My Weekly Book

More kudos for whoever stocks the graphic novel shelf in my local library - I hereby send you another “ook” of cyber-approval. Knowing about the Alan Moore connection, and having read The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, I just had to give this one a try and ended up thoroughly satisfied that I had.

It’s not for those with weak stomachs, however, this being good old-fashioned supernatural horror of a particularly gory sort perpetrated on the reader by a bloke who (although technically Liverpudlian) immediately looked, sounded and behaved to me exactly like the evil twin of Danny Blue from Hustle. If you want another popular culture reference, Constantine seems to me to share a certain amount with the Tenth Doctor as well - in that he is a profound humanist, however the lives of anyone he comes into close or prolonged contact with seem to end up crumbling to dust. But all these nods from the 2000s are hopelessly inappropriate anyway, since the man himself was created in 1985 and based on Sting in Quadrophenia.

This volume is a trade paperback collecting the first nine episodes of Hellblazer and including an introduction by Delano published in 1992 in which he says: “My personal response to the state of our civilisation has been to acquire a boat to live on. Then, when the oceans rise, I shall be able to sail cheerfully about, sneering at the capitalists marooned on their skyscraper-islands in the flooded financial districts of the northern hemisphere, basking contentedly in the solar radiation pouring, unfiltered, down upon a sterile ocean from a pure blue ozone hole.” Prescient chap. The storylines in this volume include the task of dealing with a hunger spirit set loose by some unwise meddling by an old acquaintance of Constantine’s; a cabal of demons exploiting the greed of yuppies to stage a power grab; the introduction of the sinister Resurrection Crusade and their Pyramid of Prayer selling scheme; Constantine’s missing ten-year-old niece and the introduction and later fate of the enigmatic Zed.

Things get a bit complicated at the end of the book, when Constantine encounters the Swamp Thing and collides with the wider DC universe and is sent off like a pinball on a new story arc. But that doesn’t impair the enjoyment, and although the stories in this volume are a bit variable in quality (Going For It didn’t work so well for me, perhaps it’s just too much of it’s time, although actually I do seem to remember being there at the time) it’s a pretty gripping read overall. The art rises to meet it with a gritty, rough-grained apprearance featuring plenty of hard pencil-marks and visible shading, and a palette that ranges from sepia to downright garish, often indicating the psychic temperature of proceedings. Definitely a worthwhile investment of time for those with a strong stomach and an imagination within the normal range of activity…

Summary of books read in 2007 - arranged by genre (68):

* = standout books

Thrillers (8)
The Gardens of the Dead – William Brodrick (July)
The Body Farm – Patricia Cornwell (July)
Sleeper – Paul Adam (October)
The Wine of Angels – Phil Rickman (December) *
Modesty Blaise – Peter O’Donnell (December)
Sabre Tooth – Peter O’Donnell (December)
I, Lucifer - Peter O’Donnell (December)
A Taste for Death - Peter O’Donnell (December)

Crime/Noir/Roman Policier (15)
Darkness In My Hand – Frederic Lindsay (January)
Seeking Whom He May Devour – Fred Vargas (January)
Blacklist – Sara Paretsky (January)
Blue Shoes and Happiness – Alexander McCall Smith (February)
D is for Deadbeat – Sue Grafton (February)
The Endings Man – Frederic Lindsay (March)
The Three Evangelists – Fred Vargas (March) *
E is for Evidence – Sue Grafton (November)
F is for Fugitive – Sue Grafton (November)
G is for Gumshoe – Sue Grafton (November)
H is for Homicide – Sue Grafton (December)
I is for Innocent – Sue Grafton (December)
J is for Judgment – Sue Grafton (December)
K is for Killer – Sue Grafton (December)
The Lamorna Wink – Martha Grimes (December)

Non-fiction (16)
Elizabeth the Great – Elizabeth Jenkins (January)
The Quest for the Golden Hare - Bamber Gascoigne (Re-read) (March) *
Blood, Sweat and Tea: Real Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance - Tom Reynolds (April)
Portrait of a Killer – Patricia Cornwell (April) *
Last Chance to See – Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine (April)
The Assassination of Princess Diana - Noel Botham (May)
Death’s Acre: Inside the legendary Body Farm – Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson (May)
Think On Your Feet: 10 steps to better decision-making and problem solving at work - Jeremy Kourdi (June)
The Ghost of Cock Lane: Murder, sex and haunting in Dr Johnson’s London – Paul Chambers (June) *
GPS for Dummies – Joel McNamara (June)
The Maul and the Pear Tree – PD James and TA Critchley (July) *
Freakonomics – Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner (July)
Love and War in the Apennines – Eric Newby (November) *
Fast Food Nation – Eric Schlosser (December)
An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore (December)
God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution - Christopher Hill (December)

Graphic novels/Books about graphic novels (10)
The Sandman Companion – Hy Bender (January)
The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes – Neil Gaiman et al (March)
The Sandman: The Doll’s House – Neil Gaiman et al (May)
The Sandman: Dream Country (reread) (June)
The Sandman: Season of Mists (September) *
The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (October)
Modesty Blaise: The Gabriel Set-up - Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway (December)
Transmetropolitan: Tales of Human Waste - Warren Ellis et al (December)
Alias - Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos et al (December)
Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun - Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway (December)

Literature (4)
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe (April) *
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake (September) *
Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake (October)
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen (November) *

Contemporary/Literary Fiction (11)
Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin (January) *
Close Range – Annie Proulx (February) *
44 Scotland Street – Alexander McCall Smith (February) *
The Sunday Philosophy Club – Alexander McCall Smith (March)
More Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin (March)
Espresso Tales – Alexander McCall Smith (March)
Further Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin (April)
Don’t Look Now and other stories – Daphne du Maurier (May)
An Instance of the Fingerpost – Iain Pears (August) *
Love Over Scotland – Alexander McCall Smith (September)
Two and a Half Pillars of Wisdom – Alexander McCall Smith (November)

Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Far-Fetched Fiction (3)
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman (May) *
Farenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury (re-read) (June)
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov (June)

Children’s (1)
Masquerade – Kit Williams (re-read) (March) *

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 68 (the last of the year)

I like to read history books and, with this one, I felt I was straying outside my normal comfort zone and venturing onto new territory.

Periods that I like to read about generally include prehistory, the Roman empire, the Renaissance in general, and Tudor/Renaissance England in particular. The last such book I read was a biography of Elizabeth I, one of those ‘definitive biographies’ in its time, which offered me a nice, informative stroll through territory I was already extremely familiar with.

In contrast, I’d had a bit of a rude awakening regarding the Civil War and the Restoration courtesy of my favourite book of 2007, An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. This splendid historical thriller is set during the period in question - and made me realise how just little I actually knew about it.

So off to consult the Googloracle and track down an authoritative biography of England’s most recent military dictator. This brought me to the feet of Christopher Hill who in 1970 wrote this ground-breaking biography.

