very familiar.

Goebbels's attitudes do lead him to make mistake. All through 1940 he keeps expecting the British to surrender. Every bombing raid he insists is lowering the British morale to a point that it is unsustainable for the country to continue fighting and that the Americans are losing faith in the British. In contrast he dismisses the air raids on Germany as almost minimal and insists that German morale will not be harmed by them. You slowly see a change and by 1941 even Goebbels recognises that if the German public can persist under such attacks that there is nothing to say that the British and Soviet publics can too and that imminent surrender is far from likely. However, this initial attitude applied not just to Britain and the USSR but to Yugoslavia and Greece, does remind us that the Germans went into these battles with strong assumptions of quick and easy victories. Goebbels's access to Hitler and his ability to interfere in aspects far outside his assigned portfolios adds to this fact.

The preparations for the invasion of the USSR, Yugoslavia and Greece are interesting. The internecine battles with Nazi officials and other departments become tiresome but do show how chaotic the Nazi regime was. The Foreign Office in particular seems despised by all sides of the regime but retained power and influence. It is hard to swallow Goebbels wittering on about his beloved children, his numerous houses and the art works he is buying. These statements do nothing to humanise the man and it is clear that he finds it difficult to comprehend anything outside his own desires.

I found this book useful to contextualise the ones I have been reading in recent years about the Nazi regime and to show some of the reasons by what often seemed to be irrational policies and behaviour by its staff.

Books I Read In September

 Fiction

'Look to Windward' by Iain M. Banks

I am not a big fan of Banks's Culture-set science fiction stories. The concept of an super-powerful civilisation creating vast structure and seeking to moderate the galaxies always comes across as rather worthy and quite unexciting. Having grown up reading Moorcock and Priest, then the Cyberpunk authors, I am more interested in a closer focus and a lot more grittiness. Having put in that caveat, I must say I enjoyed this book, I think because it is largely around one (admittedly vast) space station and focuses on two Chelgrians, two feline-like humanoids. Mahrai Ziller is a composer who has gone into self-imposed exile on a Culture Orbital (effectively an artificial planet), Masaq' in protest at the Chelgrian caste system. Embittered army officer Major Quilan IV with the personality of a dead senior officer in his head too. The Chelgrians have suffered a civil war, which it has been revealed that, while not started by the Culture was expanded by their intervention. Quilan is ostensibly meeting with Ziller to try to persuade him to return to Chel. In fact Quilan has an ulterior mission which intentionally he only recalls as he progresses on Masaq'. There is a sub-plot about another character discovering the objectives of Quilan's mission. However, typically for Banks that element is not resolved until after the main action has occurred.

There are a couple of Banksian traits that can rile. He loves describing vast structures though with Ziller and Quilan touring Masaq' this is less of an info dump than it can be in later Culture novels. As I noted with 'Matter' (2008): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/01/books-i-readlistened-to-in-january.html he tends to baulk from actually writing the climax of the novel. Instead it fades to black and then we pick up things some while later to see the consequences and that happens in this novel too. However, overall, by keeping focused on two characters (and a supplementary one for part of the time) Banks seems more in control of this novel. He can show his ideas and attitudes without you feeling you are attending a lecture. The characters of Ziller and Quilan to me - and I accept I may not be common among SF readers - are more engaging than descriptions of yet another intelligent spaceship or vast artificial structure.

'Transcription' by Kate Atkinson

The first thing I must say is this is the first book I have read by Atkinson but I would be tempted to try others. She is very deft in her writing and I was really swept along by the prose even when she is describing grim scenes, e.g. a woman strangled and dumped in a coal hole; the problems of killing a woman who has surprised you, using a small calibre pistol. The novel is based on a true operation by MI5 during the Second World War to monitor British Nazi sympathisers who might pass intelligence to the Germans or indeed in the case of an invasion, collaborate with the German forces.

Juliet Armstrong is recruited to transcribe the conversations between the Nazis and an MI5 agent provocateur at a bugged flat in London. However, she is soon drawn into becoming and agent herself, in particular trying to get hold of the 'red book' which has a list of these people. The novel goes between 1940 when she is 18 and 1950 when she is back in London working for the BBC producing Schools radio programmes. She is still temporarily in the employ of MI5 and begins to encounter people from her war years and face threats connected with them. The stories run in parallel so that we discover what is impacting her in 1950 as she recalls and details more from 1940.

The assortment of characters is well drawn. There is a real feel for London in the two time periods. Juliet is a reliable but naïve narrator. The balance between her eagerness for sex and her naïvety are handled well. The only disappointing element I felt with the novel was the twist at the end. It was entirely unnecessary and was really rushed. It did not really add to our understanding of Juliet and seemed to be something that an agent or publisher had pressed for, whereas the book up until that stage had had a real deftness, a good combination of thriller and slice of life, very much embedded in its times and bringing out the differences and similarities between 1940 and 1950 in London better than many authors would have done.

'Freaky Deaky' by Elmore Leonard

I was unsurprised that this 1988 novel had been turned into a movie in 2012, not that I have seen it. However, Leonard's tautness of writing is often commended. Reading this book, you certainly feel that with its restricted number of characters it could be a stage play. Set in Detroit in the late 1980s, it draws on the counter-culture terrorism of the late 1960s, through Robin (a woman) and Skip (a man) who were involved in setting off bombs during that period. It also features Donnell, a former Black Panther who is now a factotum to Woody Ricks a very wealthy man who is losing a grip on reality due to alcohol abuse. Also featuring are Chris Mankowski, a suspended bomb disposal cop and Greta Wyatt, a sometime actress raped by Woody Ricks. Mark Ricks, Woody's brother also turns up. Robin and Skip are looking for revenge on the Ricks brothers who they believe betrayed them to the authorities leading to imprisonment. Donnell is looking for as much money as he can get out of Woody; he knows Robin and Skip from the past. Ultimately all the characters are looking to see what money they can get from Woody as their paths cross and re-cross and there is a lot of double dealing and betrayal.

