I picked this novel up, saw the cover and glimpsed at the blurb, and started to read what I thought would be a humorous story of a man who decides to try a second career as a comic strip writer – it isn’t. As I started to read I then thought it was an exploration of intra-family relationships – it’s not really that either. Strip is an exploration of love and loyalty, and of quite frankly a lot of bad decision making on the way to trying to manipulate the world to make it ideal for those you love. Harvey is a G.P. who would like to try being a full-time cartoonist. Isobel is a museum administrator who is saddened that she and Harvey have not been able to conceive a child. When Harvey’s cartoonist dreams start becoming reality and Isobel’s career is taking off, an offer of a baby for adoption threatens to both undermine and fulfill their lives. A teaser chapter at the beginning indicates that something is going to go seriously awry in Harvey and Isobel’s lives – and as we move from episode to episode through time, there are plenty of opportunities for disaster. But Harvey and Isobel both believe in carrying on and braving out tragedy – so it is not the events of the novel themselves that take the book on its odd course, but Harvey’s decisions and actions at various times; decisions and actions which the reader knows will not go unanswered. It is not a preachy book – you know why Harvey does what he does – and even though you might disagree at many points, you do understand. It captures very well the different ways that individuals might react to events. For example, at various stages, for various reasons, Harvey becomes stuck inside – inside his house or in a hospital room: “But, outside? The air out there … he was no longer acclimatized. … ‘Outside’ would mean leaving the capsule and setting foot on an alien planet. …He would need a helmet and a full-body suit.” Whereas Isobel finds solace in the outside, in her job, in nature, and has space to ruminate about “Man-mammal … clawless, fangless, unwinged clumsy animals. We bipedal apes with such heavy heads”. It is a moving and surprising read – just when you think you have a sense of the ‘main point’ of the book it goes off in another direction. I found this a bit disconcerting at times – as it gives the book an odd shape – but perhaps the structure is supposed to be reminiscent of a series of comic strips? Or just makes the point that our lives are messy and unpredictable? Anyway, it is definitely worth a read.
his briefcase; when it was discovered by a journalist it had been left in the Aro Valley and found to contain his business cards, a diary of scurrilous gossip, three mince pies, two fruit pies, the NZ Listener, and a Penthouse magazine. The novel isn’t about this embarrassing incident, it is however about the inanity of government agencies, especially those tasked with impossible jobs – like for example keeping all New Zealanders safe from an ill- defined threat. If you have ever worked in a government department, especially a risk-averse one, you will sympathise with Rachel McManus. Rachel has just started working for the New Zealand Alarm and Response Ministry. She has previously been a civil servant so isn’t totally unprepared for the experience – but this is a time of global panic in the face of the unfortunately termed ‘Islamic Threat’. Rachel faces the usual misogyny and racism – but writ large due to the ridiculously heightened stress levels. She suffers the lecherous co-workers, the embarrassing after-work drinks, the insane meetings where no one wants to admit they don’t know or don’t understand, the slavish subservience to hierarchy – but all dialled up to 11.5. Rachel is tasked – sort of – with tracking a terror suspect. Having the most invasive technologies at her fingertips she plunges in. The suspect is suspected of inculcating youth with radical ideas picked up overseas, and there is a consequential concern that he might be planning an attack somewhere in Wellington. The novel becomes farcical when the evidence and the suspicions grow further and further apart; and there is a crazy sequence where Rachel decides to do some old fashioned on-foot surveillance to try and clarify matters. She has no surveillance skills whatsoever. In fact, she has no skills full stop given her parlous training – but possibly because of this rather than despite it, she is the only one in the Ministry who has any common sense. But due to her being young and a woman, she might as well be yelling into a Wellington gale when attempting to inform her colleagues and bosses of her views. Given the novel’s inexorable style it has no real shape – but makes its point very compellingly regarding racial profiling and bureaucracy gone mad. And there are enough real world incidents thrown in (not out of place at all amongst the absurdity) to keep the novel worryingly grounded. So, given there are still questions to be answered around how a country should position itself in a world at threat from terror attacks, A Briefcase, Two Pies and a Penthouse is at once funny, tragic and disturbing.
