Material Witness

K-Ville - Not perfect, but better than the average TV hour

I read a great deal about how traditional broadcasters are in dire financial straits because their advertising-driven business model is broken.

I pondered this while watching the UK premiere of K-Ville on Five USA - a channel I think I vaguely knew existed, but which I have not watched before. It is buried deep in the Sky channel guide's Entertainment listings dead zone below such popular destinations as Hallmark and Zone Romantica.

The only reason I knew about K-Ville was that it was the day's highlight in the television section of the Sunday Times Culture supplement. The synopsis was instantly arresting: K-Ville follows the lives of the cops who patrol New Orleans post Katrina. Specifically it follows Marlin Boulet and Trevor Cobb.

Boulet is a resident of the Upper 9th ward - one of the worst hit areas of New Orleans. More than that he is an evangelist for the area, encouraging those who have remained to stay, those who have left to return and the authorities to rebuild the ravaged infrastructure. Cobb, by contrast, is apparently an outsider, drawn to New Orleans by the challenge.

The tension between them was key to the pliot. Boulet is wound like a coiled spring - driven by personal demons, public outrage and a need to help his people. He is edgy, volatile and unpredictable. Cobb, a former soldier with Afghan tours behind him is Boulet's foil: he is grounded and rational but no less determined to succeed.

K-Ville is not The Wire or The Sopranos. The production values are not as high, the writing not as crisp. But it was pacy, gritty and full of good potential. And it's a better be than most of the crap Five has on its struggling terrestrial channel. So why not give it a shot rather than burying it? 

REVIEW: Dead Tomorrow by Peter James

 Now in his fifth outing, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is entering somewhat dangerous territory for serial coppers. It is at this stage that many series go awry as the vitality and freshness that sustains new series can start to drain away and familiarity begin to breed contempt.

But fans of Peter James need no have fear of that. In Dead Tomorrow, James has delivered his annual summer blockbuster, chasing away the mid-series blues with a stark and disturbing plot focused on the underground trade in organ trafficking.

The key to every good series is the leading man (or woman, obviously) and James's notable success in developing one of the UK's most popular police series is Roy Grace, the decent everyman of crime fiction. Grace feels very much like the sort of bloke you'd enjoy going the pub with a quick pint after work. He doesn't suffer from any of the social diseases associated with fictional cops. No alcholism, misogyny, psychological disorders. He doesn't have any general problem with authority figures, only with certain officers. Instead he is stable, reliable, sensitive, thoughtful and hard-working. Just the sort of police officer you'd want on your side. He does have a bit of a class chip on his shoulder but that's about it. 

But what James shows is that life can quite dramatic enough without all the behavioural problems so beloved of crime fiction writers. Grace deals with office politics, the near breakdown of a friend and the dilemma of parenthood so well known to many who work long hours that keep them away. If this does not sound as explosive as a 24 hour drink and drug fuelled bender followed by the violent pursuit of perps, well perhaps it is not, but it is no less interesting for that and is refreshingly grounded in reality.

None of which, however, is of much relevance without a great narrative running through it, and James has one. Dead Tomorrow ties the desperation of a mother with a daughter suffering acute liver disease to the vulnerable street kids of Bucharest through the despicable and yet burgeoning continental trade in human organs.

When a dredger uncovers the body of a young man on the sea bed just of the Sussex coast, Grace is called in to investigate a crime that offers no clues other than an empty body cavity where major organs should reside. At first he and his team are baffled about how and why it got there, but when similar corpses are uncovered it is clear they are dealing with the systematic murder of young people and the harvesting of their organs for sale. The investigation becomes a desperate race against time to save the lives of young people known to be in transit towards Brighton and death on the operating table.

