The Dark Remains – Ian Rankin and William McIlvanney

In this scorching crime hook-up, number one bestseller Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of DI Laidlaw, Glasgow’s original gritty detective.

If the truth’s in the shadows, get out of the light…

Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people. Now he’s dead and it was no accident. He’s left behind his share of enemies, but who dealt the fatal blow?

DC Jack Laidlaw’s reputation precedes him. He’s not a team player, but he’s got a sixth sense for what’s happening on the streets. As two Glasgow gangs go to war, Laidlaw needs to find out who got Carter before the whole city explodes.

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the tour for The Dark Remains. I am also grateful to Canongate for a review copy.

Laidlaw. Is this where it all began? For almost ten years I have been lurking around the fringes of the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival and the names “Laidlaw” and “William McIlvanney” are mentioned at most panels. The McIlvanney Prize is given to the best Scottish crime book of the year. Laidlaw’s shadow looms large over all current writing – that is a legacy to hold in reverence. It is 2022 and a new Laidlaw book is being released to the paperback market. The name McIlvanney is joined by that of Ian Rankin, that duo is a USP beyond measure.

But for many (myself included) Laidlaw is not a character they may have read before now. So does The Dark Remains capture the character of Laidlaw? The book cover states this is Laidlaw’s First Case – will The Dark Remains introduce a new generation of readers to the original books?

I honestly cannot answer either of these questions. Having not read any of McIlvanney’s books I don’t know how well the character of Laidlaw may compare to his original outings. On that front I can say that I adored how he comes across in The Dark Remains. There are quirks in his character, a deep level of thinking and an odd apparent indifference to his family. He commands respect from the low level hoods he meets in Glasgow’s streets and bars and he battles with a boss who clearly hates him. His presence dominates this story and it is magnificent.

Will readers of The Dark Remains pick up the original books? I will be. For years I have promised myself I will read McIlvanney’s books – after reading The Dark Remains I immediately got myself the other books – holiday reading locked in.

But what of the story its-self? Bobby Carter is found dead in an alley behind a pub. Glasgow is divided up amongst rival gangs, each with their own influencial figurehead controlling his troops. Bobby Carter was found in the “wrong area” so was he killed to send a message or did someone over-step their remit and take action into their own hands?

The police know all the players in the city, who owns pubs and bookies, who the dealers report to and where the trusted members of each “family” can be found. But this time nobody seems to be talking but all the evidence which comes to light suggests it may be one of Bobby’s own who sought to end his life. But can the police trust the evidnece or is someone playing them for fools?

Laidlaw is not inclined to take everything at face value. While his colleagues are chapping on doors and seeking witnesses, Laidlaw is talking to people who knew Bobby Carter and people who saw Bobby in places where he should not have been.

The Dark Remains is a terrific read, Ian Rankin has brought McIlvanney’s unfinished manuscript to a delighful and thoroughly enteretaining completion. I enjoyed the characters, the dry quips and the depiction of Glasgow more than I have any police procedural for some time. It flowed with apparent effortless grace and I did not want to leave the world when the story ended.

The Dark Remins is one of those rare “must read” stories.

The Dark Remains is now available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-dark-remains/ian-rankin/william-mcilvanney/9781838858810

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July 5

Hostage – Clare Mackintosh

You can save hundreds of lives.
Or the one that matters most …

The atmosphere on board the inaugural non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Numerous celebrities are rumoured to be among the passengers in business class and journalists will be waiting on the ground to greet the plane.

Mina is one of a hand-picked team of flight attendants chosen for the landmark journey. She’s trying to focus on the task in hand, and not worry about her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home with her husband. Or the cataclysmic problems in her marriage.

But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.

It’s twenty hours to landing.
A lot can happen in twenty hours …

I received a review copy from the publisher before taking part in the blog tour. I was invited to join the tour by Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours. My thanks to both.

As the summer holiday season is upon us many readers will be looking for the books they can stuff into a suitcase or their hand luggage. The smart cookies out there will have an ebook and a reading app on their phone. Nothing says “prepared” like opening the Kindle App when you suddenly find you are in a 3 hour airport queue. The really smart cookies out there will be taking Clare Mackintosh’s Hostage with them on their holiday – though some may find it a bit too intense to read on a flight!

I am keeping a firm eye on the blurb (above) as I try to explain why you must be reading Hostage this summer. The last thing I want to be doing is sprinkling spoilers into my review as this really is a book you want to pick up with as little advance warning of what is about to unfold as it is possible to achieve.

The key character in Hostage is Mina. She is a flight attendant who will be working on a landmark journey: an England to Australia direct flight. Pushing the boundaries of aviation capability means a 20 hour flight with no stops. For the crew it should be a long and demanding trip, the flight will be full of celebs, reporters along with the usual quota of people making the epic journey with their own personal ambitions and aspirations driving them on.

Mina didn’t need to be on the flight – for all the prestige involved in being on board it was deemed a “short straw” by the crew. Yet Mina volunteered to swap with a friend. She has been having a really tough time at home, her marriage seemingly falling apart due to her husband’s unreliable nature. Their five year old daughter is the light of their lives but she is also a lot of work for Mina when Adam (Mina’s husband) isn’t pulling his weight. Mina will get some time away on the round trip and Adam will just need to cope.

Unfortunately for Mina someone has been paying too much attention to her personal situation and with the flight in the air she receives a note which will rock her world to its core. Someone on the flight plans to ensure the hightest profile air trip of a generation will never reach its destination and they need Mina to make that possible.

I really cannot go into too much more detail but I can tell you from the moment Mina’s flight takes to the air this book will have you gripped and you will not want to stop reading. Claire Mackintosh builds up the background so smoothly and weaves important narrative into scenes where the reader may not appreceiate their significance. Aside from Mina and her family there are interludes where she introduces passengers and shares their stories. These passengers will also be caught-up in the drama as if the plane does not reach its destination and knowing what they have at stake is crucial to buying into the tension.

