Material Witness

In praise of the bookstore

On Saturday afternoon, at the end of a whistlestop tour around the glories of Georgian Bath, I spied a bookstore. I'd been pretty well disciplined over the holiday period - with no need for new books (I had an unusually good Christmas haul), I had spurned many opportunities to visit stores.

But this was one temptation too many. We crossed the street, and in I went.

The fundamental difference between a good bookstore and a bad one, I think, is the degree to which the bookseller loves books. Somehow it's easy to tell: it can be seen in the presentation; it can be seen in the organization (just how many books can you cram into a sqaure metre of floor space?); it can be seen in the disposition of the staff. And so many of the books were wrapped. I loved that. "These documents are precious", it said. "Look after them."

A love of books was written all over Topping and Co. From the immaculately designed window, to an interior so crammed with books that it was all but impossible not to bump into a table and knock the end pile on to the floor (as I did, followed swiftly by a staff member who was too deep engrossed in a phone call trying to organize the visit of a SciFi writer).

Reacting favourably to a bookstore is dependent to some extent on finding books within it that you like - as I did. But I am also fairly certain I was predisposed to spend money the second I walked into the place. In the end I bought four - two from authors I'd never heard of, a great treat - and it could have been four times that. Partly I think that is because Topping's had so many book faces on display, rather than the usual anonymous row-upon-row of spines. It simply meant that more titles caught my attention.  (Many of these were piled precariously on tables).

It was partly, I suspect, because the ambience of the place lent itself rather well to browsing. The overall atmosphere was welcoming; the staff helpful but discreet; the lighting rather good; and then over the speakers they were playing Ludovico Einauldi, including the marvellous I Giorno. There was really no incentive to leave.

If that all sounds a bit dewey-eyed and romantic, well, that's pretty much how it made me feel. I should cherish books more! I should read more! Write more! And, yes, blog again.

The timing was perfect. Earlier in the weekend, I read that more than one million of us received e-readers for Christmas this year. Close friends in the village - bookworms both - have been glued to their Kindles since 25/12. But books are beautiful things, rather more than just 0s and 1s in a software file.

It's good to be reminded of that once in a while. Thanks Topping's!!

(For the record, I bought:  The London Train by Tessa Hadley; Girl Reading by Katie Ward; Hornblower and the Hotspur by CS Forrester; The Terror of St.Trinian's and other drawings by Ronald Searle)

So long, and thanks for all the books...

On World Book Night, in March, I travelled to Coalville public library to listen to RJ Ellory talk about his work. Roger very kindly gave me 30 minutes of his time after a lively and enjoyable discussion to interview him about his writing and his life. Five months later, to my shame, the tape of the interview is half transcribed and the interview not written.

I feel pretty bad about this. But the truth is, I really don't have time for Material Witness right now.

In 2007 I read 103 books. In 2008 it was 77, in 2009 just 40. Last year it was 51 and so far in 2011 it is just 29. I have reviewed just 12 of those.

And every week at least half a dozen new books arrive through the post. I get excited about them, read the synopses, put them on the shelves, and most of them stay there untouched. And that doesn't feel right.

So today I have reached a big decision. I am mothballing Material Witness. I will continue paying my subscription to Typepad and keep the content alive, but I don't have time to write a regular blog, and so for now I will stop. I hope to come back to it soon.

I've been writing Material Witness since April 2006, and have written 390 posts (which is really not a lot compared to some of the terrific prolific bloggers out there). I started as writing therapy, having packed in journalism for PR, and to fill what I saw as a gap in the market for reviews of crime fiction. You can read the first post here.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it. In that first year the blog attracted an average of about 3 readers a day (most of them related to me). But gradually as social media and blogs became more accepted, dare I say even reached the mainstream, that has risen dramatically, particularly in the last two years to peaks of 170-200 per day when I've been very active.

I know that a lot of people have taken recommendations from Material Witness, and I hope I've helped some authors to find a market that may otherwise have eluded them.

I've enjoyed getting to know a number of writers, a great many hard-working, charming and incredibly helpful people in publishing and a number of other crime fiction bloggers - Maxine, Dorte, Rhian among others - whose virtual company I have always enjoyed.

