Books I Read/Listened To In September

 Fiction

'Resurrection Men' by Ian Rankin

This is the thirteenth book in the Rebus series and was prize winning. Unlike some of the recent preceding ones, this novel has energy. Rebus is sent back to a training college but is working undercover to find out about corrupt police officers. There is an air of uncertainty especially as the case the retrainees are given to work on is one Rebus knows and her does not know if he is as much under suspicion as the men they are working with. In parallel then overlapping, is the case handled by DS Siobhan Clarke. While not named on the covers in many of these stories she is as much a protagonist as Rebus himself. Rebus is still in his relationship with a curator, though a night-time encounter with her seems rather too convenient to be believable. There is quite a lot of tracking back and forth between the college and Edinburgh and Glasgow. Crime boss Big Ger Cafferty appears yet again though some of the focus is on one of his lieutenants. It gets a bit tiresome that he keeps on turning up. However, this novel is decent in terms of the doubts and self-reflection of Rebus and Clarke and how the different threads of the various stories come together.

'Fool's Errand' by Robin Hobb

This is the first of the Tawny Man Trilogy set in the same world as Hobb's Farseer Trilogy, the first book of which I read some while back: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2021/11/books-i-read-in-november.html Indeed its protagonist is the man who was known as Fitz in that series, but 15 years later when, having renamed himself Tom after all the dramatic adventures of the previous books, is now living a bucolic life with his adopted son and the wolf he is bound to. Hobb's world has two kinds of magic that are genetic inheritances but can be accentuated through training. The Wit allows someone to bind with an animal and communicate with them telepathically. If not handled properly the person can lose themselves in the animal's identity. At the time of this book, the Witted are being persecuted and horribly executed. The other is the Skill which is another form of telepathy allowing sight, i.e. being able to "farsee" and communicate over distances. Tom probably has both abilities. There are also hedge witches with the ability to make charms to achieve low-level magic which actually works.

The first third of the book seems to be going nowhere. We see Tom's quite life while he is visited by various people from his past who know more or less about his history. Most important is the Fool of the title, who had that role at court, but has now reinvented himself as Lord Golden (many nobles names are characteristics such as King Shrewd and Prince Dutiful). He is a kind of alien with unknown abilities but probably a recurring role as a prophet who needs a catalyst in the form of Tom. This section of the novel is effectively a huge recap of the entire Farseer Trilogy which might be a bit tiresome if you have read it, but does mean if you are new from Hobb's work you can get up to (leisurely) speed with her world. Then the rest of the book is a mission into the depths of the country to track down the heir apparent Prince Dutiful who is Witted and has been lured away by a hunting cat.

Hobb has real skill in her writing. Whereas there are some familiar tropes, she has a deftness in turning in ways you do not expect, especially in extracting her protagonists from danger in credible ways. The relationships between the main characters, including Nighteyes the wolf, are handled very well when they are faced with a range of unusual and mundane challenges. In addition to the adventuring with questing and battles, and various bits of magic, it is these relationships which really bare you on in the story. There are no absolutes and even the 'good' characters are grumpy and flawed. I know some readers do not like protagonists who make mistakes, but I feel it means that you can feel you are alongside the characters even though they are existing in a very different world to our own. In addition, despite the fantastical setting there are parallels to our world, notably in suspicion and hostility to those who are seen as 'other' and in turn the negative integration which can make the oppressed become almost fanatical in their defence.

I do not have any more books by Hobb at the present, but if you are looking for well-written fantasy which is credible but not as bleak as grimdark, I can recommend this series.

'Mr. Commitment' by Mike Gayle

This is the second novel by Gayle. I read his first, 'My Legendary Girlfriend' (1998) back in 2016: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-books-i-read-in-may.html Gayle was trumpeted as the male version of Helen Fielding in featuring in a reasonably light way novels looking at relationships in contemporary Britain (largely London). This one features Ben Duffy, known to his friends as 'Duffy' who is an unsuccessful stand-up comedian who aged 28 has been in a relationship with successful advertising executive, Mel for four years. They live at different ends of London and she asks him to move in with her and get married. Duffy spirals into lots of concerns about marriage, not really about commitment but about the trappings that come with marriage, such as consumerism and children. The novel is then a 'will they/won't they' back and forth with other options for both Duffy and Mel appearing. It is very much of the ilk of 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (1994), though with a lot less humour.

Some reviewers feel Gayle has portrayed the male characters as stereotypically useless men. I would disagree as in fact this is one of the challenges, most of the other men in the book, seem to be fully in control of their lives and doing pretty successfully. Many of these kinds of books have a sort of 'soft' social class portrayal of a kind of middle class and people around the fringes, actually doing better than would be the case given costs and low salaries in London. Duffy flat sharing is a reasonable portrayal. Marriage itself comes over as a middle class activity and it is tightly associated with dinner parties and especially in this book visits to Ikea. This seems to be an inescapable context. Even 'Starstruck' (2021-2023) strays into this territory though it is a lot funnier. I guess this was the focus back in the 1990s and is coming around again after different portrayals like 'The Royle Family' (1998-2012) 'Gavin and Stacey' (2007-2019), and 'Two Doors Down' (2013-2023). I know I am comparing a novel to TV series but it does show how few relationship novels I read.

This was not a bad book though what it features was hardly unexpected. It would have been good to have included more humour. Possibly the best thing is it might make young men - though they are unlikely to read it - actually think beyond their immediate needs to their longer term and see that relationships can be achieved without having to buy into the whole 'kit' of middle class consumerism.

'The Montmartre Investigation' by Claude Izner [Liliane Korb and Laurence Lefèvre]

This is the third book in the Victor Legris series. Legris is a book seller living in Paris in the late 19th Century who is also an amateur detective seeking to solve local crimes before the police do. The two authors, sisters who are both Parisian booksellers, are very knowledgeable about France in the period. The book is lovingly detailed in describing all the different districts, their buildings and the residents. Though set in 1891, the fringes of the French capital do open quickly into farmland and an urban goatherd is an important character. The case starts with the murder of a schoolgirl from a boarding school close to Legris's shop which he co-runs with his aged mentor and step-father, Kenji Mori and their assistant, Joseph, an aspiring crime novelist.

A number of people are murdered through the book and Legris and Joseph, often working alone, wheedle their way into various locations to get to the bottom of these and indeed to see if there is a connection between them and what it might be. The first killing might even be a case of mistaken identity and as a result Mori's goddaughter comes to stay at the bookshop. There is a lot of following people around the streets of Paris. There is also a lot of visiting the nightclubs, notably 'Le Moulin Rouge' and 'Le Chat Noir', where the protagonists happen to run into every famous Parisian artist, writer and composer of the time, which does feel rather artificial. Legris's lover is a painter, Tasha and it is nice to see an amateur detective who is not celibate, even if his relationship is complicated. 