As you would expect from Leonard, it is gritty and seedy. The characters are believable and the scenes and locations well portrayed. Perhaps he goes a little too far with how intertwined the five main characters are (he effectively lifts Woody out of this by having him clueless) and it begins to grow tiresome as to who is working with or betraying whom, but overall not bad. The movie is portrayed as a kind of comedy. Things do go wrong, especially with the bombs set, but this book is straight without any comedic elements.

Non-Fiction

'The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848' by Eric Hobsbawm

I actually met Hobsbawm on two occasions but embarrassingly was really at a loss as to what questions to ask him. This book was published in 1961 though has been reprinted may times since. Hobsbawm was a Marxist historian and so brings a perspective on to what he describes which is working at the high level, focused on the big trends in society rather than detailed accounts of what happened next. This perspective is now rare even in general survey history books that can, as Hobsbawm eschews, effectively end up as a list of a sequence of events. Even if you do not subscribe to Marxist viewpoints, the approach Hobsbawm adopts in this book is a very useful one that I feel current students can benefit from to balance against the history survey books which in many ways go into too much detail. Maybe historians aside from people like Ferguson, Fukuyama and Hutton do not feel they have the 'right' to draw such sweeping points from the history.

Hobsbawm's premise in this book is of the dual revolution, i.e. the Industrial Revolution initiated in Britain and the French Revolution. These two, he feels, combined shaped the development of societies. He does make some efforts not to neglect the world outside Europe and North America and indeed shows how these revolutions impacted, e.g. the destruction of Indian textile manufacturing by British factories and how Egypt tried to make the industrial leap only to be stymied. Thus, while focusing on the broad sweeps of history, he never goes full Marxist in portraying anything as 'inevitable' and indeed highlights when actions by leaders and business people divert or prevent what otherwise might have 'naturally' happened. 

The book is organised thematically with the trends that happened, not just from the two revolutions but also as a result of peace, nationalism, etc. Then looks at the impact. He is good on belief, whether religious, philosophical or political. He highlights trends in land usage and in the ability to 'get on' in society before looking at the arts and scientific developments. Many of these aspects, particularly on a thematic basis rather than as a sequence of events, are neglected too often. This is why I feel, despite its age, this book is a useful addition for people looking at this period alongside more recent books.

My one gripe is that as a Marxist writing in the period of the Cold War, Hobsbawm is desperate to find any seed of revolution that he can amongst what he is describing. In contrast, a reader living since the Cold War ended and with so much authoritarianism rolling back what any revolution achieved, even in democratic countries, is liable to find such scouring for these 'seeds' as rather pathetic. The groups mentioned are typically tiny and achieved nothing. Going in so tight seeking these things jars with the broad sweeps adopted elsewhere in the book which are its strengths. Almost without recognising it, Hobsbawm shows that for all the revolutionary energy, the different plans of the various stages of the French Revolution were betrayed and monarchy restored. The Industrial Revolution brought gain to very few and suffering for millions more.

It is a shame that more general surveys are not written with Hobsbawn's approach these days and thus, this relatively rare perspective means the book remains of value even more than sixty years later.

Books I Read In March

 Fiction

'Dangerous Women Part I' edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

This is the first of a trilogy of short story collections. I do not know about the other two volumes, they may improve. This one is largely a disappointment. The largest section is taken up by a 35,000-word story written by Martin set in his world of the Seven Kingdoms, many years before the A Song of Fire and Ice series. 'The Princess and the Queen' is about two women rivalling for the Iron Throne and the war this triggers. The trouble is, Martin approaches the story in the same way as he does with the longer series, i.e. with long lists of titles and locations of individuals. In his huge books there is space for this but in a novella you feel at times you are reading a civil service list. There are some dramatic battles between riders on dragons, but his still really burdens this shorter piece and is there so much any character development is a long way down the list.

Perhaps the best story is 'Raisa Stepanova' by Carrie Vaughn about a Soviet female fighter pilot in the Second World War and not simply the risks to her from aerial combat but from her brother going missing in action as the Soviet regime under Stalin assumed anyone missing had deserted. 'Second Arabesque, Slowly' by Nancy Kress is a not a bad but typical post-apocalyptic story in a New York where when most women have become infertile, tribes have developed scavenging among the ruins and a couple, overseen by the narrator, a nurse, wanting to take up ballet after seeing old footage of it. I read something similar but involving a concert piano, in a short story  'A Song Before Sunset' by David Grigg (1976) which I read back in June: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2021/06/books-i-listened-toread-in-june.html 

'I Know How to Pick 'Em' by Lawrence Black is on in which the woman is a catalyst rather than protagonist. It is contemporary film noir kind of set up about a woman recruiting men to do a murder for her, but is less clever than it feels itself to be. In this collection it also seems wrong to include a woman whose agency is far less than she tries to make it. 'Wrestling Jesus' by Joe R. Lansdale, is similar. It actually features only the story of a woman until the end and it is more about an old wrestler and a young male victim of bullying he is training. To get in this collection is a real contrivance.

'My Heart is Either Broken' by Megan Abbott about an abducted girl and a mother whose story is not believed has that noir feel, but fits better in this book with a female protagonist yet one facing up to the debilitating effects of official disbelief. 'Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell' by Brandon Sanderson is what I had expected from this book. It is a science fiction/fantasy in that it is set in a world colonised by humans but with and old technology, creatures and a whole set of rules as if from a fantasy novel. It works well, both in highlighting the dangers of this world and how the two female protagonists deal with it as well as having that 'otherly' sense.

Overall, then this was rather a disappointment. If Martin had stepped back and simply edited, it would have been better. There are some gems in here, but the criteria for inclusion of stories seems very loose and as such what is in here too often seems wide of the mark.

'Flashman and the Pillar of Light' by George MacDonald Fraser

In the late 1980s, having enjoyed the movie 'Royal Flash' (1975) combining a kind of 'The Prisoner of Zenda' with genuine bits of German history, I read all the Flashman novels which, at the time, had reached 'Flashman and the Dragon' (1985). Subsequently, with this novel in 1990 and three others up to 2005, he added to the canon. MacDonald Fraser had started the series in 1969, expanding the life of a minor character from 'Tom Brown's School Days' (1857) by Thomas Hughes to be a skilled linguist, a cowardly and promiscuous soldier who managed to get involved in many of the great incidents of the 1840s-90s, both in the British Empire and elsewhere in the world. The mix of lots of historical research (there are pages of historical notes), cheeky humour, sex, battles and always a torture scene, made the books winning for over 20 years. I do think though, they are probably not well received now. The books are written in the first person of Harry Flashman who is upper middle class, but pretty crude and certainly imbued with misogynistic and racist attitudes. These fit the character, but I imagine few young people today would wish to read a book which so often features the word 'nigger' and a whole host of derogatory terms towards women and Asian people as this book jams in.

