BOOK REVIEWS

What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe

I bought P a Kindle for Christmas and he has since become a massive fan of Jonathan Coe. He's read The Proof Of My Innocence, Bournville, Middle England and is halfway through What A Carve Up! However, one of his friends, by pure coincidence, bought him the last book on that list in paperback for his birthday, just after Christmas, so he didn't read that one on his Kindle. Therefore, I decided to download it onto my own Kindle and read it at the same time as he did, and I'm very glad I did.

        I hadn't read any Jonathan Coe before, except for bits of The Rotters Club, and I was surprised by how good it was, particularly as it one of his earlier novels and apparently he is not entirely happy with it himself. Spanning a long period from the Second World War to the 1990s, it is a kind of family drama, in that the story revolves round the lives of the obscenely rich and powerful Winshaw family. A family of mostlyself-centred, greedy, power-crazed psychopaths, with only one or two redeeming members, the Winshaws embody all the worst traits of the ruling classes of the 1980s [and of all ages, really]. Between them, they have footholds in all the areas of life that influence and exploit society and enrich themselves - they are bankers, newspaper columnists, politicians, arms dealers, agricultural innovators, stock-brokers. They are mostly disgusting, morally bankrupt and entirely without remorse. 

        Unlike a more conventional family drama, Coe uses the Winshaws to satirise the upper classes, often mercilessly. The novel is saved from becoming simply a horrifying polemic, a history lesson, a reminder of how the world works, firstly by its black humour and secondly by its central narrator, Michael Owen, who is writing a biography of this unpleasant family. There is a specific mystery at the heart of this story - Tabitha Winshaw's belief that her eldest brother, Lawrence, murdered her beloved brother Godfrey during the war. Tabitha is quickly assumed to be insane and incarcerated in an asylum on the Yorkshire moors, from where she employs an eccentric private detective and arranges the hiring of Michael as her family's biographer. Michael's own story is poignant and beautifully written, but frequently extremely funny. I was reading a particular section in bed one night, a section in which Michael tries to write a fictional sex scene, and I got so hysterical with uncontrollable laughter that I woke P up. Michael is also a tragic figure in some ways and the novel is frequently moving.

        This is not a novel for those who like their stories to start at the beginning and progress chonologically. It jumps around time with very little warning, and Coe is a master of inter-textuality, using diary extracts, lists, newspaper articles, TV interviews, Michael's childhood stories, etc. He also uses lots of different genres, from hospital drama to slapstick to action-adventure to romance, but usually with a distinct flavour of the blackest satire. I found myself drawn into the story very quickly. Coe is a gifted novelist but not necessarily an easy one, but his clever and unusual plotting made me want to read on as each jump forward provided a little more of the mystery, filling in a little more of the jigsaw.

***** Highly recommended

The Maid and The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

 These are mildly entertaining cosy mysteries, set in a New York hotel and narrated by Molly the maid. Molly is a naive narrator, probably on the autistic spectrum, but with special talents which eventually help her uncover the villain of the piece and improve her own life in the process.

        These are not realistic stories, but if you enjoy gentle fairly predictable tales, Prose's stories might well appeal to you. They are nice to read when you're feeling relaxed and don't want to have to put much effort into your reading. They are sweet and uplifting. Molly is a likeable character and there are lots of decent, kind-hearted people in the novels, alongside the baddies.

*** Worth reading if you have nothing else to do

Normal Rules Don't Apply

by Kate Atkinson

I know that Kate Atkinson's short stories have had mixed reviews, but I think she has a real talent for writing strange little gems. Her ideas are weird and wonderful, and the stories she writes distil the thing I value most in her writing: her characterisation. I don't care about the plots in Atkinson's stories [or novels] - they are just an extra bit of frosting. I could read her work all day long just for the characters and their vivid, apparently effortless, depiction. This collection of short stories combines two things I love: fabulous believable people in utterly strange implausible circumstances. Perfect!

***** Highly recommended

Death At The Sign Of The Rook

by Kate Atkinson

This is the sixth novel in the Jackson Brodie detective series, and as always our hero Jackson seems rather peripheral in some ways. He reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Samuel Vimes, a man who is good at detective work but the cases he gets involved with are often solved by other people or by chance. He is also a man who believes in 'justice rather than the law', as his friend Reggie comments in this book, and that always feels satisfying to me.

        Atkinson is very good at genre-switching, and mixing humour and tragedy, in these books, and they vary in their tone, mood and emotional atmosphere. This one is Atkinson's take on the Country House Murder Mystery, and is less plausible than some of the other books, often reading like a farce, full of slapstick humour, bold coincidences and red herrings. It is not difficult to deduce the various crimes taking place, yet Atkinson retains a twisty plot full of memorable characters. 

        Atkinson layers up the meta-fiction of the novel with a series of Agatha-Christie-type cosy detective novels being read by various characters within the novel, and inspiring one strand of the plot, and the main focus of the drama taking place at a Murder Mystery weekend where fact and fiction within the world of the story is blurred considerably. By now, Jackson is entering his 60s, feeling older, having thoughts of mortality, and death is a theme running through the novel - there are actors pretending to be dead, real deaths that might be murders, near-deaths that could have been tragic but end up being humorous or at least happily resolved, natural deaths, discussions about death. There are stock characters who are given a Kate Atkinson twist - an atheist vicar, a handsome young major with one leg and PTSD, possibly nefarious siblings, a beautiful mysterious woman with chameleon-like powers of disguise, evil aristocrats, a dotty dowager - even a psychopathic cop-killing escaped prisoner roaming the moors. Most of the fun takes place in a severe blizzard. There is quite a bit of nonsensical stuff with disappearing and reappearing guns, guns that fail to go off, prop guns, etc.

        I found it great fun. It isn't as profound as some of Atkinson's bigger and better novels, such as Time After Time, but it is amusing, complex, with lots of twists and turns and some dead ends, vivid characters, and some very funny set-pieces. If you are a serious crime fiction afficionado, you'll probably find the plot too lightweight; if you love cosy fiction, you might find the more poignant parts a bit too close to reality. If you love Kate Atkinson's writing, you'll enjoy this one.

***** Highly Recommended