Harriet Devine's Blog

Cold Courage

Scandinvian noir -- do we love it? I certainly used to. I got hooked on Henning Mankell, loved the Martin Beck series, and was absolutely bowled over by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Since then, though its not exactly been downhill all the way, I've struggled to recapture the excitement of those reading experiences. It's not for want of trying -- I've had a go at Camilla Lackberg, Jo Nesbo, Lars Kepler, and others whose names have escaped me. They were all OK, but somehow didn't quite hit the spot. But I live in hope. So I was looking forward to Pekka Hiltunen's prize winning debut novel Cold Courage.

Hiltunen is Finnish,  but the novel is set in London, an interesting choice and one that is pulled off impressively well. He is also male, though it took me a while to realise this, so his other interesting choice is to have a female protagonist, a young Finnish graphic designer called Lia. Lia has been living happily in London for seven years when one day, on a bus going to work, she passes a crime scene on the street. Though she can't see what's happening, she soon  discovers that a body has been found in the boot of a car -- a body that has been so badly damaged as to be unrecognisable. The police get nowhere with this upsetting case, so Lia decides to investigate herself. She soon finds herself exploring a dangerous world of human trafficking, prostitution, and brutality. Not only that, but she gets involved in a separate attempt to disgrace a powerful and unpleasant right-wing political leader.

All this, though a bit graphic and brutal for my taste, was promising. So indeed was the introduction of Mari, Lia's new Finnish friend. Mari has an extraordinary ability to read people and know all about them after just one encounter. She runs an exclusive unit, The Studio, devoted to putting the world to rights at whatever the cost.

All very fascinating. But -- and I'm afraid there is a but -- I did wish someone had edited this novel down a bit. At 434 pages it is really long, and though much of the material is well handled and full of interest, I'd have been happy with just one of Lia's two concurrent investigations. As for Mari, her person-reading ability, which seemed so important at the start, didn't really have much of a part to play as things went on, though obviously it had been useful for recruiting Lia in the first place.  I'd have liked to see this being used in a more interesting and fruitful way.

That being said, there's a lot to like -- Lia is an attractive character, and her status as an expat Finn who loves London gives her an interesting perspective on all she sees and experiences. Mari's Studio, too, with its staff of brilliant, eccentric people, all dedicated to the cause of justice in the world, is a great invention, and evidently will reappear, as will Lia, in further novels. All in all, I'm rather sorry not to be able to give this an unqualified thumbs up, as it's an intelligent and thoughtful novel. I shall definitely look out for the next in the series, and hope that even with my quibbles I haven't put anyone off giving this one a try. I don't usually grade my reviews, but if I did, this would get a 7/10.

The Ruby Slippers

I'm always happy to support new authors, and so it was a pleasure to discover a debut novel that had as much going for it as The Ruby Slippers. As you might have guessed, Judy Garland is in there, also New York City, a bag lady, Latvian refugees, disaffected teenagers, and lots more besides. Keir Alexander has managed to write a novel that is entertaining and touching without being sentimental, and you can read my full review of it on Shiny New Books.  There's also a really interesting and informative Q&A with Keir in the BookBuzz section. Very much looking forward to seeing what he's going to write next!

Boy Reading

This lovely, evocative image is by the great American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). There are people who think Rockwell's work is sentimental and kitsch, but I really love it and so do millions of others. 

The Outcast Dead

I've had a terrific soft spot for Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway novels since I read the first one, Crossing Places, in 2009. There's something very appealing about Ruth, archaeologist and single mother, her erstwhile lover and father of her child DCI Nelson, their friend the Druid Cathbad, and the various assorted friends and colleagues who pop up from time to time and whose lives it is impossible not to get caught up in.

So, when this, the sixth in the series, came up for publication this year, I was very happy to be able to get a review copy. And as all this happened in the run up to issue 1 of Shiny New Books, my review of the novel found its way in there.

Here it is, if you'd like to read it.

 

 

A Change of Climate

I am, in general, not a particularly patient person, and this means I tend to look for instant, or at least rapid, results in most things I undertake. So when I start reading a book, if it doesn't grab me fairly quickly, I generally give up on it. Quite why I persevered with this one is a bit of a mystery, though the fact that it was by Hilary Mantel obviously had something to do with it. In fact I was listening to it as an audiobook, and for a long time I was just not getting it. I couldn't relate to the characters and their situation, and found it all a bit mystifying. But I kept on, and then I finally got it. 

This is the story of Anna and Ralph Eldred who, in the present time of the novel, live in a large house in Norfolk with their four children. Ralph is involved with a charitable project which means that the family is committed to welcoming "sad cases" from London's East End, and attempting to make their lives a little better, frequently with little or no success. But twenty years ago, when they were first married, Ralph and Anna went to Africa as missionaries, and we gradually learn that something very terrible happened to them there, something that has affected their whole lives. And, though the exact nature of this is not revealed until relatively far into the novel, we see its effect on Anna and Ralph, and also on their children Kit, Julian, Robin and Becky.