With that caveat, this book fits with the preceding eight. It features Flashman working as a diplomat-cum-agent in the Punjab in the lead up to and during the First Anglo-Sikh War 1845-46 at a time when British India was controlled by the British East India Company. The war in itself was bizarre and MacDonald Fraser, though at times bewildering the reader, does reasonably well in showing how the female regent Jind Kaur for her son Duleep Singh who was to be the last Maharajah of Punjab. Jind Kaur's brother, the preceding Maharajah had been murdered by the Sikh Army which had grown to 80,000 men. Jind Kaur sought to weaken the army in Punjab politics by giving it what it wanted - an invasion of British India, but in a way which would mean its defeat and the clipping of its power. Even this brief summary indicates the complexity of the situation. MacDonald Fraser does well in weaving Flashman into this story, making him the cause of some of the incidents, including ultimately the securing to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the 'mountain of light' to the British crown jewels. The fact that Jind Kaur was a promiscuous drunkard allows him to include a lot of sex too.

The story moves at a reasonable pace, though not aided by the genuine complexity of what was going on in the region at the time. Added to that, not only does he make extensive use of epithets of the time, but Flashman and others use numerous Punjabi and Hindi terms, sometimes distorted by English usage, which requires a running glossary, though further highlighting the extent of the author's research. Overall, it was not a bad novel, but for the reasons given above it lacked some of the pace of the previous ones in the series. MacDonald Fraser is good a shining a light on parts of history that often get overlooked these days. I was fascinated to see how close the British came to being ejected from the Indian subcontinent at a relatively early stage. However, I would suggest to many modern readers, especially those liable to take offence at any use of colonial era language and attitudes to stay well clear of the book.

'The Elixir of Death' by Bernard Knight

This is the tenth book in the Crowner John series which brings the series up to covering 12 months as the first was set in November 1195 and we are now at November 1196. It is a bit of an oddity and as I have commented before might have benefitted from tightening up the narrative without so much riding back and forth across Devon. There are a series of apparently unconnected murders, from sailors on board a ship from France - including the husband of one of Sir John's mistresses - to a mutilation of a local lord whose head ends up being dumped in Exeter Cathedral. There is also a sub-plot around alchemy in an attempt to create gold for Prince John to fund a renewed uprising against his brother, King Richard. Bits of the story feel rather contrived, especially the involvement of Richard de Revelle, John's brother-in-law and disgraced sheriff; John's wife and one of his mistresses. 

The inclusion of Assassins from Syria, does not seem impossible, but all of these factors together seem like Knight taking it a bit too far in terms of coincidence and leaving out some of his usual cast might have benefited the story. As always the portrayal of medieval Exeter and Devon and references to the Second Crusade, do add a richness which I think aided the popularity of the books. At times I feel Knight tries rather too hard. Maybe he was driven on by an agent or publishers to include things that readers would expect, especially in the period following the success of  'The Da Vinci Code' (2003) and other books by Dan Brown that referenced medieval mysteries. I would rather that he had been guided by the approach of Ellis Peters.

'Against A Dark Background' by Iain M. Banks

I much prefer those of Iain M. Banks's novels which do not feature his galaxy spanning all-powerful Culture. Thus, this one featuring the survivors of a mentally-linked combat team, heading off in a single solar system to recover various rare artefacts, felt to be of the right scope. Indeed there was a lot in this book I enjoyed. The main character, Sharrow, is the female leader of the team, but also an aristocrat in the civilization's hierarchical structure. Due to actions by her parents, she is seen as an obstacle to the coming of the messiah of a particular cult who have just received permission to try for a year and a day to assassinate her. In the meantime, Sharrow seeks to bargain the release of her half-sister Breyguhn from the grim fortress prison of another cult. The team of five, reduced from eight in previous wars head across planets trying to get on the trail first of the book of  'Universal Principles' and with this then follow clues within it to the eighth and final Lazy Gun, a super-powerful weapon, perhaps concealed by Sharrow's father.

Banks presents an incredibly rich culture, with exotic cities built of ships or under and within a vast tree; immense fortresses and a wide variety of landscapes. The societies are diverse and richly described. There are odd, seemingly anachronistic elements such as people writing letters or even cheques and a pillbox hat and so on. You wonder if that was intentional among all the very advanced vehicles and weaponry. The main challenge is that there is so much imaginative stuff. There are so many different organisations, authorities, religions and creatures that it is hard to keep track. Yes the plot twists and twists again, which is great, but it becomes tiresome to follow who is tricking whom. Added to that Banks drops in flashbacks with minimal indication. As many of these involve members of her team as they are in the 'now' you can easily be reading something thinking it is about the current timeline when it is from years in the past. It is a little easier in the scenes with Breyguhn and their male cousin Geis, but not always especially when they feature in the 'now' too. 

It is interesting to see why certain things happen and there are important clues in the 'past' to understand actions in the present. However, sometimes you do wonder do we need to see when the group were last at a bar which is now a book shop. I have commented in the past how Banks's science fiction books often seem under-edited and the good qualities of this book would have been really highlighted if the jumping around in time had been handled far better even if with a tag, e.g. 'Above Nachtel's Ghost, five years ago' or something.

Another challenge is the tone. At times the book seems light-hearted, certainly when the team are trying to steal the the 'Universal Principles' which it turns out the King of Pharpech sits on at his coronation. Pharpech is a low tech society with quaint rituals and at times you feel is created for humour. Sharply different in tone are scenes in the Sea House, the grim prison where Breyguhn is held and certainly the long section where the team struggle against increasing odds along the shore of a fjord to reach the location of the Lazy Gun and suffer more and more at the hands of a competing team of mercenaries. The characters we have come to know well through numerous interactions and their thrilling and entertaining scrapes and now in a bleak existential crisis something like journey of Captain Robert Scott at the Antarctic. The reader is warned of the bleakness from the comments on the book, but they sit uneasily alongside the jokey almost spoof-like section in Pharpech. Added to that, not to spoil it too much but Banks bottles out and a machina ex machina means he steps away from what at times would seem the inevitable outcome, not just once but again and again.

