literature

The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen

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From the PR: “Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate.

A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland. With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a right-yellow Lada.

That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special.

And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…”

A quick scan back through my reviews of his work has revealed to me that I’ve been reading Antti Tuomainen for a decade now, which while a slightly alarming realisation in itself shows that time flies when you’re having fun. The first of his books I read was The Mine, a dark, complex and intelligent thriller that dealt with some pretty heavy themes and had me practically up to my knees in Finnish snow by the time I’d finished it. A year later came The Man Who Died and, well, that was something else entirely.

It was still a thriller, still dark, but it was also ridiculously funny. I loved it enough that it found its way into my 50 Great Reads the following year and, thankfully, Tuomainen clearly enjoyed making that switch as much as I enjoyed reading it. Since then I’ve happily followed him through Palm Beach, Finland, Little Siberia and The Rabbit Factor, with that mixture of crime, increasingly bizarre situations and very dark humour becoming something I’ve come to look forward to whenever a chance to read another of his books appears. Hence it being an absolute no-brainer to say ‘yes please!’ with The Winter Job – which might be the most fun I’ve had with one yet.

I absolutely tore through this book. It’s ridiculously addictive and, once Ilmari and Antero set off across Finland in their clapped-out old Thames van, I felt as though I’d climbed in alongside them and could practically feel the seat under my bum. Admittedly, “tore through” applies more to my reading than their progress; the van isn’t exactly built for speed and that’s before you throw Finnish winter roads into the equation. But somehow, that makes it even better – another cassette going into the player, miles of snow-covered road ahead and an increasing number of reasons to keep checking what’s behind us.

Which kinda brings me back to something I’ve been saying about Tuomainen for years. When I reviewed Little Siberia I called it “a Nordic Noir directed by the Coen Brothers”, and The Winter Job gave me that feeling again in spades. As Ilmari and Antero’s journey becomes increasingly complicated, the confrontations more dangerous and the whole thing just that little bit more absurd, I could – in between fits of laughter – practically see the film playing out in my head. It’s dark, frequently tense and very, very funny, often all at the same time. Credit too, to David Hackston’s translation because comedy is bloody hard enough to get right in one language, let alone another.

But but but but BUUUUT, this is something Tuomainen has always been really good at; stealthily sneaking in addictive characters and real heart beneath all the comedy. I’ve called his books funny before and I’m doing the same again here yet they’re never simply comic crime novels. There’s always something human underneath the increasingly bizarre situations he puts his characters into and here that’s very much Ilmari and Antero. For all the stuff going on around them, I think I’d have happily spent considerably longer in that knackered van listening to cassettes and watching Finland pass by outside. Ilmari and Antero spend much of the journey seemingly on the verge of making some kind of breakthrough, both about their shared past and themselves. They get close to conversations that feel like they might actually take them somewhere, only to be interrupted by the slightly more pressing matter of being ambushed by communists in a Lada or stalked by an increasingly unhinged psychopath with Eye of the Tiger blaring from his car stereo.

Yet, with every mile, you get the feeling they’re getting there. Slowly but surely, like the Thames itself. Beneath all the chaos there’s something genuinely warm about watching these two men gradually chip away at things that have been left unsaid for far too long. I became as invested in that as I did in whether they could actually survive the journey and get the couch – and its contents, about which I’m saying absolutely nothing – safely to where it needs to go.

In the end it feels as though Ilmari and Antero have travelled considerably further than the distance between Helsinki and Kilpisjärvi, and I was genuinely sorry to see the journey come to an end. Thankfully, Tuomainen leaves us with a hint that this may not have to be the case… if there is more from this ‘special delivery firm’, then I’ll be there in a heartbeat with my own bag of cassettes.

My thanks, always, to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy and Anne Cater for inviting me to take part on this blogtour.

The Prince of Pauper’s Pond by Lars Elling

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From the PR: “1985. Nineteen-year-old Filip spends his days playing football, listening to music on his Walkman and drawing, searching for something he cannot yet name. He lives in a large family house shared with his grandparents, where an old rift between his grandfather Arnstein and Arnstein’s brother Truls still governs the atmosphere. The cause appears trivial, an apple tree dropping fruit across a boundary fence, but the bitterness between the brothers speaks of something far older and deeper.

