Number 24- A Matter of Death and Life- Andrey Kurkov

 

Another cheat read to get the numbers up, and more proof that short books can be just as satisfying as epic volumes spanning thousands of pages.

The second book in a row starting with a suicidal man deciding to end it all.  This time, however, our narrator decides to go for something dramatic, and to ensure people remember him.  He hires a hit-man to murder him.

Unfortunately, he soon decides that he actually wants to live. This leaves him with a predicament since the contract killer is on his trail.

This didn't take any of the narrative paths I thought it would from the plot description, and I loved it for feeling so original despite being over 30 years old.

George Bird's translation from the Russian reads very nicely. There's a lovely sense of black humour running through the narrative along with some real tension in places.

This is my second Kurkov novel and I will be buying more. I noticed in the By the Same Author bit that there is a sequel to Death And The Penguin, and that is now high up on my to be bought list.

 

Number 23- Coup De Grace - Sofia Ajram

 

A cheat read to catch up after taking 2 weeks to read Catch 22. 

This was my first Ajram book and probably wont be my last.

Vick is a depressed man who has decided to end it all by drowning himself.  However, when he gets off the metro train, he finds he's not in the station he expected but a cavernous labyrinthine station with no exits.

I really loved this book and tore trough it in one day.  I felt for poor Vick and his increasingly strange predicament. 

The prose definitely reminded me of Eric LaRocca and Wretch that I read earlier this year. However, there is a truly original switch up in narrative style with about 40 pages to go that caught me completely by surprise and raised this book to another level completely.

The sequence in the elevator is one of the weirdest things I've read this year so far. 

I recommend this unreservedly.

Number 22- Catch 22- Joseph Heller

 

Continuing my occasional theme of matching the number to the book, here we are with one of the most famous books ever written.

Not many books introduce entire new phrases to the language, but this one obviously did.

Yossarian is a cowardly bombardier in WWII, and the book basically follows his misadventures over the course of a year as he tries to avoid flying any more missions.

It's packed full of odd characters and violence. 

It's frequently laugh out loud funny, but I struggled to get through it. It felt like I was being shouted at the whole time I was reading it and I could rarely manage long sessions reading it without feeling mentally drained.  Despite that I was actually enjoying it almost the whole time.

It's very much a product of its time.  The humour is occasionally extremely rapey and there's not a single sympathetic character in the book except for possibly Major Major Major Major who does the sensible thing and avoids contact with everyone as much as possible.

I'm glad I read it, but I do think it's a one and done, and I'm not really tempted to read the sequel.

Number 21- Reality Check- Dave McReery

 

The self publishing world is a bit of a crap shoot.  For every Adam Nevill with his beautifully produced carefully packaged work, you get 100 books like this which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole and refuse to post a cover like that on this page.

This one here falls somewhere in the middle.

It's clearly been edited nicely, it looks generic but work has clearly gone into it.

Some years after World War Three decimated the planet and all countries decided to work together, Ryan is a sim racer, he takes part in remote motorcycle races via virtual links. He's recruited by the military when a threat from beyond the stars is identified.  Can he tame his reckless nature to become a valuable tool in the fight against the alien invaders?

Of course he can.

This is decently written, but is as generic as that cover. Take a bit of Enders Game, a bit of Starship Troopers, a bit of Star wars, a bit of Trek and stir it all together and you'd get something like this.

It's not a bad book by any stretch.  It just doesn't do anything special with the very familiar ingredients.

Dave (the writer) is a nice guy though. This was his first novel and it's an achievement to put out something this readable. The rest of the book group I read this with were all won over by it, whether or not they were sci-fi fans. 

Number 20- Rose/House- Arkady Martine

 

Another cheat read for me to get my numbers up by the end of March (I finished this last week but life has been distracting me from doing the write ups).

I'd never heard of Arkady Martine before, this just sounded interesting, and it's short.

As per that Guardian quote, this is a smart mix of science fiction, gothic horror and crime.

Rose House is a house haunted by it's almost omniscient AI. Only the original architect Basit Deniau and Dr Selene Gisil, the woman he named in his will to inherit the house when he died a year ago, can enter the house.

