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.