There is a lot of interest in this novel. The details of the settings and the people are fascinating. The murder mystery is pretty clever and not that easily to predict, but avoids deus ex machina being needed to resolve it. The prime drawbacks are that there is a lot of tramping around and the tone seems off. This may be due to it being in translation from French. Despite a series of brutal murders, starting off with a stabbed girl, the tone is persistently light. This is fuelled by quirky customers at the bookshop, Legris having women throwing themselves at him, Joseph's mother' Legris on-off relationship and Tasha's disapproval of his investigating and so on. It may have greater gravity in the original French, but in English, despite points of interest it comes off uncomfortably jarring.

'Half A King' by Joe Abercrombie

This novel is set in a different world from, 'The Blade Itself' (2006) which I read last month: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/08/books-i-readlistened-to-in-august.html This one has a more Nordic flavour and focuses on states around the so-called Sundered Sea, a roughly circular sea with rather bleak moors, forests and fens around it and various cities on its shores. It focuses on Yarkvi, the second son of the King of Gettland who was born with a withered arm with only a thumb and one finger on his hand. With his father and elder brother dead, he is called back from training as a Minister - a celibate kind of combined herbalist, diplomat, advisor, order to be king. On a revenge mission to a neighbouring state his uncle attempts to kill him and takes the throne. Yarvi survives but ends up as a galley slave, then later escapes with others from the galley to make the arduous journey back to Gettland to recover his birthright.

Though Abercrombie aimed for this to be a young adult book; a little less 'grimdark', and it is a bit shorter than 'The Blade Itself' and much shorter than later books in that series, it is still pretty much a gritty read, with lots of death and suffering along the way. The book is not high fantasy and at times if someone told you it was set in genuine Nordic history you could almost believe it, including when a One God is put in place over the 409 gods worshipped before. With uncles and a widowed mother in a Nordic realm, there are heavy overtones of 'Hamlet' (1601). The portrayals of this bleak context are well done and the action moves along briskly. The portrayal of the characters is handled well and as Abercrombie notes in an interview at the end of the edition I have the focus on one point of view throughout and a small set of characters at any one time means the character development is rich. Some might foresee the twists at the end, but I found they were well handled.

If I see more books in the series I would certainly pick them up.

Non-Fiction

'What is History?' by E.H. Carr

This is a series of four lectures that Carr gave in 1961. Despite its age it has really stood the test of time (though it does refer to all historians as 'he' and talks about the USSR) in terms of its exploration of perspectives on history. It is a short book (159 pages in my edition) however covers a whole range of issues that still need to be thought about. Examples include whether anything in history is 'inevitable' and how historians are impacted by their attitudes of their own time when looking at attitudes of the past and whether we can ever be really objective. In some ways the book comes to a proto-Post Modernist approach which was to develop in the next thirty years, emphasising the looking at context rather than insisting that our perspective is somehow greater than others without checking this. He also points out how Western-centric so much of history is in the West and how this neglects histories that in the life of humanity have had huge impacts.

Despite its age, this book is very deft and putting questions that historians especially in the period of so much dubious 'history' appearing online, need to keep asking themselves and using to check their work. If you are interested in the study of history, I feel this book remains relevant especially in what it asks.

Audio Book

'The Collectors' by David Baldacci; read by Steven Pacey

This is the second book in Baldacci's Camel Club series. I listened to the third book back in 2020: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/03/books-i-listened-toread-in-march.html It is typical of many of the CD audio books that seem to turn up in charity shops. The 'Camel Club' is a collection of misfit middle-aged and elderly men with various backgrounds largely in intelligence or the military who get wrapped up in conspiracies and solving crimes, led by Oliver Stone a former CIA assassin who now lives and tends a cemetery. In this one the gang investigate the killing of a librarian at the Library of Congress where one of them works and the assassination of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. There is a parallel story about a con artist and her gang ripping off an Atlantic City gangster, which overlaps with the main story as she was the former wife of the librarian.

There is a lot of chasing around Washington DC but the solution of what is going on is reasonably well handled.  Some of the technology, especially used in the con, seems dated, even for 2006 when the book came out. Unlike 'Stone Cold' (2007) which I listened to back in 2020, the language is a bit less tough-guy throughout and it is more a gang of quirky sort-of amateurs solving what is going on which turns out to be spying and treason.

Pacey does well with a range of distinctive American voices and is not bad with the few female voices that appear. This is not the sort of book that I would have gone out and bought but it is fine enough for listening to while commuting.

Books I Read/Listened To In August

 Fiction

'Robin Hood Yard' by Mark Sanderson

This is the third book featuring Johnny Steadman an investigative journalist for the fictional 'Daily News' and Matt Turner, who in this book has become a Detective Constable in the City of London police. The book is set in 1938 and much of the action keeps to the City of London, which has its own police force, though with occasional jaunts into other parts of London under the Metropolitan Police. The story is mainly around a series of gruesome, almost 'locked room' murders and anti-Semitic attacks. The prospective Lord Mayor of London seems to be involved and there are other issues around Czechoslovak gold, the City of London being the home of the Bank of England and other financial businesses. 

There is reference back to the previous books in which Steadman and Turner were abducted and photographed in apparently homosexual stances for blackmail by a local criminal. This has ironically stirred some gay interest between the two men though both of them are also attracted to Turner's wife. This is a deft way of getting in some gay and bisexual characters at a time when homosexuality was a crime in Britain.

The book moves at a fast pace though at times feels rather jerky. There is rapid switching between different perspectives which can be a challenge to keep up with. It conjures up the time period and the details of the City of London well, though due to the latter it does feel claustrophobic at times, and rather convenient that so much of the action takes place inside the 'square mile'. The one who turns out ultimately to be the murderer feels a little as if thrust in at the end rather than naturally developing from among the suspects that the reader has seen up to then.

While a well-informed and interesting book, at times it does not come together as smoothly as you might like. This book was published in 2015 and there have been no sequels.

'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie

Abercrombie is often seen as the godfather of the grimdark genre of fantasy novels. This novel does start of with very gritty text. One of the main characters,  Sand dan Glokta, is a torturer for the Inquisition of the Union, a country in a fantasy world that we only learn about as the book progresses. There is Logen Ninefingers, a large mercenary-cum-bandit from the mountainous northern lands who gets separated from his band early in the book, though we also see their progress at various stages. Then there is Captain Jezal dan Luthar, a nobleman officer in the guard at the capital Adua aiming to win in a fencing championship. I must also mention Ardee West, one of the few female characters in the book, who Jezal falls for. The other woman character is an escaped slave, Ferro Maljinn aided, despite her resistance, by Yulwei the Fourth Mage. Ferro is really eaten up with revenge and is very violent. There is a great fight scene near the end involving her and Logen, which has a really cinematic feel to it.

