Mister Hobgoblin

Soldier, Sailor is about as perfect a piece of writing as you'll find. Written as a letter from a mother to a four year old son, to be read later, presumably in the event that the mother is no longer there to counsel the son in person. Because the mother, Soldier, is not adapting well to motherhood. Her son, Sailor, is perhaps difficult, but I suspect Soldier would not have found any baby easy. She finds herself cut off from her previous, youthful life and inhabiting a world where she is defined only as Sailor's mother. She has no adult company other than her career-focused husband. She has no respite from a 24/7 job of motherhood. She does not seem to have a magical maternal superpower to kick in at vital moments. The simplest things become a struggle - leaving the house, dressing, driving, shopping... Soldier is resentful that her husband is never there to share the load; and even more resentful that he expects her to take sole charge of the parenting; and super resentful that he judges her performance so negatively. In one memorable scene, buying a big boy's bed in Ikea, he explains that he only gets two days off a week and he is wasting one of them shopping for a bed. Soldier is at breaking point. She is ready to walk out on her marriage and, at one point, on Sailor. She describes great wells of love for Sailor, but there is also a resentment at his intrusion and the wedge he appears to be driving in the marriage. Soldier has two conflicting emotions and no immediate way to reconcile them. All this fails to describe the book - which is more of an essay than a novel. The choice of words is almost poetic. There is symbolism and many references to a wider world (especially David Bowie). All used to describe a life that seems mundane and, well, ordinary. While each chapter sets out a different episode, they all circle back to the same themes and inner emotions. It is really well done, and remarkably hard to describe. I have been a fan of Claire Kilroy's previous novels which been lively stories with surprising depths. Soldier, Sailor has dispensed with the story-led narrative completely and just focused on the depth of feeling. It is quite unlike anything Kilroy has written before, and surely represents her masterpiece. *****

Aeon McMenahem is a mixed race teenager from Liverpool in the early 1990s. He makes poor life choices but seems to be a fundamentally good kid. Aeon decides to travel to Jamaica for his seventeenth birthday - partly in search of his roots and partly in search of a party. He travels with his older cousin Increase and they book into Peach Paradise resort in Montego Bay. Aeon soon discovers that he has little in common with the locals, and that Jamaica is not always the party haven he had hoped. His holiday starts badly and gets worse. Locks is an interesting and convincing travel back in time to the 1980s. The social values differ from today and Ashleigh Nugent acknowledges this up front. Some of the racial language used would not be acceptable in 2023. The systematic and overt social exclusion - with teachers, police and officialdom judging people on the melanin in their skin - would not fly today. That doesn't, of course, mean there is no longer racial discrimination, but it is probably more subtle and dressed up more as a meritocracy based on social class. Aeon doesn't fit comfortably in the accepted categorisations, being deemed black when in England and being deemed white when in Jamaica. He is not poor and not streetwise in England, and is not smart and patrician in Jamaica. He manages always to be on the wrong side - on the outside. Increase, on the other hand. seems much more worldly wise and after trying out various different world-views has fallen for the side of pragmatism. He seems to have reconciled being both black and British. The story is really farcical and jaw-dropping. It is therefore a surprise to read Nugent's endnotes claiming that the novel is basically autobiographical. This would explain why the creation of the world - of Montego Bay, of Kingston, and of the way Jamaican society functions is so convincing. But it doesn't sit easily to know that a real 16 year old could be treated the way Aeon is treated. The novel is written with some heavy patois (with a particular focus on feminine hygiene products) that takes some acclimatisation. There is switching back and forth from the present day in Jamaica to back story in Liverpool - sometimes in the middle of conversations. This, too, takes some getting used to. And there are some dreamlike sequences that would be attributed to drugs but which offer important historical context. This is not perfectly executed but worth persevering with. Overall, this is a work that seems teenage rite-of-passage but which has real hidden depth in social commentary on race and colonialism. Recommended. **** .