This could have been a brilliant book. There is a rich imagination at work in the book which fascinates you. The story and the twists are engaging. The trouble is, as happens too often, Banks rattles through it unfettered; perhaps uncontrolled, thus you are left scrabbling after him across rapids, uncertain of what he is actually showing you as you hurtle past it. As a result, you cannot really appreciate the details or the plot as much as you should be able to do.

Non-Fiction

'Europe of the Dictators' by Elizabeth Wiskemann

This book, published in 1966, was often recommended to me. I have carried around a very battered copy for about 35 years and finally got around to reading it. Yes, it is dated. Writing such a book today I do not think a historian would speak about regions of Europe as being 'backward' or note every politician she mentions who happens to be Jewish. However, as a general survey of European history 1919-45, it remains incredibly astute. A lot of writers could learn how in a book of 287 pages in my edition she manages to actually get in far more detail than many larger survey books of the period. 

Just minor examples, she outlines the three Austrian banks that collapsed in 1931, outlining the connections between them, whereas most accounts only speak of one. She does not forget to describe what happened to both Slovakia and Ruthenia when Bohemia-Moravia was occupied by the Germans in 1939 and so on. That might seem not major issues, but having read numerous books on this period down the years, I learnt elements of value from this one. She does look at Europe, seeking to include what was happening in countries that are typically neglected, such as down to Luxembourg, let alone the Baltic States, the Nordic states, and so as well as the Powers of the era.

The other strength of this book is the style. It is brisk, almost energetic, and yet never loses that clarity. Even complex situations are explained very crisply. This is one of those history books that you can almost read like a novel. Yet, it is not pure narrative; the analysis built on the foundations of those details is there. Thus, I certainly regret not having come to this book sooner and would say, that despite its age, it remains one of the best survey history books on the developments in Europe at this time that I have read.

Books I Listened To/Read In January

Fiction
'Lehrter Station' by David Downing
This is the fourth book in the 'Station' series and is set at the end of 1945 and early 1946. The heroes, John Russell and Effi Koenen are living in London with John's son, Effi's sister and nephew and an adopted Jewish girl. Russell is persuaded to return to Berlin to work as a double agent for the Soviets; Effi accompanies him as she is given a new role in a movie being made in the city. I have come to realise that action does not realise interest Downing. There are brief moments of excitement as Russell deals with his US and Soviet handlers and he and Effi uncover black market dealers in medicines. Russell follows a route getting Jews from Germany to Palestine but only as far as northern Italy and doing so uncovers an SS officer. He has to help snatch a scientist from the Soviets. However, the moments of action are largely that, moments and generally end after a couple of pages so Downing can return to his main focus of interest. Downing loves to simply show Berlin and other locations and to note in great detail the impact of the war on them. Many have made effective use post-war Germany/Austria as the setting for adventures, but this author prefers to have a historical travelogue. I do not know if that is what genuinely interests him or he simply cannot stop himself showing off all the research he has done. As a historian I find some of this interesting, however, if you are looking for a spy or adventure story set in this period read something by Philip Kerr or rewatch 'The Third Man' (1949).

'Seventy-Seven Clocks' by Christopher Fowler
Though this novel, the third in the Bryant & May series is set in 1973, Fowler fails really to communicate a sense of that period. Maybe he would argue that the upper class family portrayed would not behave in such a snobbish way now, but I feel you could put them into 2013 and they would act in exactly the same way. Fowler and his characters clearly love London and in the two preceding novels in this series we get lots of material of quirky details about the city; the mystery at the heart of this story involves and obscure guild and its buildings. When I started this series I had expected much more magic realism and actually when Fowler first wrote this particular novel it had a supernatural element that he later removed. Thus we get nothing more than quirky and given the oddities that many mainstream detectives have to deal with - they always get at least one story with a cult or an ancient mystery - Bryant & May do not stand out as much as I think Fowler would like them to.

I found this story moved more briskly than the previous two, perhaps because as a counterbalance to the grumblings of the two lead detectives. I found the perspective of the hangovers from colonialism which work better in 1973 than now, an interesting angle. Though at times the book has longueurs, I felt it was tighter than the two before it and I am hopeful that I will see an improvement overall as I got further through the series.

'Matter' by Iain M. Banks
This book ironically suffers from some of the same problems as 'Lehrter Station' even though it is set on alien planets and spaceships. I have enjoyed a couple of Banks's science fiction books, 'The Player of Games' (1988) and more recently, 'The Algebraist' (2004). However, this novel does not come close in quality to either of those. Perhaps it is because it is part of Banks's 'Culture' series of super-powerful utopian civilisation. The story features three siblings of a humanoid royal family that live on the eighth layer of an artificial hollow planet. The murder of their father by his chief minister sets the three eventually coming together to resolve the situation. It is a lengthy story (593 pages in my edition) with two of the characters travelling via numerous intelligent spaceships and worlds and getting mixed up with very diverse alien species. There are lots of interesting ideas here, but that is the problem, Banks seems determined to detail every single one of them. There are swathes of the book which are 'info dumps', emphasised by the fact that he has a long glossary of all the different names, even the types of spaceships, towards the end of the book. 'The Algebraist' communicated a complex, alien set-up well, without choking the action off with stopping to inform you how great Banks's imagination was. Another thing is that he baulks away from showing the death of leading characters, that all happens 'off stage'. There is also a jump from the climax to the happy ending of the story which makes it feel weak as we do not see how the apocalypse was averted. Banks had a wonderful imagination and created immense environments. However, with this novel, that overwhelms the story which as a result is diminished. I wanted the book to move on rather than hear more about how a particular spaceship configures with another.