Detective Maritza Smith is notified that there is a dead body in Rose House, probably murdered. How can she gain access, and can she solve the crime? 

This is an entertaining slice of fiction, a new take on the locked door mystery. In it's short number of pages it manages to pack in an awful lot of good ideas, all well executed. There are some genuinely creepy ideas, and even if the end payoff isn't the best, the trip to get there was satisfying enough that I don't really care.

Martine's writing is a real pleasure to read, stylised but still easily readable. The characters are believable and act as you would expect them to. The plot is convoluted but makes overall sense. I thought the AI was plausible enough to be quite disturbing.

I'd give this an easy 7/10. Recommended if you're looking for a quick read with a bit of bite.

Number 19- Engines Beneath Us- Malcolm Devlin

 

Another cheat read to get my numbers up last month. 

I bought this for two reasons, the length, and that intriguing cover. And the plot sounded offbeat enough to be interesting. Alright, that's three reasons.

I'd never heard of Devlin before, but I will be checking out to see if he has anything else I can get my grubby paws on.

This is how you do a story that's mysterious, and doesn't explain everything without making it feel like you have no idea what's happening (looking at you Murakami and Armfeld).

Rob is a boy living in The Crescent, a suburb of an unnamed city. The Crescent is where the people who work at the City Works live. They're not liked much outside of the Crescent for reasons that aren't stated, but we can guess at by the end of this short book.

The engines thrumming beneath the houses have been the soundtrack to Rob's entire life. When a new boy, Lee, moves onto the Crescent, an outsider in this strange close knit community, Rob starts to discover how odd his life has always been whether he knew it or not.

One of he things this succeeds amazingly well in is that it reverses the usual role of the outsider coming in to a strange subculture/society.  normally the outsider becomes the stand in for the audience and has everything explained to them. In this, Lee basically shows Rob how the world normally is and provides the catalyst for the story rather than the usual almost passive observer.

Devlin's prose is polished, spare and evocative. At no point in this book did it ever feel like Devlin couldn't answer the questions that abound in the story. He is in complete control of his narrative and revealing subtle glimpses into his world. I loved this unreservedly and read it in just two hours or so.

well worth seeking out a copy.

Number 18- The Cutting Season- M W Craven

 

These quick reads books are a bit of a lottery. This is my first taste of an MW Craven book and I'm not convinced I want to read another.

This opens with a detective named Poe strung up on a hook in a meat packing warehouse waiting for a serial killer to arrive. We then flash back to the events leading up to his predicament.

Although I did kind of enjoy the story, I have a lot of issues with this book.

The style of writing is very very basic. That seems to be a common factor in these Reading Agency quick read books. It wouldn't kill the editors to allow some style in the wring.

The characters in this are drawn with very very broad strokes.  They're complete caricatures. Poe is your good cop who can't stick to the rules, permanently at odds with his superior officers.

His assistant in crimefighting, the civilian Tilly Bradshaw is an autistic genius to a ridiculous degree. You might as well say she's a magician, the number of impossible things she does that are just explained away as "she's a computer genius". She can do literally anything with computers, it takes her 4 seconds to open a complete stranger's laptop, she has no special equipment to do this, she's just a genius. It takes me 10 seconds to log in to my laptop and I know the password. It really does take the mickey. The author has decided that computers can do absolutely anything and that she doesn't need to explain how in anything but the most surface level detail.

The gangsters have the most ridiculous nicknames. they're comically bad and make it very difficult to take them seriously as a threat to our intrepid inspector.

Despite all this, Craven manages to make an interesting story with a twist in the tale and overall I enjoyed the read, despite cringing through most of the pages. I am probably going to read something full length by Craven and hope that the issues in this book are not typical.

Number 17- Men At Arms- Evelyn Waugh

 

A bit of culture for a change...

Waugh on war. 

The back cover of this copy, that predates my existence by several years- you can see that just from the price (I was born in the age of decimal currency)- states that this books and its sequels are the only piece of fiction about the 39-45 War which is certain to survive...

I'm not so sure about that. 

I know all about not judging old books by today's standards, but this has not aged well IMHO.