The Late Americans is essentially a collection of nine short(ish) pen portraits of various residents of Iowa City. Most are students at the university, most are gay men of colour. They consider their various relationships with one another; introspect on the meaning of life and generally don't do much except shag one another. It is pretty much plotless and devoid of character development. The reader hopes it will all come together at the end - but it doesn't. If I had to make a comparison, I would describe this as an LGBTQIA+ version of Sally Rooney's Normal People. It may appeal to those who find themselves among the cast, but most of us look back on our student days with a slight sense of horror that we were so up ourselves. Students are not interesting. Especially when they are creative writing students who pontificate on the meaning of poetry. Pretty much this was a dull read that will soon be forgotten. I couldn't even really remember all then characters even as they danced for my pleasure. Brandon Taylor kept dripping in some reference to a previous section and you'd think "oh yes, that's right, Timo is a vegetarian" or something similar. And I couldn't be annoyed to remember which of them were rich with trust funds and which were poor. The sex, by the way, is repetitive. Art imitating life, I suppose. **

Every now and then you need a light book to pass a plane journey at the start of a holiday. Panic is that book. So there is this TV sci-fi series, City of Night, with two main protagonists, Pandora and Lyric. They have a relationship and it is called #Panic. There is an online community of uber-fans who let their lives revolve around the TV show. They adore Alice Temple who plays Lyric. This novel features four such fans from around the world who jump at the chance to admit a show-insider to their set. And the insider tells them that Alice is in grave danger. The structure allows multiple POVs as the four characters interact across time zones and then come together for a fan convention. They are each outsiders in their own community, particularly from an LGBTQI+ perspective. It is amusing to see them being Internet-nice to one another, all terrified of inadvertently offending one another. They attach such meaning to their interactions and to the show - presumably because it offers a better reality to them than their real lives. Obviously, this tale of obsession and perfection fractures as the cracks in the relationships start to emerge - particularly as the fourth wall of the TV screen is shattered and the fans come into contact with Alice. This is not high literature, it is fun. It is quirky and fastened light. It is written in hashtags. It is perfect for a plane ride.

The Burning Time is the latest political thriller featuring the BBC investigative journalist William Carver. This one revolves around climate change and geo-engineering projects to reverse global warming. Some of the projects are coming to an untimely end and Carver receives a tip off from a senior civil service contact that the British Prime Minister is getting rather cosy with jan Austra;ian climate change billionaire... Peter Hanington's narrative style is short chapters taking place at various exotic and aspirational locations around the world. Much of The Burning Time is set around London, Spain, Australia and the US. Hanington is a former BBC journalist himself and he provides a good insight into the procedures behind radio news production and the BBC Monitoring operation that used to operate from Caversham. While Carver seems to be able to come and (mostly) g as he pleases, his sidekicks (Naz, a trainee journalist, and McClusky, a retired Caversham operator) are grounded in procedures, job description KPIs and security access issues. The plot here seems sound. There is intrigue, ambiguity about who is a good guy and who is a bad guy (although the henchman is as sinister as they come), and mostly it is credible. Hanington creates real moments of tension, and the cutting away to another story line leaves the tension hanging. There are enough real-world references to allow the reader to relate, even though some of the high finance stuff is beyond our pay grades. The ending is satisfying without quite tying everything up with a bow, and doesn't involve great mental gymnastics to understand, Basically, this is what a thriller should be.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a sci-fi take on a near future world of incarceration. Any attempt to rehabilitate offenders has long gone – incarceration is about making profit from those with the misfortune to be in the criminal justice system. The headline scenario is a modern day take on Roman gladiators. Prisoners with a death sentence or a long prison sentence can opt to take part in the program. Survive for three years and you are free, but face monthly battles to the death and the constant threat between bouts from your fellow chain gang members. Only one “Link” has ever made it through the three year shift. Meanwhile, we get an insight into the futuristic prisons that are so bad that they make the gladiatorial life seem preferable. Interminable solitary confinement in darkness; silence enforced by implants that release electric shocks at the slightest sound; slave labour; and punishment at the whim of the guards using the Influencer - a super-taser that creates the greatest imaginable pain. Most of the story focuses on Loretta Thurwar and thee Hurricane Staxxx (Hamara Stacker), two black women participating in the gladiator program. They represent the fact that black people are over-represented in the current US criminal justice system. They are also lovers. Their nemeses are a pair of men, Simon J Craft, a man with mental health challenges, and Hendrix Young, a black man who self-harmed to escape a torturous regime at an experimental prison. The four characters have quite distinct voices and personalities. Unlike many prison-based novels, there is no attempt to make the lead characters innocent. They are guilty (albeit with some mitigating factors), but they are nevertheless portrayed as people rather than crimes. They have feelings. The have names. The story itself is as gripping as it is grotesque. Needless to say, there are no happy endings, but the tone often has a lightness that balances the darkness of the themes. And the themes are front and centre. At times, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah breaks the fourth wall by offering footnotes setting out the most shameful statistics and history of the current US penal system. These footnotes remind the reader that although the scenarios are futuristic, the characters represent the current reality – both within the criminal justice system, and also within the world of media and the small group of penal reformers. It is one big allegory. The writing offers multiple narrators and multiple points of view in handily bite sized chapters. This maintains interest and succeeds in building a complex world for the story. It allows the reader multiple ways into the story as well as allowing multiple contemporary issues to be represented. In his end notes, Adjei-Brenyah cites various academic and journalistic references. I suspect there is also an unacknowledged debt to other works of fiction, including the films Spartacus and Running Man – perhaps even elements of Tron. Chain-Gang All-Stars is original, but some of the ideas in it may feel familiar. This is a really classy piece of writing – quite unexpected for a novel whose premise sounded pretty salacious and whose opening pages lived up to that salacious promise. Chain-Gang All-Stars is Colossal. *****