Non-Fiction
'War Underground' by Alexander Barrie
This book covers an often neglected aspect of the First World War - the tunnels dug and the mines laid under trenches on the Western Front. It is very much from the British perspective, though Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders get a look in, the French and the far more efficient German efforts are only mentioned in passing. The story is one which will be familiar to anyone who has read British military history. The units, initially drawn from 'clay kickers' who excavated sewers, were cobbled together by the MP John Norton Griffiths, though largely in response to the work of the highly skilled German pioneer units digging under British trenches and then blowing them apart with explosives. There were mix-ups with pay and the chains of command.

The tunneller units were alternately sought by established units as defence against German tunnelling and dismissed as slackers taking good men away from the front. By the end of the way, combined they were the strength of a division though spread along the frontline in companies. The typical British chaos at war is shown, the low point being the delivery of three diving bells to the frontline.  This is a brisk book which manages to balance focus on the individuals involved and the dangers they faced - not just being buried alive or blown apart, but in the skirmishes with revolvers and hand grenades that took place when German tunnellers were encountered underground. There is also technical detail of the mines and the tunnels that housed them. It is an interesting story and one that is often forgotten. However, it does make you wonder again how Britain ever manages to win a war, given the tendency for snobbery and simply poor organisation, to get in the way. I would certainly be interested to read a book telling of this kind of warfare from the German side.

Audio Book - Fiction
'Death of a Charming Man' by M.C. Beaton [Marion Gibbons]; read by David Monteath
Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that in recent months I have not been posting reviews of audio books. That is because I have been struggling to get through this one. I had heard of Hamish Macbeth as a result of the television series which ran for three seasons, 1995-97, though I had never watched any. Starting in 1985, so far 34 novels have been written in this series and this is the 10th in the series, published in 1994. Details in the story make it feel as if it is set much earlier and I had imagined it dated from the 1960s or 1970s. I have been aware of the concept of 'cosy crime' novels, but this takes the cosiness far too far and in fact murder only features very late in the book.

This is more a soap opera about a police sergeant rambling around parts of the North-East Highlands doing very little; he moans about things, he gets a woman to challenge her abusive husband, he looks at houses to buy and verges on having a relationship with a woman who is not his fiancee. His fiancee, an Englishwoman who works in the family hotel has attitudes that would have looked dated in 1964, let alone 1994 and that gives the whole feeling of this being pretty unreal, Beaton (1936-2019) would have been better off making this a historical crime novel set in an earlier decade. There are lots of old fashioned characters who dully spark off each other, but for large stretches the story does not move forward and you are actually glad when Macbeth dumps his fiancee from another time. This would have been dull at 3 hours as many crime audio books, but at over 6 hours it was very hard to get through. I certainly will not be going anywhere near Hamish Macbeth books again. If I wanted this kind of story I would watch 'Coronation Street'. Monteath does pretty well with Scottish and non-Scottish accents especially as he has to do a wide range of sour women.

The Books I Listened To/Read In May

Fiction
'The Ultimate Threshold. A Collection of the Finest in Soviet Science Fiction' translated and edited by Mirra Ginsburg
I was interested when I ran across this book, published in 1970 by Penguin to think that it was a collection of science fiction from a country that no longer existed.  The stories were published, 1963-68 through the more liberal Nikita Khrushchev years and into the harder time of Leonid Brezhnev.  Having seen imagery online of Soviet intentions for developments in space, I wondered what they thought would be the future in fiction.    As Ginsburg outlines at the start, it is a surprise.  It is clear, as she says, that authors in this genre had far greater freedom in others and they use this to express views that ran counter to the proclaimed Soviet attitude.  There is as much individualism in these stories as you would have found from a US science fiction collection of the time. Indeed 'One Less' by Igor Rosokhovatsky about the impact of the death of one man chimes with some anti-abortion arguments used in the USA presently.

The best story is probably 'The Useless Planet' by Olga Larionova which features aliens exploring Ancient Greece and determining how useless the planet is.  One explorer, like them all, able to take on a variety of forms and remains behind in the form of a statue which can come to life, so inspiring various legends.  There are overtones in this of how a large bureaucracy may define things that are essentially human as 'useless'.  A little in this line is the eponymous story by Herman Maximov about a device which allows people to commit suicide and 'When You Return' by Igor Rosokhovatsky about a dead husband/father being replaced by an android version of him with his memories but far stronger; able to fly which reminded me a little of 'Robocop' (1987/2014) but far gentler. 'We Played Under Your Window' by the same author shows alien technology bringing a man back to life, effectively the kind of clone seen in the 'Dune' series and work by Walter Jon Williams, though bittersweetly they do it too late for him to be reunited with those he loved.

Some of the stories have a kind of tone of a fable or morality tale, such as 'Icarus and Daedalus' by Henrik Altov about two pilots racing through a star.  'Erem' by Cleb Anfilov can almost be seen as a critique of how the Soviet system used its people through showing a sentient robot willing to work to save its base but with no reward bar 'death'.  Another is 'The Horn of Plenty' by Vladimir Grigoriev about a device to convert rubbish into useful products, turned by the Soviet system to producing rubbish from useful items.  Another like this is 'Preliminary Research' by Ilya Varshavsky in which scientists are brought to work for a sinister organisation and their ideas are distorted to benefit criminal and terroristic activities; those who resist are disappeared.  'He Who Leaves No Trace' by Mikhail Yemtsev and Yeremy Parnov is a kind of 'magician's apprentice' story of a man whose clones get out of control.

One interesting thing is that many of the authors were actual scientists, so you seen some interesting predictions.  One I was struck by in 'Icarus and Daedalus' by Anatoly Dneprov is that when light does not function to indicate their way, they use monitors of gravitational waves to find their path, a force only recently confirmed as existing.  'Formula of Immortality' from 1963 reminded me of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (1968) in its focus on people constructed using DNA but with a very fixed life duration built in.

'When Questions Are Asked' by Anatoly Dneprov is really a cautionary tale about being cautious with contamination of testing as is light hearted.  It stands out from the others for that fact.  Overall, if I had not known the authors were Soviet I would have felt this was a typical science fiction book of that golden age of the late 1960s/early 1970s.  It is clear that the genre bucked so many trends in Soviet society and like the best science fiction in any society held a mirror to the context from which it arose as much as speculating on the future.  The stories are generally crisp and cover ideas equal to anything coming out of the USA at the time.  I do wonder what happened to these authors and whether they are still read in Russia today, let alone being more widely available in the West than this obscure sampler of them.

