Material Witness

REVIEW: The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

June 29, 11.45am

About six months ago I found myself in Hay-on-Wye, the used book capital of the UK, and wondering into a store promising that every book on display was on sale for a £1. Despite signs on every wall reaffirming this offer, I couldn't quite believe it, such was the quality of the (mostly) paperbacks on offer. I filled up on Joe R Lansdale (more of whom another time) and one or two others, including John Connor and Steve Mosby from Orion's fresh blood series of a couple of years back.

What really surprised (and disappointed) me was the number of George Pelecanos books available - at least half a dozen different titles, mostly recent works such as Hard Revolution and Drama City. Given that I already owned every book Pelecanos has written I didn't buy any more, although I was tempted to stock up and send copies out to friends and family.

Seeing his name on books being sold for £1 made me wonder for the umpteenth time exactly why Pelecanos hasn't found the sort of following in the UK that his work so richly deserves.

And I thought it again as I devoured the Night Gardener in one sitting while hanging around in the maternity unit at the Leicester General waiting for Agnes to present herself.

The Night Gardener is Pelecanos' 13th slice of life in the Washington DC that we do not see in our nightly news bulletins from the Capitol or the White House (something that was initially a source of disappointment as I had hoped I'd found an author who would offer a peak into the corridors of power an expose the corruption, greed and ambition lurking within).

Instead Pelecanos theme has always been the struggle of the everyman, be he thief, cop, record shop sales assistant, drug dealer, restauranteur or private eye painted on the canvass of a city with some of the worst social problems and crime in the western world.

In The Night Gardener, the discovery of the body of a murdered teenage boy revives fears that a long dormant serial killer is back at work and brings together three men: TC Cook, a retired detective haunted by that case; Gus Ramone a ram-rod straight senior police officer working the new murder and his disgraced former beat partner (they "secured the perimeter" at one of the orignal crime scenes) Dan Holliday, who left the force under a cloud for a new and unsatisying life as a driver.

Running in parallel to their stories, occasionally crossing lines, is the savage story of Brock, a street punk wannabe heading at breakneck speed for life in "the life" and his cousin, a convicted criminal on parole, trying desperately to head in the opposite direction.

With these characters, Pelecanos creates first a mystery story - and a compelling one at that - but more importantly a fascinating pastiche of life on the edge. Ramone on the edge of his ambition, Cook of his life, Holliday of alcoholism and depression, Ramone's teenage son (a friend of the murdered boy) and the two cousins on the edge of decisions that will determine how (and even if) they will live their lives.

The result is an extraordinarily engaging and often moving series of small dramas that probes doggedly into the heart of humanity examining our motives and passions, hopes and fears.

Those who have read Pelecanos' earlier novels will know that he is not exactly sentimental - his books are filled with a lot of unpleasantness and violence, and a lot of good and innocent people die - but what I like about him as that he gives his characters a chance. They are not locked automatically into pre-ordained destinies, but given real, often agonising, choices. So it is in The Night Gardener, a cracking good novel that will not, I suspect, earn the audience it deserves.

The Night Gardener is published in the UK by Orion Books on August 10.

Danger. Bookstore.

June 21, 09.39am

Such has been my enjoyment of A Question of Upbringing, the first volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, that I could not bear the thought of finishing it and not having volume two to dive into that after a great lunch at Bentleys and dove into the Waterstones across the road on Piccadilly to pick it up.

I emerged about 15 minutes later having parted with the best part of £40 - having been suckered into a 3 for 2 deal that included the new Michelin guide to France, Philip Roth's latest novel and a Greg Iles thriller set in pre-Katrina New Orleans. (Later I realised this was a strategic error and that on these 3 for 2 deals offering the cheapest book free I could have got a new release hardback. You live and learn.)

I also picked up a novel by GM Ford - a writer recommended by Julian, an occasional contributor here - in the £1 stack. I have mixed feelings about £1 stacks. Part of me feels that that no piece of work that a writer has invested so much of their time and energy and emotion in should be available for less than the price of a strawberry mivvi. The work demands more respect than that.

But on the other hand, £1 is a bargain I couldn't resist - even in the context of a book splurge - particularly for a writer I am trying out. Hopefully I'll like him and can graduate to paying full prce soon.

Unread shortlist

June 16, 15.38pm 

Busy, busy week. Work, football, birthdays, commuting.

And it's all emphasised by the arrival of an e-mail (thanks Julian) this afternoon announcing the shortlist for the Theakston's Old Peculier (British) crime novel of the year award and I am shocked to discover I have only read one of the books nominated, Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close (it seems a good deal longer than a year ago I read that). In fact, to my shame, Rankin is the only author I've read. So many books, so little time, even with a three hour daily commute.

This also reminds me that the Harrogate Crime Festival is around the corner. My parents have now lived up there for a couple of years, and I haven't been able to go yet. I was particularly disappointed last year as the very lovely Laura Lippman was there.