Cold People was a huge disappointment. The basic premise is that aliens have taken Planet Earth and sent humankind to exile in Antarctica. People have thirty days to get to Antarctica or face the consequences. Knowing that man cannot survive in that climate, the new community decides to embark on a program of genetic engineering to create people who can thrive in the ice – Cold People. The novel is an exercise in world building. Tom Rob Smith imagines the evacuation and the panic that would ensure when it became clear that only a small number of people would be able to reach Antarctica in time. He tries to imagine the setting up of a new community with new rules, overcoming the logistical issues of life in the ice. The trouble is, the world is not credible. Apparently the new world comprises four settlements with a total population of several million. They live on lichen they scrape from rocks. They never squabble. They are all on chatting terms with the new President, who imparts news by inviting the population to gather round. They set up homes and laboratories using spare parts cannibalised from the ships and planes on which they travelled. Former kings and presidents happily reminisce while working as bar tenders at the only pub in town. The scale just doesn’t work. People don’t act like real people. In twenty years on the ice, nobody has become depressed? Nobody ever misses the things they used to have? Nobody ever complains? People die and nobody seems to be upset? There are silly and impossible things – the aliens lift and deposit various world landmarks to Antarctica for no apparent reason. All the planes in the world land in darkness and most park up on an ice shelf with no difficulty. The world’s navies all land up in the same harbour at the same time (and then all sink within an hour of each other). There is a very slow moving plot that introduces us to the family that will save mankind (let’s call them the Skywalkers) and to the bad clan that want to damn mankind (the Empire). OK, so that was a different story, but this one is just as simplistic and the characters just as thin. But unlike Star Wars, Cold People has no ending – it just sets things up for a sequel or three. Oh, and the pacing is terrible. It keeps chopping to a backstory every time a new character is introduced – and those new characters seem to keep coming pretty much up until the end – which, of course, isn’t the end. I don’t like to be scathing about a novel, but Tom Rob Smith has a Booker longlisting under his belt: we know he can do better than this. **

Sedating Elaine is a jolly farce featuring Frances, who owes two grand to her dealer, trying to extract the money from her super-annoying girlfriend. Error compounds on error in this comic novel. Running alongside the farce, there is a (slightly) deeper story about Frances trying to come to terms with her troubled childhood and her previous relationship with Adrienne. This can become quite dark at times, offering a good counterpoint to the comedy in the foreground. I listened to this in the audio version - the narration was engaging and clear. This is not a literary novel, it is a light entertainment. The characters are cartoonish and each grotesque in their own way. There are no insights into the human character or meaningful allegories. It's a holiday read that serves its purpose well. Recommended for a plane ride or a beach cabana. ****