Hostage is the first of Claire Mackintosh’s books I have read. But having been in the audience at events to hear her speak, I already owned a few of her earlier books. Kicking myself for not making time to read those books sooner but a thriller of this quality is not a fluke and I cannot wait to catch up on the titles I missed. Those will be MY summer holiday reads.

Hostage is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format you can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/hostage/clare-mackintosh/9780751577082

Category: From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 4

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Anne Coates

I am in awe of bloggers who are able to juggle their reading, their personal lives and still keep their blog ticking over. Sometimes that IS me, recently it has NOT been me. Over the last few weeks my day job has become overwheming and has taken far too much of my time; becoming something of a “whole-day” job. Something had to give and unfortunately that was Decades. My apologies to my guests who have been waiting patiently, also to those who have indicated they would like to join in but I have not yet been in contact with them. And my apologies to everyone who as asked me “where is Decades?”

Today Decades is back.

Since January 2021 I have been inviting guests to join me and I ask them to nominate their five favourite books which they would like to see included in the Ultimate Library. This Ultimate Library is my Decades Library, I started with zero books and wanted to curate a library which contained only the very best reads – the ones booklovers read and want everyone else to enjoy too.

Each guest is asked to follow just two rules when nominating their favourite books to the Decades Library:

1 – You May Select ANY Five Books

2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades. Selections are to be made from any fifty-year publication span.

It sounds easy but I am often told that nailing down a final five can lead to some frustrating internal soul searching. And cussing.

Today I am delighted to bring Decades back and introduce the wonderful Anne Coates. As Decades is not about me but about my guests I am now taking a step back and leaving you in Anne’s care…

It only took one tap dancing class (and some coaching from her mother who had been a dancer) for Anne Coates to realise that she would never be a Ginger Rogers but being a journalist/editor and writing fiction has allowed her to explore all manner of careers and situations with far less embarrassment. Anne has worked as a journalist and editor for newspapers, magazines and publishers and has published seven non-fiction books as well as short stories. Born in Clapham and now living a few miles away in East Dulwich, Anne’s Hannah Weybridge series, amzn.to/38egdOO published by Red Dog press, is set in 1990s London. The first book, ‘Dancers in the Wind’, was inspired by interviews she did for a national newspaper and the latest, ‘Stage Call’ begins and ends in one of the capital’s most iconic theatres, The Old Vic – a favourite with the Coates family.

DECADES

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (1865)

Alice is the book made unforgettable by my mother reading it to me. I adored listening to her as she brought everything alive with different “voices”. I love the sheer madness of these books and although I never sought out rabbit holes, I have certainly spent time staring into mirrors and hoping to be absorbed into another world! I continued the tradition by reading it to my daughter and quoting passages on the walk to school (she was not impressed).

Middlemarch by George Elliot (1871)

What a perfect novel! And how irritated I was with Dorothea when I read this as a teenager. Middlemarch followed me from school to my degree and I still have my battered Penguin edition. It encompasses so much social history especially the status of women, issues about marriage and inheritance, beautifully written and plotted. Much later in life I abridged Middlemarch for a compact edition and nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to cut parts of a favourite tome!

The Strange Case of Dr Jekell and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

From an early age I have been fascinated by the occult and the supernatural (in theory not practice!). Although I wasn’t a fan of Treasure Island or Kidnapped, Stevenson’s Jekell and Hyde captured my imagination with a struggle between good and evil in one character with two lives.

New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)

A book I have reread since university, about writing and authors, their trials and tribulations. Written well over a century ago, Gissing depicts a society in which literature has become a commodity, which could very much sum up the case in publishing now especially in the snobbism associated with literary as opposed to genre fiction. New Grub Street is a “three volume novel” which one of the main characters, Reardon, struggles to write. It was a book, which resonated with me long before I became a published author.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1901)

What’s not to love about Sherlock Holmes stories? Holmes intrigued me and I found his legendary powers of deduction utterly beguiling – the ultimate in detectives. Plus of course there was often the possibility of a supernatural agency at work. Doyle uses a favourite Holmes ruse of being too busy to attend the scene in Dartmoor and sending Dr Watson in his stead. Of course Holmes is there in disguise conducting his own enquiry into the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Greed as ever was the motivation for the death, which was not the result of a family curse. Perfect reading.

My huge thanks to Anne for five wonderful selections. If you knew how much trouble we had behind the scenes to actually get Anne’s book recommendations to my inbox then you would know why I am feeling particularly thrilled to bring these five new Decades books to you today.

To everyone who has enjoyed Decades – thanks for the love and support. To new readers, welcome – I hope you find some new books to love.

I will aim to bring a new Decades post to you every Monday as we go forward. If you feel you have five unmissable books (pubished over five consecutive Decades) then please do get in touch with me @GrabThisBook and together we can hopefully share the booklove and introduce new readers to those titles.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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June 13

Cat & Mouse – MJ Arlidge

When you think you’re safe,
When you think you’re all alone,
That’s when he’ll come for you…

A silent killer stalks the city, targeting those home alone at night, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the victims.

As panic spreads, Detective Inspector Helen Grace leads the investigation, but is herself a hunted woman, her every step shadowed by a ruthless psychopath bent on revenge.

As she tracks the murderer, Grace begins to suspect there is a truly shocking home truth that connects these brutal crimes. But what she will find is something more twisted than she could ever suspect…

My thanks to the publishers, Orion, for a review copy and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the Cat & Mouse blog tour.

Sometimes all I want to read is an exciting murder story with short, punchy chapters and some nasty bad guys to make me want to root for the lead character. Thank you MJ Arlidge for Cat & Mouse – I needed you this week!

The lead character in this case is DI Helen Grace and in the books which came before Cat & Mouse she has had more than a bit of a rough time. She’s disliked by her boss, has a death threat hanging over her, is at odds with a former lover (a colleague) who she now needs to testify against and the local press are out to get her. It probably helps to have read the previous books to get the full story behind her predicament but the author does make sure you will know enough to understand why DI Grace is a woman under intense pressure.