I think the thing that makes it different is that the author, apparently a noted Marxist historian which explains his interest in revolutions, attempts to treat Cromwell’s life, rule and military career as a series of interconnected essays in which he tries to pull out key themes. The book still works perfectly well as a chronological narrative but also raises some extremely interesting questions. Here are a few which particularly engaged me:

• Discussion of the idea that England’s success as an Imperial power could be traced back to the Reformation and the Civil War - by making an early break with the Catholic Church and with feudal power it won a lead in developing the commercial and political structures necessary to be at the forefront of later economic and military developments.
• The interesting fact that Cromwell was the first English ruler to have a truly worldwide foreign policy - and the consequences of this, as mentioned above.
• This also ties into the odd notion, encapsulated in the title and which seems to turn up in all walks of life, that the English were somehow first among nations in the eyes of God, the chosen people, if you will. It’s a sentiment we’re probably most used to from Blake’s Jerusalem, but it crops up all over the place, perhaps also among those off to colonise the New World and win themselves a greater degree of religious freedom than they could get in England even under Cromwell.
• Rather than being a puritan ideologue trying to impose religious conformity, Cromwell may in fact far be better understood as a political pragmatist who aimed for a broad sweep of religious toleration - sometimes (gasp) even extending as far as Catholics.
• The notion that to have a democracy you must have an electorate that is sophisticated enough to sustain democracy - if the standards of literacy, education, freedom of thought etc. don’t exist in the first place (as Hill, a Marxist, argues was the case at this point and it’s easy to see where he’s going with it) then the notion of representative government is meaningless.
• The notion that the English Revolution failed not, as I had assumed, with the death of Cromwell, the lack of an obvious successor and the decision to negotiate with Charles Stuart about resuming the throne. Rather the author suggests that it had failed in 1653 after the dissolution of the Barebones Parliament and the appointment of Cromwell as Lord Protector. At this point, he says, the radical ideals that had inspired the revolution went out of the window, leaving Cromwell as a kind of referee whose highest purpose was to keep the various factions from each other’s throats.
• He was offered the option to be king - and thought about it extremely seriously, although he never accepted the title.
• Oliver Cromwell’s forebears took the name even though it had been through the female line - because, as relatives of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister and the man that played such a key part in the Reformation, they were hoping to capitalise a bit on the prestige it might confer.

I thought this was a great thematic study and I found it easiest to come to terms with when dealing with these broad issues. Occasionally it descends into dense detail - Cromwell’s role in subduing Ireland and Scotland was not commendable to our modern sensibilities and it’s a role spelled out remorselessly here. Likewise, the thread of parliaments, armies and oddly-named ordinances can be quite hard to keep hold of if you’re not a specialist in the period.

But, while containing a great deal of factual information, it also manages to transcend it to tease out the events of the middle 17th century and put them in context within a much wider sweep of English history. I feel much more enlightened about a number of things for having read it.

Some links:

• The Guardian: Christopher Hill’s obituary
• Channel 4 microsites: Monarchy - lots of info plus recommendations for further reading, including this book.
• The Cromwell Collection at Huntingdon Library
• A Cromwell bibliography and a Civil War one too

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 67

And so to our last Modesty Blaise novel of 2007 - we really did go at them during this last month of the year. This book, published in 1969 and therefore not to be confused with the 1986 PD James novel of the same name, raises the stakes on the first page by separating the protagonists at the outset.

That former international jewel thief Willie Garvin, in a long-planned endeavour that is explained in the course of the narrative, is busy pearl-diving in Panama while Modesty does her own thing in London. He witnesses what appears to him to be the particularly senseless killing of a young woman. In return he kills the perpetrators and rescues their intended second victim, the sister of the dead girl, who is blind. In the course of this he learns how he has interrupted a pet scheme of arch super-villain Gabriel, the sworn enemy of himself and Modesty Blaise after the two of them handed him a pretty hard-to-swallow humiliation in their last encounter (as recounted in the eponymous first novel).

Gabriel is not minded to take any more interference from Blaise and Garvin, either. He recognises Willie’s handiwork when he observes that his henchmen have been killed by means of a throwing knife, the latter’s weapon of choice. He immediately engages every criminal in Panama to find out where Willie and the girl, Dinah Pilgrim, are hiding. Modesty is called upon to come and get them out of trouble, thereby triggering a trap that nearly kills the pair of them and delivers the girl, Dinah Pilgrim, straight back into Gabriel’s hands. Dinah, it transpires, has a special ability. And, as a result, Gabriel has plans for her, oh yes.

Modesty’s and Willie’s bid to save Dinah leads them into captivity, torture and a long battle of wits against seemingly impossible odds that genuinely does seem to offer no way out. With these stories, it’s never a matter of whether the pair of them will be able to get themselves out of trouble. It’s more a question of at what cost - will they be able to save companions, associates and innocent civilians who are caught up in trouble? What physical and psychological injuries will they have to sustain in order to win through? And will Peter O’Donnell be able to preserve the integrity of his fictional world, and of his characters, as he plots and writes it?

This story does contain a number of particularly far-fetched elements, genre notwithstanding - perhaps even more so than its predecessor, I, Lucifer, in which it is necessary to accept that psychic phenomena such as precognition are tangible, accurate and even measurable. In this story Modesty must work out how to win a deadly serious, to-the-death fencing match against an acknowledged master, play the psychology of her captors with all the skill and nerve of a poker high-roller and use her powers of physical and mental control to get herself (and the somewhat hapless Stephen Collier, who has tagged along for the ride, much to his subsequent regret) through the ordeal of torture with nerve gas. There are also a few mind-stretching coincidences, including the fact that an aspect of the archaeology in the lost city where Modesty, Willie, Steve and Dinah are held captive, provides the very resource they need to plan an escape, at the exact point when they need it.

But this book also has many of the aspects that make the series great - an acceptance of the narrative need to risk the characters without allowing them recourse to the same solutions time after time; a willingness to test the boundaries of the relationship between the two principals (it comes out of this one stronger than ever, I think, despite both of them getting into deeper romantic waters than they have swum before) and, as pointed out by a 2004 Observer review I just read dealing with a couple of other volumes in the series, a celebration of individuality and of a consistent personal code of ethics that will see you through most situations.

Like the novels and comic strips that come before it, this was a fun, satisfying, entertaining and thought-provoking read that was like playing a game of chess with the author - trying to see what moves he had planned and how he would avoid certain traps for his characters and narrative. And, like the rest of the series, it’s recommended.

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 66

Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun - Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway

Three more stories in this second Titan volume of reprints of the original Evening Standard strips.

Mister Sun is the story that provides us with the background and history of Modesty’s houseboy Weng. We already knew from the novels and earlier strips that she had been responsible for funding his education and bringing him to England in hopes that he would learn a profession, but that he seemed perfectly happy working for her. This is the author’s chance to fill in his background and to show the reasons for his loyalty.

The Mind of Mrs Drake is a fascinating tale because, like I, Lucifer, it takes as its premise the notion that psychic powers are a definite and quantifiable part of the story universe. It also exposes some of the harsher aspects of Sir Gerald Tarrant’s job. It also explores a theme that crops up in A Taste For Death - the extraordinary powers that people that have lost their sight may develop to compensate.

The Killing Ground is a curiosity - as story-within-a-story that was created to fill a gap in a Scottish paper syndicating the strips while a strike prevented their publication in the London Evening Standard. Modesty and Willie are kidnapped by someone with a grudge and made to fight for their lives against three formidable opponents.

Both the longer-form stories are complex and involved pieces of work, handling multiple storylines and expertly building tension with assurance. Everything in this volume is a great addition to the world of the stories, fleshing it out and adding more detail and, as such, I would say they are definitely recommended reading.

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 65

A comic series (with absolutely no connection with the similarly-named TV show) that I hadn’t come across before and another one found just lying about on the display stand at the local library. And I’m glad it was, because it was really good.