Seven Moons is an absolutely terrific, excellent and clever novel for which mere words can never be enough. It is a thoroughly immersive experience in both this world and the next, working on so many levels, and always with a flash of deadpan humour. Maali Almeida finds himself in the afterlife, having exited 1990 Colombi somewhat suddenly. he is/was a photojournalist, gay and dating the son of a cabinet minister. During a civil war. What, you wonder, could possibly go wrong? Maali has seven moons (days) left on Earth as a ghost , trying to piece together what happened. He follows various arcane rules as he follows death squads, eavesdrops on shady western NGOs, visits his former housemates and tries to stay one step ahead of the masters and demons who are trying to claim his soul. Meanwhile, the bureaucrats in the afterlife are determined to check his ears. It's impossible, really, to categorise Seven Moons. It is a murder mystery, a political satire, magical realism, a historical commentary on the civil war, a love story, folk legends and so much more. It is an affectionate portrait of Sri Lanka - a truly remarkable country of contrasts and heritage. For all this - and it is a very intelligent novel - it never feels heavy. It is light and pacy and humorous. Even though the plot is complicated, the text keeps reminding us off who is who, what is what. It guides us patiently through the various groupings and factions while showing the human qualities (both good and bad) of the various protagonists. There is also, dare I say it, something very British about the whole thing. Everyone is terribly polite, even as they try to swindle one another, throw people off balconies or dispose of bodies. The satire and sarcasm is reassuringly familiar. They drink tea. I have been fortunate enough to read the text (before it won the Booker Prize) and now to listen to the audiobook. Both were a joy and the novel benefits from a second reading when the reader knows where it is all heading. It is a delight to spot the signposts along the way that were missed when the destination is unknown. The narrator of the audiobook, Shivantha Wijesinha, speaks with a genteel Sri Lankan accent, but one which never gets in the way of the story (think cricket commentary). It is a perfect voice for a perfect novel. I cannot recommend Seven Moons highly enough. It is definitely up there in my all time top half dozen. *****

Two police officers escort an ailing lifer to a secure village that houses ex-prisoners who are too dangerous to release into society. The village has an unlikely balance of cottage industries, cafes, a hotel and women - despite nobody producing anything and an absence of legal currency. There is a ton of snow, shaky communications brought about by poor weather and poor witring, and a problem with dead bodies and arson. There are twists for the sake of twists, and nothing is what it first seems. The pacing was sloooow, the characters virtually indistinguishable and the plot so convoluted that the reader has to keep reminding themselves of why anything is happening. Nothing quite adds up - least of all characters who are motivated by money in a cash free community. Nothing feels real, the location makes no sense with a secure, gated community with seemingly endless acres of snowy woodland. Yeah nah. **

Fire Rush is an exploration of life on the margins of society seen through the life of Yamaye, a young and poor West Indian woman in 1970s-1980s Britain. The novel moves from the (literally) underground music scene on London, through to criminal gangs in Bristol, and finally to Yamaha's roots in Jamaica as she seeks out the family of her lost lover Moose. The novel is technically well written in a convincing patois, and I am sure the historical detail is accurate even though to this (white) reader who lived through those times, it feels sometimes unfamiliar. The nightclubbing, the raves and the riots were described with a real sense of atmosphere, but it never quite captured my interest. So much so that the pivotal moment when Yamaye meets the man who will take her to Bristol, it felt like an incidental moment. The Bristolian scenes, though, was where the novel lost me. I didn't really get why Yamaye went to Bristol with someone she barely knew; I did not believe the crew in Bristol could really be so unredeemingly evil; and I didn't get why Yamaye could not walk away. Maybe it was just because I was not familiar with the culture and its values, but the net result was that I could not believe in the characters. It was lifeless. The Jamaican section felt like the novel was getting back on track, bringing moments of genuine discovery and real tension. It felt like there was some payoff for having persisted with the novel for so far. Overall, Fire Rush was a slow read that I didn't particualrly care for. I suspect, though, that it would repay a second read. ***

Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty finds himself in the Vatican during the Nazi occupation of Italy in 1943. As an Irishman, his own nation is supposedly neutral in the war, and the Vatican City State treads a careful line between professing neutrality and not incurring the wrath of an army that could conquer the state in twenty minutes. Yet O'Flaherty has hitched himself with the local resistance and their mission to rescue, protect and repatriate Allied airmen. His politically sensitive superiors in the Vatican become increasingly distressed by his conduct while never fully appreciating the depth of his involvement; and the Germans try t0 contain the Vatican personnel within their walls. O'Connor narrates the novel from multiple viewpoints including SS Colonel Paul Hauptmann and his wife; the British ambassador to the Vatican; and various members of the resistance. Slightly irritatingly, at least in the galley version I received (thanks Netgalley), the viewpoints were not named so the reader had to spend the first paragraph or more trying to decide who was narrating. But I suppose it is to O'Connor's credit that the viewpoint - with so many to choose from - was generally possible to discern quite quickly. Like many of O'Connor's previous novels, the plot itself is not complicated, the complexity comes from the range of perspectives , each showing different motives and aspirations. This is an accomplished story that is layered with narrative showing everyday life within this secretive community at a particularly unusual time. Bravo! *****