What elevates this beyond mere airport bookstore beach-reach fodder into a fascinating and gripping read is a multi-viewpoint narrative that locks into the motives and aspirations of the various players in the drama: the fear and desperation of the mother of a dying child, prepared to go to any length to save their child; the desire of homeless orphans to find themselves a better life cleaning hotel rooms or serving cocktails in England and their consequent vulnerability to those making promised to help them fulfil such dreams; the self-justification, moral abdication and naked greed of surgeons and traffickers who tell themselves that the life of a middle class, paying customer is worth more than that of a Romanian vagrant.

Each of these gives Dead Tomorrow depth, vitality and a purpose that extends beyond  entertainment. This is a compelling and occasionally emotionally demanding novel and a worthy addition to a fine series.

Reviews of previous Grace novels: Not Dead Enough; Dead Man's Footsteps.

 

REVIEW: The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

It is difficult to believe there could be another novel out there more suited to my taste. The Given Day is set in Boston, a city with a rich and vibrant history I love to visit and love to read about. Its central characters have an Irish heritage I share. The novel deals in American socio-economic and political history, and in particular the history of labour and the left as well as race, all of which fascinates me. And it is written by Dennis Lehane, a writer I greatly admire. 

It also delves deep into sporting mythology. And at the risk of sparking a riot of claims from adherents to other sports and other cities, there is perhaps no sport with a mythology as compelling as baseball and no place where those myths are more important than Boston.  Oh, and the fact it contains an extraordinarily vivid description of the murderous 1918 influenza virus and that I read it as another such pandemic was supposedly on the march merely added to the sense that this was the right book at the right time.

So any book that is heading into the sort of territory I have described and that starts with the tale of a train journey taken by Babe Ruth from Chicago to Boston during the 1918 World Series is a book I am pre-disposed to like. ´

But however good the ingredients might be, the meal is at the mercy of the chef. And this was fresh territory for Lehane who has experimented some since the early days of the terrific Kenzie / Gennaro series, but not to the extent of writing "the great American" novel. And to all intents and purposes that was the ambition here: an epic tale of American history, featuring famous names (Hoover, Coolidge and Babe Ruth to name a few) and celebrated events, such as the Boston police strike, and yet told from the view point of the men on the street. In this case the narrators are police officer Danny Coughlin and Luther Laurence, a black man fleeing a dangerous criminal past in the south.

Those who have followed Lehane's work, and in particular those who have read his master piece Mystic River, will not be surprised to hear that he written a magnificent sweeping novel that succeeds in telling a story of both intimate struggle - ideological, economic, personal - and historical significance.

It does so in part because Lehane has such great command of the narrative, pulling together disparate lives and story strands towards an explosive conclusion in a seamless fashion that has that uncomfortably compelling feeling of inevitability about. And in part because he is an uncompromising writer who explores every shade of grey in his characters putting their every act under the most exacting light.

The stories of Coughlin and Laurence are complex, emotional and uneven but through them Lehane offers a little more insight into why the world is the way it is - both in 1918 and now - and any book that can do this is worthy of respect and consideration.

** By way of an inside, while reading this book I also watched Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck's adaptation of Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro novel. The distribution of this film was originally delayed in the UK because of the Madeleine McCann disappearance, because it deals with similar issues, a ridiculous move to my mind and one that suggests there is still confusion over the intersection between art and life and also that someone somewhere believes that we are not emotionally stable enough to make our own decisions about what we watch and when. That aside, this is a terrific and compelling movie. Not one for a first date perhaps, but it is thoughtful, beautifully shot and acted and a triumph for Ben Affleck.   

REVIEW: The Way Home by George Pelecanos

It grates slightly to pick up a book by George Pelecanos to see it emblazoned with the promotional message: "By the award-winning writer of The Wire.

I should be picking up DVD Box sets of The Wire that say, "by best-selling novelist George Pelecanos". His work is so good, is of such a consistently high standard he shouldn't need a sales boost from a television programme - however good a show it is - the books should be flying off the shelves of their own accord.

But Pelecanos does not have the profile he deserves - in the UK at least - and so another view prevails: anything that introduces new readers to these excellent novels should be embraced.