1912. With Europe on the brink of upheaval, Arnstein and Truls are sent into the forest for the summer by their stern father, determined that his sons should learn to endure hardship. Left to fend for themselves among travellers, log drivers and Forest Finns, the brothers live from the land, fishing, hunting and roaming the vast woodland. Cold and hungry, yet bound together by fierce loyalty and affection, they crown themselves the Princes of Pauper’s Pond, rulers of a world defined by freedom, imagination and shared struggle.

Until, back home, their father makes a decision that will change everything.

Spanning generations, The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is a vibrant, magical and deeply affecting novel about brotherhood and belonging, about finding joy and love in the open landscape, and about those single moments that can seal a family’s fate … forever…”

Sometimes it’s hard to know how to review a book. Not because it’s a bad book – hell, it’s easy to do that. But when a book is so good that it stays in your mind long after, it’s hard to know how to put into words the effect it has on you. Lars Elling’s The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is one of those books. It’s such a beautiful and deeply affecting novel that I don’t really know where to start.

I’m a man that enjoys simple pleasures you can luxuriate in: a mellow cup of coffee in a good mug that keeps it warm long enough to enjoy at the right pace; the process of setting a record on the turntable and absorbing it in one sitting, including getting up and flipping to Side B; a novel that gently draws you in and completely absorbs you in its world as it leisurely unfolds around you. The Princes of Pauper’s Pond gave me exactly that feeling, and I absolutely loved it.

I’ve read a lot of novels from Norwegian authors – quite a few courtesy of Orenda Books – and I can’t think of a time when one has rendered the country quite as evocatively as The Princes of Pauper’s Pond. Yes, Lars Elling is a well-respected visual artist, but to be able to take the skill with which he renders a scene on canvas and somehow translate that to the page is something else entirely. The forests and landscapes of early 20th century Norway become so vivid and tactile that. more than simply being told where these people lived, Elling makes you feel as though you’ve spent time there.

Then again, it’s not just the landscape and setting that Elling has captured so brilliantly. The characters live and breathe on these pages to the point that you begin to feel less like you’re reading about the family and more like you’ve somehow been admitted into it. Whether it’s the “modern day” (well, 1985) with Filip and the family – from the apple wars to the father/son dynamic and those conversations with the Old Man – or Arnstein taking us back into his youth with Truls and life under ‘The Kaiser’, every little detail makes these people feel utterly real. At times you get the sensation that you’re sitting in that downstairs room yourself, hanging on to every laboured breath from the Old Man and waiting for the next part of his story.

That manner of telling of the story is important, too, because so much of The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is concerned with memory… what we remember, what we choose to tell and how the stories we’re told about our families become part of our own lives. The movement between Filip in 1985 and Arnstein’s childhood never feels like the novel jumping backwards and forwards for the sake of filling in a history. You’re listening along with Filip, gradually piecing together a life and a relationship between two brothers that existed long before he did.

It’s that relationship between Arnstein and Truls that gives the novel real emotional weight. Again, I’m not going to go too far into details because so much of the pleasure of the book is allowing Arnstein’s story to reveal itself at its own pace… but Elling captures something incredibly tender about childhood, brotherhood and the way those early relationships continue to shape us long after the events themselves have passed. There’s real warmth and humour here, but also sadness, and knowing that these are an old man’s memories gives even the happiest moments a slight ache.

Elling captures the weight of passing time beautifully, along with that strange sense of loss that can come from looking back at the person you were and the relationships you once had. The young Arnstein we come to know is so heavily contrasted with the Old Man telling his story more than seventy years later that at times it feels as though he’s gazing back at something impossibly far away and yet still immediately close to him.

That contrast is perhaps most affecting in his relationship with Truls. As boys they’re thick as thieves, sharing a childhood and experiences that bind them together completely. In 1985, however, they’re about as distant as two brothers can be despite remaining physically close to one another. We know that that distance exists as Arnstein tells us how inseparable they once were, and it hangs over those memories without Elling needing to keep pointing towards it. There’s something painfully recognisable in the idea that someone can have been the centre of your world at one point in your life and, decades later, become almost a stranger.

