A PLACE IN THE HILLS - Book review

The novel A Place in the Hills is Michelle Paver’s second book, published in 2001.Though 523 pages, it’s a quick read. It’s a time-slip novel paralleling lives in Rome in 53 BC and in France in the 1980s.

It begins in 53BC in Rome during the festivities of the Day of Blood: ‘The air was thick with the smell of balsam and trampled roses, and the salty, metallic undertow of blood’ (p12). Among the crowds are a Roman officer, Gaius Cassius Vitalis, who is also renowned as a poet. His eye has caught the attractive figure of a young woman, Tacita, daughter of Publius Tacitus Silanus, one of the oldest clans in Rome. There is a mutual attraction, though a relationship is quite impossible due to their different stations in society. ‘One long look and I was brought down. She entered my blood.’

Then we briefly shift to 1972 in the French Pyrenees where Toni, eight-year-old daughter of archaeologist Charles Hunt is being bloody awkward, unlike her sister Caroline. Charles is determined to locate clues to back up his theory that the poet-soldier Cassius lived here, at the so-called Source. A book quotes Cassius writing ‘I know a place in the hills where the gods walk the earth’ (p334). In a lucid moment Toni realises that the only way she can win her father’s devotion is by becoming an archaeologist herself.

Next, we move to 1988 and meet a poor American, Patrick McMullan, who is joining his rich university friend Myles Cantellow. Myles is with Antonia Hunt, working on an archaeological site with her father, Charles. Also on the site is eight-year-old Modge (short for Imogen) and Antonia’s half-sister Nerissa.

Myles is not a likeable character. He ‘belonged to the fast set, which took hard drugs, was far too cool to do any work...’ (p51).

Against her father’s wishes, Antonia wanted to prove that Lycaris – the woman Cassius referred to in his love poems – ‘was not some dry poetic construct, but a living woman whom he had loved with all his heart’ (p365).

The dig is claustrophobic, passions are in conflict, there’s a love triangle, a misguided Modge who has a crush on Patrick, an intransigent father, and a tragedy that changes everything, and all seems lost for almost fourteen years.

The parallels between the past and the book’s present are mainly quite subtle – whether that’s a love-bite on Cassius’s neck, a piece of broken pottery in Tacita’s hand, or the convoluted relationships of the characters.

Perhaps there was too much gratuitous swearing. Despite that, the characters’ emotions and the (admittedly all-too brief) slices of ancient Rome are well realised. The writing style is good and Paver’s descriptions put you in many a scene.

And there’s a satisfying end.

 

GREEK FIRE - Book review

 

Winston Graham’s Greek Fire was published in1957 and was one of several of his early suspense novels re-issued in the 1970s in response to his success with the Poldark series (my copy is dated 1974).

American Gene Vanbrugh is a post-war publisher visiting Athens, Greece. He has a history of fighting with the partisans during the war. ‘You have sad eyes, M. Vanbrugh – as if they have sen many things they would like to forget. But I think you are a man of honour’ (p58).

In the cellar night club The Little Jockey he is watching several people at their tables, including Anya Stonaris who is accompanied by the politician Manos. Anya is the mistress of politician Georg Lascou. There is an election due soon. Politics is dangerous, and there is the post-war grievances and pressure from Communist outfits.

The cabaret is Spanish: ‘Here was some inner truth from Spain stated in terms of the dance, an allegorical picture of the relationship of the sexes, spiritual more than physical but partly both, a statement of a racial anomaly which had existed for two thousand years’ (p11).

One of Vanbrugh’s contacts is a woman he knew during the war, Mme Lindos: ‘There are certain architectures of forehead and nose and cheek-bone which defy the erosions of age. She had them’ (p20). She will prove useful to Gene as things go awry.

One of the Spanish troupe is the victim of a hit-and-run. The police consider it is an accident but the man’s wife Maria thinks differently and enlists Gene’s help. These Spanish performers seem to be linked in some manner with Lascou.

Gene is not a fan of Lascou. ‘I’ve seen Communism at work. I’ve seen the cold mass slaughter, the children dying, the brutality to women, the absolute ruthless callousness in gaining one set objective. Above all, I’ve seen the lies – so that no words have any meaning any more. Nothing that’s worth living for has any meaning any more…  That’s what I want. Just to stop you.’ (p119).