To compound this pressure the book opens with a particularly brutal murder. A woman, home alone as she waited for her husband to return from a late-night training session is restrained and subdued while an intruder steals her jewellery. Before the intruder leaves he pulls out a small axe and buried it in the back of her head.

The victim was a young mother, attractive, successful and prominent on social media. The press are baying for a quick arrest but DI Grace and her team have little to go on. It’s a frustrating case but the victim’s husband knows the killer, his wife had a stalker and he is sure the police should look no further than the guy who had been harassing her. Is a quick outcome going to be possible? Well, if she can prove his guilt then it may be a good outcome for Helen and her team.

I came late to this series. Cat & Mouse is the eleventh Helen Grace novel and I joined around book six or seven (I now have all the books I missed in my TBR). It’s rare for me to get sucked into a series which I haven’t followed from the first book but in this case I have gone out of my way to try to catch up. MJ Arlidge writes gripping and exciting stories, the kind of book which makes you want to keep reading late into the night.

I really enjoyed Cat & Mouse. Once or twice Grace seems to morph from police detective to action hero which didn’t quite seem in keeping with my perception of her character, but the action scenes do make for exciting reading. Lots of red herrings and plenty of plot threads surrounding Helen’s colleagues and also the reporter who is determined to undermine Helen at every opportunity. Highly recommend this series so don’t miss out.

Cat & Mouse is published by Orion and available now in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cat-and-mouse/m-j-arlidge/9781409188506

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April 8

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Jamie Mollart

Happy New Year! For all the financial services workers in the UK this week marks the start of a brand new tax year (2022/23 as it turns out). So I thought I’d acknowledge it on the blog for a wee change.

But you’re not here for tax chat, you’re here for the books. Specifically you’re here to see which five books Jamie Mollart has selected when he took on my Decades Challenge.

Quick recap before I hand over to Jamie: Last year I set myself the challenge of filling the shelves of a brand new library with nothing but the very best books represented. I knew I could not take on this epic task alone so each week I invite a guest to select five of their favourite books which they feel should be represented in my new library. When making their selections there are just two rules my guests must follow:

1 – Select ANY five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

Sounds easy? I am assured it takes a while to settle on five and there are rumours of cursing and heartache as favourites don’t fall within the five consecutive decades rule.

This week it is my abolute pleasure to welcome Jamie Mollart to Grab This Book. Jamie’s latest novel, Kings of the Dead World is my #currentlyreading book and has been commuting with me on my train trips back into the office now that I am not exclusively working from home. It is making the trip to work much more manageable.

Over to Jamie…

I’ve written two novels and am about to send my third to my agent. The Zoo was published in 2015 to some pretty good reviews and press. I was made an Amazon Rising Star for that year and spent 2015/16 at some cool literary festivals. My second novel, Kings of a Dead World came out in 2021, was an Amazon bestseller, has a Waterstones edition with very beautiful sprayed green edges and was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association best novel award.

I am a member of the Climate Fiction Writers League (https://climate-fiction.org/), Nottingham Writers Studio (https://www.nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk/) , I’m a mentor for Writing East Midlands (https://writingeastmidlands.co.uk/for-writers/mentoring/), I have contributed to the Writers and Artists Yearbook (https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/lessons-i-learned-writing-my-second-novel), and the Bookseller (https://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/cli-fi-time-1262857) and I’m a long standing guest on the webs oldest and most influential writing podcast, Litopia (https://litopia.com/)

If you want to find out more about me the best places are one twitter (@jamiemollart) or on my youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsYzJh4RrSdYkM3e0o2WFOg)

If you want to get a copy of Kings of a Dead World with its lovely green edges you can do so here (https://www.waterstones.com/book/kings-of-a-dead-world/jamie-mollart/9781914518027) there’s also a hardback and audiobook version available here (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Dead-World-Jamie-Mollart/dp/1913207455)

DECADES

1970-1979 – JG Ballard – Crash (1973)

I could have chosen any one of several JG Ballard books from the 70’s because they’re all excellent – The Atrocity Exhibition, Concrete Island, or High Rise – but for me Crash is the one which is the best realised. The fact that it was filmed by one of my all-time favourite directors, David Cronenberg, is the icing on the cake. Ballard is all about high concept and Crash is no exception. He always seemed to be able to predict the future in a way which most authors don’t, and Crash is no exception to this. It also demonstrates Ballard’s ability to compress massive concepts into razor sharp narratives.

The narrator, James Ballard, is involved in a car crash which kills the other driver, and when he begins a relationship with the dead man’s wife the boundaries between the mechanical and the erotic become blurred.

When he meets Robert Vaughan, and is drawn into his sphere of influence, Ballard in turn becomes involved in a group who recreate the fatal car crashes of famous people for sexual pleasure.

The book was controversial at the time of release – ‘This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish’ – and still has the power to shock, but in our increasingly Petro-chemical/celebrity obsessed world it seems even more important than when it was written. Not for the feint hearted, but for me essential reading.

1980-1989 – Peter Carey – Oscar and Lucinda (1988)

The Booker winner from 1988 is, in my opinion, the most perfect novel ever written. Populated with rich, flawed, and complex characters, this Victorian epic is weird, daring, romantic and challenging all at the same time. It also contains one of the most bravura set pieces I’ve ever read, which I can’t tell you about here because it’s a massive spoiler, but somehow Carey manages to make one act represent the entirety of not only the lead characters relationship, but the whole narrative. Annoyingly the book’s Wikipedia entry manages to blurt it out, so if you intend to read it don’t visit Wikipedia.

Oscar Hopkins is an Anglican Priest, Lucinda Leplastrier is an heiress to a glass factory, they are both gamblers, and when the meet on a ship they both find the other fascinating. It’s a love story that’s more about friendship than passion, while still managing to be incurably romantic. It’s about religion and fanaticism of all kinds, it’s about technology and the allure of it, it’s about how our childhoods affect us and so much more.