Pelecanos' work deals with subject matter and subjects that the modern, impatient and reactionary mainstream media view solely in black and white terms. Drugs? Bad. Teenage sex? Bad - a sign of moral decay, poor parenting, society's loss of values. Urban decay, failing education system, street crime - over-simplified, under-analysed or just ignored as soon as the blame has been allocated to a (usually ideologically pre-determined) scapegoat. There's no attempt at understanding and precious little empathy.

Pelecanos takes a different view, burrowing deep under the surface to gain understanding and then exposing it to view. The Way Home is another work rich with pathos but without reactionary judgment. Everybody has a story beyond the lurid and screaming headlines and the seemingly hopeless crime statistics. Pelecanos tells those stories, with neither prejudice nor censorship.

The Way Home is broadly the story of Chris Flynn, a white teenager born to relative comfort in a secure middle class Washington DC home. Flynn leaves the path his father has defined for hím, turning his back on sports and study in favour of dope and, eventually, petty crime. And after one evening stunt goes badly awry Flynn, to his father's horror, lands in a juvenile jail where he is exposed to kids from the other, primarily black, side of DC.

Inside Pine Ridge, Flynn survives and over time begins to understand how taking the wrong decisions has threatened to derail his life entirely. When he leaves he settles into the family business where his father also employs a number of Chris's Pine Ridge companions, encouraged by another former inmate who is working in a charity that helps young men back into the workplace and civil society.

But a chance discovery in a house where Chris and a colleague are laying carpet inspires a series of events that threaten the fragile peace that the young men have worked hard ot earn themselves.

The story itself is relatively straightforward, but the telling of it is anything but. Pelecanos works a multi-viewpoint narrative flawlessly to illustrate the circumstances facing each character, the motivations driving them and the decisions they face that affect them and those around them.

At the same time, The Way Home is also a compelling page-turner which the author boils up to a tense conclusion. Another brilliant novel from Pelecanos.

REVIEW: Long Lost by Harlan Coben

First the good news. A new Harlan Coben novel. A mildly diverting thriller, and one I enjoyed (to a point). If you're heading for the beach this summer and want an undemanding read, you could do a lot, lot worse. (Although not a lot, lot, lot worse because the new Dan Brown - god help us all - is not available until September).  

The not so good news, in particular for long-time devotees of Myron Bolitar is that this is such a long way from being Coben's best work that I wonder if the Myron series has now run its course. At its best this series was funny, fast and fulfilling. I loved the early stuff so much I trudged around the book stores of London hunting down import copies before they were published in the UK,and did not resent the inflated prices I had to pay for US hardbacks.

It's just as well I didn't have to do this for Long Lost, I would not have been happy. Much of the book felt contrived and forced as if Coben had a template for location and character development and then shoe-horned a plot into it. A square plot into a round hole.

The book starts with Myron in New Jersey, apparently settled in a relationship and busy in work. But then a desperate request for help from an old flame in some trouble in Paris. He is disinclined to help. But suddenly after a bizarre fight with a local cop at a little league game, he not only is no longer in relationship and needs to get out of the country quickly!! And why not Paris?

At this point my mind wandered back to Ne Le Dis à Personne, the excellent French film adaptation of Tell No One, and I started thinking that after Coben's time on the set there (he appears in the background at one point as a train passenger) he's decided to introduce the delights of gai Paris to his readership. Because there really didn't seem to be any other reason for him to be there.

Anyway, you'll get over that I told myself. And (again, to a point) I did. A decent enough plot develops around the murder of Myron's old flame's ex-husband for which the old flame, Therese, becomes number one suspect, while the DNA of her long-dead daughter is found on the scene.