Strange, how times haven’t changed – the lies and double-speak are still with us, though not merely spouted by avowed communists.

There’s quite a lot of Greek politics of the period, not particularly pertinent now, but that does not detract from a page-turning suspense novel with strong characterisation, a hint of romance and a haunting manhunt:

‘A hunted man is like a man at the centre of a cyclone; there are periods of calm when it’s impossible for him to assess the strength of the storm around him’ (p190).

Recommended.

THE LITTLE WALLS - Book review

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Winston Graham had a number of suspense novels published. The Little Walls was published in 1955; my copy is the fourth impression, 1972. (Those were the days when you could see how often a book was reprinted!)

It’s written in the first person and I found it comparable to Hammond Innes in style and tone, though perhaps less technical. Philip Turner’s older brother Grevil’s body was discovered in a canal in Amsterdam. Suspected suicide. Philip can’t believe it and sets out to determine that it was murder. Apparently, on Grevil’s body was a letter from a woman called Leonie, breaking off their relationship. Philip still did not believe his brother would take his own life. Grevil had been on an archaeological dig with a mysterious adventurer called Buckingham.

Philip takes leave from his business in America and enlists the help of Martin Coxon, someone who knew Buckingham some years ago.

Grevil’s death occurred in the insalubrious district of De Walletjes – which translates as ‘the Little Walls’. ‘At one place, in a cellar decorated with modern murals which would have left Freud practically nothing  to interpret…’ (p50).

Dutch Inspector Tholen fears Grevil was involved in some shady dealings and ran foul of local villains. Philip’s investigations take him to Naples and Capri, where he links up with a group of rich individuals with intriguing back-stories and a liking of cocktail parties, which normally were anathema to Philip: ‘The buzz of voices, introductions forgotten as soon as made, remarks which meant nothing drowned by others which meant less…’ (p129).  

Reading the story, one could almost believe it had happened – always the sign of a good narrator. The descriptions of the scenery and characters are well done, and there is a burgeoning romance, a betrayal, a fight to the death, and a twist towards the end.

The cover is one of several that feature a character’s facial close-up, all of which are eye-catching. (Though in this case the female protagonist is fair-haired in the book!). These other covers of books I still have to read are: Greek Fire (1957), The Tumbled House (1959), and After the Act (1965).

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING - Book review

 Delia Owens’ debut novel has sold millions of copies worldwide and has thousands of reviews on Amazon, so there would seem little point to my adding to the comments. And yet, that’s what I do – review books I’ve read. My main reason is to remind myself of the story. I’ve been making lists of books read since the 1960s (with a break of a few years – 1967-1981) but I must admit that now I cannot recall the storylines of many titles; I only started writing reviews in the 1982 – when I received books from publishers to review for the British Science Fiction Association and also my own small press sci-fi/fantasy magazine Auguries. 

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. ‘Crawdad’ is slang for crayfish; they don’t sing as such but make a sound termed a ‘pulse train’ similar perhaps to Morse Code (my Google search tells me). But what’s the meaning of the book title? ‘Go as far as you can – way out yonder… far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.’ (p111)

Part mystery, part coming-of-age, the book begins with a prologue in 1969 when a body is found in the marsh of the North Carolina coast: ‘the marsh and sea separated the village from the rest of the world, the only connection being the single-lane highway that limped into town on cracked cement and potholes’ (p16). ‘Mostly, the village seemed tired of arguing with the elements, and simply sagged.’ (p17). Then we jump back in time to 1952 for chapter one: ‘The morning burned so August-hot, the marsh’s moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog.’ (p5) That first line tells you we’ve got something original here. Lyrical, eloquent and steeped in feeling.Yes, there are aspects that require the reader to suspend disbelief; but this is fiction, after all, and if you’re immersed in the story, you benefit.