This is a powerful novel about serious things. It's about morality, about the nature of good and evil, about relationships and about forgiveness. Few people in it are wholly good or wholly bad, though some come pretty close to both ends of the spectrum. The most difficult character for me was Anna, largely I think because of her inability to understand the meaning of forgiveness, though this is obviously the result of the shock and grief associated with her experiences in Africa. But it has left her hard and cold, and though she loves her children as best she can, I think they suffer in their different ways from how she is. It's interesting that it's her daughter Kit who finally manages to explain to her why forgiveness in the end has to be practised for one's own sake if nothing else. The very last part of the novel, in which Ralph has reluctantly conceded to Anna's insistance that they must part, is agonising, because it is clear that both hopes the other may change their mind but neither is able to articulate that wish. The ending, however, though sometimes said to be inconclusive, seemed like the very opposite to me -- an opportunity to mend bridges and heal wounds.

A Change of Climate was first published in 1997, many years before Mantel's spectacular double Booker success. It is beautifully written, sensitively observed, immensely thought provoking. I'm so very glad I persevered with it.

 

Rabbit Reading

 

Yes, it's that time of year when, for reasons that have never been clear to me, rabbits seem to loom up all over the place. So here's one, supposedly reading, but apparently having trouble deciding which book to go for. A familiar problem for some of us, maybe. 

Anyway, Happy Easter!

The Temporary Gentleman

If you asked me to name my favourite contemporary novelists, Sebastian Barry would be a strong contender for the top of the list. In fact his A Long Long Way, which I read in pre-blogging days, is one of the most stunning novels I've read in a lifetime of reading, and The Secret Scripture, which I reviewed here in 2008, comes a close second. So imagine my delight when The Temporary Gentleman appeared in time to be included in issue 1 of Shiny New Books. And I really loved it. 

If you'd like to see what I said about it, you can see my review here. And I was lucky enough to be able to ask him some questions about the novel, which appeared in our BookBuzz section -- here's the link to that. 

Shiny New Books is doing really well, thanks to all our great readers. Do come and visit if you haven't already, or revisit if you have!

Spring Tide

This arrived not long ago, but unfortunately too late for me to read it and get a review into Shiny New Books issue 1. But being a lover of Nordic crime, I wanted to read it anyway, and now I have. This is the first novel by a couple who are celebrated screen writers, and I'd say you can see the influence of film pretty clearly here. 

The novel begins in 1987. Three figures are on the beach of an island off the west coast of Sweden, waiting for the incoming spring tide which will cover the beach to a depth of 50 centimetres. They have dug a deep hole, deep enough to hold the body of a woman, leaving the head uncovered. The woman is put in, and the figures watch as the tide comes up, inexorably. The water finally covers her head and she drowns. What they don't know is that a terrified ten-year-old boy has watched the whole thing from his hiding place behind the rocks.

Fast forward to 2011. Olivia Ronning, whose policeman dad died a few years earlier, is in her last year at police college. Just before the summer break, the tutor hands out folders to the students, containing unsolved cold cases -- an optional summer project. Olivia is intrigued to find that one of them involved her own father, and took place on the very day she was born. The discovery of a drowned woman buried in sand on a beach on a western island. She gets increasingly obsessed with the need to solve the crime, and her search for witnesses and clues leads her into some increasingly bizarre worlds, from world-class businesses to exclusive escort/call girl agencies, to homeless people, to young boys forced into cage fighting, to disturbed teenagers beating people up and filming it on their phones, and more besides.

This really is a rollercoaster of a novel, and zaps about with breathtaking speed between the various, and numerous, characters and locations in a dizzying manner, which I couldn't help thinking owed a good deal to the Borjlinds' experience in writing for the movies. There are enough red herrings to feed a large room full of hungry Swedes, and a couple of twists at the end which I certainly didn't see coming. 

The novel has apparently been a huge hit in Sweden, and is the first in a projected series featuring Olivia and Tom Stilton, the retired detective she manages to unearth from the most unlikely and unpromising milieu. Not one for the faint-hearted or squeamish (which is usually me) but despite a few quibbles I whizzed through it avidly. The English translation came to me from Hesperus, so many thanks to them.

 

 

Woman Reading

 

Most of the paintings I put up here seem to be 19th or 20th century, so here's a much more ancient one for a change. This is Quintilia Fischieri, painted in around 1600 by Federico Barocci (Italian, 1535–1612), an esteemed Renaissance painter of whom (as so often) I had never heard. He seems mostly to have painted religious subjects, but this is very sweet and domestic. I haven't discovered who this young woman was, but the books on the table as well as the one in her hand suggest she must have been rather learned. So, indeed, does the fact that she's standing up reading -- as if she was in the middle of doing something else and couldn't resist picking up a book.

John Bude's Classic Crime

 

A few weeks ago I was teasing you a bit with a brief mention of two great classic crime reprints from the British Library -- John Bude's Cornish Coast and Lake District murders. Now you can read the full review of these two great novels on Shiny New Books. 

I've written quite a few reviews in issue 1 of SNB, which came out a couple of days ago and seems to be going down rather well. So I shall pop a link in here from time to time and hope you will find something to enjoy.