A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES by Ian Rankin

 How I have got through life without reading a single Ian Rankin novel, never having the pleasure of meeting John Rebus, I just do not know. Because here is a hero I want to read more of! Detective John Rebus has been around in since 1987 for goodness sake. He has a whole Wikipedia page! And his own TV show! The man is a legend. And this is his 24th outing. Surely the man is ready to fully retire by now?

But no. The book opens with him moving from an upstairs flat to the ground floor flat, mainly due to his breathing difficulties related to his long standing lung condition. He is being helped by former colleague, now good friend DI Siobhan Clarke  - a regular character in the series.  Rebus gets a distressed phone call from his estranged daughter Samantha, also a regular character in the series. Samantha's husband and father of her child - Keith -  has gone missing, so Rebus, now determined it would seem to make up for bad fathering,  drops everything and drives up to the remote area of Scotland that Samantha lives in - remote because mobile phone coverage drops out from time to time, and as we all now know, this is an essential ingredient in any modern day thriller! 

A parallel plot is taking place back in the big smoke. A young wealthy man about town is found murdered in a back street. Things just don't seem to add up for Siobhan and her colleagues,  so an investigation gets underway. It soon becomes clear that there are strong links between this case - one of the friends of the young man is the daughter of the land owner of an estate. Keith had become obsessed with the WWII history of a portion of this land that had been an internment camp for Germans/Italians and others during the war. Are the death of young Salman bin Mahmoud and disappearance of Keith connected? 

This is very good. Nothing happens quickly, excellent detective work and evidence gathering abounds. Rebus tries very hard with his daughter, there is tension, some danger. The whole thing walks along at a steady and always riveting pace  if that is possible. The best type of thriller. So having gone from knowing nothing about this character or the other regulars, I now feel I have learnt a lot about interesting, real and much liked people. Will read more. 

ALL OUR SHIMMERING SKIES by Trent Dalton

 

Almost all reviews compare this second novel of Trent Dalton to the outstanding, charismatic, energetic and huge novel of Boy Swallows Universe. First novel - totally extraordinary story, characters, and writing, all held together by a thread, but what genius it delivers. Second novel - always a hard act to follow. How many authors do we have to wait years, decades even before they fearfully give us a second novel? Not Trent Dalton!!! Less than two years later this second glorious piece of writing from an ex journalist who will no doubt never write for a newspaper again. 

Boy is probably going to be my favourite read of 2020. So I have to say before going further that, for me, and after looking at a number of other reviews, this did not take my breath away in the same way, did not seem to have the same tightness of narration and dedicated sense of purpose, and possibly had too much going on it. But, the same sense of joy, hopefulness, adoration of young Molly as we felt for Eli, and the wonder of life and adults, both good and bad, seen through a child's eyes, their determination in the face of so many obstacles is just amazing. Exactly the sort of thing we need to be reading, enjoying and learning from in the world we are currently living in. If I had read this first, I would be 5*-ing it, but I didn't. What I do want to do though, is reread Boy just to get that magic.

Molly Hook is a girl version of Eli with just as much trauma, grief and complications to deal with as Eli did. She is 12, lives with her father and uncle - both serious wastes of space, reminding me of Eli's comment in Boy that most of the problems families have, and perpetuating them onto the next generation, is due to useless fathers. Molly's family is 100% this. She is known as the gravedigger girl, because she lives at the cemetery where, with her appalling father and uncle she digs graves. Her mother died of an illness when Molly was 6 or 7, and with no one to grieve with or parent her, she has developed her own internal coping mechanisms that can only come out of a child's brain and imagination. Life is tough for Molly. She has grown up believing her family has been cursed by an Aboriginal gold prospector, Longcoat Bob, following her grandfather supposedly stealing a lot of gold from him. Her mission in life is to find a way to lift this curse, so that her family, and herself can be happy again. Her mother always told her to keep looking up, looking to the sky, all the good things come from the sky, and so that is what Molly does - the sky is her inspiration and her saviour. 

Then WWII intervenes. Set in Darwin, I had no idea that this town as it was in 1942, was badly bombed by the Japanese, its strategic location seen as essential for the Japanese to disable. Along with dozens of others, Molly and her uncle's girlfriend Greta - also with her own tragic life story - flee Darwin into the Northern Territory bush, with nowhere to go but find Longcoat Bob. Along the way they pick up Yukio, a young Japanese pilot who deserted the cause of bombing Darwin to bits, deciding to take his chances by crash-landing his plane in the middle of nowhere. 

Naturally various adventures ensue, numerous near misses occur, there is magic and illusion, dreams, probably hallucinations due to dehydration and hunger, and as we go along a few other things. Things do fall from the sky, incongruous and odd, but nevertheless tell Molly that she is succeeding, and so she keeps going, even though it seems all the odds are stacking up against her, Greta and Yukio. By crikey that girl has some grit. 

It is magnificent, wonderful, expansive, frightening and amazing, even if it is slightly in the shadow of number 1, do not let that stop you from taking this on. 