Apparently this has a little bit of comics history attached to its name, thanks to the fact its first few words are all “fuck” and it was the first one to be published under the Marvel MAX imprint that was designed for adult readers. Rumour (and Wikipedia) has it that it was actually one of the reasons this imprint was created in the first place.

The comic is pure noir, both in appearance and in storyline. It introduces Jessica Jones, a former costumed hero who gave it all up because she simply wasn’t all that good at it. Now she’s a classic hard-smoking, hard-drinking, wisecracking PI who needs no-one’s help - until, that is, things get really rough and she’s looking at a murder rap. Then it’s a question of how much help she’s prepared to accept from the superhero ‘establishment’ - and how much she’s prepared to give back.

I enjoyed the stories and the artwork - the artist makes superb use of the space on the page and there are some great effects - most notably, I thought, the chains of overlapping speech bubbles that represent quick-fire, bantering or argumentative speech. I got absorbed in Jessica’s story and I want to find out more about how it continues.

Some links:

• Avidbookreader.com: Alias vol 1
• Wikipedia: Alias (comics)
• Popimage: Michael Gaydos interview from 2001
• Ink Destroyed My Brush review
• The Comics Journal: 5,137 Pages of Brian Michael Bendis
• Fractal Matter: Alias, The Pulse and Jessica Jones

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 64

This was an impulse grab from the library which didn’t work out so well. It’s actually my second crack at Martha Grimes, I read the one set in Stratford (I can only assume that’s The Dirty Duck) years ago and The Man With A Load of Mischief is sitting among our crime novels, although I can remember so little about it that I am suspicious that I may never have read it at all.

I picked up The Lamorna Wink because it is set in Cornwall and because I have been in that pub - once, on an ill-fated night when we had walked between Sennen and Lamorna, travelling over the extremely rocky and hilly terrain around Lands End, and got the timing completely to cock. We ended up doing the last bit, which was closer to rock-climbing than walking, after dark and coming into Lamorna at around 7pm, much later than we had planned.

We knew we were likely to scare the bejeezus out of our B&B proprietors but - guess what - no mobile phone reception so all we could do was press on. Eventually, knowing that we were in grave danger of provoking a coastguard call-out, we fell into a handy pub to drink our own bodyweight in Coke and use the phone, only to be told that our B&B was directly across the road. We arrived when our host had his hand on the phone receiver to pick it up and report us missing.

Not perhaps the best motivation ever conceived for reading a book. And so it proved - the fundamental problem I think is that I don’t much like ‘cozies,’ preferring my crime novels gritty and gut-wrenching. But, on the other hand this had elements that were about as far removed from the cozy as it’s possible to imagine and I’m starting to think that the problem here is basically one of identity.

In this book the regular pairing of police detective Richard Jury and aristocratic layabout Melrose Plant is broken up with Jury sent elsewhere so that he can, predictably enough, rush in like a Deus Ex Machina to sort out everything at the end. When Jury’s off the scene I gather that strong men cry, houseplants wilt and pine to death and dogs throw themselves in front of speeding dustcarts, so powerfully does the sun shine out of his backside.

Plant, having too much spare cash to need to make himself useful to society, slouches off to Cornwall in a sulk and finds, amazingly enough, that the exact clone of Manderley is on the market to rent. He learns about the terrible tragedy that has occurred there before the estate agent is out the door - but decides to rent it anyway. When a murder is committed and a second misfortune befalls a young man he has befriended in the village (no, not in that sense, what’s wrong with you? This is good clean fun, although Richard Jury may have turned a few agnostics into believers through sheer force of personality) he immediately starts searching for the link that must obviously be there.

You might think by now that I didn’t like this book much. That’s not really true - the crime setup and the method of its detection were extraordinarily good. What actually happens is horrible beyond words and it’s dealt with compassionately and imaginatively. The detective who’s brought in to deputise for Jury is a well-drawn character and the bits of the book that actually deal with the crime are immensely readable - with a minor frustration in the form of a few unresolved loose ends, but nothing that stuck out so far as to actually wreck it.

The problem is the scenes in which the author is trying to drive along the series arc. The regular characters, who have nothing to do with the actual crime, and who are caricatures so crude and unappealing that I could barely stand to read their dialogue, were an unwelcome distraction from the bits I was enjoying and would probably stop me reading many more.

Additionally I was unable to find anything whatsoever that was distinctively Cornish about this book that couldn’t have been gleaned from reading a volume of Daphne du Maurier or a South West Tourist Board brochure. Landscape, location and characterisation all failed to convince. And, after all this, the pub had nothing to do with the plot in any way whatsoever

Next day on our walk we set out from Lamorna and had a completely uneventful and easy stroll to Marazion via Mousehole and Penzance. And didn’t trip over any bodies whatsoever.

I think I may not be attempting any more Martha Grimes for a while.

Some links:

• Author’s website
• Wikipedia: Martha Grimes
• Book Reporter: Martha Grimes
• MysteryNet: Martha Grimes interview
• Martha Grimes on Librarything

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 63

When I was talking about Modesty Blaise stories a few entries back, I pointed out that to read them you had to be prepared to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Well, this book is constructed around one of them - the idea that one of the protagonists has genuine, reliable and unforced psychic powers, probably best described as a form of precognition.

This is a subject that clearly interests O’Donnell greatly as it frequently crops up in the books in a multitude of ways from Willie Garvin’ sense that trouble is on the horizon that manifests semi-humorously in his ears prickling to Sir Gerald Tarrant’s entirely accurate hunch that the disappearance of a large amount of mercenaries from general circulation means that someone, somewhere is collecting them up for nefarious purposes.

If the notion of a plot predicated on belief in precognition doesn’t bother you too much, then the rest of the book should be a treat. Modesty stumbles across one end of the caper after having to save the life of a dear friend, the head of French intelligence, when he is attacked by a band of hired killers. As her and Willie’s attention turns to sorting out who on earth is trying to kill him, Tarrant is able to get information that leads our heroes to a former trusted member of their own organisation The Network now doing hard labour in a Yugoslav prison camp.

He is able to provide a name that takes them on towards a Scandinavian island to check the lie of the land - and it looks like a piece of clever deception by Modesty will serve up the solution to their puzzle on a plate. Until a desperately unfortunate coincidence blows her plan wide-open. She is taken prisoner and, while Willie searches for a way to free her, she becomes more deeply entangled in the villains’ schemes than she could ever have envisaged - and has to attempt a coup in order to get herself and those she cares about out of danger.

This, I am told, is vying for the title of ‘best Modesty Blaise novel’ and, on what I’ve read so far, I wouldn’t argue with that. It’s got a much-needed lighter tone after the grimness of Sabre Tooth and a difference of scale in its plot which is also rather important. It’s funny, offbeat and has just the right balance of action, romance and danger. It also creates two of the most grotesque villains ever to grace the pages of a novel. A welcome addition to the series and a very good read.

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 62

Transmetropolitan: Tales of Human Waste - Warren Ellis et al

Of all the things that you might find lying about on the display stands in your local library, this has to be pretty high on the unlikely list. Or maybe not, seeing as wherever library membership is bestowed upon me I seem to find great, teetering stacks of graphic novels lining the shelves, no doubt placed there by well-meaning souls hoping to cater for short-attention-span teenagers - and instead attracting grumpy, misanthropic 30-somethings like me. Whoever is buying them in always seem to have a pretty good grasp of the genre with giants like Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller frequently well-represented. This means, of course, that Warren Ellis is viewed by some local government official somewhere as a worthwhile project to encourage teen literacy - I’m sure he’d be thrilled… no wonder the young are so cynical.