What makes all of this work so magically is that Elling never seems determined to wring emotion out of any of it. For all the melancholy that hangs over Arnstein’s recollections, this isn’t a gloomy book. It’s frequently funny, occasionally strange and full of the sort of small adventures, rivalries and moments of mischief that make the childhood sections such a pleasure to spend time in. The sadness is there because we know where these two boys eventually end up, but Elling keeps that knowledge sitting quietly in the background rather than using it like a blunt hammer.

There’s also something almost fable-like about Arnstein’s childhood world. It’s completely convincing as a place, but at the same time seems just slightly removed from reality, populated by characters and incidents that become larger through the act of remembering them. Perhaps that’s simply what childhood memories are like: the places are bigger, the adults stranger and the things that happened to us carry an importance they could never have again.

I finished The Princes of Pauper’s Pond a few weeks ago now and I’ve found myself returning to it in my head ever since: to Arnstein and Truls, to Filip sitting with the Old Man, to those forests and lakes and long-ago summers. I started this review by saying that sometimes the hardest books to review are the ones that affect you most and I’m still not sure I’ve managed to put my finger on everything this one did to me. What I do know is that I absolutely bloody loved spending time in its world and, more importantly, I wasn’t quite ready to leave it when the final page came.

My thanks to Orenda Books for my copy of The Princes of Pauper’s Pond and Anne Cater for inviting me to take review as part of (in fact, looks like I’m kicking it off) the blog tour.

Split Second by R.C Bridgestock

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From the PR: “What if one moment – one split second – changed everything?
When a firearms officer shoots a suspect dead and wounds another, who later dies in hospital, the official line is that the sun was in her eyes. Her body cam failed. Known only as Officer X, her anonymity is meant to protect her – until a judge releases her name and a media storm erupts.

Detective Superintendent Jack Dylan and DI Charley Mann are called in to determine whether it was a justifiable use of force – or something darker. And when it’s revealed that Officer X knew the victim, and her brother died of a drug overdose linked to the same woman, the case becomes charged with personal and political tension.

As pressure mounts, a vulnerable witness dies and a lost phone surfaces with a photograph and a message that could unravel everything – and reveal the truth about what happened that day. Split Second brings Dylan and Mann together for the first time, in an investigation that will test their instincts, their loyalties and the limits of justice itself, as both detectives must decide how far they’ll go – and what they’re willing to sacrifice – to uncover the truth.”

This book gave me sunburn. Well, maybe not directly but it sure enough contributed to it. I blasted through this in two sittings, the first of which was on a beach in Brittany where ‘just one more chapter’ meant reapplying sunscreen slipped my mind. It’s just such a monumentally gripping book. Those two sessions absolutely flew by – Split Second is so immensely addictive and satisfying that there’s no real question of finishing it as soon as you pick it up.

That doesn’t mean, though, that this is a novel without depth or substance, far from it. This is an intensely rich and detailed story with plenty of twists and populated by great characters. There’s no doubting that R.C. Bridgestock know what they’re talking about. Husband-and-wife writing team Carol and Bob both worked for West Yorkshire Police – Bob eventually becoming Head of CID – and that experience is apparent throughout Split Second. Procedure isn’t simply something sprinkled around the edges to make everything look convincing; it informs the way the investigation develops, the decisions people make and, perhaps more importantly, the consequences of those decisions. There’s a weight and credibility to it that’s too often sacrificed in crime fiction in the rush to get to the next body, revelation or conveniently timed car chase.

This is probably a good point to admit that, historically, the home-grown British police thriller hasn’t been particularly high on my reading list. That may seem slightly odd given how often I’ve complained about people who simply declare entire genres off-limits, but hypocrisy comes for us all eventually. Perhaps it’s the familiarity of it. Years of mundane interactions with the local constabulary and seemingly endless television programmes involving police officers standing beside wet roundabouts have never quite offered the same escapism as, say, a semi-alcoholic Norwegian detective pursuing murderers through the snow, or a one-man army called Jack arriving in some unfortunate town shortly before half its population requires medical attention. Which, given how much I bloody loved this book, may have been something of a mistake.

I’m also going to mention here that I came to Split Second knowing absolutely nothing about R.C. Bridgestock’s previous books. Detective Superintendent Jack Dylan and DI Charley Mann may be the protagonists of two established series – and their coming together here may well mean considerably more to existing readers – but both were complete strangers to me. Happily, that proved no obstacle whatsoever. There’s no sense that you’ve arrived late to a party and are expected to know who everyone is, nor any requirement to head off and read any previous novels before being allowed through the door. Split Second works perfectly well as a thriller in its own right, and a highly addictive one at that. In fact, it’s so bloody addictive that I’m now impatient for the follow-up. Without venturing anywhere near spoiler territory, Split Second doesn’t so much finish as pull the rug out from underneath your feet and disappear.

