Liz Jensen: War Crimes for the Home

Another one from E's care package. And I'm very glad she sent me this one, as I'd never have picked it up myself. It's a very sad and brutally honest tale about a young girl in Bristol during the war, and I found it very touching. We get to know her as an old woman in a nursing home, remembering bits and pieces from the past after her stroke. Her only son has just discovered that she might have lied to him about his background all his life, and starts pressuring her for facts. The young GI from Chicago - was he really her husband, and the father of her child? I don't want to reveal too much about the story, as the gradual unravelling of Gloria's painful wartime past is the whole point of the book. I found it hugely refreshing to read an account of life in wartime Britain that wasn't so to speak coloured by nostalgia, by a sense of loss when thinking about a time when the country united in defiance of Hitler, and shared camaraderie while making jam out of carrots (as Bridget Jones puts it). Gloria's war is harrowing trudgery, with sex as a highlight. It's very sad, but also very funny in parts. Highly recommended, I'm going to read more of Jensen's work.

Terry Pratchett: A Hatful of Sky

Got this for my eldest daughter who is on this fantastic Pratchett-kick, but only for the Mac Nac Feagles. So far.

This is Tiffany the witch at age 11, off to apprentice at an old witch's house. Unfortunately she steps out of her body, and becomes possessed by an ancient creature, full of greed and spite.

Pratchett is always Pratchett, and this is no different. I liked it.

Qiu Xiaolong: En röd hjältinnas död

Vi jobbar på va?

Den här har jag länge velat läsa (eller nåja, länge och länge, DN-artikeln som tipsade mig trycktes någon gång i somras tror jag). Vår hjälte Chen Cao är en poet som blivit polis eftersom det är det jobb han blivit tilldelad. Dock är han inte direkt någon idealist eller drömmare, utan kan vara nog så pragmatisk. Boken inleds med ett kvinnolik som flyter upp i en flod. Det visar sig att den döda är en nationell mönsterarbetare - en sådan som paraderas politiskt som ett föredöme för landet. Hennes mord verkar först vara ett fullständigt mysterium. Hon verkar inte ha haft något privatliv att skapa fiender i, men Chen Cao och hans assistent Yu börjar snart hitta hemligheter. Och fallet är verkligen politiskt känsligt.

Boken är inte tillnärmelsevis så bra som jag hade hoppats efter alla lovord. Den är tungrodd och styltig (och jag tror inte att översättaren ska bära hela hundhuvudet för det, för jag har fått nöjet att läsa "the advance uncorrected proofs" av en av författarens romaner på originalspråk, och mannen är en stilistiskt sett en smärre katastrof). Själva deckarhistorien kommer i skymundan för miljöskildringen, som i och för sig är väldigt intressant. Det är ju inte ofta man får tillfälle att dyka in i den kinesiska vardagen i populärlitteraturen.

Framför allt blir man oerhört hungrig. Oerhört. Jag är så fruktansvärt sugen på god kinamat nu så det är inte sant. Folk bara äter. Åh vad gott det verkar (utom kattköttet då). Tydligen är maten bland det Xiaolong saknar mest från hemlandet, och det märks. Vad ska jag göra? Får kanske åka till Stockholm och äta på Hos (Ho's? En anglicism?) som Frida rekommenderar. Måste bara bli rik först. Så jag känner att jag kan unna mig.

Slowly catching up

I started writing this blog post on the 21/9, but because my home is the way it is and I am the way I am I was interrupted and didn't finish. Sad, isn't it? But here we go again, I have a lot of books to write about, and I'll just have to take them one step at a time.

The lovely and generous E gave me a most marvellous care package, containing not only lovely chocolates, sweets, a cd, bubble bath and more but also a load of books she, well, I guess she needed to clear out. ;-) Anyway, I was thrilled to bits. I got the latest Sara Paretsky, plus the earlier one (Blacklist) which I've read but apparently not blogged about. Also a few non-fiction intellectual ones (fun! the sort of stuff I never choose myself otherwise because I'm lazy) and more. I will be blogging about them all. And it is better to write about one at a time than about none, so I'll start with:

Sara Paretsky: Fire Sale

The latest Sara Paretsky is a crack-down on Walmart. In this one V.I. returns to the South Side to coach basketball when her own old coach gets cancer. The neighbourhood used to be poor, but people had work back in V.I.'s youth, when the mills were open. Now, the biggest employer is the discount supermarket By-Smart, owned by fundamentalist Christian family Bysen. By-Smart systematically keeps employees on part-time contracts (thus being able to refuse them health insurance and other benefits), and is also pressuring local contractors to work more for less. Being practically the only employer left the company has enormous power. V.I. soon gets sucked into (pro bono) drama.