This year, there is John Harvey in conversation with Ian Rankin, George Pelecanos (who to my mind is going from stength to strength) and PD James. All that and my my washing and ironing done. I don't know how I can stay away.

I have just finished the first Resnick, and have been struck yet again by a writer who manages to write a fantastic detective novel with a complex and fascinating detective who is not a misogynist,  a drunk, a psycho or hell bent on pissing off the brass. Instead Resnick is kind, considerate, sensitive and generally plays by the rule book. His love of cats is a bit off-putting, however.

What was particularly impressive about Lonley Hearts, which is an all-round cracking procedural, was the way Harvey ratcheted up the tension in the closing chapters. It was positively heart-stopping at times. So heart-stopping that I can't stand any more for now. I just bought book one of A Dance to the Music of Time to wind the tension down for a day or so.

World Cup starts - at last

June 9, 15.59pm

The little ticker on the BBC Sport website tells me there is just one hour and one minute until the 2006 World Cup starts in Germany. Alexis, who works in our office, is very excited. (Although not excited enough to bring in the WC wallchart he promised last week.)

I am perhaps a little bit excited - football is not my favourite sport by any means - but I am extremely relieved. The hype surrounding this World Cup has been all powerful stretching into every last dark nook and cranny of the media. We have had the endless saga of Wayne Rooney's broken toes - a story that has regularly appeared at the top of serious news bulletins and on just about every front page, which is staggering given the amount of real news there is.

There's the interminable phone ins and discussion shows about how England might do. And then there is the marketing. It appears that advertisers and marketeers believe it is impossible to sell anything over the next four weeks without attaching some sort of football motif to it. Beer and crisps, I understand. I consume a lot of them while watching sport. But watches, fridges, cars, telephone services, financial services?  Give me a break.

The great thing about the WC starting is that - although the coverage will become even more all-embracing than it has been - there will actually be some football. And the pundits can then talk about actual, rather than imagined and anticipated football.

For the record, I think England will field the best team we have had at a World Cup in my lifetime (b 1971) and have our best chance of success since 1966. But I still don't think we'll win it. Sorry.

Back on topic: A visit to Waterstones at lunchtime almost ended in financial disaster as three of my favourite fictional detectives have reappeared in the shops since my last visit: Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne, John Harvey's Frank Elder and Roy Grace (making his second appearance in Peter James's promising new series). I just managed to escape without drowning.

Reality Bites

June 8, 18.23pm

Summer seems to be the non-fiction season at Orion, who have buried my doormat under a flood of titles (well, two anyway) filling factual gaps in the knowledge base of the loyal readership of two of their  biggest names.

The first hales from Florida, where Michael Connelly has condensed 10 years of crime reporting for papers in the Sunshine and Golden states into Crime Beat. I'm not usually one for too much Real Crime, but this, at first flick, appears to be delivered with Connelly's customary style and ease, and should be a good read.

The second grabbed my attention more. It is Rebus's Scotland, Ian Rankin's personal journey through his homeland, illustrated by some quite stunning and atmospheric photography. (It really is grim up north, in parts anyway).

But to my immense disappointment - after a longish but not exhaustive search - little seemed to have been made of the Ox, the smoke-filled den in Edinburgh's new town where Rebus imbibes spirit and impart wisdom in equal measure and where Rankin apparently goes to download inspiration.

I visited the Ox in November 2002 as part of an unscheduled detour during a stag weekend when a tour guide pointed out the pub from the top of an open top bus. It's a fantastic, proper boozer. Just a lick from being spit and sawdust and a coat of paint from dingy.

There are few places I've visited - the famous cornfield at Antietam Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, being another - where I've felt the presence of ghosts. In the Ox, of course, the obvious ones are Rebus and Siobhain, and in the back room of the pub you could almost see them sitting in the corner. But also generations of Edinburgh drinkers philosophising, arguing, fighting but mostly just drinking.

For a Rankin fan, no tour of Edinburgh is complete without a visit.

Introducing Vince (and Jess Walter)

June 7, 14.20pm

In the middle of last year I picked up a book called Land Of The Blind, by a Washington state-based writer called Jess Walter. The book was on a shelf in my home, so I can only believe that I must have bought it at some point, although I recall neither when nor why (it might have been the Spokane location that attracted me).

And I enjoyed the book. Some of the passages about the teen anxieties of puberty were very interesting, and a little nostalgic - the introduction of "Dana Brett's rack" was particularly memorable - and as a mystery novel it was cleverly-plotted.

It was pretty good, if nothing special, I thought. Certainly nothing in it hinted that Jess Walter might be the second coming of Elmore Leonard.

But now that I've read Citizen Vince - the 2005 novel that was a panic buy in a railway station a week ago - I wonder if he just might be.

Citizen Vince is the tale of small-time, edge-of-the-mob criminal Vince Camden, who has been relocated from New Jersey to Spokane as part of the Witness Protection Programme after testifying against a mobster he has run up debts with. Vince has settled into a similar lifestyle as he enjoyed in Jersey - a little credit card fraud, a little drug dealing - but given his existence a gloss of respectability with a day job frying donuts.