It does, however, mean R.C Bridgestock have managed something I really wasn’t expecting when I picked this one up. Not only have they completely dismantled my own, admittedly ill-founded, reluctance toward the British police procedural, they’ve left me invested in characters I’d never encountered before and am impatient to find out where they’re going next.

More importantly, Split Second is simply a cracking read. It’s intelligent without ever getting bogged down in its own detail, authentic without endlessly pointing at the research behind that authenticity and ridiculously difficult to put down. I went into it knowing nothing of the writers or their existing characters and came out the other side wanting more of them all – just need to ensure that next time I remember the sunscreen.

My thanks to Orenda Books for my copy of Split Second and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of the blog tour.

The Fascination by Essie Fox

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From the PR: “Victorian England. A world of rural fairgrounds and glamorous London theatres. A world of dark secrets and deadly obsessions…

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father’s quack elixir as they tour the country fairgrounds, at the age of fifteen the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as `Captain´.

Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather, Lord Seabrook, a man who has a dark interest in anatomical freaks and other curiosities … particularly the human kind. Resenting his grandson for his mother’s death in childbirth, when Seabrook remarries and a new heir is produced, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name.

Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell’s Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical ‘family’ of performers, freaks and outcasts.

But it is Theo’s fascination with Tilly and Keziah that will lead all of them into a web of deceits, exposing the darkest secrets and threatening everything they know…

Exploring universal themes of love and loss, the power of redemption and what it means to be unique, The Fascination is an evocative, glittering and bewitching gothic novel that brings alive Victorian London – and darkness and deception that lies beneath…”

I know they say you should never judge a book by its cover but I’ve got a feeling that’s a load of tosh, there are some great novels on my shelves with covers that are just as glorious and Essie Fox’s The Fascination has joined that list, it’s a stunner inside and out.

I tend to be wary of historical novels, I find the notion of characters within pages set, for example, in the time of Henry VIII behaving or using phraseology too close to the time they were written vs the time they supposedly inhabit, especially when we have literary touch points from that time that are more likely to be accurate in that respect. Perhaps its because I studied the era and its literature (specifically that of crime and law) at university, I’m typically less forgiving of novels set within the Victorian era that find characters either cliched or as historically convincing as Ben Affleck in, well, anything other than a meme.

With that preamble out of the way… how do I feel about The Fascination? I bloody loved it. Essie Fox’s novel feels like a delicious example of that classic Victorian narrative that made the era and genre so ripe and important. From the syntax to the characters, their clothing and actions and presentation, The Fascination is so immersive and richly of its time you’d be forgiven for doubting it was published in 2023.

More than managing the tricky feat of creating an accurate setting in time, Essie Fox’s novel also delivers a compelling and, if you’ll pardon the pun, fascinating storyline that’s loaded with mystery, suspense and underpinned with a whole lot of heart.

While the principal trio of Keziah, Tilly and Theo deservedly evoke plenty of emotion (the twins’ early years are rendered so heartbreakingly), they’re supported by a bevvy of characters that are painted with similarly sympathetic colours and attention to detail, providing the emotional warmth of the novel even as it treads into some seriously grim and dark waters.

Those dark waters do get pretty disturbing too… it’s to Fox’s credit that she manages to convey those horrors so vividly while still maintaining the feeling that you’re reading a classic Victorian novel. As thrilling as some of those moments get, I think it’s fair to say that The Fascination is more an enthralling mystery than it is a thriller and there are some genuine surprises in store as its different threads come together – indeed, the very last one was one that left my mouth agape and made me go back and double check I’d read it correctly.

The Fascination is rich in detail, overflowing with brilliant characters and reading like a true classical Victorian novel and wholeheartedly recommended.

So Pretty by Ronnie Turner

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From the PR:“Fear blisters through this town like a fever…

When Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye, he believes he will be able to settle down and leave his past behind him. Little does he know that fear blisters through the streets like a fever. The locals tell him to stay away from an establishment known only as Berry & Vincent, that those who rub too closely to its proprietor risk a bad end.

