Friday 10 May 2019

Daphne du Maurier's Brexit vision

Rule Britannia (VMC Book 304) Emma awakes one morning to the sound of aircraft overhead, an American warship at anchor in the bay, and US Marines making their way through the fields. Following its exit from the Common Market (European Union), Britain, with high unemployment and close to bankruptcy, has formed a coalition with America.

So opens Rule Britannia, in a rural area on the coast of Cornwall, where Emma lives with her grandmother Mad and her six adopted boys. The arrival of the US Marines is intended to be a peaceful precursor to the establishment of the USUK coalition, but when a soldier shoots the local farmer's sheep dog, it sets off a series of events that transforms the situation into a military occupation.

Friday 26 April 2019

A toxic relationship

Deep Water In Deep Water Patricia Highsmith has created a truly toxic relationship. Vic Van Allen's courtship of his wife Melinda was "like breaking a wild horse", but after several years of marriage and the birth of a daughter, Trixie, "she was not attractive to him as a woman." The couple live separately in the same house, where Melinda invites her men-friends and gets drunk with them, and where Vic tends his herbs and snails.

Tuesday 16 April 2019

A very satisfying ending

The Devotion of Suspect X By the end of Chapter Two of The Devotion of Suspect X, author Keigo Higashino has put the reader in the shoes of TV's Detective Columbo. It's an inverted detective story: we've seen a murder take place and we know who's committed it. Yasuko has killed her violent ex-husband Togashi. Neighbour Ishigami, a mathematical genius who keeps himself to himself has overheard the crime. He also happens to have a crush on Yasuko and offers to deal with the body and arrange things so that she will never be found guilty.

Saturday 6 April 2019

An elegant death

The Sweet Dove Died (Bello) When we first meet Leonora Eyre, she speaks with "mock humility," which tells you, in two words, what a self-centred creature this middle-aged, unmarried woman is. The Sweet Dove Died spans about a year of her life.

After successfully bidding for a Victorian book of flowers, Leonora becomes light-headed and is helped out of the auction room by Humphrey Boyce and his nephew James, antique dealers. The two men become rivals for the affection of Leonora, who clearly prefers James, but the friendship develops only because the young man is willing to play along with the woman's need to be assured of her elegance and dignity.

Tuesday 26 March 2019

Some things you've got to stop thinking about

A Kind of Intimacy Annie Fairhurst wants to start a new life. When A Kind of Intimacy opens, she is dancing naked around the home she is leaving, kicking the sofa she has always hated. You might think her reaction a bit strange, but in the circumstances, understandable. How did she put up with the hated sofa for so long? "What starts off as intolerable, [-] eventually becomes merely irritating and in time, in a matter of months or years, you become immune to it. You've got to, haven't you? Some things you've got to stop thinking about, or you'd never survive." Annie gradually reveals throughout the rest of the book what it is she has to stop thinking about.

Sunday 17 March 2019

The law does not always punish the guilty

Anatomy of a Scandal "The truth is a tricky issue," asserts prosecuting barrister Kate Woodcroft QC, at the beginning of Anatomy of a Scandal. After losing a case, the "forty-two years old; divorced, single, childless" woman is reflecting on the nature of the justice system in the UK, in which "you can win even if the evidence is stacked against you provided that you argue better." At the end of the chapter, Kate is presented with her next case.

Tuesday 12 March 2019

A pair of star-crossed lovers

Brighton Rock A stick of Brighton rock is sickly sweet, often pink, and so hard it can break your teeth. It's a perfect metaphor for Pinkie Brown, the nasty protagonist of Graham Greene's book.

The story opens with Hale the journalist who's visiting the English seaside town of Brighton on a bank holiday weekend. In the guise of Kolley Kibber he surreptitiously places cards in public places, which entitle the finder to ten shillings (about 25 GBP today). His mind is not on his job 'tho, because he knows the local mob will murder him before the day is out.