This first book is effectively 'assembling the team' at the instigation of Magus Bayaz the First Mage who has been living remotely since the establishment of the Union decades before. It is an interesting twist that when he turns up in Adua with Logen, he is disbelieved rather than acclaimed as this great magic user. Magic does feature as Bayaz has both fire-wielding abilities and mentalist ones too. Logen can talk to spirits, though these are dying out. The trigger for the action is an invasion from the north by a leader who Logen previously worked for. Beyond that there are the Shankas, humanoids who are invading behind the northern army, rather reminiscent of the Game of Thrones

The grittiness of the novel, especially early on, does mark it out as grimdark. At times Abercrombie does dodge fantasy tropes. However, as the novel progresses, he rather falls into many of these. The relationship with Ardee seems inevitable, though she is a nicely feisty character. Though we see through the eyes of Ferro, she is all about antagonism. Bayaz's involvement with Jazal also reminds the reader of incidents from the Harry Potter series. This was Abercrombie's first book so maybe we should expect him to be coming out of the fantasy context with what he produced. Still, the book is sufficiently different to take and hold the interest, even if our adventurous band end up sailing off to distant lands at the end as if starting a 'Dungeons & Dragons' scenario. While I am not rushing out to buy the other books in the series, I would certainly pick them up if I saw them for sale.

'The City of Mist' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón'

If the charity shops are anything to go by, Ruiz Zafón is a popular author in my home town. His books, originally in Spanish, sold in the millions. He died in 2020 and seems to have garnered quite a following among English readers too. This is a short collection of short stories, some very short. Some he translated himself. Many feature the town of his birth and early life, Barcelona. In line with the magic realist approach which we often associate with Spanish-language authors, Ruiz Zafón manages to slip between gritty portrayals from across the 16th to 20th centuries. The term 'Gothic' is often appended to them and there are elements of literally fateful deals, of a labyrinth of forgotten books and of ghosts. These are mixed in with very human mysteries and despair. There is certainly a dark tone across the stories, even when this is moderate such as some kind of unknown lost chance for the architect Antoni Gaudí i Cornet or more bleak such as a young woman wasting away from illness.

At times you might be irritated by the brusqueness and as a reader almost feel dismissed by Ruiz Zafón going about his business. However, as is noted in the foreword, the stories tend to grow on you after you have read them. These days I see more books of short stories being published and yet you also encounter opposition almost hostility to them for lacking substance. Thus, how you engage with this book probably depends on how you engage with short stories as these are of the archetype. They work to engage you and unsettle you as the best (magic realist) short stories should, but give them time to achieve that.

Non-Fiction

'The Making of the English Working Class' by E.P. Thompson

First published in 1963, though I read the 1980 edition (955 pages), when I was a student this book was more renowned for existing than actually what it said, apart from the analysis of social class as being not something fixed, but a relational perception (re-)established with every interaction between people. However, while that aspect features at the beginning and I feel remains a valid approach, this book is much more than that. It covers the period roughly 1780-1830. Thompson does assume that the reader is familiar with the radical movements of the mid-17th Century and with the Reform Act of 1832 and the Chartist Movement of 1848. He refers to these quite often, but frustratingly does not really explore them.

I guess that this is Thompson's purpose. He is seeking to shine a light on the aspects of the development of working people, their experiences and their outlooks, that so easily get overlooked. We can see the late 1960s and the 1970s as being at the peak of 'everyday history' and this book certainly is part of that perspective. There is an immense amount of detail as Thompson looks not simply at the economic aspects of how England changed due to the Industrial Revolution, but also the inputs from religion and ideologies, especially coming out of the French Revolution. He draws attention to all the various movements and especially publications of the era which looked to develop or oppose the development of working people. At the outset while there were labourers a lot of working people were artisans. This time period saw the end of many crafts and their replacement by the water- and then steam-powered factory. 

As Thompson shows well the picture was far from being a uniform transition and he picks out clearly how the impacts varied across England. The focus is on England, because as he notes, the impacts, especially of religion, on Scotland, Wales and Ireland did provide a very different context which would deserve books of their own. Saying that when people from those nations came into the English scene he does not neglect them. By taking a nuanced view of what was happening even within England, this allows Thompson to do deep analysis and his digging into the very varied experiences of Luddism show the value of this.

There is a lot going on in this book and all the names, publications and locations can be overwhelming at times. However, Thompson does also write with gusto and while analysing also sweeps the reader along with all the different incidents and voices that the book encompasses. It might look like a hefty tome, but as well as being informative I found myself moving briskly through it carried along by Thompson's energy. Despite its age, I do recommend it as a book that will alert you to things of which you might never have heard but also to show how effective historical analysis does not mean a book has to be a dull read.

'The German Empire, 1871-1918' by Hans-Ulrich Wehler

I have been very fortunate this month to have selected two excellent history books to read. I was struck a few years ago when speaking to a German living in the UK, at the time of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, that they thought historians had 'got over' what they saw as an inappropriate 'blaming' of Germany for the start of that conflict. I noted at the time that even books written by British historians seemed to have defaulted back to the 1930s explanation that 'everyone' had been to blame for the outbreak. This runs against the perception informed by the work of Fritz Fischer from 1961 onwards which showed how German policy had, if not created the context for war, pushed events towards it in a more active way than had been perceived. That line was the one which informed my university studies of German history, and indeed my teaching of it, but now in the period after the 1980s rows between German historians, to have faded away leaving the blame-everyone perspective to hold the field by default. In this situation, I feel it makes this book even more important now than perhaps when it was published in German in 1973.

Wehler is far from being an ardent Fischerite. Towards the end of the book he emphasises that we must take care to distinguish the aspirations of radical groups in German society, especially in terms of annexations, from the actual policies of politicians and even the military. Wehler is good on making clear that the context which is established sets parameters on what might and can be achieved. While he is seen as a proponent the Sonderweg (special way) interpretation of German history, in fact I would again argue he is not a zealot. In this book he shows how policies developing out of the agrarian revolution which came to Prussia in the 1850s and 1860s became a founding perspective for the German Empire created in 1871. 

Particularly promoted by the capable Imperial Chancellor, 1871-90, Otto von Bismarck these became ingrained in German politics and society. The policies of Bismarck and his successors was to ensure that the attitudes favouring the elites, notably large landowners, but latterly big business too, kept up the primacy of these attitudes to the political and economic detriment of the large parts of German society. It was not only legislation and subsidies, but also the promotion of conservative civil servants especially in the legal profession, the linked lionisation of the state and the use of patriotism and aspirations to the elite that brought the middle classes to support the favoured policies of the elites. The successful wars of 1864-70 and the militarism promoted by policies, education and propaganda, did not guarantee the empire would go to war, but constantly made it seem a feasible step to take to resolve internal social pressures.

Wehler not only looks at these parameters and calmly demonstrates the difficulties that they made for Germany, but also shows convincingly how much danger they stacked up for the future. Given a legal profession and a military that had been filled with men of a particular outlook in an unchallengeable poisition, combined with the use of xenophobia and anti-Semitism as polices to connect people to the state, the reader comes away quite surprised that the Weimar Republic ever got off the ground. The advent of the Nazis was clearly well established as early as 1918 by what had gone before.