What a great book! The direction of our fear looks at the many many small decisions we make every day that result in benefit or harm, to ourselves or to others. Sometimes small harms and slights sometimes catastrophic. It deals with the networks we are a part of; those we know of and those we don’t – and the many alternative universes that shimmer before they collapse down to the one that we experience. It is a tense and absorbing story of four people. Three – Brendan an Irish widower, Sally a young school girl and Tamás a Hungarian immigrant – are all connected by their travelling on the morning commuter train to Wellington each day. The fourth protagonist is Farida a young Muslim woman working as a translator for the security services in Dunedin. We follow all of them and learn of their dreams, their regrets and their opportunities; they are all dealing with possible changes to their lives – Brendan thinking of starting a new relationship, Sally crossing into adulthood, Tamás trying to make a place in New Zealand for himself and his Hungary-based family, and Farida trying to make sense of her own world and that which she glimpses via her security work, and struggling with what to do when she thinks the two might be overlapping. And we read of all of this within the frame of terrorist threats. A sense of pending tragedy looms as you read of Brendan, Sally, Tamás and Farida – ordinary people whose lives may or may not soon be engulfed in disaster. Highly recommended.
This is the first of Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter novels I have read – despite it being the ninth in the series. But it is kind of fun to just jump in mid-stream – and there is a plethora of information about the archangel universe and the back-stories of all the characters to fill you in. And for a good while I was just engrossed in piecing together the backdrop to the series: It is an earth where archangels rule their territories, making vampires where appropriate (collective noun = “kiss”) and where to angels, humans are just those who are “… always living their lives in fast-forward.” Archangel Raphael is the Archangel of New York and his ‘heart’ is Elena – once a mortal guild hunter, now an angel in training and with powers that hint of something vampiric in her ancestry. The love between Raphael and Elena is the power that drives the novels. The angels are all beautiful: “Angelkind really won the genetic lottery”, but beauty is not such a good thing, it is used as a weapon and a subterfuge and further removes the immortals from the rest of their fellow creatures: “Many immortals are unforgiving of physical imperfections.” I liked the mechanics of angels in Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology books – where their wings are part of their pulmonary system and an indicator of health. The same fun is had here – the effort of vertical take-off as opposed to the fall from a height, the wing touching protocols, and the use of angelic singing for both coercive power and bestowing transient feeling of joy on mortals. Vampires and archangels both are very animalistic, driven by instinct, and more than a bit unstable – guild hunters exist to manage rogue vampires, and it seems it hasn’t been that unusual for archangels to take out other archangels who have gone berserk. But apart from the imaginative world-building there is also a great story. One of the archangels has gone missing, and one has awoken from a long sleep. There can only be ten archangels active at one time as their power is so immense and their instincts so territorial there isn’t enough geography for more. So, if the missing archangel has gone to sleep all could be well – but if not all hell will break loose – and with signs of unrest in the missing archangel’s territory (China) things are not looking hopeful. When archangels are not actively managing their vampires, the latter can get a blood lust up and go on the rampage (technical term = “twisted kiss”). To manage the situation the archangels are summoned to the retreat of an angelic religious sect – the Luminata, who have not only retreated to gain personal ‘luminescence’, they are also tasked with ensuring balance is kept on archangel-earth, by summoning meetings when an archangel goes AWOL. They meet at the Luminata compound in Morocco, and soon discover all is not well in this hallowed institution. While Raphael meets with the rest of the archangel cadre, Elena finds out disturbing things about the sect and its relationship with the nearby village – where she is taking the opportunity to do a bit of personal genealogical research. The three storylines – the wayward sect, the missing archangel, and Elena’s origins – are all resolved – although in one case with the hint of further installments. So the plotting is good, but what I really loved was the contemplations on the relative merits of immortality and mortality, perfection and weakness. Should it be of interest to angels if humans are being mistreated? To them humans are like the ‘lesser’ creatures we unfortunately often mistreat. Elena is a great character; she is down to earth, doesn’t “do heels”, only wears make-up as a weapon and isn’t cowed by status – and she enables some of the immortals to see the value in fleeting lives and flawed individuals: gives them “an awareness that mortality was but a shell and that the soul soared free in an immortality even the angels could not understand.” Paranormal romance not your thing? Get over it and give it a go!