The problem with this approach can be summed up in the sentence: “Yes, but they never have the volume of Sandman you need next, do they?” And, indeed, after a period of recognition that my comic-reading life would not be complete or even credible for mention in public places until I’d filled in the gap labelled Transmetropolitan, I was somewhat disconcerted to find myself standing there with the final, standalone volume in my hands. Whatever. I profess to be keen on serendipity, after all.

So, what is Transmetropolitan and why did I feel at a disadvantage among my comic-reading peers for not having read it? Probably the most useful thing I can do is quote the Wikipedia article on the series, rather than simply seeking to recompose the words myself:

Transmetropolitan is a post-cyberpunk comic book series written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson and published by DC Comics. The series was originally part of the short-lived DC Comics imprint Helix Comics, but upon the end of the book’s first year the series was moved to the Vertigo imprint as DC Comics cancelled the Helix Comics imprint. It chronicles the battles of Spider Jerusalem, infamous renegade gonzo journalist of the future who is a homage to gonzo journalism founder Hunter S. Thompson.

Spider Jerusalem dedicates himself to fighting the corruption and abuse of power of two successive United States presidents; he and his (filthy) assistants strive to keep their world from turning more dystopian than it already is while dealing with the struggles of fame and power, brought about due the popularity of Spider via his articles. Read full article here…

I like Spider Jerusalem, on our brief acquaintance, although he doesn’t by any means set out to make himself easy to like. I like his mix of 120-per-cent-proof, filtered-through-rusty-iron-filings-for-a-decade cynicism combined with a dewy-eyed idealism about his city and his profession that marks him out as an absolutely recognisable hack. The trouble with this standalone volume is that it’s not only post-cyberpunk, it’s post-narrative too. Instead of anything as conventional as a story it’s a set of jottings, ramblings (very likely drug-induced), musings and thoughts illustrated by a fine selection of different artists. Plus a story that explains how much he loathes Christmas. That I can sympathise with, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

My fault for thinking there was a short cut. Back to the beginning I go…

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 61

At last I’m coming to the end of my stockpile of Grafton’s alphabet novels - and clearing the decks for L which I just got out of the library and must return at some point soon.

I know people tend to have strong and often polarised views about this series. A review I read from a recent reader pointed out that this was both darker and less clear-cut than many of the Kinsey Millhone novels, and I would say that this is spot-on. Certainly I had to spend quite a while afterwards trying to get clear in my head what had taken place. But there again, isn’t real life like that? Things so rarely tie off into the neat and regular knot you hoped for.

Our eponymous heroine is approached, seemingly on the spur of the moment, in her office late one night by a woman on her way home from a support group for the parents of murdered children. She’s never been given a satisfactory answer about what happened to her daughter, and she’s hoping that Kinsey can provide one. She’s dragged into the situation becoming as much a participant as an observer, one of the weavers of a very tangled web, definitely more involved than she should be and this helps lead to a shocking conclusion.

These novels are always absorbing, escapist, hard to put down and often readable in less than 48 hours - a real immersive experience, especially if you read two or three together and that’s one of the qualities I really like. It might not be great literature - but that’s scheduled for later in the month ;- )) I thought that it was refreshing to see the author taking her character to new heights in this book and am glad that this very long series still seems to be powering along nicely. The conclusion is one, like A is for Alibi, the book in which Kinsey first shot someone dead, that has profound effects for the future of the series and I look forward to reading on and finding out whether it does. Apparently there’s quite a change of tone for L, and I can’t help think that’s such a bad thing but also that she certainly shouldn’t get off scot free.

Onward… I’ve had an exhausting week so maybe I’ll put the heavy-going history book and the Jane Austen novel I’ve been trying to read to one side and have a crack at L instead. Now that does sound fun…

Sue Grafton’s website: K is for Killer

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 60

The Walking Encyclopaedia of All Things Modesty Blaise that is sitting across from me as I type informs me that this is a bloody unfortunate choice for second novel in a series - and, having read it (or actually, luxury of luxuries, had it read out loud to me by said Walking Encyclopaedia), I know exactly what he means.

And the reason? Sabre Tooth is a novel of extremes. It is - and this is a spoiler, sorry - the book in which Modesty and Willie Garvin quite literally take on an army and win. It’s long been one that is spoken about with awe, not because of any qualities of its plot or characterisation but because it prefigures the invasion of Kuwait for its oil reserves, an invasion that is additionally set for September 11, and carried out by people hiding out in a lost valley in the Hindu Kush.

I remain relatively unimpressed by these facts. It is a well-known phenomenon that, with only 365 days in the calendar to choose from, events do tend to bunch up around certain dates, a fact that makes the job of predicting someone’s birthday a lot easier than you might at first imagine. And secondly you could say that realising Kuwait was ripe for the picking by some unscrupulous army commander and that Afghanistan was perfect territory for concealing mercenary armies was simply an accurate reading of the facts of the situation. Also you would be technically conflating three different wars, but that’s probably a minor detail.

It also tackles head-on a deeply unpleasant question about Modesty the spectre of which could be seen hovering in the background of the first book but which, thankfully, never actually made it into the narrative there. It is this: you may have a heroine who is physically strong, skilled in all kind of combat arts, a crack shot, utterly self-confident and intent on putting herself in many dangerous situations. But, as sure as night becomes day, a woman who takes on men on their own terms and who ends up being taken prisoner is likely to be put back in her place in the crudest and most brutal way available - by being sexually assaulted. I believe this something that is now tackled during training for female soldiers going into combat situations. And to duck this horribly thorny issue altogether, I think, would have been selling the character severely short as, thanks to the way these stories tend to be structured, it would always have been hanging over her, unacknowledged. And that would have wrecked things, I’m pretty sure of that.

On the other hand, the potential for this to be used for the kind of horrible, vicarious, misogynistic writing that I wouldn’t countenance on my bookshelves, never mind read, is right up there. And how does O’Donnell steer a course through this minefield? Well, I am not in the habit of persevering with stories that are going to keep me awake at night. And I felt that this stayed on the right side of my personal line, depicting nothing graphic, rather focusing on the effects of the incident for the people involved. On one hand we are told explicitly during the series that this is something that Modesty Blaise has had to deal with before, more than once. And I feel that to pretend it is not an issue for her would have compromised the character forever more.

I also feel that, on the whole, O’Donnell really does not try to glamourise the assault, but he does maybe take a slightly regrettable route when dealing with the characters’ reactions. Willie Garvin, when he eventually manages to intervene and get Modesty out of the situation she has been put in, is destroyed by it - in a way that is very character-driven, but even so. Narratively it is necessary for him to regain his equilibrium pretty quickly, and so he does, but his reaction is easily the most extreme of the two. Modesty is the one who has to cope, and be ingenious, and hold them both together, and I do actually question whether this is a reasonable treatment.

Modesty, by contrast, is shown as having coped with what happened by disassociation and absenting herself to the extent of practically being in a self-induced coma. I am in two minds about this. On the one hand I think O’Donnell may vastly overestimate the effectiveness of this approach and, in fact, it might be quite insulting to suggest that the victim of a violent sexual assault would be able to employ such techniques to protect themselves. She refuses outright to be a victim - but perhaps this suggests too strongly that simply willing away trauma is a viable proposition in real life, that if you are strong-minded enough you need not suffer from such things, obviously a terrible fallacy. On the other I am reminded that in Modesty we are not dealing with a regular (or indeed a real) person but someone with almost superhuman abilities in certain fields, including control of mind and body. In a later book we are shown a scene where the two of them are exposed to nerve gas, suffering really extreme pain - and they deal with it in exactly the same way, by using mind control techniques, by slowing their breathing and heartbeat and mentally absenting themselves until the situation becomes bearable again.