As Myron investigates, however, the implausible, incredible and unlikely quickly pile up. First we're in London, fleeing the French police. And here's Mossad beating Myron up. Win (Myron's ultra rich, psychotic side-kick) conveniently shows up with a friend in the NSA, or the CIA or some other shady organisation with a TLA. Myron is abducted, water-boarded, tortured personally by Dick Cheney while Therese disappears. (I made the Cheney part up, but you get the point). And in the background is the least likely, silliest terror plot imaginable all of which builds up to a fairly silly conclusion.

It's a great shame. In his heyday, Myron was a wise-cracking Jerry Maguire, one of the most enjoyable and funny characters out there. But this was a mess, and Myron was a bit of a mess with it.

There are some redeeming features. The dialogue, particularly the interplay between Myron and Win, crackles along in places - in particular in some schoolboy humour, Carry On movie scenes revolving around Win's latest squeeze, a woman called Mee. ("Mee horny", "some Mee time" etc etc. And Coben still manages to keep the daft plot moving at such a place and on occasion with such flare that you can overcome the flaws and the silliness and enjoy the narrative.

But from one of the great exponents of the genre - and I defer to nobody in my admiration of Coben's work - this is a weak outing and one in which the Myron franchis felt tired and deflated. Has it run its course? I do hope not, but it needs some revitalising after this.

REVIEW: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

If Gillian Flynn's critically acclaimed 2007 debut novel, Sharp Objects, marked her out as an extraordinary new talent in the thriller world, her follow-up act, Dark Places, confirms her as one of the very brightest stars in the genre firmament.

The brightest, but also, perhaps, the darkest. About halfway through Dark Places I was intrigued to read an interview with Flynn from Bookslut in which the author told Mike Carlson that there would be no sequel to Sharp Objects, because lead character Camille Preaker was just too dark: "I just don't understand how people write series with the same character. You must have to want to spend time with them. Camille's nice, but she's way too dark to spend that much time with."

So instead Flynn turns her attention to a character who is even darker: Libby Day, disturbed survivor of the massacre of her family, by her adored older brother Ben, who was convicted largely on the basis of her testimony.

Libby leads a somewhat aimless life, funded by the contributions of well-wishers who sent donations after her tragic story was publicised. But now into adulthood, two decades after the murders, the fund is running dry and Libby must contemplate how to support herself in the future, without any skills or experience.

It is therefore perhaps inevitable that the event that defined her life comes to her aid in the form of the "Kill Club" a loose collective of groupies interested in exploring conspiracy theories around various events. Libby Day is a major figure for Kill Club members interested in the death of her family members and for a fee is invited to speak to the group.

When she gets there she quickly realises that she is regarded with notoriety rather than celebrity: her testimony framed her brother, and not a single member of the club believes he is guilty. Reluctantly at first, Libby is dragged into the fight to clear Ben's name.

Dark Places is every bit as disturbing as Sharp Objects, although in a different way. The Dark Places of the title could be any one of a number of locations: the conspiracy theorist sub-culture of the Kill Club; the psychological recesses that Libby disappears into to cope with her demons; or the crushing poverty of the pre-massacre day family and the tortures suffered by matriarch Patty trying to keep her children above the bread line.

Of all the themes in Dark Places, it is this poverty and hopelessness that is the most haunting. At times reading about it was almost  physically painful. As a parent my heart actually ached for Patty in her desperation, misery and - perhaps worst of all - the smallest measure of hope she clings onto.

This is what Flynn is really really good at: putting the reader inside the story, having them live every twist in turn. I did it with Camille Preaker, and now with Libby and Patty Day.

She carries this narrative through a twin storyline: Libby's investigation into the Ben's possible innocence and the dramatic and tragic story of the fateful day of the massacre. The latter, in particular, is compelling, emotional reading.

This is a second triumph for Gillian Flynn. Let's hope we don't have to wait another two years for the third.

James Anderson livens up the country house murder

Towards the end of The Bloodstained Egg Cosy, Inspector Wilkins, the reluctant yet brilliant country detective, bemoans the fact that his success in solving a double murder and jewel theft will likely earn him a promotion. "It'll likely mean more case like this one. There seem to be hundreds of them among the English upper classes these days," he says. "And I really don't enjoy them. I'd be much happier working on the new one-way traffic system."