'The Siege of Krishnapur' by J.G. Farrell
As regular readers of this blog will know, I rarely do well with books that have been recommended to me and this is a case in point.  I had read how this book, which won the Booker Prize in 1973, which is about a fictional village under siege during the Indian Rebellion of 1857-58, was based on diaries, memoirs and letters to make it very accurate.  That seemed like a good basis for a novel.  However, it is very disappointing.  The characters that are featured do give a good impression of the people involved in running India when it was under the control of the East India Company rather than the British Government.  While some have an efficiency or even self-assumed altruistic approach, the profit motive is at the heart of it all; the senior officer during the siege is the Collector.  We read some details of the opium trade.  The E.I.C. grew opium in India to sell to the Chinese population, contrary to the wishes of their government, in order to earn Chinese silver and to buy tea, porcelain, silk and rhubarb, in high demand in Britain.

Too many of the characters are quirky and Farrell's writing means that we never sympathise with any of them even when they are facing starvation and disease.  It is quite incredible that we care so little for these people in such circumstances.  By the end of the book you are just glad it is all over.  I think that the petty obsessions of each of the major characters makes it all seem rather frivolous and undermines any genuine concern we have for them.  There is also a surprising lack of tension in the book, even during the battles.  I guess that arises from us caring so little for the people being written about.  I do not know whether it was Farrell's intention to make the British colonisers to appear so useless; so wrapped up with all their hobbyhorses, to be dim when it came to their circumstances and waste time on the unimportant.  Either it is an incredibly subtle but acute critique of British society or it is just the failing of him being able to conjure up any character we engage with.  As a result of these flaws, I simply found this book tedious and was simply glad when it was over.  I regret reading the recommendation for this book which I saw on 'The Guardian' website.  I should have gone with my caution over recommendations.  A little hypocritically, I hope that my review is of use, but in warning you away from this tiresome novel, which despite the supposed background research, comes across very much as an artifice.

'Run Man Run' by Chester Himes
This book was published in 1967.  Though there are references to culture, especially outlets in New York, that date it, you could easily produce a hard-hitting drama based on the novel set in 2018 and still be highly relevant.  This book is far better than the two previous novels by Himes that I have read: 'The Crazy Kill' (1959) and 'The Big Gold Dream' (1960).  You can really see the author's development in his writing.  This novel does not feature the two black detectives, 'Grave' Digger Jones and 'Coffin' Ed Johnson, but is still set in Harlem and surrounding districts and features New York police, though in this case primarily two white detectives.  What makes 'Run Man Run'  current is the focus the killing of two black luncheonette workers and the wounding of a third, all shot by a white police detective, a challenge that remains 51 years later in many parts of the USA.  Without lecturing the reader, Himes works through the assumptions about black men and how they are so easily portrayed as being associated with crime even when in this case all three victims are working men and one is also a student at Columbia University.  The strength of the word of a black and a white man, especially a police officer, is shown here just as we see on the news regularly nowadays.

I have criticised Himes in the previous two novels I read for leading his characters running around Harlem not achieving a great deal and in the end becoming tiresome.  In this novel, however, he really jacks up the tension much more effectively especially when the third man is being pursued by the detective wanting to silence him.  Himes jumps between different perspectives abruptly, which may be criticised but it helps ensure that we have no idea of the outcome and how will survive. We also do not know who will be believed or dismissed.  Even the hero's girlfriend is uncertain of him and many of his complaints are thrown out as being insane.  As before there is excellent detail about the time and the place; the appearance of Malcolm X and a rising black consciousness towards the end of the 1960s is integrated.  It adds to the assumptions made against black men, that they are not just criminals but terrorists too and so there are parallels to views of the Irish in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s and Muslims in the USA in the present day.  This is a brisk (191 pages in my edition) book which is both an effective thriller and also engages with many American issues which are as alive today as in 1967.

Non-Fiction
'The Russian Revolution' by Sheila Fitzpatrick
I read the 1994 edition of this book which, originally published in 1982, had been updated and expanded following the fall of the USSR three years earlier.  This book is excellent and I can easily understand why it remains in print, with a newly revised edition out in 2017.  My edition was only 199 pages long including references, but Fitzpatrick's analysis is far sharper than many lumbering books I have read on the incidents.  She begins by defining what she sees as the revolution and while focused on Russia rather than other states that broke from its empire, she sees the revolution as running from 1917 to 1937.  The book is particularly strong on the period between the February/March Revolution and the October/November Revolution, a period which tends to get overlooked.  Fitzpatrick certainly does well in countering any assumption of inevitability about the Bolshevik victory, even Lenin's leadership of it.  Other highlights are her analysis of the social impact of Stalin's industrialisation, revealing how the working class had so declined as a result of the Bolshevik seizure of power and the civil war that followed.  She is also good on the Cultural Revolution that Stalin's consolidation brought about and how it established the future leaders of the USSR while killing so many others.  This is a crisp, highly perceptive book that I recommend.

Fiction - Audio Books
'The Algebraist' by Iain M. Banks; read by Anton Lesser
In terms of science fiction books, I am rather averse to those covering epic chunks of space and the big questions.  I am more interested in 'local' developments and aliens beyond early encounters.  As such this book worked well for me as it features on gas giant at the end of human-occupied space and its moon inhabited by humans.  Artificial intelligence has been forbidden, but as the book progresses we find it lives on. The atmosphere of the gas giant is inhabited by large disc like creatures, the Dwellers, that are very advanced.  Our hero, Fassin Taak is a 'seer' a kind of researcher who investigates them and is sent to find out a code which may give access to concealed portals when the system is cut off from much of human space by the destruction of one constructed portal by rebels/pirates, the Beyonders.

