Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

The festive season provides an atmospheric backdrop for many novels, and murder mysteries are no exception. One such book is Jacqueline Winspear’s Among the Mad featuring her between-the-wars private detective, Maisie Dobbs.

It is Christmas Eve, 1931, and Maisie and her side-kick Billy are walking through a London street when their peace is shattered by a suicide bomber. The dead man turns out to be a down-and-out veteran soldier, a victim of the depression that has made work hard to find.

Fortunately Maisie only suffers a bump on the head, as in no time she is requested to help by the War Office. It seems she has been named by a psychopath with a grudge and the scientific capability to kill large numbers of people with poison gas.

As with the other titles in the series, Winspear has a fair amount to say about the terrible damage done to young men who fought in the First Wold War – this time her main concern is the lack of help for veterans in need of rehabilitation. We get a look at some of the ‘hush-hush’ work done by the War Office and there’s also a back story concerning Billy’s wife who has suffered a mental breakdown due to the loss of her baby from diphtheria.

Among the Mad delves into some of the darker aspects of Britain’s care for the mentally vulnerable, but it also delivers plenty of pace with lots of dashing about the countryside and a classic whodunit storyline, with an ending that is hard to guess.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: Among the Mad

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Feed was originally written as a science fiction novel for teens, ten years ago. But, its uncanny accuracy to contemporary life is eerie – so much so, that the publishers have just reissued it as an adult novel. The book explores what the effects might be of direct internet feeds delivered straight to your brain via an implant, so that, whatever you’re thinking about, you will have an instant stream of information, media, and adverts injected straight into your consciousness.

Titus is an average teen and he’s been enjoying the benefits of the feed pretty much since birth. He doesn’t have to do much thinking for himself, as the feed will notify him of the hottest places to party, where to get the best bargains, and the latest fashion styles – which change faster than the speed of light. But then he bumps into a girl who challenges everything the feed and his lifestyle stand for.

The author of Feed has taken the behaviour of contemporary teenagers and set it in the future. But, if you think about recent developments like smart-phones and Google Glass, you can see that many aspects of the Feed have seeped into our daily lives already.  Feed is an illuminating read with an unexpected ending.

Reviewed at Young at Heart

Catalogue Link:  Feed

Author's website

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell has set her latest novel during  the heatwave that plagued Britain during the summer of 1976.The story concerns the Riordan family and their attempts to make sense of their father’s sudden disappearance.

Gretta, his wife, is bewildered and unable to think what to do, but are her children, with their own private dilemmas, in any state to help? Michael Francis is a teacher, and relieved school is over for another year, but since his  fling with a colleague, his wife neglects house and home to study at the Open University.

Monica has recently remarried an older man with two daughters – she never wanted children of her own – but the girls hate her and want their father to return to their mother. Meanwhile little sister, Aoife, who has been dogged by dyslexia all her life, is called back from New York where she works for a famous photographer.

The reunion of the three siblings and all the baggage of the past make for an uneasy household – Monica can scarcely talk to Aoife and it is left to Michael Francis to keep the peace, while their mother, is reluctant to face the truth of where her husband may have gone. In the background the heatwave adds to everyone’s discomfort.

Instructions for a Heatwave is a wonderful story about the dynamics of family life, and captures the atmosphere of a period of social change. O’Farrell shows enormous compassion for each character, weaving in past events with those of the present, capped off with an emotional yet positive ending.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: Instructions for a Heatwave

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R King

Sherlock Holmes lives and breathes again - on film, television and in books. American author Laurie R King has been beavering away with Holmes for years, having written twelve novels about this formidable investigator, taking up where Conan Doyle left off, and bringing him a new series of cases and a new companion.

Mary Russell makes her first appearance in The Beekeeper's Apprentice just as the rumblings of World War One are being felt. Living with an aunt she doesn't like much, this precocious teenager stumbles upon Holmes while out for a walk. Both have been mouldering in the countryside and Holmes in retirement has little to distract his active brain. Striking up a conversation with Russell, both soon discover they have similar powers of deduction and repair for tea courtesy of Mrs Hudson.

By the end of the novel, the two have formed a crime-solving partnership, with cases as varied as a missing ham from a nearby hostelry to the kidnap of a senator's daughter. Shaken out of retirement, Holmes is soon back on form as a master of disguises, with a laboratory at his disposal and even secret hideouts.