Guy Crouchback is a middle aged man from a semi aristocratic background.  At the outbreak of WWII, he is desperate to enlist but finds he's not wanted by most regiments. After a meeting in a hotel with a high up from the Halberdiers regiment, he finally gets his wish.

The Halbadiers are a strange lot, made up of the upper middle classes and above, living and doing their officer training in absolute luxury for most of the book.

Whereas something like Spike Milligan's war diaries take on the war from the front, showing exactly how dirty and nasty it is, at the same time as being hysterically funny, this is a satirical snook at the ruling classes who become officers regardless of ability. 

In this book at least, the reality of war barely affects any of the characters. They crouch back in their luxury barracks, and wander off to the local hotels for drinks every evening. I don't know if the war actually makes an impact in the second two books in the trilogy, but it certainly seems to be mostly absent here, and I suppose that's the point of much of the satire.

I struggled with Waugh's writing style. I needed several pages to tune in every time I picked the book up. I really don't think I cared about anyone in the book. Some sequences were high farce but I struggled to raise  a smile- I suppose if I'd known a thunder box was some type of portable latrine, that segment might have been funnier than I found it.

Overall I was pretty disappointed by my first foray into Evelyn Waugh. I'm not 100% I'll bother with another. 

Number 16- Mother Nature- Jamie lee Curtis, Karl Stevens, Russell Goldman

 

A quick cheat read to get the numbers up.  

This is a graphic novel based on a film script written by Jamie Lee Curtis. Published in 2023, this says from the upcoming feature film, but I must say I haven't heard of this as a film yet.

The artwork by Karl Stevens is occasionally excellent.  I'm not sure it's ever bad, but I didn't feel it had the wow factor of a lot of the graphic novels I've read in the last few years.  

The issue with this book is the story, which really doesn't make that much sense- and I say that coming from reading a book about a man who travels back to his own birth every time he dies. This is an attempt at an eco conscious horror story.

There's Native American folklore, there's weird radioactive creatures from under the ground, there's global conspiracy, and a rebellious teen who is somehow transformed into Mother Nature and goes on a random killing spree, and JLC as a very human villain.

It's all a bit of a mess tbh. Too much happening to quick, the artwork isn't always clear as to what's actually happening. Luckily it was short. Maybe the film will be an improvement if it happens.

Number 15- The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August- Claire North

 

I picked this up somewhere cheap several yonks ago because of that intriguing cover. This year's theme of occasional books where the number matches the title seemed like a good excuse to finally pick it up and read it.

Harry August is no ordinary man.  Every time he dies, he's born again as himself and has to live his life all over again. On his deathbed in his 11th life, he's met by a young girl, another of his type, who tells him that the end of the world is happening faster than it should, and Harry can help prevent it.

This is a high concept thriller, although you could describe it as a long form Groundhog Day if you were feeling mean.  I'm not though since I enjoyed this book a lot.

Harry is an intriguing narrator, guiding us through his many existences with aplomb. The various characters he meets in his lives are well drawn, especially the recurring ones. The Cronos Club is a brilliant invention.

The logic of how it all works is admittedly a little fuzzy around the edges and there is a lot of discussion in the book to obfuscate and contemplate the matter still further. I loved the deep dive into how this type of repeated existence would impact a person. When death becomes an annoyance at having to go through puberty again, what is it going to do to you?

It's one of the most unusual thrillers I've read. This was my first Claire North book and certainly won't be my last.  She has a clear easy style of writing that makes the most ludicrous concepts seem logical inside their framework. There's a sly humour running through it as well (the going through puberty again line I used earlier is taken from midway through the book) that cuts through some of the deeper discussions about the meaning of existence when doomed/fated to repeat it endlessly.

An easy 8/10, maybe edging to a 9.

Number 14- The Starless Sea- Erin Morgenstern

 

Books like this are the reason I go to book groups. This is not a book I would ever have given a second glance to, despite the pretty cover and the cool spredges.

When the unlikelily named Zachary Ezra Rawlings finds an uncatalogued book in the university library containing a short story that tells of an incident in his childhood in perfect detail, he goes on a quest to discover the origin of the book.

