THE DARKEST EVENING by Ann Cleeves

 

Vera Stanhope returns. What a woman. I read this, and of course all I see is Brenda Blethyn, but who cares. Brenda is amazing, and Ann Cleeves is amazing in her creating and drawing of Vera, and how she solves the latest murders in her Northumberland community. How human she is.  Love Vera.

Anyway in this latest Vera, it is a week or so before Christmas. Vera is driving home, in the dark, it's snowing.  She takes a wrong turn and comes across a car off the road, the door open, and a baby in his baby seat. Not a soul around. She does realise where she is - on the edge of the landed estate to which she is actually quite closely connected through her father. But where she is not particularly welcome. Then a few hours later, the body of young woman turns up on the estate. and Vera is plunged immediately into sorting all this out. 

Classic Vera with conflicts overload, relationships galore with long and deeply complicated histories, jealousies, resentments, possible motives. Joe, Vera's long suffering detective sergeant, and Hollie, her detective constable are back, both showing great promise as Vera successors. 

This is only the second Vera I have read, the first Vera being the very first of the books. There was a lot in the first one about Vera herself, her personality, what made her tick, and I remember she is much more abrasive, prickly and difficult in that first one. She has softened somewhat in this latest, more like the character Brenda Blethyn has created. Unless maybe we all love Vera in whatever guise she chooses to show herself. 

It's terrific, it will be a tele series one day. Look forward to it. 

THEROUX THE KEYHOLE by Louis Theroux

 

Well, this was interesting, unexpected, not your usual Louis-cool as a cucumber-insightful-slightly wacky documentary maker. It could be seen as boring, dull, repetitive, self-indulgent, entitled. And it is, but I also think it works because it describes a time, a recent time, when this is how life was for your average white middle class professional family during the year 2020-2021. When life as we knew it stopped. And what life was like for many. So - relatable. 

A world famous documentary maker finds himself living his own weird life in the yo-yo first 12 months of the pandemic. Stuck at home with his long suffering, tolerant and patient wife - I think it a miracle they are still married - and their three sons - 15, 12 and 5. Both parents working, 3 boys to school, manage, feed, keep healthy mentally, physically and emotionally. Along with millions of other families around the world doing the same hard yards. 

Whether Louis actually kept a diary during this time who would know, but it all reads as very real. And here sitting on the other side of the world, without school age children and not in a situation where either of us had to work from home, I could  still relate to much of what this family went through. Louis was so lucky in that he made two escapes to the US, working on his latest TV series featuring Joe Exotic, some rappers and a few others living their best lives. Sorry rest of the family - stuck in your London house for days and weeks on end. 

Louis seems to be very self aware, self deprecating, seemingly happy to make a fool of himself - honest in his own emotional journey through all this. He struggles as a dad-at-home, agonises over how much time his boys spend on devices, and how little time they spend on school work. His relationships with his boys is really quite lovely, especially 5 year old Ray, who fortunately doesn't' fully understand what is going on. A child's imagination is a wonderful thing and Louis immerses himself completely in his boy's magical mind. I think I would too if I was living his home life - nothing like a bit of escapism. 

I got to like this very much, Louis's ramblings, his attempts to be seen to be doing the right thing, his struggles at being the perfect husband and father. Just another weird human being, like his interview subjects. Inside the jar for a change. His year comes to an end, and I particularly liked his final chapter - a lovely reflection on what the year has done to and for him. It was not in any ways easy, but that old saying about tough times being character building, contributing to resilience and self awareness ring true here. 

A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA by Isabel Allende

What a story teller this woman is. Beautiful stories she tells, most of them based on personal experience, almost aways against a violent historical background. There is intense pain and sadness in her stories, the tragedy of what it is to be human, finding one's way through the horror and helplessness of what is going on around. She does it again with this very personal story of Victor, a Spanish man who somehow navigates his way through the Spanish Civil War, his wife Roser who has her won war experience, making their way to the far old land of Chile - the long petal of the sea - on the Winnipeg, an old ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to rescue 2000-odd Spanish migrants with no where in Europe to go. As with all refugees, they were not welcomed with open arms, but over the years, Victor and Roser make good lives for themselves. Things are never calm for long in South America however, freedom and repression on repeat the name of the way things evolve in some of these countries. So it is in Chile. And yes despite the fear, the violence, the repression, us human beings, we keep going, living, loving those around us. So it is with Victor and Roser and those who are dear to them. It is a wonderfully uplifting story, perfect for the uncertainty, fear, loss and despair of the last two years. The book is dedicated to Victor who died shortly before this was published in 2019. 

