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Reversible errors by Scott Turow
I suspect Turow is one of those authors everyone but me has already heard of. Reversible Errors is a legal-cum-mystery-cum-love story that I confess I thoroughly enjoyed. I didn’t work out what had happened; I didn’t foresee all the twists and turns not only of the plot, but also of the way the characters interacted with each other. The book is certainly less one-dimensional than others of the same ilk. I see it was actually published in 2002, but I didn’t spot any technology aging in it, apart possibly from old-fashioned fingerprint recognition. Perhaps this is because it is as much character-driven as plot-driven, and the plot itself concerns something that happened in the past. Whatever the reason, I read the book without any sense that it was more than a decade old. I expect I’ll be looking out for more Turow in secondhand bookshops in the future, and I can certainly recommend Reversible Errors.
Monday mourning by Kathy Reichs
I confess I quite like the Kathy Reichs novels, even though they are all very similar and most of them have plots that don’t completely hold up to analysis. This one was no different. It was good fun, but I worked out more or less what was happening quite early on. Also, the characters are very black-and-white, and a lot of the problems encountered by them would have been solved with a little more in the way of communication skills. But hey, it’s not meant to be Tolstoy. It rolls along at a good pace and has enough going for it that the pages keep turning. I think I’m bold enough to recommend all Reichs’ novels for a light read, and this one is no exception.
The black country by Alex Grecian
This is a second outing for the redoubtable Inspector Day and Sergeant Hammersamith, this time not in London but in the Blacklands of the north-east. The plot is very thin, and you’d kick yourself if you didn’t know what was going on by about a quarter of the way through, but that doesn’t matter too much. Where Grecian scores is his vivid description of the awfulness of Victorian life in the Black Country: in fact, the book could probably sit quite happily on the shelves of a horror story collector. It is most certainly not for the squeamish. I can’t really fault the characterisation or the way the characters interact with each other - and, as I say, the brutal surroundings are brought vividly to life. But I think the dialogue falls down in two ways. Firstly, the children speak far too clearly and precisely. Secondly, there is far too much dialogue where the speakers fence and dance around and never answer questions directly (because otherwise the book would be shortened considerably). I can take a little of this type of sparring, but I found too much of it here for my taste. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed The Black Country and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who wants to read a rather grisly detective story set in Victorian times.
A memory of light by Brandon Sanderson (Robert Jordan)
So this is the long-awaited final novel in the Wheel of Time series. I thought the previous book (number 13) rang the right bells, but this one didn’t ring quite so many. It’s well-written; the characters are as solid as ever and most of the action is good. What more could I ask for? I hear you asking. Well, without giving too much away, some of the plot didn’t ring quite true for me. Let me give you three examples. One, at an early stage in the book Rand is given a letter which we think might be important: he slips it into a pocket and, unless I missed it, we never hear about it again. Two, one of the chief baddies, during the Final Battle, decides to take on all the best swordsmen of the Light, one after the other, instead of blasting them into pieces. And finally, Mat’s handling of the forces of the Light seems to go on and on, and whereas I appreciate we need to see how brilliant he is at the tactics and strategy of war, it’s mighty confusing, plus he appears to have far more resources than we are initially given to believe. There were some other inconsistencies and weaker areas, but to be fair, Sanderson must have had a hell of a job picking up the pieces and making them into a coherent whole. So my overall impression is that this is an okay job rather than a brilliant job but it has one huge advantage over any of its predecessors - it’s the last one! Now I don’t have to wonder about what’s going to happen at the Last Battle, who survives and who doesn’t, and even who wins overall. Anyone who has read the first 13 books isn’t going to not read the 14th, whatever I say. Just don’t expect a dazzling finale, that’s all - rather, expect a solid effort, and don’t look too closely for the cracks, because there are a few there.
Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
I’m a long-time fan of Stephen King’s (not that he knows): I think he’s one of the most underrated of popular novelists. He has a knack of telling stories so realistically that you get swept up in them, even if it’s actually a sub-plot and after ten or twenty pages you suddenly emerge from the book thinking, ‘Oh yes, that wasn’t even the main story, was it?’ Of course, SK has made his name writing horror. My own personal favourite is The Stand but that’s scarcely relevant at the moment. The point is, I knew from the outset that Mr Mercedes was a mystery-cum-thriller, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be drawn into this story as thoroughly as I was drawn into the others. Well, I was - almost. The characters are well-drawn as usual. The situations and locations are well described, as usual. The pace is unrelenting, as usual. All these aspects are enough to make the book a good read. But I felt it didn’t quite cut the mustard in two respects. One, there wasn’t much to the mystery/detecting side of the story. It was a bit simplistic and the police procedural side of it all didn’t seem real to me. Two, the IT side of the story was also a bit simplistic. The main character, a retired detective, seemed unbelievably backward when it came to anything computer-related. Luckily, of course, he had a young friend who, having grown up in the computer age, knew far more about everything than he did. Bit of a cliche. But even our IT hero didn’t exactly show much in the way of computer knowledge. So, seven out of ten, maybe? Great characterisation - great writing. But perhaps in a genre that isn’t SK’s strongest.
Quicksand by Steve Toltz
So I was watching a pre-6 a.m. swimming session with other dads (and mums) and the lady next to me started chatting about books. She said her husband thought Quicksand was the best book he’d ever read. Ever. Well, naturally I had to check that out. My verdict is that it’s not a bad read, but it’s scarcely the masterpiece that the unseen husband thinks. I think it tries to be just too clever for it’s own good. It’s got lots of good lines, lots of good ideas, lots of throwaway philosophical snippets dressed up as the story of one man’s downfall. But it got to the point where I thought, for goodness sake let’s have some normal text for a while. People don’t talk this way all the time. They don’t even think this way all the time. It’s all TOO MUCH. Nobody in the book is normal or has a normal life... Yes, Toltz handles it well, but really it’s too much to handle. Read it if you want a few laughs and want to end up with eyes slightly glazed after every reading session.
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
I finally got to the end of this ‘terrifying underground cult bestseller’, but it was a bit of a struggle. There were three reasons why. Firstly, the style is very ‘Russian’. It’s convoluted, monotonic; sometimes people say things that just don’t register; sometimes things happen that nobody seems to take any notice of. Okay, it’s just a style. Maybe you’d get to grips with it better than I would. Secondly, the hero of the novel spends all his time moving from one underground unpronounceable station to another; each station has a different culture, mostly all very downbeat and degenerate. I got a bit tired of following a metro map. Okay, you might live better with that than I did. Thirdly, the timescale doesn’t seem right. The world has been blasted by a nuclear holocaust; the few humans that remain are huddled in the metro; but all around are weird forms of life formed by radioactivity. Above ground are giant birds, strange four-legged predators apparently descended from librarians; the Kremlin has been taken over by a gigantic primordial oil-based soup. All this is less than fifty years? I don’t think so. This problem permeated my thoughts as I ploughed through the book, and rather spoiled it for me. Now that I’ve pointed it out, it would probably spoil it for you, too. It’s not a bad book. I just didn’t enjoy it all that much.
The memory of Eva Ryker by Donald Stanwood
Not many of you will have heard of this one. I grabbed it off my shelf as I was leaving for somewhere or other, and I noted it was first published in 1979. The short review is: it’s good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The long review would have to babble about technology creep (the most advanced form of communication in 1979, it seems, was faxing), but if you can willingly suspend your technology knowledge and mentally cast yourself back to the 1970s, you’ll find this a good, pacey, surprisingly modern book. I doubt anyone will be able to find it, though. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Gridlock by Ben Elton
I’ve read quite a few Ben Elton books. Some of them are just out and out funny; some have a much darker side but still manage to pull a few belly laughs. This one must have been one of his earlier efforts (it was first published in 1991). Oh, the characters are good and many of the situations and events are funny. But the structure of the book is... bitty... and it clearly has never been anywhere near a copy-editor. It’s stuffed full of comma splices and poor (usually missing) punctuation, which for me at least detracts from the enjoyment of reading. I still managed to enjoy it, but it was a case of in spite of rather than because of. You might see it on the second-hand shelves somewhere: it’s worth picking up just to be introduced to Toss, who never failed to raise a smile.