This leads him to find the mysterious Mirabel and handsome Dorian, and he's led through a painted door into a strange underground world which may be the source of human storytelling.

This world is facing a threat and they embark on a perilous journey to find the end of their story.

I adored this book from the first chapter.  This is the first book i years where I deliberately slowed my reading pace near the end so I could stay in the writer's world that bit longer.

The story alternates between chapters from books within the book with the ongoing narrative. As the book moves on, all the storylines start weaving together.

 

The prose is just gorgeous throughout.  The overlapping storylines and different layers of storytelling, could have felt contrived or confusing but they never did. This is a book that will reward multiple reads. There are so many subtle little touches that I spotted first time around and others that people at the book group highlighted. I'm sure there are dozens more to spot on a second time around.

There was a sly humour running through the story, along with some genuine shock moments. One particular incident in the final act of the story left me feeling completely shell shocked. This was one of the least predictable novels I've read in recent years.

This is best book I've read this year so far and I've already bought myself a rather lovely copy of The Night Circus online. I recommend this unreservedly.

Number 13 - The Writing In The Water- John Ajvide Lindqvist

 

The newest book from Lindqvist- still best known for Let the Right One In- is a marked departure from anything else he's written. He's switched genre altogether and written an international crime thriller.

This is very much a gender switched version of the Millennium books and he leans into the similarity with gusto. 

Julia Malmros is an ex cop,  50 something crime writer who is offered the contract to write the new book in the Millennium series. She's not the most computer literate so enlists the help of  Kim Ribbing, a 28 year old hacker with a dark past, as an advisor on the computer side of the story. Things become intimate between them both very quickly.

When the book deal falls through in a blaze of publicity, she retreats to one of the islands in the archipelago for a break.  Unfortunately, whilst there, she and Kim witness a shooting on the neighbouring island. This catapults them both into an international scandal and a dangerous plot that threatens both their lives.

Mixed into the plot is Julia's ex husband and local senior police officer, the man in charge of the investigation from an official viewpoint. the Chinese mafia and evil billionaires with blood on their hands.

This is all very entertaining.  The whole Millennium storyline is meta to the point where I was wondering if Lindqvist actually was asked to write one which was rejected. After Julia's book is rejected, she toys with the idea of gender swapping the book she's written and sending that out into the world instead... 

The sex scenes are probably some of the worst sequences JAL has ever written. There's one that is particularly cringeworthy.  Thankfully, they're short and don't detract from the overall quality of the book.

Being a crime thriller with a somewhat humorous take on the subject, this is obviously not the dark and scary Lindqvist that we're used to. However, it is still a very good read- sex scenes excepted. The epilogue does promise a darker edge to the sequel, with Lisbeth's, I mean Kim's, character potentially taking a less heroic role.

There were some verbal tics that annoyed me in the prose, especially where certain characters were referred to almost exclusively by their full name, first name and surname, sometimes multiple times in individual paragraphs. But that's still a minor irritation.  I already have the second book of this trilogy on preorder.

Number 12- The Perfect Murder- Peter James

 

A really fun little cheat read, and the first time I've ever seen "now a theatrical production" on the front cover. This was apparently first published as part of the Quick Reads scheme.

Victor and Joan have been married for 20 years. To say that every day they love each other less would be an understatement.  they hate each other more and more each day.

Victor has his plans to murder Joan. What he doesn't suspect is that she has similar plans in mind.

This all turns lethal very quickly and soon it's up to the survivor to cover things up and stop the police getting suspicious.

This was a very quick and easy read with a nice fluid writing style, a sense of humour and a few twists and turns along the way. 

I must get around to one of his full length novels at some point.  Judging by the standards of this, the man can write.

Number 11- Tripwire- Lee Child

 

My first Jack Reacher book proper.  I read the novella where Jack Reacher and Will Trent met last year and enjoyed it. This is the first time I've tackled a solo outing for the man-giant.

This is the third book in the series, but I don't think that really matters. Jack has been drifting and is semi-settled in Florida, digging swimming pools by day and working security at a strip club by night. He's living an anonymous life, as close to off the grid as he can.  He likes it that way.