WE WALKED THE SKY by Lisa Fielder

 

The Circus Comes to Town! In a bygone time, 60 years or so ago, the circus was big - clowns, jugglers, acrobats, trapeze and high wire artists, lions, elephants, ring master! So exciting. And the way of life would have had huge appeal to unhappy youngsters, looking for a way out of their small town, suffocating lives. Who hasn't dreamt of running away to the circus.

Life is actually quite tough for 17 year old Victoria, and the arrival of the circus in her home town in 1965, the opportunities it throws up, the magic, the chance to recreate herself is just too good to let pass. And off she goes. Oh, what a life it is. She discovers a pure talent for the high wire, finding love and a new family, who love and care for her, welcoming her into their unique and very different world. 

Running parallel to Victoria's story is that of her fifteen year old grand daughter Callie, a child of the circus, and just like her grandmother a tight rope walker too. Only problem is that times have changed, and her mother has accepted a job in an animal sanctuary where retired circus animals go.  All the lives of both Callie and her mother have only ever been in the circus, and some major readjustments need to take place, first with Callie accepting that her days of tightrope walking are over. And being a teenage girl, she has myriad other problems too, such as fitting in at a new school. Feeling isolated and alone, Callie begins going through some of her grandmother's bits and pieces, finding a story of another teenage girl.

This is a good story although I found it quite simplistic, which I think makes it a great read for the teen/young adult market. The circus life is fascinating, how one learns to walk a tightrope- makes it seem easier than it looks! We don't really have circuses now, and the way of life has largely gone. So there is plenty of social history in here too as well as the importance of family bonds, even when those bonds aren't necessarily blood bonds. 

THE PEARL THIEF by Fiona McIntosh

 

It's 1963, London, 35 year old antique jewellery expert Severine Kassel is on loan from the Louvre to the British Museum to assist the latter in the provenance of its jewellery collection. She is asked to look at a most unusual and glorious Byzantine pearl necklace. The unexpected shock of seeing this item immediately propels her back to her past, threatening to destroy the carefully built up veneer and person that is Severine Kassel. Severine is really Katarina, born in Prague, of Jewish descent. Her family is cultured, reasonably wealthy and Katarina has a blessed early life. All that changes of course in 1938 when Czechoslovakia is annexed by Hitler. No need to give a history lesson here. Katarina, at 14, suffers and lives through terrible trauma and disaster. She comes through, in the process creating a brand new persona, known to only a few people. In the years since the war, however, she retains a burning hatred for the man responsible for what happened to her and her family. The appearance of the pearls unlocks the war time trauma, setting her on a path of revenge. She teams up with another Jewish survivor of the war, Daniel, who has his own agenda in the hunt for this man. 

A real page turner of a book, which I make to sound like a thriller but it is not really that at all. You could easily see this as yet another novel about WWII, the Holocaust and how the Jews were treated - it is, but it is also a very good novel with these themes. The hunt for the war criminal propels the action along, but there is so much more going on with Katarina's early life before the war, leading up to the catastrophe, her war time years, the closed off and distant persona she has made of herself. The characters themselves are wonderfully drawn, all of them - their physical descriptions, how they dress in those opening up years of the early 1960s. And the places they lived - what a beautiful city Prague was, how London and Paris were in the early 1960s, how people dined, how they lived, their interactions with each other, the observations in the world. It is fascinating to see how the characters grow and change as the story unfolds, especially the changes in Katarina as her war time demons are laid to rest.  If you are going on holiday - a restful holiday - then take this, especially if you are going to the English city of York and the surrounding area. Your inbuilt travel guide. 

THE ECHO CHAMBER by John Boyne

 

This is fabulous. A bang-on commentary on the relationship we, as a society, have with our smart phones and all it offers us. And how easily that small device can actually become the controller of us. Witty, biting, oozing sarcasm, this novel is extremely funny, allowing us to laugh at the stupidity of others, but also unloading a sense of unease on the reader as we see slices of ourselves in the characters, and possibly the story lines.  It is possible to see yourself standing on the brink of the social media rabbit hole.... 

This modern day morality tale is told through the Cleverley family. George is a very famous broadcaster, a 'national treasure', a man who claims to be a good person, liberal and embracing in his views. And so famous he can say and do what he wants. But also of the establishment. And bullet proof. And having an affair with a therapist. He is married to Beverley, a famous romantic novelist, possibly on the wane and would seem not to have written an original word or phrase for several books now, who employs a ghost writer - always nameless. Beverley has recently appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, her partner the devastating sex bomb Pylyp from the Ukraine. George and Beverley have three young adult children - Nelson, a sensitive soul who is a school teacher, Elizabeth who does nothing except live through her Twitter and Instagram accounts, focussed entirely on becoming an influencer. At all costs. Then there is is 17 year old Achilles, a boy of dubious morals who thinks blackmailing middle aged men into the idea of a relationship with him is a good way to get rich. Rather surprisingly they were, until quite recently it would seem, a functioning happy and communicative family. What changed you may well ask.... you don't need to look too far to see...