Despite their warnings, Teddy is desperate to understand why Rye has come to fear this one man, and to see what really hides behind the doors of his shop.

Ada moved to Rye with her young son to escape a damaged childhood and years of never fitting in, but she’s lonely, and ostracised by the community. Ada is ripe for affection and friendship, and everyone knows it.

As old secrets bleed out into this town, so too will a mystery about a family who vanished fifty years earlier, and a community living on a knife edge.

Teddy looks for answers, thinking he is safe, but some truths are better left undisturbed, and his past will find him here, just as it has always found him before. And before long, it will find Ada too.”

Two things drew me to this book. First – it’s published by Orenda Books and there’s not a book on my shelves with their logo on the spine that I haven’t enjoyed. Secondly, it’s set in Rye. Rye is a small, picturesque town that’s not too far from where I sit and type and, once upon a time, was once. coastal port. It’s one I’ve visited often and happened to have done so just before my copy of So Pretty arrived – massive thanks to Karen at Orenda for sending this one over. It’s certainly changed the way I’m going to be looking at the town next time.

So Pretty is one hell of good book. I cannot think of the last time I was so gripped by a story, or swore under my breath quite so often while reading, or wondered how many more times the hairs on the back of my neck were going to stand up before I reached the end of this novel.

Just as “there is something malignant” about Berry & Vincent, the curio shop that haunts the heart of this novel from which a sense of unease seeps, there’s a deliciously chilling sense of foreboding that seeps out of the pages of So Pretty. And then… well… it dials up the chills with a literal “say Daddy” shudder of a shocker and changes gear as foreboding breaks into full on sinister thrill ride.

It’s a challenge not to give away too much of So Pretty‘s plot away here because this is a ride every reader should take. It’s like a literary roller coaster – that long, drawn out pull up to the peak where you feel the tension rising in as you teeter at the top, realising that Teddy might not be all there, before the sheer, heart-pumping acceleration, twists, turns and terrifying moments that follow. You want to close your eyes and not look but you can’t; it’s just too damn gripping and thrilling as So Pretty races through heart-in-mouth moment after another until it reaches the end and you put the book down, realise you haven’t been breathing for a few moments and almost immediately want to read it again.

Ronnie Turner is a fantastic writer. That’s why this book is so bloody good – it takes real skill to tackle the subjects handled in So Pretty as well as she does all the while creating characters that you care about, painting a detailed and real sense of place and managing to slyly but surely ratchet up that tension – she certainly knows how to keep the book firmly gripped in a reader’s fingers. From multiple narratives – of varying reliability – to gut-check reveals, disturbing vignette after another, real emotional pull and moments of genuine ‘I need to put this down for a second and say “fuuuuuuucking hell” a few times’, So Pretty delivers everything you want in a thriller and more.

Turning Pages: 2022 thus far

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A strange thing happened at the start of this year – after years of blazing through books at a tremendous lick, I found myself struggling to get into anything. Moving beyond the first few chapters was a challenge, let alone finishing anything.

Given the degree to which I love a good read, this was a concern. Had I burnt out on books? Was this a byproduct of wrestling with the black dog? Either, rather than persevere and force the issue I took a break, did the rare thing (for me) of indulging in episodic television. Then, when the itch to read began to build up to the point of being impossible to ignore again I picked up the first book on my ‘to read’ pile which happed to be Antti Tuomainen’s The Rabbit Factor.

That did the job. Since then I’ve been pretty much back to business as usual so it feels as good a time as any to summarise the highlights of those collections of words I’ve been consuming over the last six months.

One of my growing joys when it comes to reading, and a mainstay even when I couldn’t get into anything for myself, has been the fact that my son is now of the age where we’ll sit and read through fuller stories and novels over bedtimes. This has meant that, alongside those Terry Pratchett collections like The Witches Vacuum Cleaner, I got to enjoy Journey to the Centre of the Earth again and marvel at the ageless wonder of Jules Verne’s writing. It’s one of those classics that’s been sat on my shelf waiting to be re-read since my days at uni and I couldn’t think of a better reason to have done so.