is found murdered at her school camp at Piha Beach. Newly promoted Detective Sergeant Nick Knight lands the job of managing the suspects side of the case, and he and his team have to sift through a number of likely suspects and persons of interest. Wyatt himself was a detective and wrote The student body while convalescing from an illness. He hasn’t quite got the knack of incorporating his detailed knowledge into the narrative – and at times the novel reads like a text book on police procedure. The writing, while at times quite thrilling, is very patchy: I found some of the similes clumsy: “The savagery of these attacks … still hung around the area like prostitutes around K Road in the early hours”; “Cunningham’s reaction was to storm out of the room as quick as a Nazi soldier invading Poland”. I also found the sex scenes out of place and gratuitous and wished that Wyatt agreed with José Saramago who once wrote “I don’t think it is worth explaining how a character’s nose or chin looks”, as Wyatt’s detailed descriptions of all of his many characters gets in the way of the narrative flow. And the plotting is good and deserves a good flow. There are parallel themes of domestic and student bullying, and a number of likely suspects for the initial horrific crime and others that ensue. I didn’t find the resolution totally satisfying, as the story was so driven by Knight we got the facts of what happened but no depth of motive – and an apparent lightness of attitude to statutory rape. With Wyatt’s background, it is understandable that the book is written from a police perspective – but along with this comes a slightly unhealthy view of the rest of society, and a dodgy view of women, which for me led to a loss of sympathy for Detective Sergeant Nick Knight. I suppose some of this might result from Knight’s tragic background that is alluded to, and we find out he has a strained relationship with his criminal lawyer father – so maybe future installments will redeem him, after all he does love his dogs, even if they do get left home alone a lot. And if there are future titles I think it would be interesting to see more of the criminal lawyer father – perhaps a way of giving the reader a bit more moral complexity.
Grade has been laying low in witness protection after quite spectacularly not doing so in American Blood, the previous novel in the Marshall Grade series. But when he finds out U.S. Marshal Lucas Cohen, his witness protection contact, was kidnapped by someone trying to find him, he decides he’s going to be the one doing the finding. And as we are now coming to expect the ensuing story is revealed by a swirl of characters. And as with American Blood the ethics of the situation gets wonderfully blurry. The ‘baddies’ have complex lives and often do bad things for good reasons, and the ‘goodies’? – well they are few and far between, Cohen is the closest thing to a good guy but the good deeds are few, and the one truly good Samaritan turn in this story is taken by one of the scariest of the criminal groups. Marshall’s Law tells us more about Marshall’s difficult past; possibly the roots of his ongoing OCD tendencies – trying to keep order in a messy world. And we meet a hapless ex-con with a dangerous brother and a feisty wife, a drug dealer who colours everything in his life the white of his product, a man with a yappy dog who has got into serious debt, and a crook who feels bad at using his sick mother’s Honda for illegal purposes so punishes himself by leaving the radio on her gospel channel as penance: “Yeah, I’ve done some bad shit, but at least I left the radio on your station.” We also have characters from American Blood: Cohen the U.S. Marshal and of course somewhere is the Asaro family – the target of Marshall’s blown undercover job that landed him in WITSEC. The plot is complex and clever and unwinds slowly through to the explosive ending. And what is wonderful about Marshall’s Law is that it is an action-packed thriller that you want to read like a piece of literary fiction; savouring the writing as you go. The scenes are described in exquisite detail and the noir-ish tone hits just right. I wanted to know how all the characters and threads of the story fitted together, but at the same time didn’t want the book to end. Roll on the next installment!
well as pushing the story along she packs it full of backstory for those new to the characters, or maybe to remind her readers who have read the series of what has gone before. It also includes the excellent characters from her Convict Girls series in one of the stops in Sydney. A preface has Amber and her two adoring mates from the vessel Katipo, Tahi and Israel, going ashore in Sydney to briefly re-unite with Amber’s best friend Bao, who is staying with her uncle. The story then starts a few years further on, the vessel is now Katipo III and Amber, Tahi and Israel are now in their twenties and the boys’ adoration of Amber is obviously going to cause trouble. Amber’s father Rian captains the vessel and Kitty, her mother, sails beside him. Rian takes them to Dunedin when he gets word that Bao has been kidnapped, and they go to visit Bao’s ailing father, their old friend Wong Fu, to find out how they can help. From there it is a rollicking adventure in stinky Dunedin, stinky Sydney and stinky Hong Kong. They find out surprising things about their old friend and his daughter and are drawn into the complicated web of Chinese politics, loyalties and deceptions. And there are pirates! As in all of Challinor’s books the history is interesting, the women strong and the action non-stop. Kitty, Amber and Bao are all great, and occasionally I wasn’t sure why Kitty just didn’t hurf Rian overboard when he kept pulling the big strong male act. Another strong installment in the series, and an ending that promises more.
