In times past, the reading for a two week holiday required a box to fitted to the roof of the car, in which about six kilograms of hard and paperbacks were installed. These days the Kindle slips comfortably into a back pocket. While I mourn the loss of the beauty of physical books, my aging eyes prefer the Paperwhite, and the danger of finding myself without fresh material has evaporated.
So, following the earlier post of my recommendations for Summer 2021, here's what's on my Kindle:
A Cursed Place by Peter Hanington
In an increasingly unprincipled world, a man of principles is a danger to himself and others. William Carver is one such man - a veteran, irascible, old school journalist working for Radio 4's Today program is a reporter who uses his position to hold the powerful to account. In two previous outings, Hanington, himself a former Today producer, has taken Carver through war-torn Afghanistan and Cairo during the Arab spring. Hanington grapples with big global themes in books that are rich in drama, detail, intrigue and ideas. In A Single Source, his previous novel, Hanington takes two young Eritrean men through the arduous, perilous and demeaning refugee journey from their homeland through the Sahara and across the Mediterranean to Europe. It's a piece of writing that everyone with a view on the refugee crisis should read, and in particular policy makers. It is empathetic, powerful and shocking - a second act in a book crammed with incredible characters and compelling story lines. I can't wait to get tucked into the next installment which takes Carver from Chilean mines to Silicon Valley. Hanington's books are not quite 'spy novels' but they occupy a similar territory to that currently covered by Henry Porter, Mick Herron and Charles Cummings, a space we might call 'post Le Carré', and they are worthy successors.
The Kill by Jane Casey
Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan has become my number one running buddy during 2021. As I (slowly) pound the streets she has become my chosen Audible partner. I love this series for a number of reasons. Firstly, Casey has developed a set of core characters whose appeal broadens each story. They're a little different too. There's a lot of cliché in police fiction, but Casey carefully steers through it to bring more interesting and nuanced characters to life. The dynamic between Kerrigan and her (very odd) boss DI Derwent is particularly interesting. And the storytelling is strong, the narratives dynamic and the dialogue sharp and convincing. In short, the Kerrigan books have everything a series needs to be successful, and I've made it to book five, The Kill, pretty quickly and if I hit my target of 1,250 km by the end of 2021, Maeve will have played her part.
The Royal Secret by Andrew Taylor
The prolific Andrew Taylor has been a feature of my reading list for the best part of 20 years, since the publication of The American Boy, and in 2008 wrote one of this blog's favourite ever books, Bleeding Heart Square. More recently, the 17th Century Marwood and Lovett series has helped to do for the Stuarts what Shardlake has done for the Tudors. Such is the strangeness of the English history curriculum (at least during the 1980s) I managed to leave school knowing little about the 17th Century (beyond fire and plague) that happened after Charles I parted company with his head. So James Marwood, a reluctant court detective, and his occasional (and even more reluctant) partner Cat Lovett have been tremendous guides through the intrigues of the post Restoration monarchy. The series is full of period social detail and political machinations not to mention great mystery storylines. It has matured with age, and I am looking forward to revisiting the sights, sounds and smells of Stuart London in this fifth installment.
Transient Desires by Donna Leon
Is it really a summer holiday if there's no Guido Brunetti novel for the beach? Donna Leon's series has been a constant companion for almost three decades and opening one of these books is like slipping on a much-loved sweater or settling down to comfort food and a glass of Chianti. There's nothing I don't love about these books: the unhurried plots; the excursions into literature, family and gastronomy; the banal evil of Scarpa, the venality of Patta and the goodness of Brunetti; the insights into the delights and horrors of daily life in Venice. It all fits together beautifully with Leon's elegant writing. This, amazingly, is book number 30 which means I've been with Brunetti for longer than I've been with my wife. I should probably celebrate with a grappa...
(Review: Beastly Things by Donna Leon)
On Hampstead Heath by Marika Cobbold
Amanda Craig is on the hook for this recommendation, a tale of journalistic integrity and the search for truth set in the wrong half of London. My days as a journalist are long behind me (I left the trade at about Brunetti book 15) and while there are days I really miss it, I don't envy those still practicing it the newer tyrannies of their trade: the pressure to generate clicks, the never ending deadline demands of social media and the internet, and most of all the moral maze of fake news. This novel promises to delve into all these themes as it follows the latter part of the career of Thorn Marsh who falls out with her employer when she finds its principles don't correspond to her own, and then undermines her own views with a late night filing that bends the truth. If it's good enough for Amanda Craig, it's good enough for me, north London or not.
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
A quick fast forward from the Stuarts to the Georgians, and a new novel from Shepherd-Robinson, whose brilliant slave trade debut Blood and Sugar was one of the best books of 2019. "From the pleasure palaces and gin-shops of Covent Garden to the elegant townhouses of Mayfair, Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Daughters of Night follows Caroline Corsham as she seeks justice for a murdered woman whom London society would rather forget . . ." So reads the synopsis, and really, who could resist? The best historical fiction resonates through the ages and speaks to our own situation. Blood and Sugar did this brilliantly, and I have very high expectations for a novel that has drawn rave reviews.
La Cara Norte del Corazón por Dolores Redondo
Every year I take at least one book to the beach that I am highly unlikely to read. Last year, it was How to Be A Stoic, this year it is Dolores Redondo's The North Face of the Heart, in its original Spanish. I haven't read a book in a language that is not English since I was a 17-year-old A Level student misunderstanding Raymond Radiguet's The Devil in the Flesh. But this marks a moment of progress. Eight years I've been living in Spain, but only now have my pitiful attempts to learn Spanish delivered me to a point where I even contemplate reading a novel. But the spirit is willing. I loved Redondo's Baztan mystery trilogy, set in the mists of Navarra and her tough Pamplona detective, Amaia Salazar. This is something of an origins story, taking Salazar back to her earlier career and a placement at the FBI Academy, which results in her visiting New Orleans at about the same time as Hurricane Karina. Doubtless this book will outlast the summer, but I will finish it.
Reviews: The Invisible Guardian and The Legacy of the Bones by Dolores Redondo