Wehler makes a very convincing case based on perceptive analysis. He does not overplay his hand and cautions the reader not to jump to easy assumptions, bringing out the nuances in what was said and done. Despite being 50 years old, I feel this book remains a very valuable analysis of Imperial Germany and indeed feeding into analysis of later periods in the country's history. It seems very apt especially now when issues around the political parameters that elites can establish and maintain speaks to what is happening both in democracies and dictatorships around the world.

Audio Books

I moved house in August so now have a longer commute to work. That means the revival of me listening to audio books as I have a good stash remaining from the mid-2010s when I commute so much.

'Agatha Christie. Three Radio Mysteries. Volume Four' by Agatha Christie; Radio Plays

Keeping with the policy I adopted previously, if the audio book is based on a book, I still review it, even if it is acted out as a play rather than read. This is a rather strange BBC collection from 2003, featuring a range of well-known actors including the late Richard Griffiths, Dervla Kirwin, Adrian Dunbar and the disgraced Chris Langham, who was imprisoned two years after these recordings were made. Though original short stories published by Christie in 1933-34, for the dramatizations they have been updated. Thus in 'The £199 Adventure' it is for a masking substance for performance-enhancing drugs that the character is sent to Milan to retrieve. The £200 he possesses would have been quite a lot back in 1933, at least equivalent to £15,000 today, if not two or three times that, nowadays even in 2003 the amount seems paltry. This first story is rather frantic and almost comical, with lots of charging around and shooting.

The second story, 'The Gypsy' is much more Gothic in tone and is well handled, bringing in questions about premonitions and reincarnation. The use of moorland and the sense of claustrophobia when one is trying to escape from what seems to be fated is well portrayed by the actors. The final drama is 'The Last Séance' which again is successful in terms of hitting the Gothic tone well, though the updating does raise some issues. Dervla Kirwan and Adrian Dunbar are an Irish husband and wife who work for an English noblewoman, as housekeeper and butler, which shows up the origins. The woman who comes to them for a séance, however, is an Afghan refugee, injured by an airstrike and wanting to contact her daughter injured in the attack who died as a result. However, the acting is convincing and it has a chilling edge, especially as Kirwan's character, able to contact the dead, is pregnant.

Overall, a rather strange package of plays, but generally handled reasonably well, if rather over-dramatically at times. Like good short stories, especially the latter two, make you think about them afterwards.

The Books I Read In July

 Fiction

'The Falls' by Ian Rankin

This is the 12th Rebus novel and as I have noted before, the stories by this stage of reading are less like murder mysteries and more like slipping into the next instalment of an ongoing story. Given that much is police procedural it is rather like watching an episode of 'The Bill' (broadcast 1983-2010). The daughter of a wealthy family living outside Edinburgh has disappeared. She seems to have been involved in an online puzzle game which sent her seeking clues around the city as well as further afield. This is quite a common trope these days, but much fresher when this book was published in 2001. Her disappearance may also be connected to the appearance of wooden dolls in coffins, which have been associated with other disappearances/murders over the previous thirty years. Rebus weaves in and out of the main search, though contrary to what Rankin says in the introductory essay DC Siobhan Clarke actually appears quite a bit and collaborating with him as well as other colleagues in trying to solve the issue of the puzzle. Being able to connect to the internet on the go using laptops was a novelty then so it is something Rankin explores.

As usual, Rebus is a bit of a mess (though he does get a half-decent relationship in this one) and gets in trouble for his approach. He goes to interesting places in both Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside and as usual runs up against privileged people obstructing the investigation. There is uncertainty about the perpetrator and that provides some mystery as we see the various suspects. However, as is the case with these later books, it rather goes on too long and so loses the energy that a shorter novel would have had. It is comfortable rather than challenging to be reading a Rebus book of this vintage, as I say, rather like sitting down to watch a random episode of 'The Bill'.

'Book of Days' by Gene Wolfe

This is a very odd bundle of 18 short stories by Wolfe. I knew 'How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion' which is a reasonable counter-factual story in a world where Hitler has become leader of Germany but there has been no Second World War and Churchill is a journalist. Some others are just odd notably 'St. Brandon' written in a faux-Irish folktale style and seeming unfinished. 'Car Sinister' about mating cars is just weird, but the sort of thing you might expect. 'Forlesen' seems to be about some tedious afterlife and is pretty tedious. 'Paul's Treehouse' and 'Three Million Square Miles' seem to be observing something about US society but I did not get the message if they were. 'How the Whip Came Back' is more effectively disturbing combining a dystopian view of a restoration of slavery with a sexual perversion. 'The Changeling' is more simply an unsettling story. Wolfe clearly expected computer dating to be far more effective than has proven to be the case and while you can see some examples of his prescience, only on occasion within a few of the stories does anything really jump out as striking.

'Lustrum' by Robert Harris

This is the sequel to 'Imperium' (2006) which I read in 2020: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/06/books-i-read-in-june.html  It continues the story of Marcus Cicero (106-43 BCE) during his period as Consul and then in the subsequent years when with the rise of Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) his position and indeed his life comes under increasing threat. It is seen from the perspective of his slave secretary, Tiro (perhaps 103-4 BCE). 

What Harris continues to do as in the previous book, is take actual events and portray them in a very gripping way. He manages very well to communicate the complexities of various political, legal and religious procedures of the Roman Republic. Having it seem by Tiro means we get little pen portraits of the different individuals involved but also a range of details about the houses, the artworks, the clothing of people of the time. Tiro is not an unreliable narrator but he is opinionated which adds a richness to the story.

Harris is also successful in making us feel real jeopardy for the individuals involved and both the impossible positions Cicero was put into and the price he made for his errors. In addition, you do see techniques being employed that are familiar from politics of the 21st Century too. While I have not read every book Harris has written of those I have, six in total now, together 'Imperium' and 'Lustrum' are the best and I found them really engaging. I do recommend them even if they would not normally appeal to you.

The Books I Read In June

 Fiction

'English Passengers' by Matthew Kneale

Writers are sometimes advised against writing multiple points of view in a story, but Kneale ignores this entirely, jumping between a whole host of perspectives, some in different times to the main flow of the action. At least he labels them, but it does make the book feel fragmented and longer than it actually is. The basis of the story is that in the 1850s a group of disparate men launch an expedition to Tasmania which they believe might have been the actual location of Eden. They hire a smuggler's ship to take them there. We see through the eyes of the captain, the various members of the expedition who generally hate each other, an Aborigine whose almost entire life we see in contrast to the other characters and various officials and their wives, based in Tasmania.