A tale of London – not the London of commerce, science and suffragettes but that of the slums of Walworth with its overcrowding, costermongers and kids scrounging through the mud of the Thames for the odd useful find; the “Real London, the London that is beneath”. It is also a London of superstition and charms, arriving with migrants from other countries and from rural Britain; a muddy taniwha even raises its lonely head. The book is lyrical and flows along like the tides of the Thames and the ebbing and flowing of human populations. Although swirling into focus from when the land was a boggy marsh and spinning out to the present, London lies beneath is set in 1912 and tells the story of an historical disaster. The many narratives we read revolve around the families of three 12-year-old friends: Tom, Itzhak and Jimmy. The boys skive off whenever they can and move between their London and glimpses of a far different life. The only outside view is that of Edward Lovett, an accountant in the city leading a solitary life after his wife has left him with two sons, and whose passion is the collection of the charms and amulets he buys from the barrow markets. The perspectives are broad but the main focus is that of the women: Tom’s mum Ida who sells charms and potions from her barrow; Itzhak’s mum Mimi who caters for her husband, three sons and two borders, and Jimmy’s mum Rose, who has the added burden/gift of her dying mother Emily in the house. There is a fantasy feel to the novel – the boys are all the treasures of their parents and are honourable lads, almost all of the characters are good hard working souls with hearts of gold, and underneath the bluster and gruffness all the blokes are solid as – they are too busy to be political but Ida’s husband Bill still thinks his wife should be allowed to vote. The memorial erected to the victims of the Leysdown disaster (if you don’t know the story read the book) was stolen in the 1960s, so Duffy has written her own memorial – not only to the victims but to the urban poor, whose fate is inexorable no matter how many charms they pretend to believe in. I found it a moving read.
of her novels I have read, despite it being the eighth she has written. And I will be reading more! Spare me the truth is a complex thriller with brilliant plotting that keeps the reader guessing how all the various threads of the story are ever going to weave together. There are three main storylines, one involving G.P. Grace Reavey, who starts finding out about the secret life of her mother, after being threatened at her mother’s funeral. The second features Dan Forrester, a man suffering from amnesia, the nature of which is called into question after he is contacted by Grace’s mother prior to her death. And the third is the story of Lucy Davies, a young cop who has been sent to the boonies from the Met after she has exhibited some forthright behaviour at work. There are fragments of cases uncovered in each of the storylines – and there is a teaser Prologue as well, where we meet Stella, Grace’s mother, and that has to be fitted into the puzzle. The fragments involve grisly deaths, third world dumping, Big Pharma and sonic weapons – and yes they do all tie together in the end. And as well as the technicalities of the story we are drawn into the personal lives of the three main characters. Dan’s amnesia has resulted from extreme trauma – and his belief in his apparently stable and supportive family becomes very shaky as his accepted history is called into question. Grace is thrown by her discoveries about her mother, and also by the uncertainty resulting from her partner wanting to move to remote Scotland. And my favourite character, Lucy (“… didn’t want to get caught without a corkscrew or a sugar hit when the going got tough”) is constantly fighting her tendency to ‘liveliness’, knowing that this ‘problem’ is why she has been banished from the Met – to which she is desperate to return. But things get more complicated for Lucy when she realises her confusing condition might actually be part of the case she is working on – but that if she admits to her problem it might stymie her career plans for good. And to make matters more complicated still, the object of a haunting one night stand turns up to head her investigation. All so engrossing – the only slightly jarring note for me was the phone calls from Chennai, they were a great part of the puzzle solving but do young Indian men really constantly talk in the present progressive: “I cannot be telling you this, … I must to be taking him a message, … How can I be helping you?” Spare me the truth is a great read – and from CJ Carver’s website it would appear there are more Dan Forrester novels to come. Excellent!
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