So there you have it. And Modesty’s character being taken to an extreme in this way is not the only example I have in mind. It’s a familiar trope that our heroes fall into the hands of villains and have to co-operate with them or work for them until they come up with a plan for escape - here an unexpected vulnerability is exploited and they are coerced into becoming commanders of two divisions of the putative invasion force. Modesty has to fight for her life - not unusual, but in this case the form of combat and the opponents are so extreme that the reader (as well as Willie Garvin and everyone else watching) has trouble seeing how she can escape death. The revenge they take on their enemies at the close of the tale is positively biblical and Willie has to act with superhuman self-control in order to fulfill his part in Modesty’s plan, an exercise that very nearly breaks him.

All this plus the militaristic setting and grotesque characters that populate the story might have left you with the feeling that this is the very last book you will be reading this year. ‘Bleak’ and ‘grim’ are both words I think you could reasonably apply - and yet. There’s a lot of humour in the book, especially at the beginning and end, at the points when the main engine of the narrative is not revving so hard. It’s an exceptionally well-told tale that takes wild risks with its characters, risks that pay off superbly. One could never accuse O’Donnell of taking the easy way out and of failing to stretch them to their limits.

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 59

In the entry for book 58, Peter O’Donnell’s eponymous first Modesty Blaise novel, I talked about the series generally and why I thought it was well worth reading. Part of the reason that I didn’t talk about the plot of the individual book so much is because I knew I was going to have to write this entry next. Whereas that was a standard-format paperback novel, this one is a large-format reprint of the actual Evening Standard cartoon strips published by Titan with an introduction by Peter O’Donnell explaining how the series was conceived and brought to print. So basically more in the line of a graphic novel than of a regular book, as you would expect in a Titan publication.

It deals with much of the same material as the novel (although there’s also much that has nothing to do with it) and contains three stories: La Machine, The Long Lever and The Gabriel Set-up, plus a short called In The Beginning which served as an introduction in newspapers that picked up the strip later in its run. The first of these covers the introduction of all the major characters and their relationships to each other and we see Sir Gerald Tarrant and his indomitable assistant Fraser meeting Modesty for the first time - with a superbly-judged psychological flourish that earns him her trust in the short term and her affection in the long term. Willie is merely bored rather than actually imprisoned in this tale and it’s not very long before he shows up to get his share of any action going. The pair are recruited by Tarrant to smash the sinister organisation of the strip’s title by offering themselves as bait and off they go with the words: “It’ll be lively back on the old caper… we’re fools, of course, but I guess it’s the only caper we’re fit for, Willie love.”

In The Long Lever we learn a little more about Modesty’s past in her pre-Network years. Here she and Willie are recruited to help bring home a kidnapped defector who’s been re-taken - only to learn a surprising fact about him that utterly changes her attitude to the job and its outcome - a great example of her instinctive and unshakeable moral code that governs the way she behaves regardless of the consequences to herself.

The third and last story, The Gabriel Set-up, is the one that perhaps has most in common with the Modesty Blaise novel. Here we encounter the super-villain Gabriel - so well-resourced, powerful and determined is his organisation that once, in the past, Modesty backed away from a heist simply because he told her to, after he got there first. And she felt she’d got off lightly. In this case he’s onto a very nice little number with a clinic full of rich and neurotic victims ripe for blackmail just over the Canadian border, which just happens to have already triggered one of Sir Gerald Tarrant’s hunches. Willie’s in the vicinity, ostensibly for a rugged spell of lumberjacking but actually enjoying a spell of rest and recreation with the logging boss’s daughter - so what’s more natural than for them to pop along and disrupt everything? Unfortunately the stakes turn out to be a little higher than everyone would like: “What the hell’s been through here, Mr Barth - an army? Yeah - name of Garvin…”

I think it’s essential to find out what the stories are like in the form they were first conceived. Here O’Donnell doesn’t have the luxury of multiple plots and time for character development which means sometimes things can seem a little forced and perfunctory in comparison to the long-form stories. But the Jim Holdaway versions of the characters are the archetypal ones and the dialogue is to die for. This was a very welcome companion read to the Modesty Blaise novel, one which I think both works gained from, and a great foundation for the rest of the series.

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 58

Every year, on assorted reading challenge blogs, readers’ forums and mailing lists, the question comes up of what represents a book. For instance, is it permissible to count childrens’ books towards your total? Graphic novels? Audiobooks? And so the list goes on.

And there is the tedious necessity, before embarking on anything of this kind, to decide what you are going to count and what you are not. Personally, I am a keen reader of graphic novels but tend to only count them if they take a reasonable investment of time and have something to say. Thus individual volumes of The Sandman are in, while Angel and Buffy comic collections tend not to be. I almost never listen to audiobooks, so no problems there. And any children’s book that’s well-enough written to command adult attention is just fine by me - examples that have appeared in this blog include Rosemary Sutcliffe’s The Eagle of the Ninth, Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass and Kit Williams’ wonderful Masquerade.

But here’s a dilemma I haven’t seen covered anywhere. Does it count if someone reads the book out loud to you? Well, this is what Beloved Other Half very kindly did, over a period of several evenings. Knowing that wherever two readers gather together these things can be argued about, and that there is no single answer that will suit everyone, I will state definitively that I am delighted to include books that are read aloud to me (and ones I read aloud to other people).

So, to the book and the reason why this is quite a daunting review to write. Beloved Other Half has been a fan of these books since he was in his early teens and is a pretty obsessive collector, with hard-to-find comic strip reprints, original 60s paperbacks and even bits of original artwork all either lining the bookshelves or on his list of things to acquire.

So, in the face of all this expertise, what can I say about it? Well, to love these books you will have to love genre fiction. The genre under discussion is that peculiarly 60s class of action-adventure that encompasses James Bond, The Saint plus The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and is the sort of thing that Mike Myers now attempts to send up in the guise of Austin Powers. And maybe, just maybe, has informed JJ Abrams and the scriptwriters of Alias in developing the Sydney Bristow character.

Modesty Blaise herself, at the outset of the series, is a retired criminal mastermind who has made her fortune and now, aged roughly 26, has disbanded her gang and is leading the life of the idle rich from her London penthouse and her villa in Tangier. Her former right-hand man and best friend Willie Garvin has similarly left it all behind and settled down to become a respectable pub landlord in Thames-side Berkshire - at the aptly-named “Treadmill.”

Except this sensible plan has backfired. Both are restless and dissatisfied - Willie so much so that, unknown to Modesty, he has lost his head, turned the pub over to a manager (who does a better job than him, anyway) and signed up with a gang of South American mercenaries in a desperate quest for a bit of excitement. And, as always when she’s not around to help him keep things straight, he’s got himself into terrible bother. Now he’s sitting in a godawful prison in the middle of the jungle waiting to be executed and without the will to do much about it.

Meanwhile, back in London, Modesty learns she has not remained as anonymous as she might have hoped: Sir Gerald Tarrant, a gentleman with a top-level remit for British overseas intelligence, has been reading her dossier. He wants Modesty’s help with a little problem involving oil revenues, a foreign potentate and a literal crateful of diamonds.