Carey loves a misfit character, and both Oscar and Lucinda fall into that category, but they are so lucidly drawn that I struggle not to think of them as real people. It’s one of the few books that I’ve read multiple times, it’s just not something I normally do, but Oscar and Lucinda calls to me regularly and I can’t help but return to it.

Peter Carey is one of the few writers who can turn his hand to anything and succeed every single time. He’s won the Booker twice and been shortlisted for it 5 times, no mean feat, and utterly deserved. Angela Carter also described Oscar and Lucinda as ‘novel of extraordinary richness, complexity and strength’, so if you don’t believe me, you should definitely believe her.

1990- 1999 Bret Easton-Ellis – American Psycho (1991)

The ultimate dissection of 80’s excess and yuppie culture, American Psycho was banned on release in many places, and gained notoriety because of its aestheticized violence. What was largely missed at the time is that the book is clearly a satire and is actually laugh out loud funny in many places.

Patrick Bateman is a slick, vacuous banker on the Wall Street of the eighties. He’s obsessed with his hair, clothes, fancy restaurants, his sculpted body and making sure his business card is whiter and crisper than his colleagues. Oh, and at night he likes to murder people in increasingly depraved and meticulously described ways, whilst extoling the virtues of albums by people like Huey Lewis and The News and Whiteny Houston. As Bateman’s murder spree escalates and his grip on reality becomes more tenuous it becomes more unclear whether what we’re witnessing is actually happening or whether Bateman’s fractured mind is in fact making him the most unreliable of narrators.

American Psycho is probably the most caustic and damning attack on consumerism ever written, unrelenting in its horror show depiction of the American Dream, it is both difficult to read and impossible to put down. On a sentence level Easton-Ellis is second to none (apart from maybe Zadie Smith, who I really wanted to include on this list too), and the whole book reads as a macabre satirical masterpiece.

2000-2009 China Mieville – Perdido Street Station (2000)

What. A. Book. This. Is.

I put off reading it for a while because of the sheer size of it, but oh my days is it worth it. China Mieville is one of the cleverest, imaginative, and downright weird writers out there. Every single one of his books reaches for the sky, most of the succeed, but this one absolutely smashes through it.

It’s 1000 pages of steam punk craziness set in the world of Bas-Lag (which he revisits in The Scar and Iron Council), where magic is real and considered a science, and New Crobozon is a sleazy, sexy, corrupt city full of weird and wonderful species such as the Falcon like Garudas, and the Khepri, who have human bodies and insects as heads.

Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a scientist who is approached by one of the Garuda, who has had his wings removed as punishment, to craft a new pair of wings to enable him to fly again. Isaac sends his team out into New Crobozon to bring back as many species with the ability to fly as possible so he can learn the secret of flight. Unknowingly he is brought back a caterpillar which will end up turning into something nasty enough to endanger the whole of the city.

It’s a whole lot more complicated than that and features a massive cast in a wonderfully vivid city. It won the Arthur C Clarke award (he’s won it a record 3 times in total) amongst many others and the legendary Michael Moorcock described Mieville as ‘a writer with a rare descriptive gift, an unusually observant eye for physical detail, for the sensuality and beauty of the ordinarily human as well as the thoroughly alien.’

Mieville has written some brilliant books after Perdido Street Station, not least the amazing The City and The City, but this is his masterpiece.

2010- 2020 – Nobody Told Me – Hollie McNish (2016)

Hollie McNish is so forthright and honest and open and fearless as a writer that she ought to be compulsory reading. Her view of the world is hilarious and disarmingly honest. In this amazing book, which is part diary, part poetry and part essay, she turns her unflinching gaze onto motherhood as she narrates the first year of her daughter’s life.

My wife suffered horrendous post-natal depression with our first daughter, in no small part I believe due to the facile and fake way in which motherhood is portrayed in our modern culture. The awkward, unpleasant bits are whitewashed and hidden from view, and we’re presented with an unrealistic portrayal which is damaging to both mother and child.

Hollie McNish does no whitewashing. With Nobody Told Me she sets out to give an honest, personal, and deeply moving account of what it means to be a new mother, and in doing so goes some way to busting the harmful myths. She covers everything from morning sickness, to what it actually feels like to not sleep properly for months, the first public tantrum, mum guilt, leaky boobs, the changes a woman’s body goes through, but also the amazing gift that is having a child. It’s funny, touching, and profoundly moving.

I love the way Hollie McNish looks at the world and I love the way her words describe it. She’s a rare and genuine talent and should be considered a national treasure.

I have mentioned this before but, for me, the perfect five Decades selections are when I know one or two of the books and have read them before and then there are three books which I don’t know. A blend of new and familiar. Jamie has hit that perfect balance this week and I have already been checking out the books which were new to me.

My thanks to Jamie for finding time to make his selections. Decades continues entirely because of the kindness of my guests who all devote some of their precious time towards sharing the booklove.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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April 1

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with David Monteath

The second quarter of 2022 is upon us. As this latest Decades selection goes live it will be April and Decades will be in its sixteenth month of guests. I am grateful to each and every contributor and to you for returning, week on week, to see the latest books which are being added to my Decades Library.

The Decades Library I hear you ask? I am compiling a list of the very best books which my guests think would deserve a place in the Ulitmate Library. I started this project in January 2021 with zero books and each week I ask a guest to nominate five new books which they would want to see included in a collection of the finest writing.

When making their selections my guests are asked to follow two rules.

1 – Choose Any Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

This week I am delighted to be joined my someone who reads my books for me. Or is that to me? David Monteath (@joxvox) will be a familiar voice to many audiobook fans and I am always fascinated to know which books stand out to someone who spends most of his waking hours focused entirely on the written word.

One of Scotland’s most popular voiceovers, David Monteath was born in Glasgow and started acting while at high school, he trained as an actor at Webber Douglas in London and has been an actor and voiceover for 25 years.