Over the course of a few weeks these entitled, boorish, greedy and selfish individuals (with the possible exception of Nelson), find their carefully constructed world blows up. A lot happens of course, to get to the point where it all comes crashing down, and it is a very entertaining ride getting there. At the centre of it all? The disconnection with the real world through that smart phone. This may well make you question your relationship with the digital world, and how we use it. You may not walk away from your device but you may look at it with a little more respect! 

HAPPY HOUR by Jacquie Byron

 

Franny thinks she is coping perfectly well with her life. A 65 year old glamour puss, sufficient financial resources to see her out, strongly independent in thought and deed, she lives alone in her very nice house and garden in a nice neighbourhood with her two much loved dogs. She eats and drinks what she likes, when she likes, she has her favourite coffee shop just down the road, people who love her and want to care for her. But it is not such a great life really for Frances. Her husband Frank died tragically some four years earlier and it is her grief that is ruling her life, not what she sees as her effective management and acceptance of this grief. She has photos of Frank in various guises over the decades dotted around her house and talks to him regularly. A photo of him in a BBQ apron is in the kitchen, one of him looking young, virile and handsome in the bedroom. She has friends and family endlessly concerned about her whom she simply sees as very annoying pests who just won't leave her alone. On the outside she seems to be coping but is she... Her endless alcohol consumption may be telling another story.

One day a new family moves in next door. To Franny's surprise, Sallyanne Salerno and her two children - 8 year old Josh and 15 year old Dee - somehow get under her skin, and slowly work their ways into her life. Naturally it all begins to come undone at a certain point, Franny having to confront some unwanted demons emanating from her frozen in grief state. She has to learn to live again, but does she really want to. 

It really is quite a delightful and fun story to read and enjoy. The two children are excellent characters. Josh is a divine little boy, already wrestling with not being the stereotyped 8 year old, preferring Franny's gorgeous collection of old clothes, silks, shoes, feather boas to playing cricket, rugby and doing boy stuff. Dee is a teenager caught between being a little girl and a young woman, trying to be something she is not yet ready for, very drawn to the sophisticated and glamorous Franny. Sallyanne is trying to be the best mother she can, getting away from her abusive husband and working full time. No wonder the children seek refuge with Franny and the dogs. But does she want them in her life?

There is some great dialogue, Franny has a mouth on her that I am sure any 65 year old woman would be proud of. She has never had children herself so approaches the whole business of relating to children differently from any other adults in Dee and Josh's lives, with some very funny and unexpected results. I liked this a lot - it is not in any way great literature, but it is funny, light and very enjoyable.

RED ROULETTE by Desmond Shum

 

How the mighty fall, and then cleanse themselves by writing a book about it. There is plenty to write about however, and it is unlikely the author's soul will ever be cleansed. What is also interesting about this book, and I got this from an on-line review is that it shows what happens when the excesses of capitalism at one end of the political/economic spectrum are mixed with the authoritarianism of communism at the other. A brand new beast emerges resulting in extraordinary and dangerous wealth, and equally extraordinary and dangerous corruption. You mess with the system, you fall out with those at the top of the tree, then you are a goner. As happened to the author's wife in 2017 when she literally disappeared from the front steps of a hotel in Shanghai, never seen since. There is a morality tale here, but whether the author sees that or not is questionable. He now lives in the UK with the son he and his wife had. The conception and birth of the boy is itself quite a tale.

Shum, like so many of those who got rich during the '90s and '00s, when the Chinese government began to open up its economy to the West and to western economic models, came from a family that suffered much during the leadership of Mao Tse Tung. He was a bright boy and won a scholarship to the US where he saw for himself how fantastic life was under a capitalist and democratic  system. Taking these influences back to China he set about making it happen, with his girl friend Whitney, who it turned out to be, was the more driven and dangerous half of this partnership. Their entire existence revolved around developing connections, working those connections with communist party leaders and other influential people, those descended from the original communist party founders/leaders the most highly prized. These connections were essential in making things happen - building projects, business restructures, getting permits and permissions. So many levels of government that needed to be persuaded. The money that changed hands, the international trips and ostentatious spending  to massage these processes was immense, obscene. Yet Shum and Whitney and many many others went for it as if it was all going to be taken away tomorrow. Which it eventually was. 