I would like to offer thanks to a handful of people. Firstly to Gaby Young at Orion who supported the blog with review copies when it started. Orion authors have been something of a mainstay since. Second to Sam Eades at Headline, who more than anyone else has made a huge effort to harness the blogosphere for her authors. To all the other publishers and writers who have supported the site: sincere thanks.

When the rest of life calms down just a little bit and affords me time to read and write, I really hope to back. But for now, so long, and thanks for all the books.

REVIEW: The Roots of Betrayal by James Forrester

What is it about pirates that so enthralls us? In other criminals the murder, mayhem and misogyny would be regarded as repulsive. But pirates are increasingly romanticised in fiction - from The Pirates of Penzance to Jack Sparrow, they are no longer the terrifying villains of old but now are viewed as swashbuckling heroes.

William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, the herald at the centre of James Forrester's excellent series, confronts this question of pirates himself. Clarenceux (as he is known), now in his second Elizabethan conspiracy-thriller The Roots Of Betrayal, is thrust into the pirate life when he finds himself in the company of the wonderfully named Raw Carew, a privateer prowling the English channel in search of "Catholic treasure".

Clarenceux too is seeking the same treasure, although he understands that it is not gold, but a document whose content is so explosive it threatens not just Elizabeth's legitimacy on the throne but also the lives of those who have it in their possession and even those who see it. 

As their twin quests collide, so do their very different world views. Clarenceux is essentially an academic, a researcher who travels the land documenting the heraldic claims of the landed gentry. He has had adventure forced on him by his protection of, and subsequent loss of, said document. (For back story, see Sacred Treason).  Carew, by contrast, is the bastard son of a nobleman who fled a life of poverty in Calais - where he had been abandoned to his fate with his prostitute mother - for a life of crime on the high seas. Carew is a charismatic man of action, governed only by his desire to make a living for himself in his chosen profession and his Robin Hoodesque credo of looking after the poor and oppressed.

Despite witnessing Carew's violence, philandering and piracy - and indeed being its victim - Clarenceux, a religious man, cannot help but be drawn to the man, and ultimately they end up allies of sorts, drawn together by a mutual quest for survival.

The relationship between the two men and their adventures is the heart of an enjoyable novel that moves along at a good enough pace, with action and intrigue balanced by Forrester's natural inclination towards detail - political, social, historical. (In real life, Forrester is historian Ian Mortimer).  

Both men have also been betrayed. Carew has been betrayed by his father; but Clarenceux is not entirely sure by whom he has been betrayed. The document, much sought after both by crown loyalists and rebellious Catholics alike has been stolen from him, placing his life in danger. The Queen's attack dog Francis Walsingham - still smarting at being out-manoeuvered by Clarenceux in the original quest for the document - seeks to pin treason on Clarenceux, who is left without a soul to trust until he runs painfully into Carew.

If on occasion Forrester gets bogged down in period detail, he can be forgiven because ultimately the vivid Tudor canvass he paints enriches a lively story. And if the plot is perhaps just a little too reminscent of Sacred Treason, it doesn't matter too much as Carew arrives to give it a steroidal shot in the arm.

This is a fine historical novel, full of intrigue and drama and I look forward to the promised third part of the trilogy, The Final Sacrament, when it is published next year.  

 

REVIEW: Purge by Sofi Oksanen

Shortly before I read Purge, I heard an academic on the radio talking about how, for all its dangers and privations, the 1939-45 war was "straightforward" for Britain and its people. This remark was made in the context of a former Ukrainian soldier and UK immigrant, who had essentially survived the war only because he had chosen, when captured, to fight for the German army rather than go to a camp.

"At least the British always knew who the enemy was," the academic said, and I paraphrase, "for many Europeans on the ever-moving front line between Germany and Russia, life was much more complicated."

I kept this thought in mind throughout Sofi Oksanen's Purge, a clever, subtle psychological thriller which tells the story of two women trapped between nations and ideologies, forced into compromise and crime in the desperate battle for survival. The first, Aliide, is an Estonian peasant who spends the latter part of the war and then the Cold War locked in a loveless marriage with a Party official as she seeks to hide a secret past and present that represents imminent danger to her. The second, Zara, is a young Russian woman who leaves poverty and boredom in the east for freedom in the west only to find that her freedom holds its own awful price - sexual slavery.