INERTIA by Kim Cope Tait

 We still don't really like to talk about grief - our own - seeing it as a burden we put on those close to us, and often unable to explain or rationalise what is going on or how we may be feeling. Because we are uncomfortable in ourselves, we aren't that great at helping or listening to those around us with their grieving. And oh my goodness, grief is such a complicated beast, such an overwhelming and at times unbearable thing, stage of life we have to go through. As a funeral celebrant I have dealt with many situations of grief, read many books and personal accounts of what losing someone close and dear to you is like. And believe me, no one person's experience of it is like any other person's. It is quite an understatement and a cliche to say this is a personal experience, but it really is. Your grieving - the physical, emotional and mental manifestations of it is so different from anyone else's and needs to be relished, to be travelled through for it to have a meaning and a resolution of sorts. 

Which is what this novel is all about. A shocking boating accident takes the lives of three young teenage girls, the boat being driven by fellow teen Angela, and also on the boat is Jake, boyfriend of one of the girls. Young death is so much more shocking than elderly death. Those beautiful vibrant and promising lives stopped. Jake and Angela, never really friends while young, through this tragedy, forge a strange friendship, forced only because of the deaths, but also linked and united because of the deaths - they need each other. Angela has guilt on her side as the driver of boat even though she is completely blameless - a very common symptom of grief. Jake is devastated, completely bereft as he loses the only girl he knows he will ever love. Plus she will always only ever be that beautiful young thing, immortalised forever as that. And yet, through infrequent, random and awkward communications over the years, Jake and Angela  develop a very different type of closeness. 

Some years later, Jake is a teacher in a high school in Hawaii. A very good and popular teacher. In a strange turn of events Angela has managed to finally pay him a visit. And during this time, Jake realises that a second tragedy is looming, with close ties and similarities to what occurred when he was young. He does everything to avert the imminent events, and in the process comes to terms, finally, with the boating tragedy that changed his and Angela's lives so much. 

This is exquisitely written - the writer is also a poet. and she gives Jake the job of being an English teacher, allowing him to share with his students his own love of language and literature. I expect she too has gone through some serious grieving, so in tune with the depths of how grief and loss can affect oneself. There is a deep spiritual presence through out the story, but not a religious doctrine nature - more the spirituality we find within ourselves as we try to make sense of what has happened. Jake's move to Hawaii, for example, is part of this, his connection with the landscape, the environment aiding his healing. Other reviews of this book talk of angels, but I didn't really feel this, and to be honest did find the pivotal events in the last quarter of the story a little too fanciful for my own ever rational and pragmatic brain. However they do make sense, are not out of place in the context of the story or the character of Jake, and I concede it does work.  Best of all Jake's inertia is lifted, and he manages to find a way forward, life is for living, and part of that living is that we take our grief with us, it becomes a part of who we are and how we are. 

STORIES OF HOPE: FINDING INSPIRATION IN EVERDAY LIVES by Heather Morris

 The Tattooist of Auschswitz and Cilka's Journey have had  powerful impacts on everyone I know who has read them and all the millions of others out there around the world. The Tattooist in particular has run riot through shop tills, book clubs, families and friends, long library waiting lists. It has resonated so strongly because it is true, told straight from the horse's mouth, hours of interviews, talking, meeting, carefully peeling back the layers of Lale and Gita's lives. And with a love story at the centre of it, the book was guaranteed to be a winner. Cilka followed much the same formula but for me it did lack that authenticity and edge of the Tattooist, I suspect because there was no real personal contact with Cilka, much of the story based on research and anecdotal evidence. Despite this, what has been so compelling about these two books is that they are essentially true, and for many many people given them an outstanding insight into the appalling things that humans do to others, and yet somehow the will to survive, to do good to others, to hope, to just get through all this horror is what is so inspiring.  

So Heather Morris writing a book about hope, how we can find inspiration in the lives of those around us, about how she came to meet Lale - on the surface an ordinary elderly man recently widowed,  how she gradually eked out his story, her research into Lale and Gita's lives, the concentration camps and the lives of those in them, and yet still seem to have the power to forgive was definitely a book I was interested in reading. 

But... oh dear. It wasn't really about all that at all. Sure, there was quite a bit about Lale, Gita, Cilka, and three Jewish sisters who also survived the camps and who are the subject of her next book. But much of this information, aside from the three sisters, is actually at the back of each of the Tattooist and  Cilka. There is some new information, but not enough to justify a whole new book. What's more, much of all this is repeated several times in this book of 178 pages, almost as if she wrote one chapter without referring at all to the other chapters. Where was the editing? But it was written during covid lockdown, so maybe there was no one around to edit?

More frustrating and irrelevant were chapters on how to talk to and with elderly people, how to listen rather than hear, and how to communicate with children so that they feel valued and heard. It seems to me that those who have read one or both of the Tattooist or  Cilka are well on the way to being emotionally intelligent without the patronising tones of someone who has successfully managed to publish her ability to tell a story. Thirdly this book becomes, with its regular repetition of the three sisters who survive the camps, a relentless publicity drive for that next book. 