A private eye comes looking for him, he evades the man's questions and lies about his identity. Later, the detective is found brutally murdered and Jack heads up north to New York to trace the killers and whoever sent the detective after him.

The hirer of the detective is the daughter of his recently deceased CO from his army days. Together they start digging into the past and uncover some dastardly plots along the way, unwittingly joining against time to save the life of a family in dire trouble from a conscienceless sociopath.

To call the prose workmanlike would be to pay it a compliment. It's a very quick and easy read, but that's the best that can be said about the prose. This book is very much a victory of content over style.

I have some quite major reservations about this book, and some minor ones. One of the minor ones is the lack of imagination for home furnishing and decoration displayed.  Everyone whose home is described has white walls and minimalistic taste in decoration. Both Reacher's love interest Jodie, and the villainous Hobie live in cut and paste described white apartments.

Speaking of Jodie, this is where the biggest ick comes in. You see, we're told that Reacher knew her 15 years earlier, when she was 15, and he was 24.  we're also told that he was obsessed with her in a sexual way back then.  If it was a one off reference, it might have been ok, but it's not. every time they're in the same scene for the first half of the book, we spend at least half a page on his rumination of how she looked when she was 15, and that she's just as hot now.  But this is apparently ok, because she was obsessed with him too. It was not my favourite relationship building device that I've ever read in a book.

Another issue I have with this is the whole cliché that we know he's a villain because he has a burned face and a disability.

I know this book is the literary equivalent of the switchyourbrainoff type of summer blockbuster movie, but even by those standards, Reacher is a bit dim in places. He's apparently a great detective and investigator.  

spoiler ahead

but in one scene, he's looking at a series of skeletons in their own caskets and describing how each one dies. We know they're in individual caskets.  We know each skeleton is complete.  It takes him more than half an hour to realise that there is an extra hand in one of the caskets. The book tries to cover this by saying "there were 15 hands", but because they're in separate caskets, this just means that one of the bodies he's just accurately described the manner of death on has 3 hands.

Despite all these, it was a fun read when I wasn't icked out at his obsession with teenaged Jodie. I can understand why they're popular and will probably read another at some point as a palate cleanser if something else has been too highbrow.

Number 10- Wretch- Eric LaRocca

 

I was sent a review copy of this in exchange for a fair review.

Last year I read Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and thought it was one of the most exciting new talents I'd read in years. This is my second of LaRocca's books and I was intrigued as to whether it would be to the same standards.  particularly since this is a full length novel and Things etc is a novella and some shorts.

I'm glad to report that this book has not lowered my opinions in the slightest.

Simeon Link is recently widowed from his husband and is not coping well at all. To say that he is wallowing in self pity would be to understate the situation. This is a descent into misery starting from an already miserable beginning. I use the word miserable as a compliment here...

He is invited to join a group who call themselves the wretches who believe they can see their deceased loved ones in photographs of random objects. He also becomes entwined with the mysterious character of Porcelain Khaw.

This is not as fast or as easy a read as Things etc. This is a downbeat, slow burn of a novel.  There is a lot of self reflection from Simeon (who is our first person narrator) and a lot of contemplation of grief and the meaning of life and relationships. There are some images every bit as disturbing as the sequences in Things etc. and the ending pretty much blew me away. 

It's a very well written literary horror with a serious side order of introspection.  Simeon is a selfish prick to be honest, but that doesn't make him any less fascinating. Even he doesn't deserve the depression which has taken over his life and especially not the fate that eventually befalls him.

There is a mix of media used in the storytelling. Text message exchanges, email conversations, extracts from websites, as well as the first person narration from Simeon. The side characters are not particularly well drawn, but that is as much down to the almost narcissistic viewpoint telling the story, a distinct symptom of his self absorption.  

It's not a perfect novel. The navel gazing was sometimes a little repetitive. I could easily understand people who like fast paced novels putting this down fairly early on, but that would be their loss.

I'm excited to get on to another of his books in the near future. The ending of this really messed with my head. There are very few authors who have that effect on me.