Rather than set an arbitrary number of books as a target for my reading lately I’ve instead made it a point to read one ‘big Russian classic’ a year. This year that happened to be Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. It’s one of those books that I’d put off reading due to some misconception but am glad to have done so – it’s a joyous read (probably depending on your translation) that’s one to cherish – even if I found the the main plot (and character) of Anna herself bloody irritating. Much more the stories of Prince Stepan and Kostya for me.

Keeping on the classics theme momentarily, the Ernest Hemmingway section on my shelves has seen more than its fair share of action lately as I seek to consume more first-person narrative references. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises was the first to be torn through and (as it, too had been sitting awaiting re-read since uni) just how bloody strong a first novel it is. While his mother may have been disappointed that he should squander his gifts writing about a social set she considered ghastly and, like To Have and Have Not which I read shortly thereafter, there are a few racist comments that grate a touch in 2022, there’s a lot to enjoy here. To Have and Have Not was one I hadn’t read before and while it felt like a disjointed story of three different and gradually weaker parts the first part alone is worth the price of admission and it would be followed by one of his finest and I’m sure I’ll be going back that end of the ‘H’ section soon.

It’s not often that I tend to read multiple books by the same author in one year and yet, along with Hemmingway, I’ve double up on Amor Towles this year. Much has been said of A Gentleman In Moscow and it remains one of my favourite novels to date so I was happy to get hold of The Lincoln Highway at the end of last year though it remained unread for some time. Before I got around to it I went back, as it were, with Mr Towles’ first – The Rules of Civility. Set in New York during the ‘jazz age’ and telling the story, in retrospect, of an eventful 1938 this was such an absolute belter of a read that it was a) clear that Towles is one of those astoundingly talented writers b) an immediate push to pick up The Lincoln Highway again – which turned out to be pretty good timing as having the former fresh in my mind allowed me to really appreciate the connection between the two, making some elements all the more poignant. While it may not have been the most practical of books to take to the beach (the hardback pulls in just under 600 pages) it, too, is a masterpiece of both storytelling and narrative (of which there are several) and highly recommended.

Gunnar Staalesen, since my introduction via Orenda Books published We Shall Inherit The Wind back in 2015, has become one of my favourite authors and I’ve made a point of working my way through as many of his extensive older novels that have been published in English as possible while eagerly awaiting new instalments in the Varg Veum series. I was delighted, then, to find a couple of his books – one new, complete with my review, and one old, The Writing on the Wall – in a bookshop earlier this year. The Writing on the Wall was originally written in 1994 (the English translation arriving in 2004) and is easily a highlight of this year’s reading. I always liken to reading to Staalesen as enjoying a good mug of coffee – it’s to be savoured as is gently kicks in. Once again dealing with some particularly dark subject matter (teenage prostitution and addiction) with quiet power, this is a bloody strong entry in a series that doesn’t have a weak point.

I’d seen Danny Goldberg‘s Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain about for some time but hadn’t felt compelled to get a hold of it before – was there anything more to be said about Kurt Cobain. Well, turns out there is / was, a few insights to be gained. Goldberg become Nirvana’s manager ahead of Smells Like Teen Spirit and here compiles a series of insights from his own memories and unique insider perspective as well as reaching out to others both in the industry and inner circle including Courtney Love and Krist Novoselic for clarification (though Dave Grohl seems notably absent in input) on a few details. Some of these insights are at times painful – particularly on Cobain’s mental health – some refreshingly human given how much Kurt has been turned into a myth, and others fascinating (the examination of the Vanity Fair article that essentially deprived Cobain and Love access to their child is a real eye-opener). All of which mean that this is actually pretty essential reading for a fuller picture into Nirvana’s rise and Kurt Cobain’s tragic end.

As has been the prevailing approach of recent months I’m currently steaming through two books: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez – which is proving to be another beautiful novel I wish I’d read sooner – and, as I’ve recently been exploring more of Neil Young‘s music, Waging Heavy Peace is turning out to be a much better read and less about his model trains than I’d been given to believe.

Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn

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From the PR: “J.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope.

Jerome Charyn’s Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war – from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled like cordwood.

After the war, interned in a Nuremberg psychiatric clinic, Salinger became enchanted with a suspected Nazi informant. They married, but not long after he brought her home to New York, the marriage collapsed. Maladjusted to civilian life, he lived like a ‘spook,’ with invisible stripes on his shoulder, the ghosts of the murdered inside his head, and stories to tell.”