UK Government Minister, Lord Edward Bellingham, is reported missing on Crete by his wife. This unleashes a high profile, high level search to which Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Louise Mangan is sent as a liaison officer. This takes her away from her regular work in London leading the security detail for high profile overseas visitors while a hitman works though his commissions. This is a complex mystery that is well told. The setting in particular, London and Crete, feel well drawn and convincing. The reader feels the heat of the Greek sunshine and the breeze through the mountains, hears the lap of the waves contrasting with the bustle and diverse languages on the streets of Stoke Newington. As one would expect in a novel written by a former Home Secretary, there is plenty of high level politics and diplomacy, but this never detracts from the more mundane police procedural work at play. Some of the characters are well developed, but others feel rather stereotyped - the obese and alcoholic journalist Christopher Finch, Brady the Belfast-born hitman, the naive Geordie nanny, Dimitri the restaurateur. And in the audio-book version, the narrator (Richard Attlee) rather ill-advisedly chooses affect each accent for the dialogue sections. It does help to delineate the characters but at times it feels a bit music hall. As a whodunnit, the dastardly scheme is pretty obvious quite early in the piece. This is not actually a bad thing. Often crime novels spend way too much time creating convoluted red herrings and cryptic references that it confuses the reader. This one does not confuse, instead leaving the reader to enjoy watching it all unfold. There are a couple of twist-ettes, perhaps, as the strands are brought together, but nothing that will tax the brain too much. Essentially, this is a good summer read that will entertain and, perhaps, give a glimpse into a lifestyle (peerages, chief commissioners, millionaires, Greek islands) that most of us find aspirational. Jolly good fun all round. ****

Jess, Pete and their kids have left their family home in Walthamstow and bought the Maple House, a large, imposing and run-down home in rural Suffolk. It seems that Jess was running away from something - perhaps an intruder she had disturbed in Walthamstow - but something at the Maple House doesn't seem right. Things move, doors that were locked seem to open themselves, and there are glimpses of something in the garden. This should be a twisty psychological thriller. Sadly, the title rather gives the game away. There is some tension right at the end, and the intrigue of how it al fits together, but the big reveal at the half way point will not surprise anyone. The novel is initially narrated from Jess's point of view, then switches to Jess's new friend Eve, and then back to Jess. This is all rather reminiscent of Fingersmith (Sarah Waters). It is fun, has some moments of humour as the reader is appalled by people behaving badly, and some of the cameo characters (e.g. the school mums, the architect) are a delight. Jess, though, is a drip and it is hard for the reader to feel any real sympathy for her predicament. The ending feels rather unsatisfactory - the bit where everyone is supposed to get their just deserts does not quite pan out. I'm undecided whether that is a strength or a weakness. This is not a perfect book, but there is something about it that is like a literary version of an ear worm. It just keeps popping back into my thoughts. That suggests some pretty good story telling technique at work.

This is a novel set in a small town in East Germany in the 1950s. The border is not exactly open, but still quite porous. The people are finding their places in a new Soviet society, pretending not to remember that only a decade ago they were embracing fascism. It is an interesting time. The story centres around Uta, a young woman who is an officer in the border police - apparently a step up from the regular police but a step below the special police from Berlin. Uta is loyal but pragmatic; keeping the local peace is more important than slavish adherence to an ideology that few seem to believe in. But the local police is shattered when two agents from Berlin arrive on a secret mission. The tale that unfolds is one of sedition, corruption and greed. There is clearly a good story in here, but the writing did not quite do it justice. The phrasing was stilted; the dialogue did not ring true, and too many of the characters were hard to tell apart. Sometimes their motivation was not clear, even when the plot was revealed. And the denouement felt like a bit of a damp squib. I wish the novel, and especially the setting, could have been given a bit of a polish to make it sparkle.