The narrative is set against the backdrop of the 1980 Carter/Reagan presidential race in which Vince - his felonies set aside by the Feds - has the first vote of his law-flouting life. But just as he tries to adapt to the responsibilities of citizenship his supposedly secret existence is disturbed by the arrival of a mob hitman, and Vince is forced to face up to his past.

Citizen Vince has a cast of colourful characters that will apeal directly to Leonard fans: small time made men, hookers with hearts, put upon case workers, dysfunctional teenagers deluded politicos. It is smart, clever, laugh-out-loud funny in some parts and pseudo-philosophical in others.

In Vince himself it has a cleverly-constructed complicated hero. It's impossible not to like him, to forgive him his trespasses and enjoy his jounrney towards honesty and clean living.

It is a fabulous, fabulous book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

A discovery on the Underground

June 6, 11.24am

I somehow missed John Harvey. I don't really know why. For some reason the name Resnick - Charlie, Harvey's most famous creation - has always rung a bell or two (was he on tv?) but I'd never read him or seen it, and certainly had not heard of John Harvey.

His name first began to register during my twice-daily trips down the tube. At one stage earlier in the spring posters for his most recent paperback Ash and Bone, were all over the place. There's nothing unusual in that, the endless corridors of Tube has always been a rich source of ideas for films, books and music.

What was striking about the Harvey book however was the high quality of the plugs from fellow authors all over the posters. Now I am usually a little suspicious of this sort of flannel and always liked Lawrence Block's decision not get involved in it. It always seems to me to be a little cosy and a little "you scratch my back" etc. But the tributes on Harvey's books seemed different.

This is a little while ago now, so regrettably I can't remember who they were or what they said (although it may have been Michael Connelly and Mark Billingham) only that they appeared to set Harvey apart as something genuinely special and even standard-setting as far as they were concerned.

The drip-drip-drip effect of walking past these every day eventually produced the inevitable result: I bought Flesh and Blood (the first book in the Frank Elder series that preceded Ash and Bone) and promptly left the book in a draw for a month and forgot about it.

But the flannel was right, John Harvey is a bit special. By the time I eventually got down to Flesh and Blood, I flew through it in no time. And 24 hours after putting it down, I'd bought and finished the follow up Ash and Bone and already managed to get hold of a copy of the first of the dozen or so Resnick novels. (Isn't that just one of the best feelings? Finding an author you love and then discovering that he's prolific and another 15 books lie waiting).

What makes Harvey so good - to my mind - is firstly terrific writing, the books are incredibly readable. Secondly the plots are tight. While the novels are complex, they are handled with deft skill. At many points, Ash and Bone has at least two separate investigations/storylines running but Harvey works each of them through brilliantly, showing readers occasional glimpses of a greater sum of their various parts.

And finally I was just struck by their realism. In many ways these books are not dissimilar to Peter Robinson's Alan Banks series - even if Frank Elder is a retired cop rather than a working policeman, which means that technically they may not be procedurals, but effectively are. But perhaps because they are set in a real place - Nottingham - but perhaps not, they just feel a great deal more, well, probable. (And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Robinson and Banks, I just think sometimes the books feel as if they are set in a sort of semi-rural northern theme park.)

Another key element of that is Elder himself. He's a bit of an oddity for a fictional detective. He's neither an alcoholic nor a womaniser, a maverick or a wisecracker. He doesn't appear to have any particularly damaging raging demons - he just sort of gets on with the job in hand, and is a terrific detective.

These are very very good books, a writer somewhere near the top of his field. I'm getting into the first Resnick now, and the first 30 or so pages are promising indeed.

So, if you haven't yet, try John Harvey. He's well worth it.

Reading

Lonely Hearts by John Harvey

Withdrawal symptoms

June 5, 14.06pm

No postings over the last week or so as I have been away, and for the first time in a while, out of internet range, which was a strange experience indeed.

The vast majority of places I go or visit, I am rarely more than a few yards away from a PC, but on holiday with the family last week on the coast of Norfolk I opted to leave it all behind and thus remove a potential distraction.

It was oddly disconcerting, being disconnected and not having every last piece of available information and entertainment immediately available. In particular, I found myself missing e-mail.

I did use my mobile's Wap service to stay in touch with cricket scores, but that was really my only indulgence - no TV or radio.

And of course, I have subsequently discovered that it didn't matter one little bit. I didn't need any of the vast weight of electronic data I might have downloaded at work or at home had I had access to it. But I don't expect that to change ny habits.

What I also discovered is that I have an addiction. Perhaps not one as dangerous as tobacco, but an addiction all the same.

What the week off did give me was the opportunity to service a little better another addiction: crime fiction. And what a great week it turned out to be.

I have found John Harvey. Where has he been all my life. More later.