Number 9- Number 9 Dream- David Mitchell

 

It was complete coincidence that this was the 9th book I read this year, but I do think I might finally pick up Catch 22 in 13 more books time. It seems like a fun little mini theme to run through the year.

Eiji is a 19 year old man looking for his father in Tokyo. His problem is that he has no idea who his father is. This leads him into a series of weird and wonderful encounters with a whole variety of Tokyo life, including getting involved in what may be a horrifically violent feud between rival Yakuza gangs, or possibly his overactive imagination.

Rarely has the "is it real or not" card been played quite this skillfully. 

The opening chapter is very weird indeed and put a few people in the book group I read this for to give up very early on.  However, the style does settle down rapidly and Eiji becomes a sympathetic and relatable narrator.

Each chapter is written in a different style to all the others. The linking theme in the way they're written is that they jump around a lot. They mostly start halfway through or at the end of the narrative for that chapter and intercut the end or middle with the continuing narrative. One chapter (which was also contentious in the book group) has extremely surreal extracts from a book Eiji is reading intercut with his own story with no explanation as to what's happening until late in the chapter.  

This is a book where you have to place your trust in the author to explain what the bleeding hell is happening now on a regular basis.

Mitchell's prose is beautiful throughout.  I found it by turns deeply sad and laugh out loud funny. This is a real rollercoaster of a book, almost impossible to second guess. I'm not sure if it's my favourite of his books so far, but it's definitely in the top 3.

Number 8 - Monumental- Adam Nevill

 

This was one of my most anticipated books of 2026 and it didn't disappoint.  I'm using the picture from the back cover here.  Everyone is posting the feathered creature pictured on the front, but I think this lovely looking guy needs some love too.

A group of kayakers in Devon make the mistake of tackling a trip up a private valley off the coast, they find themselves facing the worst day of their lives. The valley is home to creatures rising from the depths of time. Creatures that time wanted to forget. Creatures that should never have seen the daylight again.

Over the next twelve hours the six of them will face dangers that they could never have dreamed about.

As ever, Adam's prose is rich and atmospheric. The monsters he describes are truly the stuff of nightmare. This may well be his most brutal book to date. 

What sets this apart from so many similar stories is that none of the characters are even remotely capable of dealing with the situation they find themselves in. These are everymen.  They don't come ready equipped with the fighting prowess of a superhero. Whether any of them can or will survive the challenges about to befall them is not even certain with only two pages to go till the end. And if they do survive, to borrow an old move tagline, what will be left of them?

The characters are not the most likeable bunch, but they don't deserve what's happening. Likeability in a character is overrated imho.  I much prefer interesting people, and that's what Adam gives us here. They all have their flaws. This is a dysfunctional group of almost friends. The friction between them is well portrayed and mostly adds to the tension building around them. 

Apart from one "Why are you trying to do this now?" incident involving personal issues between two of the characters (which was dealt with fairly rapidly to be fair), this is an almost flawless horror novel. From the moment the scream rings out across the valley in the first chapter, the horrors barely let up. 

I think Adam Nevill is one of the few writers who has never written a bad book.  And this is one of his strongest. I especially like how he has managed to tie in several of his other folk horror novels with this book, creating a shared universe that I am so so glad I don't have to live in.

As ever, I recommend this to anyone who likes a densely atmospheric slice of pure horror.

Number 7- The Rise- Alan Baxter

 

This is my second Baxter review in a couple of weeks, but this one has slightly more point to it since there are more than 24 copies in the wild.  This is due for a mainstream release on Friday 13th of this month. 

There are several scary towns out there in fiction, places where the top horror writers will set their tales. King has Derry and Castle Rock. Charlie Grant had Oxrun Station, Josh Malerman has Goblin. And Alan Baxter has Gulpepper, aka the Gulp as it has a habit of swallowing people.

This is the third set of novellas set in the town and there's no noticeable dip in quality yet. The previous volumes are The Gulp and The Fall. After the Fall, we can only have the Rise.

Now that a real continuity seems to be building, this one isn't quite as self contained as the other two volumes, but not so much that a brand new reader would struggle. (Although they would have a lot of spoilers for the previous books).

