Material Witness

Holiday reading part two

July 31, 17.10pm

I went home for the first time in three weeks over the weekend - the house is being rebuilt and is uninhabitable - and found holiday gifts from the heavens waiting amidst the usual bills and crap that comes through the door.

I've not been especially impressed with what's on offer at many of the bookstores I've visited looking for holiday reading. Having decided to avoid the cost and weight of hardbacks has ruled out the latest John Harvey, Mark Billingham and Peter Robinson and nothing else has caught my eye.

So it was unadulterated joy to find books new titles from Laura Lippman and Michael Connelly on the doorstep and my line-up is now more or less complete.

1. No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman. I started reading Laura Lippman's books because they are set in Baltimore, a city I spent some time in as a kid, having relatives in suburban Maryland. I continue with them because they are just so readable. Lippman's tells a grand mystery tale  - In a Strange City, a Poe-related story is one of my favourite mystery stories ever - and her detective, Tess Monaghan, is as engaging a character as there is out there. (She's a sort of east coast Kinsey Milhone, for those who like Sue Grafton). My only problem with these books is Crow, Tess' boyfriend who just seems so unlikely. I really don't like him, but it may just be jealousy. The blurb makes No Good Deeds look like another good story; just about right for the poolside.
2. Echo Park by Michael Connelly. Harry Bosch is fast becoming one of the grand old men of the crime fiction scene. This is his 12th outing with Harry now working the cold case/unsolved files alongside former partner Kiz. Because he's been around such a long time, Bosch is one of the more complex detectives out there and the novels, good stories all, are made by the intensity of his desire to get the bad guys and not to be corrupted by the bureaucracy and moral ambiguity of the LAPD. I am confident this will be another high quality outing, and while those readers who came to Connelly through his last excellent Grishamesque courtroom drama (The Lincoln Lawyer) might be better off starting a it further back in the series, Bosch devotees are likely to love it.
3. A Strange Affair by Peter Robinson. You don't hear a lot about Peter Robinson, he's not a celeb in the way that Ian Rankin has become, and I don't recall ever reading or hearing an interview. But quietly his Alan Banks series has taken him into the first division of British crime writers, on a par with Rankin and the like. This one was published well over a year ago and I'm not entirely sure why I haven't got to it before this. But better later than never.

Stephen King's Cell - chilling listening for a hot night

July 24, 14.18pm

I can't remember the last time I read a Stephen King novel; I remember starting, but not finishing, Rose Madder not long after it was published about 10 years ago. I read every instalment of The Green Mile as each was published (and became quite impatient for each instalment) and I've seen bits and pieces on television, like Needful Things.

I also read Faithful, the fascinating diary/conversation between King and novelist Stewart O'Nan, Boston Red Sox nuts both, about their team's dramatic championship season of 2004.

But for some reason I stopped reading the novels - maybe I thought I grew out of horror, I'm not really sure. But I had always really enjoyed them.

But last week, I surprised myself by downloading Cell to my iPod,from the very excellent Audible audio book service, for  keeping my mind occupied while my body does what it needs to in the gym.

And it's a ripper - a throwback to, or perhaps even a latter day technological update for, The Stand, my favourite King novel and probably one of my favourite reads of all time. In The Stand, US civilisation is destroyed by a flu like plague which wipes out millions and leaves the survivors - divided into good and evil - to fight over how society is rebuilt.

In Cell the virus that brings chaos, misery and death to New England is the Pulse, which is delivered down mobile phones into the brains of users who are then rendered violently insane and become known as the "phone crazies" by the book's central character, Clayton Riddell, who begins a long journey on foot from Boston to his home in Maine where he hopes to find his son and estranged wife.

King is brilliant at this sort of stuff; the description of Boston being brought to a quick destruction as the Pulse hits is spell-binding. It starts with small but sickening personal dramas played out before an audience paralysed with shock before degenerating rapidly into a total breakdown of the laws that hold society together and an explosive fiery climax.

He is also the master of the moment, playing cunningly with words as readers (or listeners, I guess) wait for the decisive, or emotional, or grisly moment they know is just about to arrive. His psychology is also good - his characters seem to react in a way that rings true and evolve in a convincing fashion.

I listened to an hour or so last night, while trying to sleep in an airless and over-heated London room ailing after the fortnight of extraordinary temperatures we have suffered here, and - now about halfway through a 12 hour reading - was transfixed.

