Hidden Depths Vera Stanhope #4 by Ann Cleeves.

Unable to tear myself away from Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series and the world within, I found myself finishing book 2 and moving straight to book 3, Hidden Depths. Unlike the first two books in this series, I recalled the TV show based on this particular story quite well, but not so well I could remember the killer or motivation for the murders. Thus, when the book opens with the death of a young, beautiful man, Luke, in his own home, strangled and then placed in a bathtub full of water and strewn with flowers ala Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia, I vividly remembered the scene but again, not quite what happened next.

Vera and her team are called to find the culprit but, when a second body, that of the beautiful student teacher, Lily Marsh is also found dead, in water and with flowers strewn around, Vera understands that not only are the two crimes linked, but a dangerous and possibly unhinged killer is on the loose and, the longer she or he remains free, the likelihood of another body being found is high.

Unable at first to find connections between Luke and his family and Lily Marsh, it’s only when Vera, Joe and the other investigators look at the area in which Lily was found and the group of close friends who discovered her body that clues and links start to surface. Knowing the answer lies within this tight friendship group and the secrets they hold as well as the passion they share for not only bird-watching (what is it about bird-watchers that makes them so likely to commit murder? I only recently watched an episode of Midsomer Murders  – for the tenth time – featuring murderous bird-watchers! It’s enough to make you twitch – sorry) but one of the wives, Vera is tested to her limits. As she begins to doubt her instincts, they kick in harder. But will she listen to them, or allow self-doubt to govern?

Another atmospheric, character-driven story by the fabulous Cleeves. With each book, the personality of Vera and elements of her past come to the fore, enabling the reader to get to know this force of nature even better. Vulnerable yet strong, riven with regrets and insecurities, smart and aware she’s oft under-estimated, Vera is a terrific, rich character whose full depths are yet to be plumed. The other people populating this novel are also beautifully drawn and it’s testimony to Cleeves’ skill that she’s able to paint such fabulous and intricate word-portraits in such short spaces. Joe Ashworth is the character yet to be revealed to those who love the TV series and I already know from commencing Book #4, that it’s in these pages that he begins to shine.

Another great read.

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The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

I have long been a fan of Horowitz’s work – from his screen plays in Midsomer Murders to Foyle’s War, his Sherlock Holmes books and Magpie Murders, so was very excited to read his latest, The Word is Murder.

What an unusual and gripping book it is. Opening with a woman, Diana Cowper who, after planning her own funeral, is found dead hours later, this is not the most captivating element of this engrossing book. The most unusual and fascinating aspect is that Horowitz inserts himself as both narrator and a character into the story.

Drawn into the investigation of Cowper’s murder when it’s used to bait him into writing a book about the lead investigator, a curmudgeonly fellow named Hawthorne, Horowitz finds himself playing reluctant second-fiddle to the irascible and narcissistic ex-copper. Thrown out of the Met some years earlier for something he refuses to discuss with Horowitz, Hawthorne is nonetheless employed on a consultancy basis to run parallel investigations – the murder of Diana Cowper being one such instance. His policing talents, he informs Horowitz, being formidable.

Horowitz finds the story surrounding the murder too compelling and reluctantly agrees to write the book, shadowing the detective who, as the novel progresses, slowly reveals he is more than first impressions indicate.

When another body turns up after Diana’s actual funeral, Horowitz is not only hooked, but finds himself desiring to play detective as well. Only, he’s a far better writer than he is a gum-shoe investigator, and he finds himself putting his foot in it on more than one occasion.

Often self-deprecating, Horowitz’s unreliable narrator-writer-would-be-detective is also highly amusing. Not afraid to name-drop, the reader l

earns of meetings with the likes of Spielberg and Peter Jackson, his agonies over Foyle’s War and his Alex Jackson series of YA novels among many others. His relationship with his agent is woven into the story as are his writerly doubts, ego and undoubted joy in what he does – well, the agony and the ecstasy.

Playing with the genres of autobiography, biography, crime and mystery, Horowitz writes and is written into a book that celebrates and defies all of these. The main plot is intriguing enough to satisfy any crime buff, but what is delightful and extraordinary about this book is Horowitz’s role and the relationship between truth and fiction, characters and their creators, the art of writing versus the business and so much in-between.

A terrific page-turner of a novel that once you start, you’ll find impossible to put down.