The young girl Kya has been abandoned by her mother (domestic abuse; don’t tell the ‘trigger-warning dons!) and lives in a marsh shack with her unreliable father and older brother, Jodie. She does not go to school but learns about nature at first-hand. Oh, she tried school for a day, but nobody took kindly to the ‘marsh girl’: ‘Kya sat down fast in her seat at the back of the room, trying to disappear like a bark beetle blending into the furrowed trunk of an oak.’ (p29)

After Jodie left, Kya went out in the boat with her Pa when the man was lucid. Her Pa introduced her to Jumpin’, an old black man who ran the marine gas station on the wharf. We’re not told she is shy; instead, we get: ‘Kya searched her bare toes but found no words.’ (p64) 

By 1960 she’d grown some, budding into a beguiling beauty. ‘Loneliness had become a natural appendage to Kya, like an arm. Now it grew roots inside her and pressed against her chest.’ (p100)

Her loneliness is assuaged by two boys who become men, but her interactions with most people are minimal. After her father goes away, she has learned to live alone and cope with a little help from Jumpin’ and his good wife.

Looming over her fascinating life story are the flashes forward to 1969 and the mysterious death that might be a murder. And the locals suspect that Kya is responsible for the death. 

It would be unfair to reveal more, save to say that the pages demand to be turned.

The many descriptive passages evoke the place and the person of Kya. The reader can almost feel being there. Besides being a murder mystery, it’s also a love story. Uplifting, poignant, and ultimately surprising. This book deserves its fame.

Book review - Joseph Barnaby

Sue Roebuck’s 2018 novel Joseph Barnaby is an engaging romance set on Madeira. It begins with a prologue flashback to March 2016 when Joe Barnaby is offered a lucrative job as a farrier to a successful trainer, Bobby Shaw. The chapter ends with a friendly warning by an acquaintance for Joe to ‘watch his back’… 

The story then shifts to August 2017 and we meet Sofia who lives with her aunt and uncle on a small island off Madeira itself. She’s twenty-six, sure-footed like a goat on vertiginous cliff faces, tends a number of bee hives, is beautiful, and is deaf. She communicates with her family by sign, though she can speak; her affliction was as a result of contracting meningitis when she was eight.

Working on the island as labourer and general helper is Joe, who has escaped from England for some reason still to be revealed…

For several months Joe had worked in a bar in the Madeiran town, quickly learning Portuguese. He proved popular with the regulars and made the acquaintance of a distinctive lady called Lua: ‘Her hair had always looked like unruly red serpents as if she used the same hairdresser as Medusa’ (p110). And then Joe was hired by Sofia’s uncle.

The scene is set. Gradually, and enchantingly, the pair get to know each other – the reticent Joe and the strong-willed Sofia. A fly in the ointment is Dário, who wants Sofia as his sweetheart. But he doesn’t like to hear her speak, and would rather she stuck to gestures, though he never bothered to learn sign-language. Sofia wasn’t comfortable with using basic gestures ‘because it amused onlookers and made her feel like an amateur Marcel Marceau.’ (p14)

Dário is deluded, however, even as he wondered why Sofia would be reluctant when he was such a good catch. ‘They were made for each other, soul-mates, kindred spirits. She’d soon realise her mistake, he was sure.’ (p106)

There are light-hearted moments and humour as well as mystery and suspense. When Joe is being driven by a local doctor with a car-load of deaf passengers, he foolishly asks a question. Whereupon the doctor takes his hands off the steering wheel to sign to his passengers! ‘Joe decided that if he valued his life on this twisty road, then he wouldn’t ask any more questions.’ (p186)

It’s also a book about relationships – not just the Joe-Sofia pairing. The Joe and Lua scenes are at turns mysterious and amusing. The fondness of Sofia’s aunt and uncle for Joe is exhibited subtly, with a light touch.

The accomplished storytelling of Sue Roebuck is bolstered by her strong affinity for Madeira and its people which shines through in descriptive passages that put you in the scene. And as a result I definitely cared about the characters.

Highly recommended.

Book review - Romance

Ed McBain’s 1995 novel of the 87^th Precinct, Romance, is up to his usual high standard, a bravura mixture of police procedural, social commentary, slick characterisation and humour.

It begins with Detective Bert Kling attempting to fix a date with Sharyn, a black Deputy Chief Surgeon. He’s concerned about the difference in their rank, not the difference in their colour; she’s merely wondering about the colour issue. They agree to meet. It’s a phone call, and we’re in omniscient point-of-view mode so we get the emotions of both characters; it works well. So, a budding romance...