Despite the outlandish nature of the story - at least I hope it's outlandish - King's ability to ratchet up the tension is brilliant. He is a very, very good storyteller, adept at putting his ready right there on the page.

I don't mind admitting that at one point I did pull the window a little closer down and shut the curtains as the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up, although admittedly this was largely to do with the fear that the giant domestic cat that often uses the ledge as a conduit from one house to the other in the middle of the night, might pay a visit at an inopportune moment and send my ticker into a tailspin.

Holiday reading

July 17, 13.40pm

It's about this time of year that the various arts and literature supplements of the major newspapers publish their books for the beach lists in which a number of minor celebrities and literary types come over all pretentious and list the various highbrow books they'll be taking to their villa in Tuscany.

I thought I'd do the same. In the BC era (before children) it was my habit to take roughly one book for every day away on holiday; the demands of kids don't allow for anything like that anymore, and so for 17 days away I will take an optimistic eight or nine books, and if I finish five, fantastic. (I certainly wouldn't want to get caught short) I'll list the first four today and the rest tomorrow.

1. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. I've been working through this 12 volume series for a few weeks now and am currently part way through volume 4 - At Lady Molly's - which is regarded in some quarters as the best of the lot. I don't know about that yet, but it is a wonderful read, full of understated wit and wisdom, careful and caring characterisation and a narrative that could be under-estimated as meandering and fateful, but is nothing of the sort. The problem with series like these is that it can be torture to finish one volume and find one's self away and without access to the next. So whichever book I am reading at time of departure, I will also take another two.
2. Hit Parade by Lawrence Block. I can't remember the exact form of words that Block used when I invited him to talk about the fact that some of his characters cross the line between lawful and not in the course of their activities, but it was something along the lines of their "ethical relativism" or "moral ambiguity", and it was in connection with the Matthew Scudder series or perhaps even the Bernie (the burglar) Rhodenbarr. It was definitely not in connection with Keller, the professional hitman, as there is no morality, ambiguous or otherwise, in a paid gun. That makes it surprising that this series - Hit Parade is the third book after Hit Man and Hit List - should be quite so easily readable and quite so enjoyable, and Keller himself such a sympathetic character. (I know it sounds unlikely, but you'll either have to take my word for it or check out one of the   books. Anyway, a proof arrived for this through the post this weekend and it's another good reason to look forward to going away in two and a half weeks time.
3. Blood from a Stone by Donna Leon. If, like me, you have got into crime fiction through workaholic/alcoholic detectives who rip through cases at a million miles an hour tearing up trees until they get their man, then a first introduction to Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian police comes as something of a shock. "The first 24 hours are crucial", is a mantra oft-repeated in crime fiction, but in Brunetti's case the first 24 hours rarely start until he has finished a three course lunch (always including wine) with his wife. Justice may work slowly in Venice, but Brunetti is a charming, urbane companion, Leon brings the city to life beautifully and these books are immensely enjoyable. And a poolside in the Dordogne seems the perfect place to unwind with this book.
4. Everyman by Philip Roth. I'm a bit of a latecomer to Roth, having not picked up any of his books until I came across The Plot Against America and found the alternate history described on the jacket irresistible. It made a fan of me as I found the intersection of major, global events and family trauma utterly compelling and, in some parts, extremely disturbing. And so  Roth's latest novel in 3 for 2 offer in Waterstone's seemed like an offer not to be refused.

More tomorrow.

Murdered hunted down

July 13, 14.51pm   

It's been a big week for the outside event arm of London's publicists.

By lunchtime today the wanted posters for William Hornet outside Cannon Street advertising the Last Days of Newgate (see yesterday's post below) had disappeared replaced by a one sheet newspaper reporting his arrest, trial and sentence (quick justice) and on the back the result of the first Oxford/Cambridge boat race. It also contained an advert for the book.

Again passers-by seemed to be interested but on this occasion I suspect it had more to do with the wenches in period costume handing them out. They looked the part with grubby, dirty faces too.

Working feverishly away alongside them were modern costamongers handing out copies of Standard Lite, the lunchtime freesheet, wrapped by a mocked-up four page copy of the Daily Planet reporting  the return of Superman.

Amazing really, that at a time when newspapers are supposedly under fire from new media and rapid technological change that they are still viewed as such a powerful medium. The ploy was certainly working today.