In this way, throughout the story, James Anderson pays homage to and gently pokes fun at the country house party murder, the foundation stone of British crime fiction. It is done skilfully and with respect for the golden age writers who first articulated the literary convention of sitting all the inhabitants of the house down in the drawing room while the socially inferior - who is always, it seems, an eminently more attractive character - local policeman reveals to all whodunnit.´

The late James Anderson pulls off something of a coup in his revealing tableau in that just about every one of the dozen people sitting before Wilkins is guilty of something - be it arrogance, lying, theft or murder. And this is the culmination of a very clever and hugely involved plot featuring an aristocratic jewel thief, international politics, diplomacy and espionage, revenge, love and a very large collection of guns. 

Barely a word is wasted and the story line is littered with clues for the sharp of eye and mind. The social observation is also very keen and the whole story is carried off with a witty charm. It is a worthy modern complement (and perhaps compliment) to the great detective stories of the golden age.

And, of course, Wilkins is spot on. There are hundreds of such crimes to be discovered. And so, if you liked Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, you'll love James Anderson. As I did, and I look forward to the Affairs of both the Mutilated Mink and the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks.

  

Three word reviews for a busy world...

The last two months have been so frenetic that at present I am on course to read just 32 books this year, compared to 83 last year and over 100 in 2007. There is little time to read, even less to write.

I do not want to let Material Witness wither on the vine, so rather than allowing the cyber silence to continue I thought a Digested Reviews post might tide me over until work calms down some.

So, a three word limit for the things I've read, seen and heard lately.

ITV's new series of Lewis: "Silly".

Amy McKinnon's Tethered: "Unusual".

Carl Hiaasen's Scat: "Anarchic eco fun".

Simon Kernick's Relentless: "Flawless".

Harlan Coben's Hold Tight: "Best since TellNoOne".

Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn: "Five star fiction".

That, sadly, is just about it, besides a very short note to say that I am really enjoying the late James Anderson's English country house murder weekend novel, The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy.

Ripper tours show the enduring appeal of the Whitechapel murders

One of the many things I didn't realise about the Jack the Ripper murders was that the weather in late summer of 1888 was not very good. Very similar in fact to the weather in the East End of London on Tuesday night, which is to say, very wet. 

This was offered by our Ripper tour guide Dave as something of a consolation for the fact that by the time we had finished the tour on Tuesday evening all 30 of us were soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone: it was surely not as cold in August and September 1888.

The enduring appeal of the Jack the Ripper murders - perhaps revived by a recent television series - was illustrated by the fact that at least three tour parties were out in Spitalfields and Whitechapel in the relentless rain on Tuesday. I estimated that there were probably at least 80 people in total. On our tour there were Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and at least one German (struggling with an uncooperative red umbrella) showing that the appeal is international.

At the conclusion of the tour, Dave offered two theories about why the murders still hold a firm grip on the dark side of the public imagination.  The first is that the time, the atmosphere and the grisly nature of the killings contribute to a "spook" factor that appeals to that odd part of some of us that likes to be scared. The alternative is that despite years of formal investigation, 120 years of amateur sleuthing and dozens of books and films on the subject, precisely nothing is known about the Ripper other than that he (or even she) is dead. The complete lack of physical evidence in the case, besides a strip of leather left in a doorway, has left a genuine mystery - perhaps the greatest unsolved crime mystery there is.

The fact that the case is so open has resulted, Dave reported, in no fewer than 200 people being suggested as suspect, and a cast range so diverse as to include a future, a Jewish slaughterman and a mad midwife.