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Book Review: The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling

Why is it that when a songwriter or singer changes genres we applaud their daring, write, and speak about how multi-talented they are; how fortunate we are to gain so much pleasure from their creativity? But, when a famous author dares to switch genres, there are rumblings and grumblings and unfair expectations placed upon them – before the work is even published? Warning the marketplace that The Casual Vacancy would be nothing like the Harry Potter books, that it was for adults and quite depressing, Rowling was nonetheless encumbered with criticisms and snubs for having the literary presumption to leave Potterworld. Yet, she was blunt: if you were looking for Hogwarts and wizards, she warned, they would not be found in the pages of her new book. Yet, so many reviewers have come to the novel with the expectation that, for some reason, they should be there, even if just a glimmer, whisper or peek. They practically accuse her of letting readers down, of abusing her position as a world-famous writer instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt and congratulating her for demonstrating such imagination and lexical dexterity.

Frustrated by attitudes, stories and some reviews (which were not reviews because it was clear the book hadn’t been read, rather they were more rebukes) the publication of this book produced, it was hard not to let them tarnish the reading experience. I tried to approach this book as I would any other by a beloved author who decided to try their hand at something different and read and rate it on its own merits – and I was not disappointed. But, as Rowling warned, it’s no Harry Potter: the only magical thing is the writing, which is superb.

The Casual Vacancy is, frankly, brilliantly awful. Set across two English towns, Pagford and The Fields, one with a very acute awareness of its history, the other a by-product of late modernity, they are inhabited by a cast of mostly toxic characters who illustrate, through their small-mindedness and mean-spiritedness, the pettiness that can exist in supposed idyllic English village-like communities. As I read, I kept thinking of a quote about academia that’s been attributed to Henry Kissinger (among others), that “the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low” – I think this sums Rowling’s book up nicely.

After the death of a member of the local council, Barry Fairclough, various members of the Pagford community vie for his vacant seat. As they do, the reader is drawn into the complexity and ugliness of what should be simple lives, albeit, affected by mourning and loss. Populated by ego-centric, gossiping, classist, racist, homophobic, alcoholic, drug-taking self-interested people, Pagford and The Fields appear to be governed by folk who can barely function in their own lives, let alone make decisions that will affect others. And, as the council move towards another election, it becomes clear that one person’s loss is potentially another’s gain.

Not even the children in this miserable tale are spared the less attractive qualities the adults so readily exhibit, and is it any wonder when the grown-ups are their role-models? The kids have learned their lessons well. Dishonest, thieving, sneaky and risk-takers, they are both effect and cause of the outcomes.

As the story progresses, Rowling demonstrates her uncanny ability to mine a character’s emotions and psychology, to peel back layers to explain even the most unlikely or heinous of behaviours, to provide a context for understanding (but rarely approving). Piecing together the jigsaw of individuality, family and community, she mercilessly flays the characters, forensically dismantles their psyches and leaves them in the equivalent of a mortuary for us to gaze upon in horror.

For example, there’s Simon, violent, bad-tempered and his ineffectual wife, Ruth; their two boys, Andrew (called “pizza-face” by his aggressive, abusive father) and “Pauline”; Parminder, the local doctor, surprised by her reaction to a fellow-councilman’s death and who appears to understand the bodies and minds of all the townspeople in her care but not her own children. Her dashing heart-surgeon husband, Sukhvinder, regarded as a hero by those he loathes, especially the Mollisons – a work of gruesome art  – for whom Rowling shows very little sympathy. Empathy is reserved for some of the residents of The Fields as well as the children in the novel who can do little more than suffer their parents and their foibles, until they discover the means to revenge – not served cold, but molten hot.

The race is on to secure the vacant council seat and, as the story progresses, skeletons are exposed, secrets uncovered. Everyone in this novel is damaged – severely and, when terrible tragedy unfolds, it’s only the myopic townsfolk who didn’t see it coming.

The writing is what makes this bleak book. While Rowling does head-hop (a cardinal sin in most author’s hands), she does it with aplomb and there’s a sense in which this becomes a stylistic of the narrative. We drift from one character’s thoughts to another’s, caught in the current of activity, the plots and plans of little men and women. In terms of the tone, I was reminded of Elizabeth George’s marvellous and heart-rending What Came Before He Shot Her, only this book is firmly rooted in the middle classes (though there are those who feature who can no longer claim a place there) and the life decisions that can affect generations. Also, George’s book redeems some characters – see if you think the same happens here. I have also heard, again before publication, that the book was likened to Midsomer Murders. The Casual Vacancy make Midsomer Murders seem like Narnia – before the White Witch.

Drugs, suicide, rape, incest, adultery, criminal activity, violent abuse, shocking neglect, fear, anxiety, OCD, dark fantasies, cruelty, it’s all there – relentless, but darkly fascinating at the same time. Rowling really raised (or lowered) the writing stakes with this book.

No, this wasn’t what anyone expected… but how marvellous is that?

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