David’s early life was split between homes on the outskirts of Glasgow and the beautiful Spey Valley in the Highlands of Scotland. He also lived in central Perthshire near the popular tourist destination of Pitlochry with its world-famous Festival Theatre.

While training at the prestigious Webber Douglas Academy in London, David met his future wife Lindsay. They have three children and all five of them have worked as voiceovers for clients across Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East.

David has put his voice to good use over the years and has vast experience of most aspects of being a voiceover from advertising for television and radio, ADR and dubbing on film and television, language tapes for learners of English, telephony and on-hold messages, character animation through to narration, commentary and audiobooks.

He has also produced and co-presented a weekly request show on Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio

DECADES

Most of my choices are made from books I have read for work, one of the downside of being an audiobook narrator is that I rarely have time now to read for pleasure, so in many ways my reading choices are dictated by my clients. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, this work has introduced me to many writers I would never have found otherwise.

The High Girders – John Prebble – 1956

This is an absolute classic and the first John Prebble I have read. It follows the story of the building of the Tay Railway bridge and its eventual collapse on 28^th December 1879. The story follows in detail the events of the night, and wherever the blame is felt to lie for the errors which caused the disaster and 75 deaths, Prebble’s book is a fascinating account of a terrible night and a compassionate recounting of so many very human losses.

The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles) Dorothy Dunnett – 1961

Ok, there is a tale behind this one…where else would tails be?…I was recording a quiet story of a country doctor when the producer asked if I would be interested in narrating another book for him, ‘it’s a bit longer than this one’ he said. ‘Of course I would.’ Now cut forward a few days and I was sent the pdf, most audiobook narrators work from iPads, it makes it much quieter as you don’t hear the dreaded page-turn noises that audio editors hate. Also making notes on character and scene etc are simpler on a screen. So, I opened the pdf and found a place at random a good few pages in. I read a rather lovely scene between our hero Lymond and a very young Mary Queen of Scots, set on an island in the middle of the Lake of Menteith, my area of Scotland…but more importantly where I was married. Of course I was completely drawn in and contacted the producer who said…’Um, this has changed slightly, you might have noticed that the book is a biggie, we think it’ll be around 26 hours when you’ve finished recording. Is that still ok?’. Oh definitely good for me. Then he muttered quietly as the phone was going down…’just one more thing…there are six of them, all pretty much the same length!!’ So, this quiet chat turned into 1.3 million words read, 146 hours of finished audiobooks and over 300 hours recording in my tiny studio during the very hot summer of 2018…it was HUGE…and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I’m not going to try to precis the book or the series, if you’ve read or listened to them you know why…if you haven’t, the please, please do, you absolutely wont regret it. They are glorious.

The General Danced at Dawn – George MacDonald Fraser – 1970

IN the early 1990s, when I was on tour with the Oscar Wilde play ‘A Woman of No Importance’, I shared dressing rooms around the country with an actor called Stuart Hutchison, who was also a regular face on Westward Television in the Plymouth area. Stuart and I spent hours talking about books, art, music and pretty much anything but football which we both dislike. He bought me a copy of The General Danced at Dawn as I’d never read the stories and he wanted someone else to be able to laugh at them and love them as much as he did. I’ve been very fortunte in my career to work with some really kind, generous people and that was Stuart.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco – 1980

Hmmm, I’m beginning to sense a bit of a history theme in my reading. This book sort of crosses all of my working genres, history (albeit fictional) and crime. It’s a complicated disturbing romp through murders in a 16^th Century monastry in middle Europe, probably modern day Germany. The descriptions of ecclesiastical life and the conflicts in the church at that time are great, although if you saw the film first, I defy you not to hear Sean Connery every time Brother William speaks.

Iain Banks – Complicity – 1993

Right then, back to me again…this is a revenge story, brilliantly written by the always brilliant Iain Banks. Someone once asked me, if given a choice what books would you like to have narrated? Any of the Iain Banks would have been my choice. It’s even more annoying that the reader is a friend and a very good reader.

I worked in a bookshop in the early 1990’s and without exception all these authors were selling in great numbers in Inverness bookshops – I know this as I was selling them. Pure nostalgia for me and I loved these choices.

And not just those choices as David gave me two extras. I have taken an executive decision to move Montrose out of the 1970s and Morningstar out of the 1990s selections. I don’t mind the fact Montrose was originally written in the 1920s but it would mean dropping George MacDonald Fraser so rather than flex the rules I opted for the clear cut entry. I am being hard on David Gemmell by moving him to the subs bench but only one book per decade is the rule so I flipped a coin!

But I don’t hide the alternates so here are David’s thoughts:

Montrose – John Buchan – 1979 (from 1928)?

This might be a bit of a cheeky one as the book was originally published in 1928, but reissued in 1979. This was another audiobook project, but one far closer to my heart. My clan are the Graham from Stirlingshire and this book tells the story of the first James Graham, 1^st Duke of Montrose. My father was passionately interested in Scottish history, so this exploration of a turbulent time in Scotland was a particular favourite of his.

Morningstar – David Gemmell – 1992

OK, yes, actually I just like a good historical epic, this one was a thumping good read, glorious descriptions and a suitably complicated fantasy world. Its beautifully written and a great adventure.

A country in desperate need of heroes . . .

Angostin invaders surge through the Highlands, laying waste to everything in their path. Darkness follows in their wake as a mad necromancer resurrects the eons-dead Vampyre Kings.

Only the bandit Jarek Mace, and the magicker and bard Owen Odell, have the courage to fight the Angostins and the undead. Whispers soon spread that Mace is the legendary Morningstar, a saviour who will protect his country in its hour of need. Yet Mace seems nothing more than a thief and a liar.

As the final battle approaches, Odell wonders which of the two Maces will triumph: the self-serving rogue or the saviour of his people, the Morningstar.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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March 4

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Paul Gadsby

Welcome to March 2022, we are now in the fifteenth month of the Decades Library. Decades is a feature which I expected to run for five or six posts back in January and February 2021 and then believed it would slip into the background maybe to be revisited for another brief outing later in the year.