This is one of the best Paretsky's I've read. I like how V.I. has mellowed since your man what's-his-name (can't remember at the moment and can't be bothered to go and find the book) came into her life. She seems more her age now, and I like that. A more believable character, somehow. The intrigue worked well, even if the solution and conclusion was a bit far-fetched - then again, the Knutby incident right under our noses has taught us that nothing really is... The social criticism gives food for thought, as usual in a Paretsky novel, and works very well with the story. Recommended.

The last books from the book-swap

Joan Wallis Martin: Dancing With The Uninvited Guest

I don't think I've read any of Martin's books before. This was a bit of a fumble in the dark, but hey, it was book-swapping day and all books were free and came with no strings attached. So why not try it.

The book centres around the disappearance of a young girl and the lord of an ancient and spine-chilling crumbling manor. Everybody assumes that they've run off together, at first. When evidence suggests otherwise and the police start investigating, they discover that the son of the manor exhibits strange and violent behaviour. Is he mad, or is he possessed? And has he killed the girl? Also, a famous psychic turns up to offer the police his help, and the lady of the manor calls in a paranormal psychologist.

Then there are a few subplots.

Anyway, to sum up. This is not a bad novel really. First, it quite skilfully walks that line between ghost story and detective story, leaving us wondering whether the demonic possession theory is true for example. At the end however, there is a rational explanation for everything, and sadly this becomes something of an anti-climax, as we become too invested in the demonic possession to have it debunked in less than a paragraph - with the possessed not even in the room. So it peters out. But it's a good enough travel read.

John Grisham: The Broker

Again: it was free, people. I'm not a huge Grisham fan, his characters are always a bit flat, and he's quite rubbish at portraying women. This one's not too bad though, if you don't want your brain to work too hard.

The Broker is Joel Backman, a lawyer/power broker/lobbyist who was sent to federal jail for um, lots of stuff, but keeping the big secret close to his chest. Anyway, so the current president is spending his last few hours in power pardoning prisoners, and the CIA convinces him to free Backman. They hope they will find out what he knows by taking note of which foreign government agency that manages to get him killed. They ship him off to Italy, and tell him to learn Italian because this is where he'll be hiding out from now on. And then the book is about Backman trying to break free from the CIA's clutches and reveal his secrets without getting killed.

Basically, this book is about learning Italian, how great Italian food is and how stylish Italian people are. It's Grisham's version of a travel book, I suppose. You can tell how proud he is of his Italian prowess. Aw.

Next entry will be about books my lovely friend E gave me. Stay tuned.

What I've read on my travels

I'm back from spending a week in Poland, a trip occassioned by my husband's cousin's wedding. Books where brought and read. I also fried my brain by talking Polish a lot.

Alexander McCall Smith: The Full Cupboard of Life
This is the one in which J.L.B. Maketoni evades a parachute jump and he and Precious Ramotswe get married. And that about sums it up. Still heart-warming books!


Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird
I was recommended this by my good friend E, who sometimes comments on the blog. She is an editor so has to read a lot of shite for work, and said that it was a pleasure reading something so good. So mr Bani went and bought it and some other books (as is his wont), and I am pleased that he did, even though I despair at the state of our flat.

This is a classic story, and obviously I'd heard of it, but for some reason I'd always thought it was sort of a lad's book, sort of Hemingwayish. I will admit to not actually having read any Hemingway, for I am sorely prejudiced against him for some reason (the laddish themes I imagine his books have most likely), and I really should atone and go and immerse myself in his work right away.

Anyway, this is not a laddish book at all. It's a story about a lawyer in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s, who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The book is written from the point of view of his tomboyish daughter, who is about eight. A great part of the book does not concern itself with the trial at all, but tells about the girl's and her brother's childhood pastimes, and most of all their fascination with the next door recluse, Boo Radley. (This becomes important towards the end.) Harper Lee manages to show us the deep immorality of an apartheid system such as this, how it corrupts otherwise sane and reasonable people and poisons their souls. It's not always a case of telling people to feck off and stuff it, you may love them, respect them and like them even if they are beyond reason when it's a question of race. All this through the innocent eyes of a child - which leaves us with a feeling of hope, after all. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm glad I didn't read it earlier, as I think I actually appreciate it more now that I'm older.