The story evolves in parallel with the relationship between the two women, after Zara arrives on Aliide's doorstep bloodied and beaten, fleeing for her life. As the two women spar their way through a suspicious and largely silent introduction, their stories unfold through trips back to their earlier lives. Zara has her head turned by a flashy friend returning to their hometown, dripping with gold, telling stories of the riches within her reach.

Meanwhile Aliide journeys through Estonia's painful past and the transition from German occupation to Soviet state to fledgling democracy. Each regime demands its own sacrifice for personal survival, and throw Aliide into conflict either with the state, her neighbours even her family. The Soviet era is particularly fraught with danger as petty jealousies and ancient grudges are pursued through insidious betrayal to the secret police.

The banality and pointlessness of so much of the surveillance and snitching is in direct contrast to the devastating impact it has on lives and families. The climate of fear and suspicion reduces individuals either to party clones or to shells of their former selves - terrified of everyone and everything, even their own thoughts.

And so this is not just the story of Aliide and Zara, of course, it is the story of Estonia and countless other nations caught in the frontline between conflicting ideologies and eras.

Purge has a sort of stealthy brilliance that crept up on me and took an iron grip that I didn't notice until I neared its breathless finale. But brilliant it undoutedly is, seamlessly combining the agonising struggling of the individual with the crushing weight of important themes.

Inevitably, given that the writer - a young woman of Finnish/Estonian extraction - is from the Nordic region, she will be lumped in with the great Scandinavian crime wave currently taking over the globe. And while that might well help build Sofi Oksanen's profile and sales, on the evidence of this book she does not fit into this category (just as Finland is not part of Scandinavia). And that's not a value judgement, just a warning: don't come here expecting the new Larsson or Nesbo. Oksanen has a fresh voice, one that I look forward to hearing more from.

 

 

 

Flipbacks - Paper fights back...

Despite owning both a Sony Reader and an iPad with Kindle app - and enjoying both - I do not subscribe to the notion that the traditional paper-based book is doomed. People will likely always want books whether that is for the smell, the touch and feel or the decorative qualities. I can't quite describe why I care about owning real books. Just because. The fact that it is indescribable, however, does not make those feelings any less real. I feel it acutely and deeply.

That said, it is likely that fewer people will want books as other means of distribution of the core content become available. It also seems likely therefore that publishers will need to adapt to survive. And so I was delighted to receive m first "Flipback" - a pocket-sized and portable but full-length rendition of Peter Robinson's excellent Alan Banks novel, Piece of My Heart (review).

As you can see from the photo above, the flipback - a concept launched in the Netherlands 18 monhts ago and already popular on the continent - fits into the palm of the hand. The paper is very thin and the text obviously pretty small, although not noticably smaller than a regulation paperback. It is just about possible - although not easy - to read one-handed, and the book opens north to south rather than west to east. It took a while to think through how to describe that, so there's a picture (left to) help. Despite being 700 pages, the flipack will easily fit in the back pocket of my jeans. It will never run out of battery and I won't have to turn it off for landing and take-off. Perfect.

As I have already read Piece of My Heart - and despite enjoying it have no intention of reading it again - this review does not come with the full experience of reading the book. But I love the concept and applaud the creativity and innovation of Flipback and Hodder, who have published 12 titles today, including Charles Frazier's beuatiful civil war novel, Cold Mountain, Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker and Misery by Stephen King.

More titles are promised for the autumn.

COMPETITION: Win a signed copy of Carte Blanche, the new James Bond novel by Jeffrey Deaver

As if having to turn down an invite to the dramatic launch party of the new James Bond novel, Carte Blanche, wasn't disappointing enough, having to walk past the event taking place in the champagne bar at London St Pancras on my way to another meeting was really too much. As a rule, I do not drink a lot of champagne before midday, but I'm always prepared to make an exception, particularly when there's a Bond girl around.