In the newspaper strip he holds the means to bring her whole world crashing down around her ears - a piece of information that calls her immigration status into question - and he intends to use it to blackmail her into working for him. But, on meeting her and finding a poised and lovely young woman completely unlike the one he was expecting, he simply hasn’t the heart to do it. In the book it’s Willie’s predicament and whereabouts that he plans to hold over her. Instead he gives her the information freely, enabling her to act on it and rescue her lieutenant from certain death. (Both are regarded as canon, to make it particularly confusing).

From these acts a powerful friendship grows between him, Modesty and Willie that is the springboard for the events in this first book and in the series in general: the kind of espionage assignments that Sir Gerald’s ‘regular’ agents are unable to bring off, revenge-fuelled encounters with criminals that the pair have done down in the past and who don’t respect the notion of ‘retirement’, scrapes got into by acquaintances of Tarrant’s, lovers of both Modesty’s and Willie’s and other friends in need, or even mere casual acquaintances who have to be fished out of life-threatening situations. For Blaise and Garvin have a knack of just walking into the middle of trouble even without the aid of a top-ranking intelligence officer, a decade spent generating grudges among their fellow-criminals, a web of contacts all around the Mediterranean and Near East plus a taste for living dangerously to generate plots for them.

So, why is this stuff any good? O’Donnell is undoubtedly asking us to believe six impossible things before breakfast and to travel any distance in this series you will have to not be snobbish about reading for pleasure and escapism, to enjoy genre fiction and to be prepared to suspend the requisite amount of disbelief for a novel of this kind. But there are several reasons why the author makes this rather easier for you than you might fear.

For one, he is an absolute master at highly complex characterisation. Modesty in particular is given a past history and set of motivations stemming from her presence as a small, unaccompanied child in a Displaced Persons camp in the Balkans in 1945 that more than satisfactorily explains her mindset and abilities. It is based on an actual child that O’Donnell once encountered at an army camp in Persia while on national service. Her unusual relationship with Willie - based on trust, mutual respect and a vast well of shared experience in areas undreamt-of by the vast majority of people, and completely untarnished by any shred of possessiveness or sexual jealousy, is set up beautifully.

In Sir Gerald we see a man who is tortured by the demands of his job - an urbane, courteous, thoroughly British gentleman who nonetheless must occasionally send his agents into certain-death situations, while he stays safe behind a desk, and sacrifice individuals for the common good. If that extends to allowing Modesty to put herself into horrible, violent, life-threatening positions - well, he always promises himself ‘never again’ and is rarely able to keep that promise. Not only the principal players get this treatment. The villains, the sidekicks and members of the supporting cast who are barely sketched in are all treated with a lavish amount of authorial attention.

Additionally, the characters have a cast-iron moral code that consistently governs all their decisions and behaviour. When Modesty and Willie were in business they were jewel thieves, art thieves and brokers of industrial secrets. They never touched drugs, kidnapping or prostitution and would be brutally unforgiving towards those who did. While they will both kill people from their dark world without compunction (they tend to either be ’signed off’ or ‘put down’ depending on how badly they’ve behaved - but I guess this is a fairly meaningless linguistic distinction to the victim) as well as taking out people whose continued existence they see as harmful, they will never kill ‘civilians’ or hurt them more than they have to. And while they lead extremely latitudinarian personal lives they never seek to misrepresent the situation to potential partners or to represent that there is more on the table in commitment terms than there actually is.

O’Donnell backs up his skill in characterisation with the most assured plotting imaginable - he always seems to me to send the story exactly where it ought to go next. So, while his characters find themselves in unbelievable situations battling desperate circumstances, readers should have no problems following them as long as they’re reasonably signed up to the whole enterprise and have followed each step on the way. Add in a generous dash of humour and a keen understanding of the power of a good tension-breaking joke and you’ve got a formula that has been keeping thriller-readers entertained for a good 40 years now.

Reading like fury, trying to get as far ahead of last year’s target of 63 books as possible. Will update soon, with proper reviews of this lot:

2007 Reading Challenge: Book 58

Modesty Blaise - Peter O’Donnell

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2007 Reading Challenge: Book 59

Modesty Blaise: The Gabriel Set-up - Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway

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2007 Reading Challenge: Book 60

Sabre Tooth - Peter O’Donnell

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2007 Reading Challenge: Book 61

K is for Killer - Sue Grafton

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2007 Reading Challenge: Book 62

Transmetropolitan: Tales of Human Waste - Warren Ellis et al

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2007 Reading Challenge: Book 63

I, Lucifer - Peter O’Donnell

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An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore

Far from being a depressing or heavy-going read, this book is delightfully reminiscent of those science tomes that fascinated me (and, I suspect, many others) as a child. Whether the subject was volcanoes and plate tectonics, space exploration or dinosaurs, there were always a wealth of colourful drawings and photographs, charts and statistics to absorb and inform as well as information rendered into understandable language.

Although the subject matter of Al Gore’s plea for engagement with the most serious issue to face humanity at this time could not be more serious, the format of his book underplays this. As well as exuding an air that’s so wonderfully reminiscent of the junior science encyclopaedia, it’s also a lovely object with heavyweight paper, glossy full-colour printing and lots of fold-out pages. This should in no way be taken as pejorative; I am sadly aware that people out there will jump on anything said about this book and twist it into an insult and a belittlement. This is not my intention, and I refuse to provide fuel for their fires.

It turns out that the reason for this is Al Gore’s slideshow - the one he’s been going around giving to all and sundry for years now in order to convince people of the seriousness of global warming. And the book really does have the feel of a visual presentation distilled into text, with the addition of some longer articles better suited to the print format. This, after the sheer attractiveness of the book itself, is the second reason why it’s not so much of a chore to read as you might at first imagine.

The third reason is that Gore does everything he can to humanise it, tying in his long engagement with environmental causes with events in his own family life - his childhood split between Washington DC, where his father served as a senator for Tennessee, and the family farm, holidays with wife Tipper after his return from Vietnam, the moment when his young son narrowly escaped death in a car accident, the death of his beloved sister from lung cancer. And the fourth is the note of optimism that is shot right through it - the acknowledgement of the sheer scale of the problem we face, and the urgency of coming to grips with it is accompanied by a belief that Americans, and citizens of the world in general, are more than capable of rising to the challenge.

As to the argument itself, well, it is compelling. In the book Gore likens the climate change nay-sayers to those people that have spent years denying that tobacco causes cancer. He also traces their tactics and shows how those tried and tested methods once applied by tobacco firms are now coming to the aid of oil companies. Maybe the presentation of his data isn’t of the most scientific - but are scientists the audience that most need to be convinced? Maybe there is the odd fact in there that could be interpreted differently, or which isn’t quite right.

But pulling at these threads in the hope that the whole thing will unravel, and denying that this whole problem exists and is real, is just so mindbogglingly stupid that I’m not even going to waste time on it. To my eyes Gore’s argument is compelling, deeply sincere, humane and well-presented and it deserves a wide audience. The optimism is refreshing and the section at the back that suggests way of channelling your energy and concern into action well-placed. This is not a man that sits around complaining that nothing is happening - instead he travels the world, seeing the problem for himself, writing books and making films and setting up companies that search for solutions. And not letting past events and might-have-beens get on top of him.

I came away even more depressed than ever, and for the sake of all of us, that Governor George Bush of Texas was allowed to get away with murder in 2000.