In many ways the book is very good at conjuring up the nature of lives in the time period and the perspectives people had, especially in the burgeoning colony. It shows the misery of the Aborigines slaughtered, dying of disease and relocated; even mistreated in death. It also shows the misery of prisoners held on Tasmania. None of the characters is really one you feel affinity with or even sympathy for. They are all hard and/or foolish people that are free with their hatred. As such it is a real task to get through this book and it is the first one I have struggled to finish in a very long time. While I admire the work Kneale has put into the research and the creation of the characters, this is not an enjoyable read at all.

'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah

This was the first of (so far) four continuation novels featuring Agatha Christie's character, private detective Hercule Poirot. It also introduces a new character, Inspector Edward Catchpool, rather than reusing some of Poirot's other companions. Hannah has experience in writing murder mysteries of her own. However, this book comes over as almost being too self-conscious that it is a Poirot novel. I guess Hannah (or perhaps the publishers) felt compelled to appeal to the audience of Poirot novels and probably especially the TV series. The early phases of the book are almost overly 'cosy' in the way that the Poirot books now tend to be represented rather than how they were viewed when first published.

Another factor is that Hannah seems to have forgotten how short many (most) Agatha Christie novels were, coming in around 65,000 words, much shorter than the 90,000+ words which is common for novels these days. The extra length certainly is apparent in the closing stages of the book when Poirot has assembled all the suspects and those involved, to explain what has been happening. This is far more common in TV productions than in the original book. Hannah puts in so many twists that this section of the book becomes very laboured and lacks the crispness of Christie's original.

The setting is fine as are the details of society in the 1910s and 1920s. Action goes between the Bloxham Hotel in London and a rural village, which while indulging in some stereotypes, does have interesting characters and especially motives. These help provide twists but a lot of the impact is lost in the overly complex timing and carrying out of the various killings. Overall, it is not a bad book, but there is a tension between continuing Christie's work and producing a book which is pitched more at what the expectations of a 21st Century audience are expected to be.

'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch

Given that this was the first in what is now a sequence of nine novels and nine separate graphic novels, I am surprised that I have not come across more of these before. It is a kind of mix between 'The Sorceror's Apprentice', 'Torchwood', the Bryant & May novels and Neverwhere'. It features police constable Peter Grant who works in London and finds he can see ghosts and is recruited to a special paranormal unit of the Metropolitan Police headed by a wizard. There is an interesting mix between the now common magic-alongside-everyday-society and the details of London that Aaronovitch includes. Grant mixing with the embodiments of the River Thames and its tributaries, is a really interesting aspect. There is a good range of characters and the mix between the fantastical and down-to-Earth relations and police work is well handled. It moves at a good pace and has interesting twists too. Me knowing many of the locations mentioned added something, but you do not need to be familiar with them to follow the story. Certainly if I see any others in the series at local charity shops, I will pick them up. Maybe they do not appeal to people here, now I live so far from London.

'Turbulence' by David Szalay

This is a short (136 pages in my edition) novel, that is a series of linked short stories, or indeed, vignettes, connected by flights. The thread is effectively the 'baton' is passed from the current lead character to someone they meet on their journey. It loops around the world, from London back to London and the first character we see, in a series of hops from airport to airport and into their hinterland. Szalay does show skill in quickly bringing out the different, diverse characters and a range of settings on different continents, showing us something, usually (mildly) startling, from their lives before moving on to the next. However, even more than with a short story collection, we do not really have time to get to know the characters. It was a brisk book that I read in a day, but felt that it was more like an exercise for a writing class than anything more substantial.

Non-Fiction

'Industry and Empire' by E.J. Hobsbawm

Covering the period of British history from 1750 to 1964, this book is about the Industrial Revolution. It is far better than Hobsbawm's Age of series that I have been reading in recent months: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html I do not know if it was because this book formed part of The Pelican Economic History of Britain series and so Hobsbawm was kept under more editorial control. It certainly benefited his writing. While he does look out for nascent workers' movements and still believes that economic concerns were the sole motivator of imperialism, he keeps a much tighter focus on his topics. 

The book is very adept at distinguishing the differences, for example in the nature of industries, their different workers and capitalisation and their locations in a way which is often absent from broad sweeping statements some general histories rely on. Hobsbawm is careful to show that the 19th Century was not a continued story of British success and the 'workshop of the world' era was actually short lived. Throughout there are illuminating gems of analysis which despite the age of the book (published 1969) are refreshing and you are surprised seem to have been forgotten by subsequent historians, perhaps thrown out with anything else deemed Marxist in tone. Hobsbawm's perspective is not determinist whether in a Whig or Marxist way, but he is alert to the social impacts in a way that perhaps purely economic historians can otherwise be neglectful.

Hobsbawm published the book while the post-war boom was still going on. However, at the end of the book he does show real prescience in expecting the 1970s and beyond to see greater economic difficulties for Britain due to long-term waves in the economy. As we know from the Age of books despite the misery of the 1980s, he did cling to an optimism that it would not endure in the way it has in so much of Britain. Ironically, the approaches to the economy and society that he highlights in the early 19th Century have come back to become the 'norm' for business behaviour in the 21st Century. Things that Hobsbawn portrays as having been passed, unfortunately now seem common place, especially in the precariousness of employment and the poor quality of life for many workers in Britain.

Despite its age, I do recommend this as an insightful study of the British Industrial Revolution and feel it is a stronger book than some of Hobsbawm's others.

'Bismarck and German Unification' by David Hargreaves

This book is in the Documents and Debates series. It makes use of a range of translated sources at the time to draw attention to facets of the events it outlines. I had expected it to be like 'The Thirty Years War (1987) that I read last month: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-books-i-read-in-may.html However, the actual narration and analysis of history is much less than in that book. Its purpose is really to be read alongside other history books of the period to prepare students to answer questions of what those cover. As a result, while I am familiar with many of the details of the period and the developments, I learnt little new from this book. It did raise points of interest but expects the reader to go to other sources for explanation of these. Thus, while it contains interesting content, notably on the shifting views of Bismarck and the differences between his private and publicly-stated views, plus on the paths down which Austria and the southern German states might have gone, it is a rather frustrating book to read on its own. I have two other books in this series focused on British political and social history, but do not see much to gain from reading them, as I have other books which tell me more, e.g. Hobsbawm's book reviewed above.

While with elements of interest, the nature of my reading does not fit this kind of book which is much more a tool for students at a very particular stage of their studies to use for revision and practice in analysis of documents.

The Books I Read In May

 Fiction

'The Nonborn King' by Julian May

As this was a 2013 re-release I had not realised it was the third book in The Saga of Exiles tetralogy. I had also not realised that like Robin, in the USA, Julian is a woman's name, so had assumed, being British, that the author was a man. I had often come the first book in the series, 'The Many-Colored Land' (1981) but was not tempted to read it at the time. I am glad I did not. This book is almost a stereotype of overblown 1980s fantasy, that I had assumed, due to the portrayal of women, was written by a middle-aged man; May was 52 when it was published in 1983.