By way of compensation, my copy of Carte Blanche arrived in the mail this morning. Unfortunately, as blogging is not yet lucrative enough to allow me to pack in the day job, I can't tell you much more than that the book has a very stylish cover. But 15 minutes or so when I head off to bed, I will start reading it, and I hope to review it soon.

Thanks to publisher Hodder & Stoughton, I also have a copy signed by Jeffrey Deaver to give away to one UK reader of Material Witness.

All you have to - by the end of Tuesday May 31 is answer a simple question:

In what year was the last James Bond novel (Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care) set?

A) 1987

B) 1967

C) 2007

A clue - well, let's be honest, the answer - can be found in this review of Devil May Care.

Send your answer, together with your name and postal address to material.witness@yahoo.com. Good luck.

REVIEW: Unknown by Didier van Caulewaert

The less time I have for reading, the more I come to appreciate short novels, books that can be polished off over the course of a couple of three hour flights, plus maybe an hour at lights out.

I chose to read Unknown, by French writer Didier van Caulewaert, primarily on account of its length - 235 relatively small pages - and to a lesser degree for a plot that seemed to have Bourne-like potential. (And certainly not for the film tie-in cover, which is usually a turn off.)

Of course being a short novel isn't enough in itself - although sometimes I wonder if the publishing industry believes that if a thriller isn't a 380 page monster it's not worth printing - but when it packs as much in as Unknown does it is a particular pleasure. And Unknown really does pack a great deal iin. Multum in Parvo, as it says on welcome signs in Rutland. (England's smallest county).

The premise is a simple one: a man is released from hospital after a couple of days in a coma. When he returns home to his Paris flat, neither his wife nor his neighbour recognises him, and a man claiming both his name and to be his wife's husband unceremoniously kicks him off the property. Martin Harris suddenly finds himself very much on the outside looking in at his own life. Utterly bewildered and increasingly doubting his own memory and sanity he sets off on a frantic 36 hour race to answer a most fundamental human question that most of us only ever ask ourselves in the abstract: Who am I?

Of course in the modern world we leave more traces than we did a century ago - even if we perhaps know, and are known to, far fewer people, and so Harris is not entirely without resource. Even so, the only human help he can find is from a virtual stranger - the taxi driver who knocked him over causing his injury in the first place.

In the interest of suspense I can't say a lot more about the plot, but what I can say is that this is a clever and tense thriller, and one with a tremendous ending; the sort of ending that makes you rethink the entire narrative (like The Sixth Sense movie).

On top of the terrific plot, this is a philosophical gem (well, it is a French novel, after all). Before you finish, you too will be asking "who am I?" and dwelling on the fragile nature of the immensely complicated existences we lead in the modern world and the maze of electronic data and organic memory that forms our identity.

I loved this little book. I loved it because I read it in 24 hours, because it thrilled me with its tight and tense plotting and because it made me think. What more could you want from 235 relatively short pages?

 

REVIEW: Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen

With the triumphant publication of Mercy, the Nordic crime full house is complete. Swedes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and now a Dane. Denmark, indeed, might be considered in the ascendant. First, The Killing (Forbrydelsen) - comfortably the most mesmerising piece of television I have seen since series one of The Wire - and now Mercy, a tremendously tense and engrossing novel.

Where to start? A fiendish, cruel and unpredictable plot. A broken cop accidentally setting off in search of redemption, navigating a complex and emotional maze as he goes. On top of that his only assistance comes from a sidekick named after the lion of Damascus. Then there is a sprkinling of political intrigue, plenty of highly satisfying cop in-fighting, all topped off by an absolutely breathless finale.

I must admit to finding it difficult to settle into the rhythm of the novel at first, in part because the cop novel cliches seemed to arrive thick and fast, and I wondered if this wasn't another me-too troubled cop solves clever crime story. But it really isn't, and quite quickly Jussi Adler-Olsen demonstrates that his thinking is satisfyingly original, even a little off-beam, and so Mercy eventually became hugely enjoyable.

The story revolves around two lost souls. One, politician Merete Lynggaard, is held for five years in solitary in a locked cell, and being tortured for reasons she doesn't understand and which her captors will not reveal. The second, Carl Morck, is returning to active duty after recovering from being shot during an operation in which one close colleague died and another was left quadraplegic. Morck is racked with guilt about his part in the operation and his survival. Already a difficult man, although a fine detective, his colleagues now find him impossible.