Then I came home, and picked up the Ian Rankin novel I'd forgotten. I'd half finished it before the trip, and meant to bring it for the plane. Just as well that I forgot it, I had plenty to read anyway. This one is called A Question of Blood, and is about a shooting at a private school. One of the murdered boys is a relation of Rebus's, and the killer is ex-SAS, like himself.

It's not too bad, but I just can't take to Rebus. I have this feeling that Ian Rankin could've done a lot more with the character, but now he's just this maudlin alcoholic with a gift for punning. I can read it, but it doesn't really leave me wanting more. I only got this one because we went to this book-swapping day at mr Bani's colleague's house.

Michael Crichton: Airframe

Today, on the day that a Tupolev 154 has crashed in Ukraine, killing all aboard, I'd ironically planned to write about Michael Crichton's aeroplane novel.

I have a soft spot for Crichton. I enjoy the technobabble, almost-science. He often crafts quite good characters. He's not bad at portraying women (as this book shows), and that is most impressive for a male author in this genre. He's uneven, but at the same time one gets the impression that he enjoys writing and gets a kick out of experimenting. Anyway, it's not like he suffers if he writes a bad one, he gets his millions anyway.

This one has no pseudo-science, but centers around an aircraft accident that kills three and injures the rest. The company that manufactures the airframe has to try and work out why the accident happened before the media slaughters them and the workers' union riots. At the centre we have Casey, whose actual job I'm a little hazy on, but she works there anyway and is in charge of the operation.

His aim seems to have been to write objectively about the aircraft industry and dispel some of the myths about aeroplane accidents, and also to kick the media in the balls for being shallow and sensationalist. It works, I quite like this one.

In summary....

...

I've been reading quite a lot, but I haven't had the patience to blog. I've even re-read LOTR, but that deserves an entry of its own, so I'm going to have to write about that later.


Alexander McCall Smith: Espresso Tales

I mentioned in the previous entry that I was reading this sequel to 44 Scotland Street. There isn't that much new to say about Espresso Tales. The format is the same, so the fundamental problem remains when reading it in one sitting - it's choppy and a bit disjointed. I was a little more bothered by that this time, not sure why. Also, a new character is introduced, reading exerpts from his memoirs. Which is funny, I suppose, but I suspect it's even funnier to someone well accquainted with Edinburgh. Which, sadly, I'm not. It was nice to see how Bertie turns out though, I felt very involved in little Bertie's fate.

Zadie Smith: On Beauty

I never read White Teeth when it first came out, and I still haven't. At that time I hardly read at all, shocking as it may seem. I was in the middle of uni, and had small children. When I read a book I tend to become extremely immersed in it, to the exclusion of everything else, and it just wasn't possible at the time. It's a shame, because not reading dumbs you down terribly. My brain atrofied at uni, and it still hasn't recovered. In retrospect it's painfully clear how much better things would be had I learnt to take better care of myself and my own interests, something I still haven't learnt. I haven't gotten beyond mere selfishness.

Anyway, so I never read White Teeth, and after I was over the not reading phase the hype kind of put me off. But my husband bought On Beauty, so I read it. (As an aside: he's the one who buys books. I respect our very limited living space, and I do not. He will then go around complaining that we have too many. Argh.) This is a very good novel. After reading it, I was left feeling that actually not very much happens in it. It's a sample of a period in the life of two families, in particular one. I'm too distracted at the moment to be very coherent about it (lunch is on the way!)... I'm finding it hard to summarize what it was exactly I enjoyed so much. I liked the insight into the black-white problem that can loom in the background of a mixed-race marriage, even though it's apparently something that's never been an issue. I like how the characters are multi-faceted. The father, Howard, is something of a villain in the piece, but he is also a hero who broke it off with his own father because he couldn't accept Howard's black American wife or, worse, his children, and whose love for his children sometimes achingly fills his heart until it feels like it will burst with pride and joy. It's a good read, and a lot of cleverer people have written about the underlying themes of the book if you're interested.

Val McDermid: The Grave Tattoo

Can't remember why this library book ended up at home. Did my husband lend it for me? In that case, how sweet of him. But I think it was me. However, I have no recollection of it. Scary.