Next, we’re in an interview between a detective and a concerned redheaded actress who has been receiving threatening phone calls. Soon, we realise that these two characters are acting in a play called Romance. It isn’t a very good play; subsequently, the actress in the play is stabbed. McBain has fun depicting the ‘arty types’ on both sides of the script, with plenty of back-stabbing.

‘Carella wondered if the smile was an actress’s trick. Or even an actress’s tic. He realised all at once that with an actress, you could never tell when she was acting You could look into her eyes from now till doomsday and the eyes would relay only what she was performing, the eyes could look limpid and soulful and honest, but the eyes could be acting, the eyes could be lying. (p188) Of course the same could be said of an actor; but Carella is busy interviewing an actress…

Actress Michelle Cassidy isn’t happy with the play or its author. She turns up at the 87^th Precinct to inform Kling she’s been receiving threatening phone calls, just like in the play. Later, she is stabbed, though not fatally… Great publicity when the play is mentioned on the front page of the newspapers and in TV newscasts; then a murder happens and it’s a publicist’s dream though a nightmare for the detectives of the 87^th.

Many of  regular the 87^th Precinct gang figure in here, too: Carella, his wife Teddy, Ollie Weeks (‘the bigot of the universe’), Meyer, Lieutenant Byrnes, and Monroe and Monaghan (the homicide duo)…

Strange, how times change. ‘Nobody was quite ready to take offense back then…’ (p171) This was about something as ‘innocuous’ as calling women ‘girls’. I wonder what Carella would make of the offense brigade today on anti-social media? And as hinted at earlier, there’s evidence of racial tension as well as anti-Semitism. Maybe times don’t change that much, after all…

Great observation throughout, to be expected. ‘The dog immediately began barking at Kling, the way all little dogs do in an attempt to convince people they’re really fierce German shepherds or Great Danes in disguise.’ (p223)

It’s good to meet these characters again after a lengthy absence. Not everything is what it seems; there’s a twist on the obvious twist. The story neatly ends with Kling and Sharyn no longer on the phone but in a romantic - and sensual - situation.

Even Hunter (Ed McBain) died in 2005, aged 78.

FFB - Nanjing 1937

Nanjing 1937 by Ye Zhaoyan was published in 1996; this edition 2003; translated from Chinese by Michael Berry.

Ding Wenyu, almost forty, is married and a womaniser; he’s a college professor proficient in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Romanian; his ‘legendary’ language abilities come in useful from time to time. When in his late teens he was banished to France as a result of a misguided pursuit of a young woman. In Paris he crossed paths with Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov and Jorge Luis Borges, among others. Indeed, the book is deliberately scattered with name-dropping, notably the hierarchy of China at the time (there’s a helpful glossary of historical figures). Wenyu does not appear to be a likeable fellow, though he is amusing and his conceit in disavowing the mores of his times evokes sympathy.

Whether a fault of the translator, the editor (if any) or the author, the text is peppered with far too many clichés: ‘hold a candle’, ‘between a rock and a hard place’, ‘a piece of cake’, ‘the short end of the stick’ to list a few. As the book contains irony as well as humour, perhaps this is intentional. Besides humour, there are a few scenes of farce, too.

Wenyu’s life is changed when he beholds the younger sister of the girl he’d pursued twenty years earlier: At her wedding to a popular fighter pilot, Yuyuan captures Wenyu’s heart. He is smitten with ‘a kind of adoration of the utmost purity’. Unlike his encounters with married women and prostitutes, he does not lust after her. [Yuyuan is also an exotic garden in the Old City of Shanghai.]

‘In this world there are many mistakes committed due to a lack of love, but love has the power to purify. It can make someone forget themselves and all their inhibitions. Before he met Yuyuan, Ding was a pathetic orphan, lost in a desert without an oasis in sight… Orphans to love are stranded at an eternal impasse; to pursue a woman without love will never quell the loneliness in one’s heart. Love is humankind’s starting point and its final resting place.’

So, he becomes obsessed with Yuyuan. He writes love letters (not lewd or salacious, just full of praise) to her every day. Perhaps nowadays he would be arrested for stalking. ‘True love is based on giving and not taking. Only a love based on giving is true love.’ In the final event, he follows that dictum, giving of himself.