There’s a massive difference between the “Sonny” Salinger of this novel’s prologue – an aspiring short story writer chasing his romantic infatuation with Oona O’Neill in the Stork Club and meeting Hemmingway for the first time – and that of the Sergeant Salinger of the coda – drifting through his memories as he tumbles down an escalator at Bloomingdales in 1947 (a point at which part of his famous novel had already appeared in a serialised form) struggling to come to terms with his experiences in the years in between.

Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn explores Salinger’s war years, how the horrors and tumult of emotions witnessed and experienced shifted and formed the young writer’s mind and outlook to the point where the naive romantic of 1942 could, less than a decade later, deliver a defining novel oozing in edginess and scathing critique of modern society.

Salinger’s war years are richly imagined, blurring lines between fiction and reality – there was a lot here that sent me to check ‘did that actually happen’ and with so much of it genuinely having taken place (Exercise Tiger really was the horrific cock up it’s described as here and more).

We view the horrors and brutality through Salinger’s experiences whether it’s coming ashore with the second wave on Utah beech and spending hours wading through water, the green hell of Hürtgen Forest or the liberation of Kaufering IV in a way that’s at times reminiscent of Catch-22 with its mix of the absurdity and tragedy of war and the increasingly detached state “Sonny” begins to inhabit – Salinger was hospitalised for ‘combat stress reaction’ after the defeat of Germany. We see a writer being shaped by both events and a growing disillusionment with those around him – be it the Hemingway he again encounters in Paris or his own superiors.

Taking a known figure and carving a fictional version of them with a bit of artistic licensing can often go awry in the wrong hands. But with more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction to his name, Jerome Charyn’s hands are safe ones to be in – here Salinger’s biological facts mix with another talented writer’s imagination to bring the young “Sonny” to life in a way that more straight ahead biographies wouldn’t.

Most importantly, though, even if you’re not familiar with or interested in J.D and his “Holden Caulfield novel” and short stories, Sergeant Salinger works bloody well as a novel in its own right and one very much worth reading.

My thanks to No Exit Press for my copy and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of the blog tour.

No Honour by Awais Khan

/ Tony / 1 Comment

From the PR: “In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves.

When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore – only to disappear.

Jamil goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world from which they may never escape.”

Let’s get to it: No Honour is an astoundingly good novel. An important and brilliantly written story, Awais Khan’s book is a real stunner that had me riveted from the off.

Commencing with a painfully tragic and moving portrayal of an ‘honour’ killing in a Pakistan village, No Honour tackles a heavy subject matter and Khan, a very talented writer, details a world that is a terrifying reality in parts of Pakistani society and elsewhere in the world. Not for the faint of heart but a powerful, important and compelling read.

The subjects of honour killing, the subjugation of and violence against women and young girls don’t make for an easy read or subject matter for a novel but Awais Khan has an ace up his sleeve in the story of Abida and her father, Jamil. In these wonderful and warm characters and their journey, Khan tells a story that takes the reader through some genuinely shocking scenes that are very real, yet keeps us gripped because we care about them. It also makes it all the harder hitting.

Khan doesn’t flinch in his portrayals of some of the novels darker moments and it’s clear that so much of this is rooted in reality. There’s real skill here – there’s never a suggestion of shock for the sake of it, instead events unfold as though being genuinely observed with Khan’s narrative style deftly guiding us through. It’s a masterfully written story that manages to walk that very fine line in delivering a hard-hitting portrayal of a dark subject matter while still making for compelling fiction.

However, for all the brutality and shock, this is also a story of the power of love and compassion. The love that Jamil has for his daughter and his determination to see her safe, the memory of his mother’s love that guides him, the power of love to win through and show the way beyond the dark and it’s how this compassion shines in contrast to the ways of the jirga that makes the novel so compelling.

Khan has a great style and can paint a brilliant canvas with it – his descriptions of both village and city place you right there and his characters, even the most repugnant, are glorious in their detail.

My thanks as always to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy of No Honour and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of this blog tour.

The Beresford by Will Carver

/ Tony / 1 Comment

From the PR: “Just outside the city – any city, every city – is a grand, spacious but affordable apartment building called The Beresford.

There’s a routine at The Beresford.