Anyway, this is one of Val's solitary novels (I want to use the Swedish word fristående here, i.e. free-standing, but I don't think it's a proper word in English. Anyway, this one is not part of a series, that's what I mean.). Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham is struggling to make a London career in the academic world, when a body is discovered in her native Lake District, a body that could be that of Fletcher Christian, the legendary Bounty mutaneer. Jane leaves to explore a possible Wordsworth connection. At the same time a teenager from her council estate becomes wrapped up in a murder case and takes refuge with Jane, and other people also hunt for the Wordsworth connection because of the enormous amount of money to be made.

It's not one of her stronger novels IMO, but I appreciate that she's done a lot of research into Wordsworth and the mutany on the Bounty. The ending feels a bit huh?, and some of the characters a little bland. But it's enjoyable enough.

Deborah and James Howe: Bunnicula - a Rabbit-Tale of Mystery

Don't say I don't blog about nearly everything. This is a children's book, I think it's my sister's, but it's been in my bookcase for a while (in the wild hope that maybe my children will read it). Apparently this is quite a famous children's book, but I'd never heard of it. Nevertheless it's a cute little story of a family who accquire a vampire bunny as a pet. Luckily it only drinks vegetable juice. The language is simple, but not too simplistic. Not too bad. Can't think why it hasn't been filmed (but am quite glad it hasn't, since it would probably be mangled the same way as The Grinch was).

Dorothy Rowe: Depression: The Way Out Of Your Prison (2nd ed)

This is one my husband borrowed at the library for me, because I'm.. how shall we put it... in need of therapy, perhaps? Anyway, I was going through a really low phase last week, to the point of having thoughts of self-harm. I saw this in the bookcase and read it, and found it very illuminating. Dr. Roweis empathic and quite funny as she describes how the way we see the world can keep us from leaving depression behind. After reading this I am more ready to say that yes, I get depressed, and also I feel as if there is help other than medication to be had. I'm going to try to keep working on this, even though it's very difficult. It's hard to explain how difficult it is to struggle out of this feeling that really, everything is largely pointless and futile. Her website is also recommended.

Alexander McCall Smith: Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations

So I read on the bus. Shoot me.

My husband bought me this with some gift vouchers he had. The sweetie. He also bought me the sequel to 44 Scotland Street, so stay tuned!

Heavenly Date... is a collection of short stories, dealing with falling in love, or dating, or simply sex. They are a little more sinister in tone than I am used to, and demonstrate quite well that McCall Smith is one of those writers who studies people and has a lot of experience in human behaviour and emotions. Some are better than others (I'm not mad keen on the one with the angel baby), but it's a good read on the whole. The cover quotes a newspaper review saying that he is "reminiscent of Roald Dahl", and that is actually not a bad comparison. But tell you what I was suddenly reminded of - Ray Bradbury. Granted, different genres, but they share that slightly dreamlike, old-fashioned quality, and the focus on people. Bradbury's science-fiction is never about gadgets.

Yesh.

I was first trying to read R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton. A few chapters in I was sure I'd read it before. It's the one where Kinsey is hired by a wealthy man to go pick up his daughter who is being released from prison. Sounds a simple job, but turns out the daughter took the fall (note my extensive knowledge of US crime vernacular) for her boss/lover, and now the FBI and the IRS want her to turn stool pigeon (see, I talk the talk).

For the life of me I can't remember how it ends. And it clearly isn't my favourite, since I found it so hard to get into it. Even though Kinsey has sex.

Maybe Graftons are only meant to be read once?

So I put it aside, and picked up Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh, a book I'd never heard of. But apparently it's a classic. Written in -52, it's an attempt to write a crime novel about police procedure. It must have been one of the very first, if not the first, to focus on procedure and forensics. Wikipedia entry here. Now, it almost makes me cringe to read how they break into the subjects house to gather evidence. Anybody hear a "mistrial" being shouted from the back? The (probably very accurate, but still) sexism grates a bit too. By which I mean that I find it hard to find love inside me for the heroes.

The book is about a freshman who goes missing from college, and how the police find out what happened to her by doing stuff the police does, like questioning numerous people, draining lakes, vacuuming cars - no easy ways out. Well, apart form being able to gather evidence with a spot of B&E then.

It's highly recommendable, if nothing else because its an excellent document of its time. I'm not sure if that was even English what I just wrote, but I'm leaving it there.