It is not really fantasy as it starts as science fiction, with the development of psionic abilities and Earth joining an inter-galactic confederation of species with psionic abilities. However, through a wormhole various people are sent into exile in the Pliocene era 5.3-2.6 million years ago, probably at the start of that era as in this volume we see the Mediterranean basin being reflooded. Travelling back in time, humans from the future meet two branches of the same species of humanoid aliens, the Tanu and the Firvulag that they alternatively combine with or fight

This book is filled with lots of factional battles over 'France', Spain', south-western Germany and parts of the Western Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboard of North America. The reflooding of the Mediterranean is caused by a powerful psionic woman. A powerful human psionic ridiculously called Aiken Drum (as in the song) sets himself up as ruler of 'Brittany' and the book is a rather laboured coming to war of various factions. The psionics like magic and the principalities make it feel like fantasy, though occasional high-tech vehicles and weapons turn up periodically.

Despite being republished in 2013, this book as racist epithets and a generally negative view of women, even down to the myth of the vagina dentata. If I had not known better I would have assumed the book was written by a socially isolated man living in the Mid West living out his pubescent fantasies of time travel and superpowers to secure him women as partners even against their will. I can understand why these books were successful but there was a lot better fantasy around even back in the 1980s, let alone now.

'The Songlines' by Bruce Chatwin

I do not really know if this counts as fiction. Chatwin was a travel writer and it is hard to know if the incidents (there is no plot) that he describes were fictional or real. I guess it counts as 'semi-autobiographical'. Anyway, the book is about an author travelling around central Australia finding out about how Aborigines map the country through songs that allow them to pass on the history and geography of places they move through, the different creatures they identify with, the boundaries between different tribes but also as a shared way of communicating across dialects and languages of the people of the sub-continent. That in itself is interesting. However, the portrayal of the author travelling to various locations to discuss this approach with various people is incredibly seedy. You feel that everything he encounters is worn out and on the verge of collapse, many of the people completely lost in the world, prey to alcoholism or simply the break-down of human impact on such a harsh environment. In the last quarter of the book, Chatwin even gives up on this for a while and simply lists short snippets from various sources trying to portray humans as naturally nomadic rather than settled.

Overall, a very dissatisfying book. I would have preferred to read his analysis of the song lines referring to the people he met and spoke to about them, rather than levering it all in what proves to be a dreary, depressing 'story'.

'Set in Darkness' by Ian Rankin

This is the eleventh book in the Rebus series and I realise I have read so many now, that I no longer look for any of them to be better or worse than the one before, they just are. It is like we periodically drop into John Rebus's life to see how he is getting along. These are increasingly more 'slice of life' novels that happen to be about an unhealthy dysfunctional police officer going about his business in Edinburgh. These sense of the drive of the mystery in these books has entirely faded for me. Three disparate threads and the uncovering of murders involving property developers from the 1970s as a result of the building of the Scottish Parliament (the book was published in 2000), is deftly handled rather than thrilling. There are tropes such as the long-established gangsters and the wealthy family with secrets, so at times, if it were not for the interaction between Rebus and his colleagues, whether friends or opponents, it would feel rather like an episode of a soap opera like 'Dallas'. It is reasonably well woven together and the descriptions of various parts of Edinburgh remain interesting. I still have four more in the series to read of 13 more Rebus novels published since then - there are various short story collections/novellas too. I am content to work through the ones I have but despite copies turning up regularly in charity shops (I now live in Scotland), I am not rushing out to collect them.

'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman

As it explains in an interview in the back of the edition I had, while this superficially seems to be a children's book, featuring a man remembering the fantastical situations that developed when he was living in rural Sussex as a boy. I suppose it counts as magic realism. As noted in the interview some of the horrors have are from an adult perspective which is why I probably found this story far more unsettling than say the Harry Potter stories, even though the protagonist is a 7-year old boy. He falls in with the grandmother, mother and daughter of  a neighbouring house who are a kind of immortal guardians trying to stop misguided rather than evil creatures coming through to cause harm on Earth. It moves along at a pace and for all the fantasy, has a kind of realistic edge. It is set in the late 1960s and I was 7 in 1974, so I can envisage much of 'ordinary' setting and especially the attitudes of adults that are portrayed. It moves along briskly and like all of Gaiman's work is well crafted. I did feel some parallels with 'Good Omens' that Gaiman wrote with Terry Pratchett published in 1990 and 'A Wrinkle in Time' (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle and unsurprisingly it has proven as popular as those two. It has a similar appeal, encompassing the fantastical but rooted in some kind of reality.

Non-Fiction

'The Thirty Years War' by Peter Limm

This is a slim volume which draws on translations of documents of the time to illustrate the points Limm is making. He is no better than anyone else at disentangling the to and fro fighting that raged over western and central Europe in the mid-17th Century. The strength lies in the analysis which follows. There is crisp insight into the impacts of the war, showing how, contrary to many portrayals of it as a real divide in history, it saw many continuities. The war did cause economic harm, but this was actually part of longer trends as were the military developments which it highlighted rather than provoked. Overall this is a perceptive book which certainly, I felt, increased my knowledge of the politics, economy and society of the countries impacted and challenged simplistic assumptions very often seen.

The Books I Read In April

 Fiction

'A Long Night in Paris' by Dov Alfon

This is a contemporary thriller which is split between Israel and Paris. Given the range of perspectives of the various people involved included various members of the Israeli intelligence agencies, French police and assorted Chinese agents it is very choppy. Alfon seems particularly interested in the rivalries between different Israeli agencies, but in contrast to trying to track down the murderers of an Israeli IT specialist and then a former Israeli agent in Paris, lots of details of people posturing in meetings becomes tedious. In addition, the tension is further slackened by how long the processes go on. The killing of the IT specialist is proven to be a case of mistaken identity, but this takes time. There is a lot of posturing between the Israelis and the French too, which is not really engaging. Thus the book falls between two stools. It lacks the intrigue of a murder mystery and yet also lacks the pace of a contemporary political thriller, say something by James Patterson. 

Overall there are some good elements and the explanation for the defection of the agent ends up being feasible. However, too much is jammed in to the book leading to longueurs. In addition the internal inter-agency rivalry is not engaging and is too full of insufferable people. This is a weakness we see in thrillers, e.g. the Bourne novels. People who are interested in/have been involved with such agencies seem to think the average reader will find them fascinating. These days, though, most are familiar with how they work so these scenes just resemble meetings the average office worker attends. A shorter, much tauter book could have brought out the highlights without weighing them down with uninteresting extras.

'Murder in the Museum' by Simon Brett

This is the fourth book in the Fethering series of 'cosy crime' novels by Brett which have now reached 21 books. I read the first back in 2016: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-books-i-read-in-october.html Maybe my age and my relocation within the UK has made me more tolerant of the setting. The novel features two middle-aged women, Carole a former civil servant and her next door neighbour, Jude who is a new age health practitioner. A lot has happened in the two books I have not read. However, as amateurs they still get themselves mixed up in murders. In this case through Carole being a trustee of a local house where (fictional) author and poet Esmond Chadleigh lived and there is discussion about how to raise funds to develop a museum. A skeleton found in a walled garden and later the shooting of a former trustee link past and current deaths.