Some links:

• An Inconvenient Truth: official website
• The Guardian: An inconvenient truth (beware of politicians in fleece clothing)
• Independent Online: “The world can’t wait for George Bush”
• Stephen Fry: getting overheated (everything this man writes is a pleasure to read. But, to find the relevant bit, scroll down until you come to the ‘getting overheated’ crosshead).

Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser

This is a very difficult book to read. Not in the sense that it’s hard to get through; given the weightiness of its subject matter the words positively leap off the page at you, partly because of the slightly episodic writing style; it’s a bit like leafing through a series of articles in one of those highbrow magazines with long-form articles like Prospect or National Geographic.

No, the problem is that you may come away with the conviction that it is simply not morally justifiable to continue to eat fast food of any sort. Not because you’re on the move and it’s the only thing available. Not because your kids like it. Not because it just tastes really, really good. Not because everyone else does, so what’s the point in being different. Not because it’s easy. Eric Schlosser’s arguments are so convincing and well-put-together that, if you believe he is writing in good faith and with half an idea what he is about, then you may also have to accept that you should never give money to a McDonalds, a Burger King, a Papa John’s, a Domino’s Pizza, a Pizza Hut, a KFC, a Subway, a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Godfather’s Pizza, or almost any other fast food chain you could name, ever again. Ever. Oh yes, or drink Coke or Pepsi or any of the other drinks that they produce.

Because, if Schlosser is right, do so and you’re not only contributing to your own ill-health and saddling your children with eating habits that could take years off their lives, all for fear of being labelled a bad parent if you don’t give them what they ask for (the notorious ‘pester power’ in action). You are also contributing to the exploitation of millions, from the rural poor and migrant workers in fields and slaughterhouses across the world, to the teens who lack the experience and worldliness to argue back against exploitation in frontline restaurant kitchens. If Schlosser is right then you’re damaging young people’s educational prospects (because holding down a 20-hour part-time job alongside school just doesn’t work well), contributing to the commercialisation of the classroom, aiding deforestation and global warming, helping to drive farmers out of business and supporting virulently anti-competitive practices and the negation of the most basic protections and the right to unionise for workers. You’re contributing to the corruption of the political process, the suborning of public money to support the business interests of a privileged few and the ever-increasing growth of car use, because it’s inextricably linked to fast food restaurants and the companies involved have spent their lobbying dollars (and pounds) on getting road improvements and planning exemptions. And tacitly condoning the most horrible animal cruelty, as well as consuming food stuffed with chemicals and hormones to make it appear more like ‘real food’ than real food could ever hope to be.

You’re doing this, and so am I, if we continue to eat fast food. But, again, even if we consider that the argument Schlosser has set out in this book is broadly right, we may still feel that we’re going to do it anyway.

And why is that?

Because what’s the point of making a stand? Because it tastes good? Because we don’t want to disappoint our kids? Because it’s easy? Because it’s cheap? Because it’s only this once? Because no-one’s looking? Because it’s going to be too much effort to go and buy some more ethical food and then cook it and wash up afterwards?

That’s just not good enough, if what Schlosser argues is right, because it means continuing to endorse all the stuff listed above, marketed by people who believe you and I are too lazy, ignorant, passive or gullible to start eating the food of the quality we deserve. Which is why reading his book is likely to be a damned uncomfortable exercise for anyone who’s not a vegan living exclusively off the gatherings of their local organic farmers’ market.

Now, on a personal level, I do think that Eric Schlosser makes a very convincing case. And I’ve been left with the conviction that I’m going to have to overcome every one of these excuses and just not eat the stuff again. Ever. Without exception. Not just for a couple of weeks, or a month, but not ever.

And that is not an easy thing to do. I rarely go in burger joints, being a longtime vegetarian, but I’m an absolute sucker for takeaway pizza. And now I feel bloody uncomfortable about eating the stuff. And I’m trying to hold that thought, even though it’s difficult, and it means not eating something I like, and having embarrassing arguments with the nearest and dearest, and it’s going to mean cooking when I’d much rather just pick up the phone, or go onto some website and order something.

Because I don’t honestly think I can live with any other course of action. And sorry if that’s a difficult statement to make. But it’s a true one.

Some links:

• Wikipedia: Fast Food Nation
• The Observer: The man who ruined our appetite
• NY Times book review (requires registration)
• Eric Schlosser: The Bitter Truth About Fast Food
• Salon: Unhappy Meals

H is for Homicide, I is for Innocent and J is for Judgment- Sue Grafton

The next batch of Kinsey Millhone mysteries more or less inhaled at a sitting:

In H is for Homicide Kinsey is faced with investigating the death of a friend and former colleague who is found shot dead in the parking lot of California Fidelity insurance. Before she’s had a chance to make much headway at all she finds herself swept up in the dramas of an old school friend, helping to protect an insurance fraudster - and finally talked into entering a situation that could well prove beyond even her considerable talents.

In I is for Innocent we meet the charming David Barney - believed by everyone except the courts to be a wife-killer. Kinsey’s hired by her new landlord (in a professional sense, don’t be concerned about Henry Pitts), a street-fighting attorney named Lonnie Kingman, to come up with the goods for a civil suit against the man. Except before long she’s finding cans popping open stuffed to the gills with worms. If Barney didn’t kill his wife, who did? And why did the PI on the brink of solving the mystery have such a conveniently-timed fatal heart attack?

In J is for Judgment Kinsey comes smack up against her own past and motivations after being re-hired for a last dance with Mac Voorhies, her old boss at California Fidelity. She’s sent on vacation to La Paz in Mexico after a former agent sees a dead man alive and well in a bar there - a man whose wife’s picked up a cool half a million in life insurance payout. And, before she knows what’s hit her, she’s caught up in a family tragedy that unpredictably morphs into the story of her long-dead parents, the aunt who raised her and the horde of gossipy, demanding relatives she never knew she had. And, very probably, doesn’t want now.

It will be no surprise to anyone watching these books being digested without sufficient chewing in batches of three that I really enjoy the Kinsey Millhone series. I particularly like observing the way in which the author manages to make each one distinctive, and to raise the stakes for our Plucky Girl Detective each time. On the above occasions she is arguably in more physical peril, and certainly in more emotional peril, then we have seen her before.

There’s an interesting line in the I is for Innocent page on the author’s website which compares the book to a trial novel: a third for the prosecution, a third for the defence, a third for the denouement - but without any actual trial. And in both of the others she creates an extraordinary cast of supporting characters, giving them great depth and resonance. And this on top of some superb plotting.

I’m trying to make myself leave K on the shelf while I clear a backlog of Bookcrossing book rings that must, must, must go on to other people. It’s a hard job…

Some links:
Sue Grafton’s website: H is for Homicide
Sue Grafton’s website: I is for Innocent
Sue Grafton’s website: J is for Judgment

The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman

My first venture into this author’s work and, on the strength of it, I would definitely come again. The Wine of Angels is a dark and complex story about the forces - both supernatural and considerably more prosaic - that are unleashed in the Herefordshire village of Ledwardine on the appointment of its new priest in charge. She’s a nicotine-addicted single mother by the name of Merrily Watkins.

The powers-that-be in Ledwardine react in their different ways to Merrily. Some resent her and seem only too ready to find an excuse to reject her. Others, with roots that stretch back every bit as far if not further as these supposed traditionalists, welcome her as a catalyst for profound change.