What actually happened is that Decades became a weekly feature and over 200 books have been recommended by authors, bloggers, journalists and publishers. People look foward to seeing the latest reading recommendations from my guests each week and if I don’t share a new Decades post on a Friday morning then I get letters (OK I get Twitter DMs but the principle is the same).

I also have to find new ways to introduce the Decades Library each week…how I wish I had standardised my introduction.

The Decades Library is my quest to populate a brand new library from the ground up. I started with zero books and I invite guests to nominate five of their favourite reads to be added to the shelves of the Decades Library. I only want the best books to be represented, books someone loved and would love other people to enjoy too.

Why the Decades Library? Well although my guests get to choose five favourite books they can only select one book per decade from five consecutive decades.

This week I am delighted to welcome another indy published author to the Decades Library: Paul Gadsby. I have had a sneaky look at the books Paul has selected and damn they sound good. So it’s enough from me for the moment, let me hand you over to Paul.

Paul Gadsby is the author of the crime novels ‘Back Door to Hell’ and ‘Turbulence’, both published by Fahrenheit Press, as well as ‘Chasing the Game’. His short stories have appeared in Mystery Tribune, Rock and a Hard Place magazine, Beat to a Pulp, Close to the Bone, and the ‘Noirville’ anthology. Having spent many years working in London as a sports and trade journalist, he is now a copywriter (when he’s not writing fiction) in his native Northamptonshire, where he lives with his wife and young son. His love of reading started with Michael Hardcastle’s football books for children and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole series, before discovering a passion for crime and noir novels through the works of Ian Rankin, Ted Lewis, Megan Abbott and James Sallis among many others. You can read more about Paul’s work and his articles on literature at his website, paulgadsbyauthor.co.uk, while he can be found on Twitter @PaulJGadsby

DECADES

Ripley Under Ground, by Patricia Highsmith (1970)

I often tend to prefer the first book in a series, but this is a fine example of a stunning follow-up. Highsmith’s collection of Tom Ripley psychological thrillers begins with the spellbinding ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, and ‘Ripley Under Ground’ is the second instalment, set six years later. The titular anti-hero, now in his thirties, is enjoying an affluent lifestyle in rural France, supported by his heiress wife, Héloïse, and the fortune he furtively acquired from Dickie Greenleaf. Naturally drawn to the shadows and all things clandestine, Ripley is also running an art forgery scheme, playing a key sales role within a consortium that is producing and selling fake paintings lauded as works by the now deceased artist Philip Derwatt. But when Bernard Tufts, a gifted young painter who is fabricating the works and who idolised Derwatt, becomes tormented by guilt, the scheme unravels. Ripley is forced to act fast — and not to mention lethally — in order to save his skin and the elevated social status he’s worked so hard to create for himself. Slotting Ripley into a counterfeiting world where, as a natural imitator and con artist, he thrives so compellingly was a masterstroke by Highsmith as she deftly plots this riveting tale.

The Eye of the Beholder, by Marc Behm (1980)

This hardboiled and surreal PI novel, later adapted into a film starring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd, is an eclectic and experimental triumph. The protagonist, known only as ‘The Eye’, is a field operative for a corporate private investigation firm in Virginia. His latest assignment is to keep tabs on college graduate Paul Hugo, whose wealthy parents are concerned about a deviant young woman their son is romantically involved with. The Eye, long separated from his daughter who he only sees in sporadic illusions, is mentally unstable and finds himself fixated with the woman. When he watches her calmly kill Paul one evening, The Eye becomes infatuated. He soon discovers that the woman has plenty of aliases and wigs as she criss-crosses the nation getting her hooks into one well-heeled victim after another – sometimes playing the bride for an inheritance payout, sometimes just helping herself to a quick score. The Eye researches her true identity, Joanna Eris, and uncovers a tragic past that explains her emotional detachment to the murders she carries out with such a callous flair. Despite being a slender book, ‘The Eye of the Beholder’ spans 30 years and covers nearly 100 killings. It’s an extraordinary nihilistic descent into hell; brutal yet tender, rapid yet epic, and viciously bleak. Few books have explored themes of manic desire and sociopathic behaviour with such heartbreaking lyricism and relentless intensity.

The Hackman Blues, by Ken Bruen (1997)

I love the verve and vengeance which Irish noir novelist Bruen injects into his prose. Creator of the Jack Taylor series, Bruen’s long-nurtured edgy writing style and black humour lends itself particularly well to his standalone books, with ‘The Hackman Blues’ a personal favourite. Brady, a gay, bipolar junkie, is tasked with finding a girl in Brixton but his objective is complicated by a lethal ex-con and an Irish builder obsessed with Hollywood legend Gene Hackman. A powerful, gritty tale laced with urban blues and psychotic yet genuine characters, this is Bruen at his haunted best. Like most of his novels, the intensity rarely dips with his chapters short, his sentences rapid, and his narratives wonderfully original. Also, his habit of defining his protagonists by their cultural tastes — often declared through listing their favourite music, films, books, clothes or cuisine — wins me over every time.

The Long Suit, by Philip Davison (2003)

Following a chequered recent past, MI5 operative Harry Fielding is brought in from the cold to investigate the mysterious and complex case of a bullet-ridden corpse found on a Long Island golf course. Never one to fit in with the stiff procedures and hierarchical posturing of the British secret service, Harry struggles with the mental imbalance of returning to the cloak-and-dagger world of intelligence work that he hates so much yet performs so well. Keeping his troublemaker apprentice Johnny in check is difficult enough, let alone interpreting the instructions from head office which don’t appear to make the purpose of his job any clearer. Harry must consider if he is being set up, and to what end. Aside from the intriguing story and Davison’s delightfully polished writing style, what sets this book apart is the vivid and touching interplay that takes place in the visits Harry makes to his ailing father, Cecil, now confined to a retirement home as his amnesia worsens. The unsaid becomes mightily powerful in these passages. When I first read this book, having come across it by accident rather than design, I was captivated by its sharp and intelligent prose; the depth and vision of Davison’s writing compares with the likes of Graham Greene, John le Carré and James Sallis. The character of Harry features in some of Davison’s other books, but this for me is his finest work.