In parallel – deliberately – the author juxtaposes Wenyu’s pursuit of his love against the threat of Japanese invasion – both seeming leisurely in pace, though that same pace quickens towards the end. There are some interesting snippets about the military situation, for example: ‘According to intelligence reports at the time, the Japanese military’s primary future target was not China but Russia. Moreover, if the Japanese navy wanted to conquer the Pacific, a direct conflict with America would be inevitable….’

This is, just, a love story; the blurb calls it ‘epic’ but it isn’t. Its emotional punch is weakened by the omniscient point of view, so as a result the ending was disappointing.

Some critics have mentioned ‘explicit’ scenes and ‘raunchy sex scenes’; these are minor, and most of the sex (there isn’t much) is handled without graphic detail. There is one curious item regarding women without pubic hair being called ‘white tigers’; the legend has it that white tigers can harm men, so apparently many superstitious Chinese men will not bed a ‘white tiger’. Another minor though dubious incident involves an acquaintance of Wenyu indulging in necrophilia.

The book is enlightening about the culture and attitudes of the time in China. What comes across most forcefully is the universality of the human condition, irrespective of culture. In 1937 Nanjing there was a cult of personality; the rich and notable craved to be seen at events; divorce was considered a scandal but accepted; and young girls attempted to marry older rich men.

Hanging over the leisurely and sometimes farcical courting by Wenyu is the oppressive knowledge that Japanese forces would prevail and Nanjing would fall. The Chinese saying is perfectly apt: ‘If good fortune awaits there is no reason to hide – if disaster awaits there will be no place to hide.’

FFB - The Secret

The Secret was originally accepted for publication by Libros International late 2009 and I was allocated as the editor. Sadly, the publisher closed down and the book didn’t get published. The author Jan Warburton persevered and the book finally saw print in 2011.

Fran is the cousin of James. She’s had a crush on him for years. But he’s been besotted with Fran’s friend, Ellie – until they broke up and he went gallivanting off abroad. But now James was back – and Fran felt the old attraction.

Unfortunately, the spectre of Ellie persisted. All James wanted to know about involved Ellie and her mysterious reasons for shunning him.

This relationship drama is complicated by a gruesome murder and circumstances that conspire against them. What is the secret, though? Is it the sexy elderly man who shares a villa with Fran on the Costa Blanca? Or is it something in James’ past? Or has it something to do with Ellie’s sudden disappearance? Is it the murderer? The pages have to be turned – right to the end – to find out

James, Fran and Ellie are the proverbial eternal triangle, tossed about in the storms of the modern world, where nothing seems simple and where hearts can be broken and not easily mended.

Fran is a believable heroine, vulnerable yet determined, while James is a man who really doesn’t know what he wants until he loses it. Fragile Ellie seems to become a wraith, a ghost of a friend to Fran, as the past catches up with all of them.

This will keep the reader guessing until the final distressing pages.

***

The Secret was Jan’s first published novel, but she also ghosted an autobiography for black American soul singer/songwriter, Tommy Hunt; ONLY HUMAN, published by Bank House Books in Dec. 2009, which has consistently sold.

 

Originally trained in fashion design, Jan first worked for the House of Worth in Mayfair, London in 1958. She then moved on to wholesale fashion. Marriage to an army officer took her to Germany for three years. Later, back in civilian life, they moved to Singapore: ‘another amazing experience’, she says, as all this proved valuable ‘grist’ to her writing ‘mill’.

After a painful divorce, she survived six years with two children as a one parent family - a tough period, which she has drawn from in her fiction writing. She’s had many jobs; you name it, Jan has had a go! Her last was sales rep for a designer spectacle frame company, until redundancy finally allowed her to pursue her writing ambition.

She has a daughter Jayne, son Justin, and two beautiful granddaughters Abby and Alexia, all of whom she’s extremely proud. Jan has been happily married to Mark for thirty years, and they live in a converted barn in rural Yorkshire.

She has used her knowledge and experience in her latest books:

A Face to Die For

 

Joanna

 

Looking at You

 

Visit her website: www.janwarburton.co.uk