They find a way to side-track him by establishing him as the head of a new unit, Department Q, which is set up to reinvestigate cold cases. Banished to a boiler room office in the basement, Morck settles in to an unhealthy laziness as he sleeps through most of the day as the files gather dust on his desk.

He is shaken from his stupor by an assistant, Hafez al-Assad, whose arrival, purpose is a mystery to Morck, a mystery that deepens rather than clears as the story proceeds. Assad, between cleaning the basement and seeking out east for his daily prayer, begins to scour the cases and is quickly drawn into the disappearance of the Lynggaard, about which precious little is known. As Assad probes, Morck's insticts awaken and very quickly the two men find the merest hint of a trail, which is just enough to put them into a race against time to find and save Lynggaard.

Adler-Olsen's writing reminds me a little of Steve Mosby, and in particular his novel Still Bleeding, because while everything appears reasonably conventional, it never quite is.  It is, however, highly satisfying and as the promised series develops I look forward to seeing how the author plays his two main characters, because in Mercy he displays a rare emotional intelligence and insight that should serve the series well in future.

 

When LinkedIn was a fussball table and a well-stocked fridge

Do you ever wonder what a billion dollar idea looks like?

I know. I've seen it. Although it's fair to say it sure as hell didn't look like a billion dollar idea at the time - never mind the mind-boggling $10 billion idea that LinkedIn became today when its shares soared on IPO - a reminder of the dizzying days at the turn of the century when such events were weekly.

In early 2005, as I was in the process of revamping the FT's technology and telecommunications suppelement FTIT, which we relaunched later as FT Digital Business, I went on a day-long tour of Silicon Valley with Richard Waters, then the FT's West Coast Editor (and now its West Coast Managing Editor). I was in search of inspiration and ideas for the new supplement.

It was an amazing and eye-opening day. Within days of Carly Fiorina being fired by HP, we were in the executive suite there interviewing CTO Shane Robison about the company's future. It was sufficiently soon after Fiorina's departure that her name plate was still on the door of her office. I don't recall anything Robison said, except that he said he would not discuss Fiorina, but we also got a tour of the HP museum which was pretty cool as it contained some of the original kit created by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

We also spent an extraordinary hour in the company of Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the Valley's leading VC firms. Jurvetson remains the cleverest man I have ever been in a room with. Never before or since have I seen one person hold quite so many ideas and thoughts together in a single conversation; a conversation in which he spoke at about a million miles and hour, and during which Richard and I basically sat back in awe and tried to keep up. Jurvetson led his firm's early backing of Skype, another company that has recently achieved a colossal valuation.

Later in the day we met Symantec CEO John Thompson, then the only African American leading a major tech company. During his time in charge Symantec's annual revenues grew from $632m to $6.2bn. Thompson too was very impressive.

Sandwiched in to the middle of all this was a visit to LinkedIn at a completely nondescript office complex in Palo Alto. I had absolutely no idea what LinkedIn was, but Richard said that the guy we were going to meet - one Reid Hoffman - was worth meeting because having made a ton of money as an executive at PayPal (which was sold to eBay) he had a new business idea that was just getting going, it was a "social network" for business people.

(I had no idea what a social network was either, but at this stage I'm going to defend myself somewhat against questions asking why the FT employed such an ignorant tech editor. I was just getting back into my familiar TMT beat having spent the previous two years working first as the FT's Sports Correspondent and then (when that was shut down) on the UK news desk.)

We were ushered into a first floor office facility that was about the size of a football pitch and contained row after row of empty cubicles. There appeared to be only three or four people in the building, all of whom joined the meeting with us, including another founder Konstantin Guericke. The only part of the building that looked alive in anyway was the kitchen, which had a fussball table and a massive fridge stocked full of "soda" from which we took our pick.

My first thought - and indeed my last when we left LinkedIn - was: Do these people not remember the bursting of the internet bubble? They had a gazillion square feet of prime Valley real estate - with nobody in it - a fussball table and a somewhat vague business idea.  It was 1999 all over again! All we reporters needed to do was sit back, watch the cash being squandered and wait to tell the tale of repeated folly.