Cold cold heart by Tami Hoag
This is a pot-boiling serial killer mystery by an author I discovered many years ago... and thought well enough of her to get this in a local charity shop. If you haven’t heard of Tami Hoag but enjoy these sorts of thriller-cum-detective mysteries, you can’t go far wrong with Tami. I enjoyed Cold Cold Heart, but recommend it with a couple of provisos. One, unless you are very new to the genre, you will quickly pick up on who the bad guy is, after which the plot seems mighty thin. And two, it would appear that the particular part of the world in which this book is set must be seething with serial killers and plain ordinary murderers. Or mentally challenged people who are on the verge of becoming one or the other. That said, I enjoyed the book. I was reading it at a swimming competition, mind you, crammed between two people in a roasting hot swimming centre. Perhaps I would have welcomed anything to take me away from all that.
It by Stephen King
Seeing as how a remake of IT is coming out later this year, I decided to read IT again. My hardback edition was printed in 1986, and as far as I can remember, I haven’t read it since then, so I was amazed at just how much of the story was still stashed away in the recesses of my memory. There’s a good reason for this: it’s an amazing book. It’s really long, really horrible, funny at times, with characters that leap off the page and a complex plot that doesn’t once go off the lines. I might not have forgotten the story, but I had forgotten what a very good book this is. In my opinion, though I doubt SK will care very much, he only goes wrong - very slightly - twice, and perhaps misses a trick at the end. Three minor glips that others might not even consider glips, in a book three inches thick. As you can imagine, I heartily recommend IT, unless you have a weak stomach or are liable to nightmares.
The expanse series by James Corey
There are, I think,. six in this series, with the 6th out later this year, and the fifth winging its way to me from Amazon even as I type this. This is a brilliant series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one and then, each time I started the next in the series, I thought, ‘This one can’t be as good as the last one.’ But each one was. This is grand science fiction, rather like a modern-day Lensman series, beefing up the characterisation and, in an odd way, the realism. The interactions, the violence, the strange places... it’s all brilliantly portrayed. If you are an SF buff - and possibly even if you aren’t - you can’t afford to miss the Expanse Series.
Unspeakable by Dilys Rose
This is an unusual book. It’s a take on the life of the last person to be hanged for blasphemy. All the dialogue is written, as it were, in a strong Scottish accent, whereas the actual text is written in normal (and very good) English. The author has decided to omit quote marks round speech, a recent fad that I see as ultimately pointless. I enjoyed certain aspects of the book. There’s some black humour, vivid descriptions of what it was like to live in Edinburgh in those days, well-drawn characters. But ultimately I was disappointed because the central theme really only took up a dozen or so pages at the end. It was well done but somehow insufficient. Having said all that, I can see this being the sort of book that will be nominated for things in the year to come. So I won’t try to dissuade anyone from reading it; just be warned that you need to have an ear for Scottish dialect!.
The emperor’s blades by Brian Staveley
Son no. 1 got me this as a birthday present, and it’s an enjoyable read. Son no. 1 has a knack for getting people books they will like (and then borrowing them, so that they are never seen again). The Emperor’s Blades> is a fairly generic swords and sorcery fantasy, heavier on the swords than the sorcery. It has a few good twists, and the characters are good. It’s a lot more gritty than your run of the mill fantasy - much more so than those written even a handful of years ago. It’s the first in a trilogy, so I have ordered the second two because I’m quite keen to find out what happens. That is, I guess, the definition of a good read: you want to turn the next page. Weirdly, there was a Brian Staveley in my class at school. It’s not exactly a common name, so I looked up this Brian: it’s not him. But maybe his father had the same name. Now that would be a coincidence. Perhaps I will write some day to ask.
The upstairs room by Kate Murray-Browne
This ghost story, the blurb informs us, ‘is the real thing. Frightening and clever and full of atmosphere.’ Right? Wrong. This is rather a poor effort at a ghost story. The basic premise is never explained, and indeed contains some plot holes. Nothing is especially frightening or clever. In fact most of the book tells us back stories about the characters (none of which are very interesting), and then their subsequent love affairs (also rather tedious). I’m sure you get the message. Don’t buy anyone this for Christmas, even if it is a turkey.