Mister Hobgoblin

The Last White Man is a novella set in a land where the majority white population start to turn brown, one by one. The scenario is illustrated through following Anders and his partner Oona - both originally white. Anders is a man's man who likes to gym. He is aware that there are brown people in the world including the man who cleans the gym, but Anders' world is white. So it is problematic for him when he wakes up one morning to find he is brown. The sections that follow set out a series of paradigms as the population shifts from a white society to a brown one. At first, the few newly brown people try to find ways to distinguish themselves as formerly white - in case people should mistake them as being genuinely brown. But their peers reject them and they come to accept their lesser status. Anders, for example, decides he might try to reach out to the gym cleaner to establish a friendship of equals, although he quickly decides they are not equal despite their common skin colour. Then as more people become brown, those who remain white are lauded. As it becomes clear that everyone is turning brown, they are nobly resisting the inevitable. They are held to be virtuous, even though the pigmentation seems to be arbitrary. Finally, as the majority of society becomes brown there is a flip and the society no longer accepts skin colour as having meaning. The novella is driven by ideas rather than plot, and the ideas do feel a little like essays. They are told in a strange style that reads almost as though it was written in another language and translated on the cheap. It is rather hypnotic. Perhaps the sense of translation is also brought about by the ambiguity of location. The names seem to be drawn from across northern Europe and while this was probably done to avoid tying it to a specific place or time, it was rather distracting as the reader tried to ground it in a real location. This is a short work offering plenty to think about, but lovers of plot driven novels will find it lacking and probably somewhat contrived as a vehicle for illustrating the various political ideas. ****

Lying Beside You is a fair-square crime genre novel featuring a serial detective searching for a serial killer... In this series, Cyrus Haven is a criminal psychologist - a profession allied to policing - which gives him the opportunity to be unorthodox at the expense of not always being on the inside track of the police machine. Hence, he does not have fun access to case notes, records, etc. But Michael Robotham seems quite generous in the amount off access he does allow Cyrus, together with a police inspector (Lenny) who can fill in the blanks as necessary. Cyrus is troubled outside work by Evie, a high maintenance young woman with a troubled past to whom he is giving shelter. This is probably explained in previous novels in the series. And he has a brother who is nearing release from a high-security hospital having killed Cyrus's family when Cars was still in short trousers. So, some young women in Nottingham go missing and one of them turns up dead. This opens a Pandora's Box of pain. In a case that bridges the divide between personal and professional, Cyrus inevitably delivers the goods. The novel is well told, pacy and keeps the reader intrigued - even though the plot itself is pretty incredible and relies on every character being connected on some level (it worked for Dickens...). On that basis, I would happily read the previous novels in the series as entertainment, although I doubt they would teach me much about the human condition. It works as a standalone too, and the reader has the necessary background drip-fed when necessary. Solid four star material - three for the plot and five for the story-telling. ****

I loved Ginger and Me. Really loved it. In the prologue, we meet Wendy, a 20 year old bus driver, sitting in a cell in Polmont Young Offenders Institution. Something has gone wrong and it seems there might have been some stalking of a writer called Diane - Wendy's solicitor tells her she doesn't seem to understand how much trouble she is in. Cut to one year earlier, and Wendy is a lonely young woman. Her mother has died, Wendy has inherited the house and money, and her only regular visitor is her social worker. It is clear that Wendy is different and, in particular, she seems to take people literally all the time. She cannot understand sarcasm, untruth or ulterior motives. She is childlike in many ways, not least her overwhelming optimism, but she is also clearly not stupid. It is tempting to try t0o diagnose her, but that would diminish her character. And Wendy, inspired by her social worker, decides to create a social life for herself. She decides to become a writer and signs up to a local writing group; and she forms a friendship with a teenage tearaway called Ginger - who has long ginger hair and a troubled homelife. The relationship with Ginger is the heart of the novel. From the position of a loner, Wendy finds herself cast in the role of mentor. The love she feels for Ginger straddles an awkward boundary between romance and substitute parent. Both Wendy and Ginger are deeply impressionable, and pull one another in new directi0ns. It is complex, dangerous and often heartbreaking. The writing comes as a comic relief. Wendy has a misguided feeling of superiority over her fellow writers in the group, instead becoming obsessed with a local writer by the name of Diane Weston. Wendy follows Diane through Twitter, through public events, and ultimately through personal encounters. Diane is a brilliant creation - a parody of a mediocre, middle-class Scottish writer feigning working class origins and claiming to be the voice of an unheard majority. Yet she wears floral prints, has a house full of tacky European souvenirs and walls decorated with reproduced art. Her sense of horror at the intrusion of Wendy into her life is quite exquisite. The story meanders a bit, and there is some reliance on repeated foreshadowing of dark things to come. This could feel clumsy, but I will give it a pass as representing Wendy's excitement at telling her story. There are some moments along the way where the reader might have to work a bit to suspend disbelief, but it does pay off in the end. I suspect there are some Easter eggs for those who know the Scottish writing world. A name check, for example, for James Kelman who, unlike Diane, actually was a voice of the working class and who, like Wendy, worked as a bus driver. And there is a reference to the smoky eye that must surely be a reference to Eleanor Oliphant. I am guessing there are many others. Finally, a word on the audiobook. I 'consumed' this novel through the Audiobook version and the narration was simply fantastic. The wide-eyed optimism was captured beautifully - so too the tone as Wendy impressed herself or amused herself. I am sure this added an extra dimension to the work. S0 Ginger and Me, along with Tunnock's Teacakes, comes highly recommended. *****