I had reported on the internet boom for FT.com. Reported on endless IPOs of pre-profit - pre revenue in some cases! - companies being floated for hundreds of millions of dollars and people all over the world getting rich. It was extraordinary. And we all fell for it! Even at the FT, home of a lot of very very clever journalists - present company excepted - most correspondents rode that wave without ever really questioning what was going on with any great rigour. (I remember Phillip Coggan being a notable exception, and I am sure there were others).

I also reported on the bust, which with the benefit of hindsight was a lot more interesting, even if it did decimate the tech presence in the FTSE 100 and effectively kill my interest in my job as IT Correspondent.

And that made a sceptic of me, and closed my mind too quickly. I looked at Reid Hoffman - a somewhat shambling figure - and listened to his very vague thoughts about how he and his colleagues might one day monestise their idea, and I could see no further than history repeating itself.

The other LinkedIn execs around the table were a pretty silent bunch, happy to let Hoffman float his ideas and to expound his theories on this new world of social networks and entrepreneurship in general.

I wish I still had my notes from that conversation, because my memories are now as vague as the LinkedIn business plan seemed to be. But a couple of things do stick in the mind: first that they believed they would be able to charge people premium fees if they added applications, and that if they created a big enough community it would become an essential business tool. Second that if you want to create the next PayPal or Yahoo! you have to be in the game and back your hunches. Some of this stuff would fail, but that was OK. One or two of the ideas will work, and that's enough.  

Reid Hoffman's now been in on two of those ideas that have worked and LinkedIn has clearly fulfilled whatever expectations they had for it. Five years on, I still haven't worked out what the value of being a member of LinkedIn is to me. It seems to offer little more than the opportunity to have an additional channel to people I am friends with on Facebook or whose contact details I have in my mobile phone. I appreciate, however, that this is more likely my failing than that of the usefulness of LinkedIn.

Hats off to HOffman and his co-founders for taking the risk, backing that hunch and convincing initial backers to join the project. And congratulations to them and their investors on their success and their incredible new wealth. You have to be in it to win it, and they have won it all.

And I have a memory I recall fondly and still with a sense of wonder, and a far more open mind than I did on that day six years ago.

(In the course of researching for this post, I now understand that LinkedIn was a good deal more developed at the time than I had appreciated during that visit. The company's official history suggests that at the end of 2004 it had 33 employees and 1.6m members - still not enough to fill the Palo Alto barn the company apparently moved in to fully a couple of months later.)

My thanks to @benroome for nudging me to write this piece.

Carte Blanche - Be James Bond for a day!

You can probably expect to hear quite a bit about James Bond in the next seven days as the world gears up for publication of the latest James Bond novel, Carte Blanche, which has been written by US bestseller Jeffrey Deaver (who is best known for his Lincoln Rhyme novels).

The release of Carte Blanche would appear to establish a pattern of A List guest writers being invited to follow in the footsteps of Ian Fleming, following the 2008 publication of Sebastian Faulks' novel Devil May Care. (See Material Witness review).

Despite concluding that "the adult Bond is best left to him (Fleming) and those seeking a little extra might be best served by visiting Charlie Higson's Young Bond series", I find myself predictably excited about the arrival of a new chapter in the Bond legend, and I will be hoping for an early delivery on May 26.

But you needn't necessarily wait until May 26. Bond's publishers are running a very cool competition to celebrate the launch of the book. The challenge involves visiting a number of online sites, picking up clues followed by "one final 007-style secret mission to take place in London". Details of this are available at a special Facebook page.

After completing a 007-style mission there's a Bond-esque prize to match: the winner will be picked up in a Bentley and taken to the Lanesborough for a romantic evening... reading an advance copy of the book! (It doesn't say anything about a Bond girl) The following day they will then be able to meet Deaver and take part in all the other festivities.

There are additional prizes available - 10 sets of books including a signed copy of Carte Blanche and other titles by Flemin and Higson - for those in the sticks who are unable to spend a day gadding about in London.

Good luck!