Dave's tour was mercifully free of the conspiracy theories that rage around the Ripper. He guided us from Aldgate East tube station through the backstreets of Whitechapel via each of the accessible murder sites towards a final stop in Mitre Square in the shadow of the gherkin in the City, where the body of Catherine Eddowes was found. Along the way we saw some of the last remnants of Victorian London in the terraced houses of Fournier and Hanbury Streets. And in the gloomy darkness of those claustrophobic throughways it was just about possible to recover some of the eery atmosphere of late 19th century London, when the East End was an imporverished slum, a festering boil on the respectable face of the world's most important financial centre.

Quite what the people of the abyss - as the East End was labelled then, notably by Jack London in his excellent book of the same name - would make of three bedroom houses (where 20 or more of them might have slept then) in Fournier Street going for sums in excess of a million pounds, is anyone's guess.

But however much things might have changed there is a tangible air of desperation and danger around the modern East End.

In all it was £7 and 100 minutes well spent - despite the brush with hypothermia. Dave was informative and entertaining and the tour moved with purpose. He gave a decent historical overview of the social and economic conditions of the late Victorian East End.

In truth, I found that more interesting than the step by step account of the murders and so did not get as much from the tour as one conducted by the academic Bill Fishman, a man with a marvellous story-telling gift, that I went on in 1992 when I was a student at nearby Queen Mary College. Fishman's tour had a much broader remit, covering immigration and the politics of radicalism, but even he had a visible twinkle in the eye when passing known Ripper sites.

For anyone interested in that era I recommend Fishman's book East End 1888, to which Jack London's reportage account of life on the streets in The People of the Abyss is a perfect complement.

Fishman is now in his late 80s and so probably doesn't give tours any more, so as an alternative, particular if you are interested inthe Ripper, I can thoroughly recommend Dave.

This Valentine's Day, say it with a book

It is probably too late now to book that romantic meal out à deux you were planning on Saturday night. You know, something with soft lighting, pink champagne and a lot of gazing into one another's eyes over a plastic red rose and a candle you would have set your sleeve alight on anyway.

So you're back needing a present. Lingerie (if you're a bloke) won't work. She'll know that that is a present for you, not her, and that you're thinking something other than romance. Lingerie (if you're a woman) will likely be well received.

Chocolates, I'm afraid, are a little unimaginative and have an air of last-minute-stop-at-Texaco about them. Roses are expensive this time of year, especially in these cash-strapped times, and probably ecologically unsound (as well as bloody unlikely to arrive on time given current weather patterns). The box set of Series 3 of Battlestar Galactica (if you're a bloke) falls into the same category as the lingerie. 

I have a different suggestion. How about a book? Not Mills & Boon - and especially not the bizarre rugby tie-in book -  and not one of those books, but something that gets to the essence of love. Something beautifully written, profound, and - never underestimate the important of form -  something wonderfully presented.

Something like the Everyman Pocket Classic's Love Stories. First and foremost it is a beautiful-looking book, thoughtfully illustrated. The PR notes that came with it emphasises that these books are "sewn, clothbound hardbacks with a slik ribbon marker and are printed on a fine cream wove, acid-free paper". When you read those words you wonder why they bother, but when you pick up the book you understand. Like all the Everyman books, it is done exceptionally well.

And then there's the content, thoughtfully assembled by Diana Secker Tesdell. What is impressive about this book is the way it reflects love in all its multi-faceted glory. The book opens with a short story from one of the masters of the art, Guy De Maupassant, whose classic Clair de Lune speaks of the raw, paralysing and surprising power of love. I also particularly enjoyed F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams, an eloquent exposition on both the American dream and the illusory nature of love.

There's wit from Roald Dahl, a little eroticism thrown in from Colette and DH Lawrence and some really terrific writers I haven't gotten around to yet: Dorothy Parker, Tobias Wolff and Margaret Atwood.

Of course, not every one is the romantic type, even on St Valentine's Day. So if it's murder and mayhem you're after, I heartily recommend Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay,  or for something a little gentler, Alan Bradley's exquisite thriller The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.