I found this such a disappointing book to read. There were some sections which were very very good, insightful, and interesting. But the overall tone was one of spin, regurgitating already published material and considerable self promotion. She is much better at telling other people's stories rather than her own. 

STATE HIGHWAY ONE by Sam Coley

 

A road trip! Who in New Zealand does not love that idea, especially now when we can't go anywhere else. Explore your own landscape, and with state highway running from the tip of the North Island at Cape Reinga to the bottom of the South Island at Bluff, and then taking in Stewart Island, why would you not?

Unless you are in a deep state of grief, trauma and despair. Which Alex and his twin sister Amy are, having lost their parents in a terrible road accident. The twins are young, about twenty, but already have complicated lives. Alex has lived in Dubai for the past two or three years, having fled NZ after a personal crisis which is carefully disclosed as the novel goes on. He works in a very high pressure role for an advertising/media sort of business. Lucky he is young in body and soul to cope with the stress and lifestyle. Amy meanwhile has been pretty directionless in her life, going to university, drifting. They grew up with what we would call an entitled existence - their parents very successful film producers, so away from home a lot, leaving the twins - what we call benign neglect parenting. Hardly surprising that Amy and Alex have a difficult relationship.

As expected the mode of travel is a pretty clapped out car that struggles with the distances and the roadways that the two of them take. Plus no money. Amy is the navigator, Alex the driver, the ultimate goal being the far side of Stewart Island, and only 3 weeks to do it in, as Alex has to be back in Dubai.  So much happens on this trip, so many sibling dramas  and wounds opened up. There is a near death crash, drugs, a typically ghastly Cook Strait ferry crossing, grim accommodations, but they make it. And Dubai? Well, that would be telling if Alex makes it back there. 

This is such a surprising novel, perhaps a little long, but there is lot of ground to cover. Like  most fiction set in New Zealand, the landscape, the sea, the mountains and hills are all heavily featured, characters in themselves, contributing to the mood of the twins, reflecting their inner turmoils and special sibling relationship. Revealing, intimate, insightful moving towards an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. More from this writer please. 

THE SINGLE LADIES OF THE JACARANDA RETIREMENT VILLAGE by Joanna Nell

Who wouldn't want to channel Helen Mirren at any age, let alone at 79 years old. Poor old  Peggy Smart is a million miles away from channeling anyone as half as amazing as Dame Helen, living in the Jacaranda Retirement Village, widowed, increasingly isolated from her grandchildren thanks to her ungrateful daughter in law. She has a massive crush on hottie Brian, somewhere in his eighties. And so do a number of other residents - competition.  But overall life in the village is pretty dull, every day the same as the other, her fellow residents equally uninspiring and dull, petty, and probably just as fed up with their lives as Peggy is.  Is this all there is?

And then one day a new arrival! Peggy's old school friend, her closest friend all those years ago, the glamorous, beautiful, stylish, fun-loving adventurous Angelina moves in. And Peggy is in her sights to give a new lease of life to. Peggy has mixed reactions to the Cinderella-fairy godmother scenario unfolding in front of her, but is very quickly under the spell of her exciting and lively friend, taking her back to a happier time. Oh the fun they have! It wouldn't be a good story if a few problems and conflicts didn't crop up along the way, bringing up old conflicts and pettiness from their younger days. 

This is funny, engaging, and a joy to read, making you feel good inside. No murders, no violence, no nastiness, blood, law breaking. It's a great story, with adorable characters, trying to live the best lives they can in their twilight years. Something we can all aim for, and perfect reading for these times when we really need to be connecting with others as much as we can. 

THE TALLY STICK by Carl Nixon

 It is 1978. A family - Mum, Dad, four children ranging in age from 13 to just a few months old - recently migrated to New Zealand from the UK, on a road trip prior to taking up a new job opportunity in Christchurch. Only problem is they never arrive in Christchurch to their new home, to the new job. Instead, like many visitors and new arrivals to NZ, the parents - more specifically the dad - has little appreciation for the tricky NZ climate or the even trickier NZ roads. There is an accident, because no one knows where they were, no one knows to look for them. Only a few family back in the UK to mourn. But four years later the body of one of the children is found, somewhere on the west coast of NZ, with his father's watch and a wooden stick with grooves notched in it - a tally stick.   So where was the boy all this time, and did any of the other family members survive? 

Back in England, the family left behind endeavour to pick up the pieces. An aunt makes regular trips to over the decades to New Zealand doing her own detective work. She almost gets there, almost, but for a fraction of a moment in time, she turns away never learning the complete truth. 

This sounds a pretty gruesome plot line, set against the wild and treacherous west coast region of NZ. And just like many NZ novels it is replete with violence, dark sinister overtones of the isolated rural life, maltreatment of children. But I have every faith in Carl Nixon as an author, having adored The Virgin and the Whale and read good reviews of some of his other books. And yes it is very very good. Excellent story line, great level of tension held throughout, very real characters, who evolve and change through time. Unexpected outcomes. Read it and support NZ writers.