In the meantime Merrily is rattling around a huge and unsuitable vicarage grappling with the expectations set by her supine predecessor, a profound lack of self-confidence, periodic crises of faith, the personal problems of parishioners, the first risky voyages out of the harbour of her teenage daughter, the unwelcome attentions of a sex-crazed organist and the appearances of a positively shamanic gift-shop proprietor who certainly far knows more about what’s happening than she’s letting on.

Too much for one person? Of course it is, especially when her life has hardly been a bed of roses in recent years. As the strain mounts, and Merrily starts to buckle, she threatens to bring the village status quo crashing down with her. And the consequences of that are murderous.

Rickman makes an excellent fist of writing female characters and his two major protagonists, Merrily and her daughter Jane, are alive on the page with a sparky relationship that’s easy to believe in. Bits of their dialogue are laugh-out-loud funny - not least Jane’s spoof of pensioners complaining in the post office queue, and also her mother’s admission of how she got her name.

But I certainly wasn’t laughing for very long. The book is shot through with a black, supernatural chill that doesn’t stop much short of outright horror and the author does a cracking job of swiftly building characters you really care about and then really putting them through the wringer. You end up terrified for the two women and their allies, not wanting to put the book down, but not really fancying turning the page, for fear of what it will reveal.

I love books that produce this effect. Highly recommended.

Some links:

• Phil Rickman’s website
• An interview with Merrily Watkins
• An interview with Phil Rickman
• Wikipedia: Phil Rickman
• Phil Rickman bibliography
• BBC Inside Out: Deliverance ministers

* This year’s challenge is now complete, and this was a fine book with which to do it…

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Whoa. The classics. These are the ones that intimidate me. Not reading them, that’s generally highly enjoyable. It’s just finding something to say afterwards that hasn’t been said a thousand times already. When all the analysis has been done, all you can generally add is your personal reaction, I guess.

So, here goes.

I love Jane Austen, I truly do. From the point a while back when I first picked up Northanger Abbey and realised that, far from being a book to slog through the pages were just turning themselves. It had pace, humour and a delightfully wicked modern sensibility that made it laugh-out-loud funny in places. I think I followed it up with Pride and Prejudice which is as luxurious and self-indulgent as a long wallow in a hot bath full of expensive smellies, with a glass of red wine and a big box of Belgian chocolates conveniently to hand. And, all the time you are enjoying this gorgeous reading experience, you can tell other people you are busy with Serious Literature instead of high-class chick lit! It’s just great.

After this I strayed into a slightly more serious Austen byway - the one containing Mansfield Park and Persuasion. Both of these books have a serious tone and a sad inflection that is not present in the two works mentioned above. The first of these is the story of Fanny Price, a poor girl who is taken in then ruthlessly patronised and done down by her richer relatives. Despite its fascinating references to the sugar and slave trades, it is not the most popular of Austen reads due to its highly ambiguous heroine. It seems obvious from the first few pages what the outcome of the plot must be, and the tension in the book is thus from seeing how this outcome will be achieved. The author indicates where our sympathies should lie, and then makes it hard to sympathise with the people she suggests because they are, to be frank, such dreadful prigs. This is an intensely multi-layered narrative - we seem to see the endorsement of a set of values about society and morality which are then torn down to their foundations by the end of the book. The theme of romantic happiness, which seems at some points to be given such significance, and which figures so profoundly and satisfyingly in other works by the author, not least Pride and Prejudice, is ultimately treated almost superficially.

Persuasion is a bit easier on the reader, being the story of attempts by diffident lovers Anne Elliot and the poor but ambitious young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, to live happily ever after despite the best efforts of their family and friends. Again, the romantic theme one might expect predominates but its progress through the book is characterised more by a mood of disappointment and unhappiness than by the humour and fighting spirit of an Elizabeth Bennet, or the imagination and vivacity of a Catherine Morland.

So, having formed a most perfect acquaintance with these two contrasting sides to the works of Miss Austen did I thus approach Sense and Sensibility.

And it was a great experience. I loved the wry humour, the authorial asides (especially on the subject of besotted parents and their annoying kids), the gripping plot, the sense that the good ended well - but not too well, while the bad got their just desserts - to a degree. I rediscovered all the pleasure I had found in the first two Austen novels I read, was thrilled, entertained, amused and saddened.

Go and read Jane Austen, is what I’m saying, dear reader, or you will sadly regret all the wasted years in which you did not…

Some links:

• Project Gutenberg: Sense and Sensibility
• News on the BBC’s planned adaptation (April 07)
• Pemberley (Jane Austen fan community): Sense and Sensibility
• Was Sense and Sensibility originally an epistolary novel?
• Wikiquote: Sense and Sensibility
• The Austen Blog
• Penguin reading guide
• Random House readers’ guide
• Jane Austen Society UK: Sense and Sensibility
• Wikipedia: Sense and Sensibility
• There’ll be questions later… a Sense and Sensibility crossword

Two and a Half Pillars of Wisdom - Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith is beginning to remind me of Charles Dickens. He writes series novels that are published in weekly installments. His output is prolific and he carries on an entirely different career (in Dickens’ case journalism, in his academia) at the same time as being a novelist. His work is strongly observational, character-based and often parodic while also achieving mass-market appeal. It is regionally based (although admittedly not in London, like his predecessor’s). I think the parallels are quite strong and wonder what this might mean for McCall Smith’s reputation in, say, 50 years’ time.

Regular readers will recall that I have expended much of my reading energy - more limited that would have been ideal this year - on this author’s works. Book number seven on my list was Blue Shoes and Happiness, the seventh volume in his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Like so many others, these are the books that introduced me to his writing and made me keen to seek out more. The latest book I found to have been written almost in a minor key - very melancholy and pessimistic in tone, with things in Mma Precious Ramotswe’s world not seeming in a positive way to me.

Moving on to the Scotland Street novels I thought I had divined the reason as these do seem to be the works that are firing the author’s imagination at present. I have just read volume three, Love Over Scotland thanks to the auspices of a kind Bookcrosser who lent it to me, and I understand volume four, entitled The World According to Bertie , has been published in good time for the Christmas rush. I also stopped off along the way to read the first volume of the Isabel Dalhousie series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, and was glad that I had.

And so to the book in question. As we have seen it is one of no less than four series that the author has on the go and I would wager that this is the one that you will know least about By way of introduction, here’s what McCall Smith’s agent has to say about the series:

2003 and 2004 saw the publication a new series featuring the unnaturally tall and exceedingly memorable Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and the haplessness of Inspector Clouseau. His adventures with his equally ridiculous colleagues, Professors Florianus Prinzel and Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, all taking place in the rarefied world of the Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, were described in three instalments: PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS, THE FINER POINTS OF SAUSAGE DOGS and AT THE VILLA OF REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES. All three books have now been collected into one volume, THE TWO AND A HALF PILLARS OF WISDOM, published by Abacus in the UK, and a fourth novel is in progress.

I like the comparison with Dr Frasier Crane, and think that’s a clever piece of marketing. But I was very surprised to learn that this book was contemporaneous with his Edinburgh-based work and younger than much of the Precious Ramotswe stuff. It has the tone almost of a dry run in which the author is playing with characters, humour and situations and seeing what works. It has most of his hallmarks, including an episodic structure, a lack of self-awareness in the eponymous hero and a delight in situational comedy.

But reading it feels like an exercise in completism. I’m glad I did but it won’t be the strand of his writing that’ll be top of my list to follow in future.