For Mrs May, every day’s the same: a cup of cold, black coffee in the morning, pruning roses, checking on her tenants, wine, prayer and an afternoon nap. She never leaves the building.

Abe Schwartz also lives at The Beresford. His housemate Smythe no longer does. Because Abe just killed him.

In exactly sixty seconds, Blair Conroy will ring the doorbell to her new home and Abe will answer the door. They will become friends. Perhaps lovers. And, when the time comes for one of them to die, as is always the case at The Beresford, there will be sixty seconds to move the body before the next unknowing soul arrives at the door.

Because nothing changes at The Beresford, until the doorbell rings…”

How to review a novel as devilishly brilliant as The Beresford… that’s the question. I’m still not sure that I have the answer.

Four books in now and I’m never sure what to expect from a new Will Carver novel. Hang on, that’s not entirely true as Carver has well established prior in creating ridiculously well-crafted novels that are wickedly sharp in both style and dark humour, hugely addictive and filled with his own incisive takes on human nature and perceived reality.

What I mean is that I open a new Will Carver novel with anticipation to discover what new twist awaits and it’s always something unexpected and brilliant. The Beresford doesn’t disappoint on that level – or any level in fact.

Will Carver has a very distinctive style and narrative that’s a real joy to read. It’s deceptive; with seemingly little effort he’s able to slip in a huge amount, a wealth of details being slipped in little by little until you’re deep into it and haven’t realised you’ve been holding your breath for the last few chapters.

The Beresford absolutely rocks along at a great pace and every page manages to deliver something fiendishly clever and another hook that propels you on to the next.

Yes, you could say The Beresford is a dark, and at times very dark, thriller / horror and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong but it’s done in way that almost takes delight in the absurdity – Abe searching for ways to dispose of a dead body only to kick himself for forgetting to use private mode – of the situations rather than the gore or shock. It’s a very intelligent dark thriller, then, told with a knowing wink and grin that makes for a wickedly good read that I didn’t want to end.

My thanks as always to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy of The Beresford and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review as part of the blog tour.

One Last Time by Helga Flatland

/ Tony / 1 Comment

From the PR: “Anne’s life is rushing to an unexpected and untimely end. But her diagnosis of terminal cancer isn’t just a shock for her – and for her daughter Sigrid and granddaughter Mia – it shines a spotlight onto their fractured and uncomfortable relationships.

A spur-of-the moment trip to France acts as a catalyst for the three generations of women to reveal harboured secrets, long-held frustrations and suppressed desires – and to learn humbling and heartwarming lessons about how life should be lived when death is so close.

With all of Helga Flatland’s trademark insight, sharp yet warm wit and deep empathy, One Last Time examines the great dramas that can be found in ordinary lives, asks the questions that matter to us all – and ultimately celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. An enchantingly beautiful novel that urges us to treasure what we have and rethink how we live our lives, from one of Norway’s most distinguished literary novelists.”

It seems like only yesterday but almost two years ago to the day I read and loved Helga Flatland’s Modern Family so I was itching to get my hands on her latest. Then let’s get straight to the point here: One Last Time is an astoundingly good novel and Helga Flatland is a writer of tremendous talent. A touching and skilfully written literary examination of family relationships and the fragility of life, this really is a slab of the good stuff.

I recently read an old interview with Jonathan Franzen wherein he pointed out that he was initially “deeply ashamed, cripplingly ashamed” of having, in The Corrections, written a book about family – thinking nobody still cared enough about family. I mention this here for, in a way that brings that novel to mind, Helga Flatland has delivered a brilliant literary exploration of family and the relationships within that’s beyond ‘a novel about family’ – examining the psychological connections and baggage we carry, the dynamics between generations and how these shift in the face of upheaval and, of course, grief and how we cope in the face of approaching death, all within a gloriously packed 240 pages.

This is a wonderfully insightful, moving and engrossing novel and reading it is like reading a master of the written word at play.

Flatland has a narrative style to be savoured, it’s both warm and witty and, in its economy of words, quietly powerful and allows her to tackle heavy subject matter in a way that’s poetic and affecting, the ending moved me beyond words it was rendered so beautifully.

An absorbing and thoroughly rewarding novel, One Last Time deserves a place on as many bookshelves as possible. My thanks as always to Karen at Orenda for my copy and to Anne Cater for inviting me to review the novel as part of the blog tour.