My blogging will hopefully be highly erratic for some time now, since I started writing my essay again. Unless I decide to blog about law books....

Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift

I've sort of neglected reading Caroline Graham, which is a bit of a shame, since she is very funny in an understated way. (I blame all deficiencies in my reading on the library's selection and availability of literature though!) The cover of TKABD has a quote from the Yorkshire Post:

Probably the most underrated British crime writer. Her talent is rare, combining wit, pathos and an entertaining narrative.

Very true. I offer you this quote as an example:

Troy re-entered the room, giving Barnaby what he fondly imagined to be an imperceptible shake of the head.

Barnaby is Head Cop, Troy his cocky sidekick. The descriptions of Troy's desire to appear cool and competent, like something out of a film, are all first-rate.

This is Graham's first novel. I had previously read one of her later ones (the latest one, perhaps?), The Ghost In The Machine. In that book the sarcasm and cynicism was twisted another notch, slightly OTT as I remember it. TKABD is a good blend of the cynical and the emotional. Graham's Barnaby novels have been televised as The Midsomer Murders. The TV series is an very bleak and shallow version of the novels. It's usually aired on Swedish telly every summer, and this summer is no exception. I tend to watch because there's nothing else on, but I'm not a fan. It's bland, boring and simply unfunny.

Plotline: an old woman witnesses a couple having sex in the forest, and is later found dead. Her friend insists that it can't be of natural causes. Barnaby starts investigating, and discovers that she's been poisoned by hemlock (ha, just like in my recently read Poison in Athens).He discovers blackmailers, child abuse, adultery and incest.

It's a good read, and I recommend it. Plus - it's dedicated to Christianna Brand "with grateful thanks for all her help and encouragment". Now that's cool. Christianna Brand is a classic crime fiction name, and it seems as though she's almost forgotten nowadays (much as Josephine Tey appears to be). But Green for Danger is still a marvellous detective story.

Ngaio Marsh: Enter A Murderer

Goodness, had forgotten I had bought this! Was very pleased to spot it in the bookshelf this weekend, waiting for me to remember. Right next to the phone (that had stopped working, again, dammit. We're phonedicapped here. Telephonically challenged. I can't understand it.).

This is her second Marsh novel, from 1935, although I have a late Fontana edition from -74 (with a fugtastic cover). Alleyn still has Bathgate the journalist as a sidekick, but Fox is becoming quite prominent (which is good, because I like Fox), and is referred to as Foxkin a lot, but not as Bre'er Fox. FYI.

Bathgate takes Alleyn to a play, in which a man is to be shot in the final scene. Naturally the stage gun is not loaded with blanks this time, but with real bullets, and everyone on stage has had motive and opportunity for switching the bullets.

Best thing with this book is the references to the drug trade. There really is nothing new under the sun. At the core of the plot is smuggling and selling of heroine and cocaine. Drugs are dope, and when you're high on them you're dopey. It all seems almost quaint in its 1930s setting.

Another book I need...

... is anything by Jaqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs series. They're always gone from the library (and now in the summer we have summer loans, lasting until August, so poo). :-(

Close Call: Gillian Slovo

I think I've read one of Slovo's before. Am googling, trying to jog my memory. In the meantime - this may have been Slovo's last novel featuring journalist Kate Baeier. Published in 1995 it also deals with a darker economic period, not to mention a time when Europe was again torn by war. Kate has returned to London from working as a war correspondent abroad for five years. She left after the death of her lover, and feels distant and alone, emotionally. She has alienated/fought with her best friends, and is troubled by her father's renewed attempts at communication. She meets a policeman she fancies, gets arrested, is drawn into complicated cover-up with a dirty cop gang.

Not bad, but quite bleak. I'd like to read some more, must remember to do so. And juxtapose it with some happier stuff!

Catnap. I may have read Catnap, the novel before Close Call. I recognize the cover...

I need to get a hold of....

Babes in Beijing by Rachel Dewoskin, and more importantly När rött blir svart by Qiu Xialong (don't know English title, not important since original language is Chinese...). The latter is a detective story y'see. And just noticed that it's published by editor friend's publishing company. How handy! *starts plotting bribery tactics*

Edited to say that Qiu Xialong writes in English, so title in English is When Red Is Black, and I'm an idiot, and now I need it in English.