Dodgers, by Bill Beverly (2016)

This debut novel seemed to come out of nowhere and blew me — and many others — away. With its slick writing, gripping story and well-drawn characters, the convincing world created in this book overpowers you and stays with you long after the final page. We follow the journey of 15-year-old LA ghetto soldier East in what is both a crime caper road trip and a coming-of-age saga. East works for a drug peddling crew, just like pretty much everyone else he knows on the streets of the bleak African-American suburban landscape he has been raised, where the prospect of a violent death is constant. The crew’s boss, Fin, needs a Wisconsin-based witness killed before the guy can testify against his nephew in an upcoming trial. Fin tasks East, his trigger-happy 13-year-old half-brother Ty, and two other young crew members – the overweight Walter and the cocky Michael – with travelling across America to carry out the hit. Things don’t go to plan. The four of them have to improvise under pressure as things fall apart amidst a backdrop of the Midwest heartland rusting to a slow death. The van is vandalised and spray-painted with a racial slur. The mission flips. East and Michael have a vicious punch-up, and the group splits in stages. These impoverished characters don’t have many choices at their disposal, if any. The plot is taut and tense; there is no need for coincidences or twists. The observations Beverly draws are insightful and relevant, while the images he paints in your mind feel startlingly real.

And there we go, five books which sound amazing and I have only read one of them this week (Dodgers, don’t you know?). Thanks to Paul for taking the time to make his choices, it is always very much appreciated when someone takes on the Curator’s Hat for the Decades Library and I know people look forward to finding new books each week.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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February 23

The Death of Me – Michelle Davies

Is one of music’s greatest mysteries about to be solved?

‘He was a massive star until he did a headline grabbing retreat from the spotlight – but his disappearing act was FAKED. Fans won’t be happy when they find out – his reputation was dead in the water.’

When Isaac Naylor committed suicide after a teenage fan was found dead in his hotel room, the world thought it had lost one of the greatest rock stars of a generation. Naylor, lead singer of The Ospreys, had been arrested for causing the girl’s death and was on police bail when he drowned himself in the sea off the Devon coast.

Now, eight years on, music journalist Natalie Glass stumbles across a blind item on a US gossip website that suggests Naylor’s death wasn’t quite what it seemed – and he might in fact still be alive.

But as she delves deeper into what happened, Natalie finds she has a stark choice: give up trying to find out what happened to Naylor or risk her own obituary ending up in print.

I recieved a review copy of The Death of Me from the publishers through Netgalley.

Natalie Glass is a music journalist. She is a freelancer and hugely respected in the industry but in The Death of Me we find her at a low ebb. Her marriage is over, her young son is living with his father who can provide a more stable home life than Natalie who keeps irregular hours and has inconsistent income. She is desperate to get some stability in her life to allow her a better chance at being allowed more access to her son but until the family home is sold she is living in fear of bills arriving and relying upon the kindness of friends.

While browsing online gossip sites for potential stories she stumbles upon a story which suggests Issac Naylor, once the biggest name in music, may be writing songs anonymously for other artists to record. This in its-self would be big news but Naylor died eight years ago under the scandal of facilitating the death of a fan and there is absolutely no possibility he is helping new artists record successful songs.

Natalie is on the phone to her best friend and remembers the story about Naylor. As she relays the story her friend, who works at a recording studio, has an unusual reaction. Rather than laugh it off she seems started, edgy and implores Natalie not to repeat the story or to look into it further. She makes Natalie promise to ignore the gossip but Natalie is confused by the reaction, there couldn’t be any truth in this could there?

With no other projects demanding her time Natalie does start to look into Naylor’s story and his past and she begins to question whether there may have been any truth behind the gossip column’s claims. When she logs back onto the site to read the story again she discovers that post has been taken down; but why? More outrageous gossip has been allowed to run unchecked but the Isaac Naylor story has been removed.

Following her instincts there is a story to be found Natalie starts asking questions but her interest doesn’t go unnoticed and it isn’t long before her home and her friends are coming under attack. With her world collapsing around her Natalie is convinced she is getting closer to the most explosive story of the year but what would be the cost of uncovering the truth?

I blasted through The Death of Me in just a couple of days. I haven’t read any of the previous books by Michelle Davies but I found this to be a brilliantly told story which flowed and rewarded the reader with unexpected twists and shocks. This is exactly what I look for in a story, a tightly plotted drama with characters which I found engaging and wanted to keep reading about.

No better feeling for a reader than finding a gem on the bookshelves. Seek this one out!

The Death of Me is published by Orion and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B093XZYCZ4/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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February 18

Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with Tina Baker

Having a few days off from the day job has really knocked out my body clock. It’s a good job I remembered Tina Baker is joining me to share her Decades selections, I’d have hated for you to miss out on these cracking recommendations.

A quick explanation about the Decades Library for any new visitors. Imagine having to start a new Library from scratch. You have no books but only want the very best books on the Library shelves so visitors know whatever they choose to read it’s a book someone else loved.

Each week I ask a guest to join me and nominate new books to add to the Library shelves. They must follow two rules when making their choices:

1- Pick Any Five Books
2- You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

It’s as easy as that – five books, five decades. So time to turn over to Tina Baker to get this week’s recommened books…

Tina was brought up in a caravan after her mother, a fairground traveller, fell pregnant by a window cleaner. After leaving the bright lights of Coalville, she came to London and worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years. She’s probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV, but after so many hours watching soaps gave her a widescreen bum, she got off it, lost weight and won Celebrity Fit Club. When not writing she now works as a fitness instructor. She also rescues cats, whether they want to be rescued or not.

