Material Witness

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 [email protected]. 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!

 

 

 

On the Stand: Imogen Robertson

I became an instant fan of Imogen Robertson early last year when I first encountered her amateur Georgian detectives, Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther in her debut novel Instrument of Darkness. It was immediately evident from that novel that the Daily Telegraph had picked a real talent to win its Novel in a Year competition in 2007.

The two novels that have followed, Anatomy of Murder and Island of Bones, confirmed those first impressions. This is an historical series to rival the best in the genre.

I am very grateful to her for taking the time out to answer a few questions...

Favourite author:

Nevil Shute. Today that is. Like most people I find it impossible to stick to one favourite, but I do envy Shute’s prose and I find the books deeply moving.

Favourite book:

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. A great detective novel, with the best marriage proposal in Latin ever delivered in 20th century literature.

Favourite character:

Stephen Maturin from the Aubery-Maturin novels of Patrick O’Brian. I love his intelligence and awkwardness, and the way his fascination with natural history can blind him to what else is happening around him. I read through the entire series in the matter of a couple of months some years ago, and suspect he is one of the spiritual Godfathers of my own character, Gabriel Crowther.

Best book read in 2011:

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Bit of a cheat this, because I read it when it first came out, but I did reread it this year when I was preparing for a workshop on historical fiction. Meant to just look for a passage to use for teaching, then couldn’t stop. The way Waters manages to convey the tone of a certain age is remarkable. Reading her is a masterclass in historical writing.

Best crime city:

London. Of course. The way we are all piled on top of each other in this city of secret corners, back alleys and crowds. Sit on a London bus for an hour and you’ll have a story.

Best film adaptation:

No Country for Old Men. The Coen brother’s film of the book by Cormac McCarthy. One of the most frightening but beautiful films I’ve seen in years. I never thought they could match the poetry of McCarthy’s prose, but they do. I still have nightmares about being out on the Mexico border being chased by Javier Bardem

Book that gave you the thriller bug:

I’ve read mystery and crime novels since I could smuggle a flash-light into bed, but as an adult I think it was Nicci French’s The Memory Game. I missed stops on the tube and fell of escalators reading that one.

New/Young author to watch:

I met Diane Janes at an event last year and so bought her first book The Pull of the Moon. I loved it. A brilliant thriller, taught and atmospheric. I’m really looking forward to the next one. ‘Why Don’t You Come for Me?’ which is out in May.

What do you snack on while writing:

Coffee, cigarette, sugared almond. Coffee, cigarette, sugared almond. Repeat till word count is completed.

Who would play you in a film of your life:

On my good days, Emma Thompson. On my bad days Richard E Grant in Withnail mode.

 

My thanks to Imogen and to Helena Towers at Headline for facilitating the interview.

REVIEW: Island of Bones by Imogen Robertson

They are crime fiction's odd couple: the aging anatomist who has his renounced title and estate to pursue a quiet life dedicated to science; and the glamorous and wealthy young naval widow (and landowner) with an inappropriate sense of curiosity and a healthy disregard for the tedious rules of society.

Gabriel Crowther and Harriet Westerman have brought an engaging freshness to the historical crime novel, throwing light into the dark and secretive corners of Georgian England from deepest, rural Sussex (Instruments of Darkness) through conspiratorial London (Anatomy of Murder) and on to feudal, pagan Cumbria in this latest outing, Island of Bones.

As in the previous novels in the series, Island of Bones is notable for the combination of revealing historical detail, inctricate plotting and strong and entertaining characterisation.

Crowther and Harriet, who by now have obtained a degree of notoriety for their macabre investigations are called upon to investigate the discovery of an unexplained body in the tomb of the Earl of Greta, on the Earl's former lands near the town of Keswick. The land, not at all coincidentally, briefly belonged to Crowther who inherited it following the murder of his father (by Crowther's brother), the incident that convinved him to turn his back on his history.

The body turns up clues which hint at long-forgotten mysteries surrounding the original transfer of land to Crowther's father following the disgrace of the Earl of Greta who joined the ill-fated Jacobite rebellion. Crowther cannot resist delving deep into a history of familial malevolence, betrayal, jealousy and murder and with Harriet's impulsive and irresistible assistance his investigation begins to dislodge long-held secrets.

There is a touch of the MIdsomer Murders about Island of Bones - and I mean that in the most complimentary way. There is a truly outstanding supporting cast of utterly eccentric rural characters held in thrall to an extraordinary mix of pagan folklore, old wives tales and marvellous ghost stories.  This is a long way from the contemporary sophistication of Georgian London, and Robertson evokes the dark, local landscape skilfully. Where it diverges from Midsomer Murders is in the strong and compelling story-telling.

Robertson spins her tale brilliantly, playing show and tell with her readers, dropping tantalising hints into the mystery and illusory glimpses of the truth while ratcheting up the tension.

Crowther and Harriet, odd match though they might be, are the perfect leading pair for Robertson's dramas, their contrasting darkness and light, professional and energetic passion merged to just the right effect. These are splendid novels that will win a wide audience.

Something is here... - Justin Cronin talks about The Passage from Colorado

Material Witness is honoured to be the fourth stopping off point for this week's UK Blog Tour for Justin Cronin author of The Passage, the heart-stopping post-Apocalypse novel which is published in paperback in the UK today. (Material Witness review)

May 11, 2011: Justin Cronin discusses the fateful meeting of FBI Agent Brad Wolgast and the orphan Amy - a critical early chapter in the book - and their journey to Colorado, scene of the military experiments that spawn the vampire crisis...

 

 Previous tour destinations:

May 9 - Novel Insights in California

May 10 - Book Smugglers in the Californian desert

May 11 -  Gothic Imagination in Las Vegas

And coming tomorrow

May 13 - Wondrous Reads

Don't forget to enter the competition to win a copy of The Passage.

COMPETITION: Win a copy of The Passage by Justin Cronin

Material Witness will this week be part of the UK blog tour of The Passage, Justin Cronin's epic post-apocalyptic vampire saga, and on Thursday will host an exclusive video of the author touring some of the book's locations. 

To celebrate, I have five copies of the regular paperback of The Passage, which is published this week, to give away and one copy of the limited edition paperback with the red right spine. (As pictured here). With apologies to readers from further afield, the competition is open to UK readers only. 

To win a copy, answer the following question: The Passage begins with e-mail sent from scientists searching for bats in the jungles of which South American country?

If you need some help, the answer can be found in this review of The Passage.

Please e-mail your answer to [email protected] - Good luck, and please remember to check out from Monday the first video of the tour at Novel Insights. Competition closes at 11pm (UK) on Sunday 15th May.

Something is coming...

 

 

> 

Justin Cronin's vampire epic The Passage was one of the most dramatic, enjoyable and chilling books of 2010 - a mesmerising holiday read, as you can see from my review of August last year.

As the paperback version hits the shelves on May 12, I am certain The Passage is set to be the book of the summer, the one that will keep you stuck to your towel or deck chair in the August sun.

Publisher Orion is pulling out all the stops for what ought to be one of the most visible launches of the year, and I have a sense of childlike excitement to be involved in their video blog tour next week and will be hosting an exclusive Passage video on Thursday.

Orion has also produced a very nice limited edition paperback (left) with a very snazzy right spine. I have one limited edition copy to give away in a competition I will launch shortly and a further five copies of the regular paperback. Details to follow soon.