It seems that a change in China's leadership in 2013 was the beginning of the end, the current paramount leader Xi Jinping determined to root out all this corruption. His powers are sweeping and we have seen it in the suppression of free speech in Hong Kong, as well as the criminal trials for government leaders and officials who have fallen out of favour. The way Shum describes all this, it seems more like a witch hunt, the pinning of anything onto the hapless victim, true or not. 

The book is fascinating from all this point of view, written it would seem, by someone who knows what they are talking about. To get ahead in China, you have to be ruthless, determined, slightly crazy and ready to do anything to reach your goal. Shum and Whitney were outstanding successes at the projects they undertook, and made millions and millions from their actions. But at what cost? And moreover Shum knows he can never set foot in China or Hong Kong again. I am just so thankful that I live in a country that values democracy, freedom of speech, with little support or approval for any hint of corruption. We may not be the richest nation in terms of economic factors but we are certainly rich in the quality of human relationships and connections. 

DANGEROUS WOMEN by Hope Adams

 I am a little biased to books about the forced transportation of convicts to Australia from the mid-1700s on, as I have two ancestors who were transported convicts. One was on the first women only ship of 1777 - the Lady Juliana. This novel is also about a female only ship, the convict ship Rajah, which in this story left England for Tasmania in 1841 with 180 women prisoners. I would like to think that such transportations had improved over that 70 year period, especially for women, who it seemed often ended up being transported more due to their circumstances than their inherent badness. For example stealing food to feed their children, prostituting themselves to survive and so on. This particular voyage was very well documented in the diaries of the ship's doctor, which is the major research resource of the author. The voyage was also notable in that only one convict died. Also on board was a young woman from the British Ladies' Society for the reformation of female prisoners, started by Elizabeth Fry. Kezia  Hayter came from a good family, but fell out with them due to her involvement with Elizabeth Fry and criminal women, leading to her decision to migrate to Tasmania. During the course of the voyage, she led a group of the convicts in making a quilt  - the Rajah Quilt, which is now held by the National Gallery of Australia. 

All this information is readily available, and the author of this novel has created a whodunnit out of the death of the one aforementioned convict. A young woman, who was allowed to take her six year old son with her on her transportation, is murdered about half way through the voyage. It falls upon Kezia, the captain, the doctor and the vicar to try and figure out what happened, why it happened, and who did it. The fears amongst the women would have been immense - they all sleep together, eat together, in very close confines with each other. Through the novel, we get the back stories of many of the women, the tragedies in their lives, children and families they have left behind, what women will do to feed and protect their children, all in a time of no contraception, women having no powers of any sort or ability to seek legal redress. 

The story is written in a very linear fashion, it is easy to read, the investigation into the murder is perhaps a little drawn out. I did like how the women who worked on the quilt found meaning in their lives, in their friendships, that camaraderie that develops between women. I don't know how the lives of the women on the real Rajah panned out once they arrived in Hobart. It is unlikely any of them would ever have seen their families in England again, and that must have been heartbreaking for those who had to leave children behind. But women are tough and I would like to think that they did find successful lives for themselves, and were able to start again. If you have an interest in Australia's convict history, this is a good story and gives great accounts of what ship life would have been like. 

CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by Anthony Doerr

I adored this, loved it, every single one of its 626 pages. The imagination, the historical detail, the scope, the extent of epochs from ancient Greece to outer space. And the characters - the diverse, interesting, intricate people the author has created, and how they continually evolve and develop through the narrative. It 's a fantastic achievement. I couldn't put this done. It's immersive, complex, full of suspense. No wonder it took the author ten years to write. And he had the wonderful All the Light We Cannot See on his tail, no  doubt pressuring him to either match or do better. 

I barely know where to start with describing the plot. At its core is a fable about a humble shepherd on a journey, in search of what it thinks is a better life, written by the ancient Greek (made-up) philosopher Antonius Diogenes. This thread that travels through the whole story is similar to the very famous modern parable  of The Alchemist.  Around this tale are the stories of five other characters at various times in history. First up is Anna, an orphaned  teenage girl, who with her older sister, is struggling to survive in 15th century Constantinople. The Ottomans are descending on Constantinople, which young oxherd Oemir, has been forced to join. In the present day we meet Seymour, a young man, a damaged loner who has been radicalised and is now on a mission to blow up the local library. Inside the library is the elderly Zeno, himself damaged by what life has thrown at him, but still looking up and out. Lastly, we go to the future, to the life of a young girl called Konstance, who lives with her parents in some sort of space station, along with hundreds of others, zooming through space to a distant planet where life as it was on a now decimated Earth will begin again. 

It is a marvellous, triumphal, exhilarating read. Somehow all these threads are linked and worked together like magic to create this fabulous book. If I could give more than 5 stars I would.