This is a very rich book.  Banks does very well in conjuring up the nature of human society in this system and that of the Dwellers too.  What I like is that it is done not with awe, but with a workerlike approach.  This means we do not spend time gawping at what is being revealed, as is too often the expectation in science fiction stories, but instead we are drawn into the conspiracies that are going on both within Dweller and human society.  There are great descriptions such as an attack by the Beyonders during a 'yacht' race in the gas giant's atmosphere.  There are a range of engaging characters and it is a challenge to know who is really who and even the hero turns out to have different loyalties to what might be expected.  I would say that you do not feel real jeopardy, but the book is a real rollercoaster with a lot going on.  However, things are made clear, without info dumps as to what is happening.

Anton Lesser is excellent in voicing the wide range of characters whether human or alien.  He even pulls off a scene in which two characters are communicating by touch so they cannot be overheard.  Overall, this was an enjoyable book brought to life very well by an experienced reader.

'Munich' by Robert Harris; read by David Rintoul
It is interesting that the events of September 1938 at the Munich Conference, despite being seen as the summit of the policy of appeasement are now so poorly known that I saw one commentator to the 'The Guardian' review of this book assume it was an alternate history.  Harris published one very successful alternate history book 'Fatherland' in 1992.  Since then his output has largely been historical novels, yes, fictional but embedded in what really happened.  This book is no different.  Harris, it is revealed in the acknowledgements was fascinated by the Munich Conference following being the presenter of a documentary broadcast in 1988, 'God Bless You, Mr Chamberlain'.  Thus this book is filled with immense detail about what happened in the days around the conference.  He does involve some adventure with his two 'heroes', a German and a British diplomat trying to make Chamberlain aware of the Hossbach Memorandum produced in 1937 that showed Hitler's objective was clearly war despite his rhetoric about peace.  One the German side we see a little of the Oster plot against Hitler, again genuine.

If you do not enjoy details of background discussions then this will not be the book for you.  However, I feel Harris brings to life the men involved, well representing their different characters and opinions around what was happening.  It is far better at 'explaining' Munich from the British side than the Lammers book I read in February.  I do feel that Harris is far too much of an apologist for Chamberlain.  It shows how stubbornly he clung to foolish opinions even when his colleagues in the Cabinet put forward different views that would have been more beneficial to Britain's position and above all to the Czechs.  Harris does show how much contempt Chamberlain had for the Czechs, at best patronising them but generally working from the basis that Czechoslovakia was illegitimate anyway and so it was nothing to give territory from it to Germany.  Running through this is a sense of national superiority on the part of Chamberlain, which far from being as harsh as Hitler's certainly bent that way.  I wish Harris had shown Chamberlain to have been more of the misguided fool that he actually was.  However, he does signal his ill-health which was to kill him a little over two years later.

The success of this book is in how it provides genuine tension even when we know the outcome.  It also succeeds in bringing alive very dull people from the past and giving us some insight into their context, especially how it shaped their behaviour, though falling at the last through being far too sympathetic to Chamberlain.  It is only at the end of the book that you are made truly aware of the futility of everything that was done at Munich and around the conference.  David Rintoul is perfect for reading this book, being able to produce a great range of voices to represent the different politicians and officials on both sides.  If you are more sympathetic to Neville Chamberlain than I am you might enjoy this book thoroughly.  For me it was decent, rather than outstanding; frustrating and ultimately depressing.

'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen; read by Joanna David
I realised from the woman who lived in my house watching the DVDs of the BBC 1995 dramatisation of the story that I knew pretty much all of this story.  It is very light, but at least given some humour to make it seem less insubstantial.  There are some rather over-emphasised characters especially in Mr Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but they add some depth to the book.  I feel sorry for the people Austen portrays.  Yes, they are spared the poverty of many of the era, but have an insecurity of situation which especially for the women compels them to obsess over the game of finding a suitable partner to marry.  Aside from that their lives are very tedious, with some singing and piano playing; playing card games, visiting friends and relatives and the occasional ball, the only distractions.  The advantage of the book is that the omniscient narrator is able to show the inner thoughts of Mr Darcy which makes his shifting attitude towards Elizabeth Bennett seem to start earlier and be more logical than having to show this through facial expressions on the screen.  I would hardly say that I enjoyed the book, but it passed the time and it was good to have heard the original material and know how close the dramatisation that I know best, was to it.

Joanna David who appeared in that dramatisation as Mrs Gardiner is perfect for voicing this story.  She does the voices of the men as well as the range of the women and is especially good with Mrs. Bennett and Lady de Bourgh.

'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley; read by Richard Pasco
It is interesting how you gain an impression of a book from how it is represented in popular media rather than its actual pattern.  Of course, I knew this book was not the same as the horror movies of the 20th century.  However, I had not realised how much of a philosophical book it was and how many of the themes it explores have relevance now, perhaps more so even than in the intervening 200 years since it was published.  The approach is effectively nested monologues from an explorer of the Arctic relaying the monologue of Victor Frankenstein and in turn Frankenstein relaying what the creature says about his experiences and motives.  To some degree this approach excuses Victor in a way that I feel modern readers will not let him get away with. 

There is an early 19th century assumption that the deformed are inherently evil and should be dismissed anyway, in a way that would be intolerable nowadays.  Though, saying that, the last few years have again raised particular hostility towards the 'other' in terms of assumptions, for example, immigrants.  There also seems a return to the belief that certain behaviours are inherent in particular sorts of people, whereas Shelley shows effectively how mistreatment breeds mistreatment and can turn even the kindest spirit, malicious with repeated inflictions.

Victor Frankenstein does come across as a victim himself and I was not certain if Shelley intended this or expected the reader to see that he had brought about his own downfall and misery through his own reckless behaviour at the start and his unwillingness to recognise his responsibilities.  In that, even 200 years later, this book appears as a critique of the self-centred behaviour of young men, especially in terms of any children they may help conceive.

Richard Pasco's reading reminded me of William Roberts's reading of the Lovecraft stories that I listened to last month, though perhaps a little less bombastic, all for the better.  There are numerous dramatic scenes that he articulates well, without going over the top.  He communicates the earnestness of Shelley's writing and her articulation of assumed horror of the creature even before this is evidenced by his actions.  He draws out suitable voices for the different narrators and gives the book the appropriate period feel.  I would not say I enjoyed this book, but I was engaged with it and found it thought provoking and relevant to concerns today, despite its age.