Anabel Donald: In At The Deep End

This was lovely crime fic! Donald's heroine, television researcher/PI Alex Tanner, is an intelligent, feisty, independent delight. The kind of person you can actually visualize yourself hanging out with. After reading this (finished it at work, slow day thanks be to God) I ran back to the library to get more books by Ms Donald, but they only had Smile, Honey, which is a novel, not a detective story, and reading the back of it I realised I'd already read this, years ago. I mean years. Maybe 12 or so. Wow, I'm old. Anyway, it made quite an impression on me, since the epilogue has stuck with me all these years, without me being able to quite place it. I recommend Anabel Donald in general.

This book is set in the early nineties. The recession is in full swing. I find it hard now to remember what it was like then - the feeling of hopelessness, how there were no jobs, property value was plummeting... Anyway, the general scarcity of money is what prompts Alex Tanner to undertake a doubtful investigation of a teenager who died in a diving accident at his military-style private school. The boy was the son of an English-French celebrity couple, obviously modelled on Gainsbourg and Birkin, which is freaking hilarious. I saw a documentary on Gainsbourg on the telly once (no the whole thing, because hello? Boooring...), and the man is quite mad. He said "I want to fuck you" to Whitney Houston on television! No wonder the woman is on drugs, he's a creep. Donald creates a bogus tv interview for her fictional couple (the Mouches) in the same vein:

I filled her with my angel-milk and she became a slave to love

I also love that Alex's boyfriend brings her two Sue Graftons and a Paretsky when he returns from a business trip to the US. Alex likes Sue Grafton best, so her instinct is to read the Paretsky first, but

on the other hand you shouldn't read two books by the same author one after another because the mannerisms get on your nerves.

Too true, but that didn't stop me running to the library. *blushing*

Margaret Doody: Poison in Athens

Margaret Doody has written a series of detective stories set in ancient Greece, starring Aristotle the philosopher as detective together with his sidekick Stephanos. I have previously read Aristotle and Poetic Justice, in which Stephanos finds his bride-to-be. Poison in Athens is set later in time, as Stephanos tries to prepare for the nuptials to actually take place, sometime in a near future.

The story centres around several high-profile lawcases. A prostitute is accused of impiety, a well-respected citizen of hogging a female slave for his own sexual pleasures, a widow of murdering her husband with hemlock. Sex and the role of women is a theme of the book. Doody does not make it easier for us by creating a central character with modern views and thoughts. Aristotle and Stephanos are firmly rooted in their society. Women are the property of their families, slaves of their owners etc. Frankly, this became a bit tedious to read at times, which is why the blog update has been delayed. There was a lot of oratory; on why slavery is necessary in society, on morals good and bad, on philosophy. On the whole I think it's well worth it though. This series is not a bad introduction to Ancient Greece. I prefer Lindsay Davis' cynical Falco, but this is well written and well researched.

The final speech by the female slave Marylla is, I suppose, a little too modern - perhaps her ideas are just a trifle too sophisticated for a female slave of the time... but how can I know? Just an idea.

Julie Parsons: The Hourglass

Wham! After reading a few gentle, civilized mysteries I picked up the latest Julie Parsons at the library. Damn, the woman throws you straight in with the wolves, doesn't she? As the cover quote from Irish Tatler says: "You won't be able to put it down and you won't be able to sleep". Too right. The thing with Julie Parsons is that she might just kill everyone, you can't be sure. I was so tense reading The Hourglass that I just had to check the last pages to see who dies - because someone does, count on it. Also, the book starts with a - what's the opposite to flashback? flashfront? whatever - to events occurring near the end, so you know Bad Things are coming.

This book is about Lydia Beauchamp, an old garden designer, all alone in her old house in Co. Cork. Her husband killed himself years ago, and she hasn't seen her daughter for twenty years. She meets a young man, whom she takes into her confidence, but he is there by design, to exact revenge for things that happened a long time ago.

The villain of the piece is superbad indeed, and very scary. Indeed, I was a little disappointed by the end, because with such an efficient killing machine out and about you'd expect more slaughter. She chickened out a bit actually, did Julie. Not that I'm complaining, I'm a wimp. From a literary point of view though it feels almost a trifle unresolved.

I especially love Parsons' books for the insight into a modern, darker Ireland they provide. Growing up half-Irish I had to put up with a lot of "ooo, lovely country, everyone so friendly, lovely pubs, leprechauns" nonsense. Made me want to go "ooo, xenophobia, institutionalized racism, alcoholism". I haven't been to Ireland for over a decade, and I need these glimpses of modern Ireland now and then.