It is well realised. Brett is excellent at capturing a slice of Home Counties England and the people within it. At times he shades into stereotype, but occasionally surprises the reader. He seems better at showing the novel is genuinely set in the 2000s than was the case with the previous one I read. In addition, Jude's support of an old lover who is gravely ill leavens the cosiness effectively and makes what otherwise could be seen as too whimsical. It is a fine line to walk, but it is done reasonably well here. The conjuring up of fictional poetry and an imagined author's career is done credibly. While I would not rush out to buy more of this series, I enjoyed this one more than 'The Body on the Beach' (2000) when I read it seven years ago. However, I acknowledge that that may be due to changes in my own life rather than in Brett's books.

Non-Fiction

'Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991' by Eric Hobsbawm

While Hobsbawm comments himself on the challenges of producing a history book on times through which you have lived, (his life was 1917-2012) he does at times fall victim to that, seeing the groundwork to subsequent developments that he cannot help but identify even if it falls outside the scope of the particular book. Hobsbawm was a Marxist and while he does not laud the Soviet system and in fact identifies flaws in it from the outset that were to ultimately lead to its downfall, he does see the political situation of the 1980s ('the Landslide') with the move to New Right attitudes as a grave catastrophe in a way that probably many historians of the time would see differently. Until the end he does tend to play down the climate change challenges, but that is probably because he was more alert to the more immediate environmental harm caused by pollution. Ironically he ends on an optimistic note, which in fact in the period following has proven to be false and looking at the present news one can see behaviours and conflicts that are so reminiscent of the 1910s, 1930s and 1970s.

Hobsbawm brings a general perspective of realism, though perhaps over-estimates the room for manoeuvre for politicians in the democracies in the inter-war era. He is good on their fear of a repeat of the Great War, but tends to under-estimate how much the fear of the spread of Communism shaped so much of their responses especially to the rise of the Fascist regimes. Though he is better on the reason why the short-lived alliance between the West and the USSR could not be sustained.

Often taking an economic perspective, his writing on the Depression and then the 'Golden Age' of economic prosperity in the West, about 1948-73 is well handled and also why it unravelled. Though he picks up on the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution, these are more seen through the lens of the West and there is an absence of seeing things from those countries' perspectives which was a refreshing approach in earlier books in the series. His writing on cultural changes is less well focused and he seems despairing of post-1945 art as lacking the dynamism of the earlier decades.

Overall, there are gems to be picked from this book as there was with the others in the series. I remember reading that the right-wing historian Andrew Roberts picked out Hobsbawm's series as the most over-rated one. I would not go as far as to condemn it in the way he does. I think Hobsbawm had a perspective which is often sorely lacking nowadays especially in era or general history books that is well worth recapturing. The prime challenge is that he seems to have struggled to disengage from those aspects which not simply interested him, but which to him seemed essential. When he touches on those things it distorts his writing and he is a better analyst when less attached to a topic. Consequently, this book like the preceding three are useful for reference. As a sum of the parts, the quality is lesser than individual chapters and analyses and as a result, viewpoints which stand out today and retain real value are liable to lost amongst the mass.

The Books I Read In March

 Fiction

'The Amulet of Samarkand' by Jonathan Stroud

This is a children's book that is often likened to the Harry Potter series. Stroud actually makes a passing jibe at apprentice wizards being sent to boarding schools to learn their craft. Though there is a sense of a world of magic, it intrudes more into the actual world than in the Potter novels. The British parliament is entirely run by wizards who provide ministers. There is that kind of mid-20th Century undefined time period, though used in many British novels, not just fantasy ones; at times it seems to have hangovers from the Victorian era, echoed by the fact that Britain is the centre of an empire run on magic and fighting on continental Europe with its arch-rival centred on Prague.

Magic in this world is centred on the use of demons/spirits of various strengths, thus what wizards can predominantly do is summon such creatures and put them to work. This culturally appropriates Middle Eastern spirits including djinn and afrits, with no explanation how Europeans came to be using them.The hero of the story, Nathaniel, apprenticed to the ineffectual Arthur Underwood at the age of five manages to secure a djinni, Bartimaeus, a middle-ranked creature in effect to exact revenge on those who have been cruel to him throughout his childhood. However, this then draws him into a conspiracy to trigger a coup d''état. The treatment of Nathaniel is very reminiscent of Victorian novels too but by the end it turns into a magic adventure story in a contemporary setting with which we are familiar.

While you can draw parallels to the Potter books, Stroud works hard to distinguish them. Nathaniel for much of the book is driven by revenge. Unlike Harry Potter he is also very isolated, his parents having sold him into apprenticeship and others he relies on briefly being killed. The main strength though is the fact that the alternate chapters are told by Bartimaeus a rather world worn and cynical creature who is ancient and has his own antagonisms going back many centuries; he is able to shape shift too. It is interesting the trilogy is named after him rather than Nathaniel.

While more juvenile than I had expected, the novel is engaging and I enjoyed it. If I see the following two books in the series I would buy them.

'The Friends of Harry Perkins' by Chris Mullin

Like a lot of people of my generation I was very influenced by the dramatisation of Mullin's book 'A Very British Coup' (novel 1982; TV series 1988 available still to watch on All4: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/a-very-british-coup). Harry Perkins was the left-wing Labour politician elected Prime Minister in that previous novel, before being forced from office by the Americans. This book is set in the 2010s following the Brexit vote. Mullin in the introduction outlines the challenges of trying to have this novel feature characters from the first, some 35 years before. He has to make some of them have very long lives. I feel it would have been much better for him to set one or more books sometime in those three decades or to bring in a new cast, even if they were children of the previous characters.

The novel is effectively a 'what if?' history. Perkins remained in parliament and it has gone through many years of Conservative rule, leading to the referendum and Brexit withdrawal but under different politicians to those we know in our world. Labour at the start of the novel is led by a woman. Fred Thompson who was a minor character in the previous book rises to be Labour leader, though to the left of Sir Keir Starmer and manages to win an election in the late 2010s. Overall the book feels very rushed with so much to cover - including Thompson's private life - in a short book.

The climax is telegraphed well in advance. It feels rather like a book which Mullin has to work out various irritations. Thompson and his coterie still mourning Perkins meet in an Austrian restaurant very akin to 'The Gay Hussar' where Michael Foot and his gang used to dine regularly. Mullin is clearly distressed by the killing of Jo Cox and felt that he had to look at that danger for politicians too. Thus, there is a real mish-mash of elements which are straitjacketed into the framework he had created for 'A Very British Coup' while failing to have the genuine jeopardy of that context.