'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens; read by Hugh Laurie
This was another book that I had misapprehensions about based primarily on images from the 1946 movie.  I had anticipated that it would be very gloomy in portrayal and depressing; something akin to 'Wuthering Heights' (1847), a book I was compelled to read at school some thirty years ago and have no wish to return to ever again.  Though there are what might be termed 'Gothic' elements, especially in the jilted bride, Miss Haversham and the decaying house she maintains; the bleak marshland in which she and the 'hero', Pip, live, it is a lighter book than I had anticipated.  There are some quirky characters, notably Joe Gargery the blacksmith, Mr. Wopsle a clerk who takes to the stage and especially John Wemmick, a solicitor's clerk with a wonderful fortress-like home.  I had anticipated that Pip would be utterly wrecked by his involvement with Miss Haversham and her plans to wreak revenge on men through her adopted daughter, Estella.  However, while not everything turns out jolly, it actually unfolds to not be such a tragedy and is more really a story of the various ups and downs of Pip's life from childhood into approaching middle age.  The interest stems from the particular nature of the different characters and the interlocking between them in ways which may have been less expected than these days when such coincidences have become over-used.

Hugh Laurie with his light tone, is appropriate for voicing a character who speaks in the first person throughout and is a boy for much of the book.  He pulls off a range of suitably Victorian voices, at times sounding like the late Jon Pertwee in some of his roles.  His tone also keeps the story from descending into that bleak Victorian gloom which so much of Dickens's work is at risk of sinking into and which puts off so many modern readers from even approaching it.  I would hardly say I thought this was a brilliant book, but I found listening to it far more pleasant than I had feared.

'Northanger Abbey' by Jane Austen; read by Jill Balcon
This is another novel that I had formed a misapprehension of.  I knew that it made fun of the taste in Gothic novels that was common at the start of the 19th century.  However, I thought that they made an impact on the book to a greater extent than is actually the case.  The Gothic tropes impinge just in two ways, first through the narrator talking about heroines and what they 'must' do and then when said heroine, Catherine Moreland goes to the eponymous abbey she assumes that the history of the Tilney family complies with the expectations of the novels, i.e. that the father mistreated the mother and kept her confined leading to her death.  However, at the heart the story is pretty much like 'Pride and Prejudice' (1813), i.e. a young middle-ranking woman trying to find a husband and various misunderstandings and upsets delaying the consummation with her target; in this book not helped by a father who is easily misled and another man, John Thorpe, who wants Catherine for himself.

The portrayal of the society around Bath and the various activities is interesting as is the reference to Gothic novels which were popular at the time.  In many ways the discussion of these between Catherine and Isabella Thorpe, makes the book sound contemporary, the girls (Catherine is 17 for most of the book) chatting about them seems very like social media behaviour of nowadays.  There is some light humour but I had hoped for a more dramatic novel even if it debunked the Gothic tropes.  Jill Balcon handles the voices, especially those of the girls, very well, though at times is a little quiet which can be a challenge for car-borne listeners.  If I had come to this book straight without having listened to 'Pride and Prejudice' so recently might have found it fresher.  However, ultimately it felt like more of the same.

'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens; read by Alex Jennings
Like a lot of people I probably know this story best from the musical movie, 'Oliver!' (1968) and as a consequence was unaware of how long the actual story is or how many characters outside the London gang of Fagin, Bill Sykes, Nancy and the Artful Dodger feature.  It begins as a gloomy book in the way that I had feared 'Great Expectations' (1861) would be.  However, it develops to be more like that book as it progresses with more hope for Oliver Twist; rich benefactors; a complex family rivalry and come-uppance for all the wicked people.  At least it does not revel in its misery as that horrendous book clearly inspired by this one, 'The Quincunx' (1989) does at such painful length and offers up at least some shreds of hope.  Dickens was clearly aiming to alert readers to the fate of workhouse orphans and the activities of criminal gangs in London.  There is detail of pick-pocketing and house-breaking; plus journeys through London.  There are a range of mean-spirited characters and at times Dickens shows the civic notables of Oliver's home town, in all their self-righteousness, to be more evil than the criminals in London.  The sense that the poor to blame for their own fate, gave dialogue that you could hear today applied to people on benefits.  Thus, it retains a relevance to today.  I had not expected it to be wrapped up as neatly as it was, but I guess that reflects the demands of the time when it was written.

Alex Jennings tends to fall to stereotypes when voicing Fagin and Bill Sykes, in the latter case unfortunately reminding me of the The Peppermint Nightmare from the television series of 'The Mighty Boosh' (2003-07).  However, he is otherwise very good at conjuring up a range of Victorian characters, especially the busybodies that direct Oliver's life with no compassion.

'Middlemarch' by George Eliot; read by Harriet Walter
As most people know, George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (1819–80).  You can sense a feminist perspective in this book.  In contrast to Jane Austen's (1775-1817) few of the marriages are a success and it is the wife who suffers from the husband's obsessions.  The only really happy one is when the widowed Dorothea goes off with the artist Will Ladislaw at the end of the book with heavily reduced wealth due to her husband disinheriting her of everything if she married him.  These were radical ideas when the book was published in 1871-72 especially when wrapped up in a book which seems on the service just to be a prolonged version of what Austen would have written.

This book is very highly rated.  However, to me, it was utterly tedious.  It is really a 19th century version of the television soap opera 'Emmerdale' (broadcast under two names since 1972).  We simply hear about various women deciding to marry unsuitable men; people borrowing or going short of money; old family scandals; fuss about the reputation of a doctor and various other people plus various philanthropic ventures such as a new hospital and improved housing for the peasants.  It dances around these characters all being very irritated with each other or ashamed of themselves and their behaviour.  Austen gets away with it for keeping everything quite short.  This book just goes on and on and feels far longer than the 6 hours 50 minutes it is read for in the edition I have.  The book is massively over-rated and quickly becomes tiresome, to such an extent it has driven me away from listening to any more of the 'classic' novels in audio book form from Penguin that I had lined up.

Harriet Walter is fine reading this, doing the female and male characters and trying to put some life and a little drama into what is an incredibly limp story.