Now, must go help Minima wrap parcel, before she combusts.

Edit: remembered what I wanted to ramble about, really. This is the second Parsons novel I've read where one big theme is the strong love/same sex relationships forged in prison, between people who would otherwise not identify themselves as gay. In the first book, Eager To Please, the relationship was between women, here it's between men, and has more destructive power. Another theme is what prison does to inmates, how destructive it is. I wonder what personal experience Parsons has of prison life? Must try to find some interviews.

The Sunday Philosophy Club

By Alexander McCall Smith.

I've been eager to read this one, because I wanted to see what AMS has to say about his hometown Edinburgh. The novel centres around Isabel Dalhousie, a middle-aged lady of independent means who is editor of a philosophical magazine. She also heads the meetings of the Sunday Philosophy Club, a club that is mentioned but never brought into action here. Anyway, Isabel witnesses a young man fall to his death, and becomes obsessed with finding out how.

I found the book a little lacking in drive, but the exerpt at the end from the next one in the series (Friends, Lovers, Chocolate) looked a lot more promising in that respect. I did like it though. Isabel has a lot of internal discussions about ethics and philosophy, so that's fun. This is the one to make my husband read, to introduce him to AMS.

Kantians would be in no doubt about the answer to that, but that was the problem with Kantian morality: it was so utterly predictable, and left no room for subtlety; rather like Kant himself, she thought. In a purely philosophical sense, it must be very demanding to be German. Far better to be French (irresponsible and playful) or Greek (grave, but with a light touch).

Keith Oatley: The Case of Emily V.

I stumbled across this book in the crime fiction section of the library (all crime fiction obligingly marked with a yellow dot and grouped together, I only have to browse...). My attention was caught by the title, and on the back I read that it's

a terrific quasi-mystery set in Vienna and featuring a melancholic Sherlock Holmes, a smug Sigmund Freud, and an entirely engaging young classics teacher named Emily V.

Well, I had to borrow it then, didn't I? After all, I had to check if it was comparable to Laurie R. King's fantastic Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

Well, quasi-mystery is right. This is not really crime fiction, as the crime is very much by-the-way. The background idea is that three manuscripts from ca 1904 (or something) have been recovered, one by Emily V., one by Dr Watson, and one by Freud. They all centre around the same events, from different points of view. Emily V. was sexually abused as a child, and now blames herself for the death of her abuser. She starts seeing Freud on the advice of a friend. And later Holmes and Watson show up, investigating the death of the abuser, who was also a British diplomat and spy.

The novel combines these three manuscripts into one. It's cleverly done, with Oatley capturing the original narrative styles of Doyle and Freud (no that I've read much Freud, but Oatley's a professor of psychology himself, so I'm sure he knows what he's about). The last chapter is a postscript by a dr Ellen Berger, which analyzes the manuscripts you've just read. An interesting twist! I can't find her name on Google, so I'm not sure if Oatley has made her up entirely or borrowed bits of her from medical accquaintances...

This novel reminds me of Sofies värld by Jostein Gardner, in that it presents an area of learning in a more accessible manner. Or, for that matter, Nils Holgerssons Underbara Resa... If you want to be introduced to Freudian theory it might be a good place to start.. or if you want some long-winded flowery descriptions of people having sex. The only good thing with that passage is that it is "put into context" in "Berger's" analysis at the end. (I'm too old to be interested in reading about sex, or seeing it on film. I prefer having it. I am no longer 14.) It took me a while to finish the book, partly because of said long-windedness, not only on matters of lesbian sex. It's part of the early 20th century style the book is written in, but it's a bit tedious. Well, at least if you were expecting more crime novel. The story tends to drive itself forward then.

To sum up, recommended, on the whole.

Finally: In today's DN there is a review of the Swedish translation of Dan Brown's novel Digital Fortress (which I've read. It's crap, but I liked it better than the others, probably because I'm ignorant in computer matters so he was able to feed me shite while calling it soup and I wouldn't have noticed). In the last paragraph the journalist mentions that what is truly terrifying is that Brown previously taught "creative writing". Where will this lead? Will we be flooded with "thrillers" in ten years time?

Scary thought indeed. Let's hope the students surpass the teacher, in that case.