King does a very good job at creating an authentic Holmesian style and the old characters of Dr Watson, Mrs Hudson and Mycroft Holmes make frequent appearances, all seen through the sharp eyes of Mary Russell. It's plenty of fun, and the promise of so many books in the series will lighten the heart of anyone who has recently rediscovered the joys of Sherlock Holmes.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: The Beekeeper's Apprentice

A Long Walk Home by Judith Tebbutt

In September, 2011, English couple Judith and David Tebbutt enjoyed a wonderful week's safari in the Masai Mara region of Africa before flying to a remote beach resort 40 kilometres south of Somalia. In the early hours of their first night there, Judith was snatched by pirates, put on a boat, then taken to a village in the lawless heart of Somalia. Here she was imprisoned in a nine foot square room and for six months endured terrible hardship.

A Long Walk Home is Judith's story of her kidnapping, how she interacted with the pirates and how even through such an ordeal, she came to realise that these men were human, had feelings, sometimes showed compassion, but most compelling of all, she realised that these people truly believed in what they were doing. From their perspective, their cause was just, this was their living, this behaviour had become part of their community's way of life. Furthermore, her survival would depend on her ability to never give up.

Judith wrote, 'There is nothing so bad in life as to have no hope, to believe you have been defeated, to give in to that. Now I found myself in confinement four thousand miles from home under a hostile sky, I would not accept that fate for myself.' A truly moving and inspired story.

Posted by Flaxmere Book Chat

Catalogue Link: A Long Walk Home

Bonkers: My Life in Laughs by Jennifer Saunders

In order to attract readers, publishers usually condense the contents of a book into a short blurb to place noticeably somewhere on the book jacket. But, they obviously didn’t think Bonkers needed such a pithy summary written by some backroom publishing hack. Instead, on the back cover, you get Saunders introducing her memoir in her own words, which is the exact reason you would want to read it in the first place.

As one of Britain’s longstanding and much loved comedians, Saunders knows how to entertain. And, judging by the amount of procrastination she describes when trying to write the book, she takes her job as entertainer quite seriously. She promises oodles of name-dropping and as much embellishment as she can get away with. Her caveats are a lack of misery (good memoir fodder) and a significant dearth of memory for many parts of her life (she’s not alone on that one).

Bonkers rambles along, back and forth, stopping and starting stories as related memories pop into mind. This may be a result of her self-confessed memory deficiencies, but I get the impression she just finds the old format of start, middle, and ending rather tedious for both reader and writer. You get her unique method of writing modelled really well and it’s quite hard to know how much she really is the characters she writes, or, how much of her memoir is written ‘in character’. You’ll have to judge that one yourself.

Everyone’s got a confession or two to make and Saunders owns up to a few lapses and failures, endearingly told and, of course, stuffed with laughs. Her experience of breast cancer is in there too, but she’s made of a whole lot sterner stuff than poor old Edina from Ab Fab – no petulant, self-indulgent rants on that subject – more the stiff upper lip and indomitable Blitz spirit.

She moves on from cancer, upbeat and back to form. Life continues, with the expectation of more good things to come. When the book ends, you are left with the vague impression that Saunders is meandering off into the sunset, glass in hand, ready for the next round of both refreshment and life in general. The photos are great fun and Bonkers leaves you feeling uplifted and believing that life is absolutely fabulous, despite the tricky bits. There aren’t many better ways to spend your time than curled up in the company of a witty, irreverent comedian.

 

 

Reviewed by Spot   

 

 

Catalogue Link:  Bonkers: My Life in Laughs

The Everything Store : Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon by Brad Stone

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, rocked the business world with his online retail store. Bent upon global domination, he drove down prices by negotiating hard with suppliers and focused on giving customers what they want: huge discounts and fast, no-fuss delivery.

Giving those big discounts means low profit margins, which means large volumes need to be sold, and Amazon has been super successful on that front. In the process, Bezos has amassed a number of enemies as physical retail stores felt the squeeze and company heads shook with fear as he rolled out his deliberate strategy of constant expansion into new sectors.

The Everything Store is a fascinating look inside the world of Amazon, its relentless growth, and the philosophy that drives it ever onward. From the logistics of parcel distribution and the development of the Kindle e-reader to the fierce competition in cloud software, Stone manages to explain the ins and outs of life in the technology business in a simple, engaging style.

What drives someone to single-mindedly revolutionise the world around them? From childhood, Bezos stood out and Stone explores the characteristics that led him to becoming one of the leading innovators of the internet age. An absorbing read big on insight into a unique brand of business.

Reviewed by Spot


Catalogue Link: The Everything Store