There was a lot which could have been done better in this book. It would have been interesting for him to explore the challenges of a left-wing leader in the current age, even if he avoided comparisons with Corbyn. It would have also been interesting to look at why Labour has never actually had a female leader, whereas the Conservatives have had three who have become prime ministers. The personal violence against MPs would have been another area to explore. However, Mullin seems to have felt shackled to his earlier successful book and in this one as a result has a context in which he cannot really handle all the various elements successfully or, as he effectively admits in the foreword, feasibly.

'Dead Souls' by Ian Rankin

This is the 10th Inspector John Rebus novel and it is strange that only getting this far through the series, I am feeling that as an author Rankin is reaching the standard that he was strangely acclaimed for almost right from the outset. 

This is a very messy novel, with Rebus back on alcohol; his daughter temporarily confined to a wheelchair after the accident in the previous novel, and in an on/off relationship with his lover Patience. There are a number of components which it takes a long time to see are related, but in many ways this makes it feel rather more like an account of genuine detective work. Rebus is angered when he finds a convicted paedophile who has served his time in prison has been housed in the area and effectively sets out to take revenge by 'outing' him. While he begins to regret this decision later, he is too late. There are also the suicide of a colleague and the disappearance of the son of old friends, one of whom Rebus dated when a young man in Fife and he finds he remains attracted to, while also has questions about his own path triggered. There is also a murderer repatriated from the USA to Edinburgh who is allowed to get away with playing with both the police and a journalist; a very slimy character who seems largely untouchable even when he beats up Rebus and later a retired detective too. Added to that there is case against two child abusers at a children's home and who the third man was with them on a particular occasion.

The book has quite a toing and froing, but Rankin manages not to lose the reader. There are long sections of self-reflection but again he just manages to keep these from getting repetitive or tedious. While most of the questions are resolved, there is no big conclusion and that adds to the sense of realism. Rebus even more than before comes over as a world-weary detective running up a string of horrific incidents, injustice and the unsolvable. This novel might frustrate readers looking for a clear tying off of elements, but I feel it is one of the better ones in the Rebus series.

'Talon' by Julie Kagawa

A lot of fantasy, especially that written by women gets 'dumped' into the YA category no matter its focus or the characters. This novel, is very clearly both fantasy and YA. It is one of numerous books in recent years featuring dragons living in contemporary society who are able to shift to being humans. The last one of these I read was 'Chasing Embers' (2016) by James Bennett (not the one by Rachel Skatvold): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2021/03/books-i-read-in-march.html and this is a now well-established sub-genre.  

Kagawa includes the urban fantasy/dystopian tropes of sinister authoritarian organisations - Talon which rules over dragons putting them into a rigid caste system when they mature but eliminates 'weaklings' and renegades and the Order of St. George a human organisation of highly trained soldiers whose mission is to kill all dragons they encounter. Kagawa gets in a lot of YA tropes - teenaged sister and brother sent to spend the summer on the beach in California, surfing, star-crossed first loves, at the mall, at the funfair, two handsome dudes for the heroine to be torn between, one a mysterious biker.

Ember and her twin brother Dante - rather giveaway names for dragons! - are sent to Crescent Beach for their last phase of training before allocation in the Talon caste system. They have to prove that they can blend in with humans and naturally make friends. The focus is primarily on Ember who falls for another visitor to the town, a 17-year old called Garret, unaware that from orphaned child he has been trained as an excellent soldier for the Order and has been sent to Crescent Beach to hunt down new 'sleeper' dragons. You can probably tell how this unfolds in a very Montagues and Capulets way. Biker Riley, also attracts Ember's attention as he is a 'rogue' dragon, Cobalt, who has broken away from the authoritarian rule of Talon and is hunted by both them and the Order.

I read this book expecting it rather to go through the motions. We see first person through the eyes of Ember and Garrett and later Riley too. However, Kagawa's writing has to be commended that even with so many tropes, she rises above them to provide a genuinely gripping, fast paced story which appears to have genuine jeopardy while also grappling with the challenges that 'ordinary' US teenagers face as they approach adulthood. In addition, there are unexpected twists and I felt she ably dodged some of the possible expected outcomes. While I would not rush out and buy the next book, if I came across I would buy it. Kagawa certainly makes a strong argument for people not looking down on fantasy, even those books, which aim clearly to appeal to a YA audience.

Non-Fiction

'Nazism 1919-1945. Volume 4: The German Home Front in World War II' ed. by Jeremy Noakes

This fourth volume came out in 1998 so while the document numbering continues on from the previous three volumes (the page numbering does not) it is a bit apart from those volumes published 1983-88 (themselves drawing on 1970s volumes organised differently). They all got new covers in the 2000s. In addition, while Geoffrey Pridham is still alive today, this fourth volume was edited only by Jeremy Noakes.

This book might seem to have a rather narrow focus but in fact is a really useful supplement especially to Volumes 2 and 3. For example, Volume 4 looks at the concentration camps whereas Volume 3 focused on the extermination camps. Volume 4 picks up from the pre-war analysis of Nazi Germany's economy and society seen in Volume 2 and so on. Thus, while coming late, it really rounded out the series. There are chapters in Volume 4 which cover aspects often neglected by general surveys of the Nazi regime, notably welfare, attitudes to youth and women and indeed to sex. Things such as the NSV welfare body; the evacuation of children from bombed cities and morale, all are handled well and provide a useful counter-balance to portrayals of these aspects of the British wartime experience which have been covered more extensively.

One point is that while there are lots of useful documents and sources referenced in Volume 4, they tend to be included in full, which can lead to extensive (small print) sections that you sometimes feel are not adding and that the smaller extracts pointing to the kernel of the issue to be discussed, used in the earlier volumes were often more effective.

Another point which I meant to raise when reviewing Volume 3 back in January:  http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-book-i-read-in-january.html was how scarily current the rhetoric which appears throughout these books seems to a reader in the early 2020s. I know it is easy to label alt right politicians and commentators as 'Fascists' or 'Nazis' but reading through the texts translated into English, you keep hearing echoes of what you might hear if you turn on the television these days. 

The whole attitude from Hitler, Goebbels, et al, that they were at the same time, supremely powerful and assured of victory yet always insisting that they were the real victims; that others were responsible for the conflicts, is so often used nowadays and it is very unsettling when a turn of phrase you read meshes precisely with what you can hear or read quoted from contemporary politicians. I guess the BBC TV series, 'The Nazis: A Warning from History'  (1997; my emphasis) had it spot-on in that title. It is not a question of bandying about terms like Nazi, it is much more about seeing these unsettling parallels and knowing to what they can lead. As I used to remind students, every single step towards the use of Auschwitz was bad; right from the ending of German democracy and removal of civil rights from Jews.

This has been an excellent series of books and while there is a lot to cover, if you really want an insight to the Nazi regime, because of the use of many hundreds of original sources, I would heartily recommend these books.