The Queen of Dirt Island is a bit of a curate's egg. Set in Nenagh, County Tipperary, in the 1980s. we meet Saoirse, her mother and her grandmother. The threesome live almost in defiance of the world around them. Soirée's mother has been cut off from her family - wealthy landowners - because she married the wrong sort. And widowed at a young age, she lives with her mother in law in a love-hate relationship. The situation os reminiscent of John McGahern - perhaps Amongst Women but perhaps even more That They May Face the Rising Sun. Just like a McGahern novel, there are hints and snippets of interesting lives, of scandal, but the focus is always more on the people than their deeds. And on the other hand, there are shared of Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy in the telling - heavily stylised almost to sounding like a folk story. This can bring a sense of something from the 1950s, perhaps even earlier, and the intrusion of more modern day references can feel rather jarring. So in total, this is a beautiful novel which is a magnificent technical accomplishment. Yet the story just doesn't feel quite enough to warrant such a rich and luscious telling. Some of the ideas in the novel - Dirt Island being the most obvious example - never feel quite fulfilled. The novel is short, but it still feels quite long in parts. Maybe I am not Donal Ryan's target audience; I feel as though I ought to enjoy his novels rather more than I do. ***

Loved this book. This is a memoir of a Dragoman tour leader who led overland tours through Africa for three years from 1988-1991. I am a travel junkie myself and have participated in overland travel, including with Dragoman. I have wondered how these adventures must feel from the tour leader perspective - very much working 24/7, but trying to have an adventure themselves. Amanda Marks pulls the curtain back, shows us that the tour leader is often only one step ahead of the tour participants, winging it and hoping the stars align. This was very much the early days of Dragoman - itineraries were flexible and arriving at destinations many days behind schedule was just part of the fun. It was also interesting to see the travel through parts of Africa that have since become off limits (the Algerian-Moroccan border) or fraught with difficulty (Zaire - now DRC, and the CAR, for example). It was also interesting to see the impact of leading these tours on family life and friendships - as Dragoman took over as a surrogate family. Amanda's experiences chimed in very much with the conversations I had with Dragoman tour leaders on my tours. The story telling is superb. Just the right blend of anecdote and scene setting. For seven hours, I was immersed in Amanda's world. I could feel the excitement at seeing lions and mountain gorillas, I could feel the slog of digging Huey (the truck) out of giant muddy ditches in Zaire, I could sense the celebration of the occasional meal at a restaurant that did not involve setting up the cooking station or flapping the plates dry at the end. I wondered whether this would feel hime-spun but it wasn't. Amanda's writing and story telling is fully professional - you'd think she had been writing all her life. I should also add that I 'experienced' this book through the Audible audio version. Amanda narrates the book herself and does it so very well. Her reading is every bit as engaging as her writing and the time slipped by without my noticing. This was a day spent in very agreeable company. At the time of writing this review, Dragoman on pause. I hope it comes back to life because it brought so much fun and adventure to so many people, taking them out of their comfort zone while providing some semblance of a safety net. This novel has made my already itchy feet that bit itchier. I cannot recommend Chasing Lions highly enough. *****

Wake is a solid Australian Noir. WAKE: Wednesday Addams killed Evelyn. Lane Holland is a small time private investigator chasing rewards offered for solving cold cases. He rocks up in Nannine, rural New South Wales, to see whether he can shed light on the disappearance of nine year old Evie McCreery over a decade ago. Evie disappeared in the night from a remote farm station. Only her sister Mina and the farm manager's wife were on site, and the site is larger than some small countries. Lane finds Mina McCreery, now grown up, still living at the station. Her father is away, the old farm manager and his wife kept on more from habit than from any real job of work to do. The McCreerys are rich and they have abandoned all pretence of actually farming the land. Mina says she is desperate to find out what happened to Evie, but not quite desperate enough to want Lane to come in a rake over the very cold coals. The story is taut. Both Lane and Mina have secrets that drive them in seemingly perverse directions. They barely trust one another, and in this small community, nobody trusts them. Their characters, and those of the supporting cast, feel real and complex. The setting feels authentic almost to the point that the reader can feel the dust blowing in the wind. The point of view shifts from Lane to Mina - and sometimes further afield - creating interest and suspense as the scene cuts away at the crucial moment. There are red herrings and blind alleys, there are sub-plots and history. The storytelling craft is really there and the novel is hard to put down. If there is a flaw, it is in an ending that doesn't quite feel satisfactory. There are loose ends and unanswered questions. Maybe that is part of the game - to keep the reader thinking - but sometimes a good journey needs a destination to match. Does that sound too cryptic? There have been a number of regional Australian noir novels in recent years; this one is up there with the best. ****