Strange Leaves- the first story- this follows a pair of dope dealers who've just accidentally killed their supplier and the repercussions. The title takes on multiple meanings in the course of the story which is always good. A solid start to the collection.

Sunlight on Clear Water- this is my favourite story in the collection and introduces possibly the most nightmarish creature so far in the Gulp mythos. When a young man, new to the Gulp, goes for a bit of free swimming with his beautiful new girlfriend, he finds himself in the middle of a web of deceit. It transpires that her family have been in the Gulp a very long time and are far from the normal people he thinks.

This is easily the scariest entry of the book.

Vitulinum- This is another solid entry.  A teenage boy from an abusive family finds himself faced with an impossible choice at the hands of a longstanding villainous presence around the Gulp.

The Gulpepper Institute for Health and Wellbeing- This is my next favourite entry.  When global megastar Eevie takes a break at the new Institute in the town to relieve her stresses, she finds the brochure might have missed a few details. This is Gulpepper after all. Her stresses are about to do the complete opposite of fade. The tension that builds in this one is great. The masterful slow reveal of what's going on leads to a violent conclusion. 

The Rise- this is what all the linking factors in the last 4 have been building to. Things are about to hit cosmic proportions and Baxter handles this as well as he did the more personal pains in the other stories.

This is easily on a par with the previous two volumes and demonstrates yet again why Baxter is a name to watch on the scene.

He has a very easy style which is capable of portraying deeply intimate horrors or horror on a cosmic scale.  Poor Gulpepper- that place just can't seem to catch a break.  

Number 6- Glorious Exploits- Ferdia Lennon

 

This is the debut novel by half Libyan, half Irish writer Ferdia Lennon. It tells the story of two poor Greek unemployed potters in ancient Syracuse who decide to put on a performance of Medea and the new play by Euripedes  using the Athenian prisoners of war held in the local quarries.

The two potters Lampo and Gelon are a brilliant double act at the centre of this alternately rollicking, heartwarming, and tragic story of art versus reality.

The book is narrated by Lampo in a very modern style of speech. This did cause some consternation at the book group I read this for, but I loved it.  It simultaneously makes the point that people now are the same as people then, and solves the issue of learning ancient Greek to have to read the book.

Lampo is a common as muck potter, short on intelligence and permanently down on his luck. This is brilliantly portrayed through his narration. Even through the frequent coarseness of language, there are some great turns of phrase and he is frequently laugh out loud funny.

The side characters are maybe not all fleshed out as well as they could be, but that's the nature of  a first person narrative. We get to know the others as much as they wander into the narrator's path. We know who is important to Lampo, whether that's for material or emotional reasons.  

I loved the build up towards the big production, the progress and the pitfalls, and then the production itself is gloriously rendered.

Certain events were somewhat inevitable, in a book about Greek Tragedies, but still managed to take me by surprise. The epilogue is a lovely touch, reminding us that good did come out of the mad venture.

This is a definite contender for best book of the year. It's a glorious read.

Number 5- Let the Great World Spin- Colum McCann

 

In 1974- during the building of the World Trade Centre in New York City, a man managed to string a tightrope between the two towers, several hundred feet in the air.  He then spent a good amount of time walking between the towers and performing tricks. 

This stunt is the central event in this novel that ties together the lives of a selection of characters who witness or are affected by it.

We have an Irish monk called Corrigan who lives in the Bronx and tries to help the street walkers.  We have a selection of the girls he helps. Then there's a judge and his wife, still mourning their son who died overseas, an artist, and a photographer.

We follow all their lives, in some cases, just on the day of the sky walk, others we get to know from birth onwards.

I loved this book.  The characters are all beautifully drawn, and the narrative voice shifts in each chapter depending on whose story we're following.  Even the punctuation changes, some characters narrate their section with traditional quotes for speech marks, and other characters have speech on separate lines, indicated with a hyphen.

The prose is uniformly good throughout, regardless of which character is speaking. The insights into the lives of all segments of New York society all seem entirely convincing.

This is an easy first contender for book of the year. It's my first Colum McCann and probably won't be my last.