Call Me Mummy, Tina’s first novel, partly inspired by her own unsuccessful attempts to have a child, was a Number 1 Kindle bestseller. Its as also sold in Tesco as well as bookshops, which thrilled Tina as she and her family cleaned the floors of supermarkets for many years.

Her second novel, Nasty Little Cuts (be careful how you say it) is published by Viper Books on February 24th. She would be THRILLED if you pre-ordered it from all the usual places because Bertie the Emotional Support Kitten had major surgery just before Christmas. He’s now fine. The bank balance isn’t. Nasty Little Cuts is another psychological thriller in the domestic noir vein. It’s the story of how a marriage can break down to the point where no one might get out alive.

You can order Nasty Little Cuts here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0984N2N8W/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Or Call Me Mummy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08FNHJB4P/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

DECADES

I’m rubbish at choosing my favourite books. I usually go with whatever I’m reading at the time. But, in a miraculous plot twist, 5 of my actual favourites effortlessly spanned 5 decades, so IT WAS MEANT TO BE!

SHUGGIE BAIN, DOUGLAS STUART, 2020

I adore Shuggie. I wanted to adopt him, but Shuggie loves his alcoholic mammy, so that wouldn’t be fair. I also love Douglas Stuart. It was one of my proudest moments as a newbie author when he followed me back on Twitter.

I knew I wanted to read this book before it was published. When it became a Booker Prize winner I cried, I was so thrilled.

It touched me so deeply. Real, heart-breaking, beautiful and stark. One of the reasons I felt for Shuggie was because I too was a working class kid growing up in a pit town, Coalville, where all the pits closed. I’ve also loved alcoholics.

I’ve put this book on my Top Horror and Top Crime lists even though it’s more literary, because real life horror is scarier to me than vampires, and what Thatcher did to communities like Shuggie’s and mine was a bloody crime.

WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES, KAREN JOY FOWLER, 2013

This is an ear wetter of a novel – I sobbed so much in bed that my ears were soaked with tears. I had to have one book about animals on my list. I have had closer relationships with my pets than many people.

This is a gut-wrenching story about love, families, jealousy and what it means to be human.

I’m still loathe to give away the twist (It’s Fingersmith level gobsmacking) but it involves some hideous experiments scientists have done on animals. I love science (yay, vaccines!) and wanted to be one, briefly, until I realised what I’d be required to do to rats.

BLONDE, JOYCE CAROL OATES, 2000

I would read a shipping list written by this author. I love her work. I’ve read this hefty novel several times. It’s a fictionalised version of Marilyn Monroe’s life, and, no spoilers, it does not end well.

Somehow, I felt I was inside Marilyn’s heart and mind, hearing all her inner secrets and vulnerabilities. It’s also a scathing examination of fame and how a person can struggle with being a disposable commodity and an icon others project so much onto, while wrestling their own demons.

THE VAN, RODDY DOYLE, 1991

I had to have at least one funny book, although it takes a lot to make me laugh in print. I adore Doyle’s dialogue and his working class characters. Two mates going into business together is often a recipe for disaster, but the warmth here is fabulous.

This was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. I’m a bit of a reading snob I suppose.

Unusually for me, I also loved the film, and ditto The Commitments – books are always better than films. Fact.

Another fact, he was born on May 8^th, my brother’s birthday.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, MARGARATE ATWOOD, 1985

This feminist dystopia was actually cited in my first divorce. True story. The ex whined that he’d wanted to see ‘anything’ but’ at the cinema, but I’d ‘made him’ see this. To be honest, the TV series is way better than the film.

I had nightmares about the world of Gilead, where women are treated as brood cows and all their rights taken from them. Look around the world, it’s already happening, has always been happening. It’s chilling.

Huge thanks to Tina for five storming recommendations. Nobody has turned around their five selections quicker than Tina did – even people who have told me they had given some thought to which books they may select before I had contacted them couldn’t match her speed. Given her five books smoothly fitted into the five decades it also makes it more likely there was less cursing at me than I have experienced in the past.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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February 11

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Quentin Bates

Welcome to Decades, an ongoing quest to assemble the Ultimate Library filled with books that were recommended by booklovers.

It began back in January 2021 when I asked the question: If you had to fill a brand new library with nothing but the best books ever written, which books would you put on the shelves? I realised I could not possibly answer that question on my own so each week I am joined by a bookloving guest (authors, publishers, journalists and bloggers) and I ask them to help me put great books into my Decades Library.

Why do I call it my Decades Library? Well each guest has to follow two simple rules when nominating books to go into the Library:

Rule 1 – Pick Any Five Books
Rule 2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Any Five Consecutive Decades

The Decades Library does exist as a Bookshop.Org shop so if you fancy seeing which books have been selected in the past you can click through this handy link: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library

This week it is my pleasure to welcome Quentin Bates to the Decades Library. I first became aware of Quentin’s work through his association with Orenda Books and have read several of the novels he has translated for them, most recently Cold As Hell by Lilja Sigurdardottir. But I have also been picking up some of his own novels which I also highly recommend. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quentin-Bates/e/B004JZ8EZA?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1644531511&sr=1-3

Time to hand over to Quentin…

Best known as the translator of some of Iceland’s smartest and coolest authors*, Quentin Bates has also written a few books of his own, and with a bit of luck there might be a few more to come.If you really need to know more, his website is at www.graskeggur.is, and he’s on social media as gráskeggur.*Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Einar Kárason, Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Óskar Guðmundsson, Guðlaugur Arason, and more to come

DECADES

Just to be awkward, I’d like to take these in reverse order, stepping back in time a decade at a time…

2000s

Mýrin by Arnaldur Indriðason

This one was published in Icelandic in 2000, and it was a few years before it appeared in English as Jar City. This was Arnaldur’s breakout book, the one that made him an international name. I’m fairly sure I read this one in Icelandic first and was struck by how much of a leap it was compared to his previous books. It brings together a wonderful Nordic darkness with the backdrop of the seedy side of Reykjavík, and fine interplay between the very different characters of Erlendur and his colleagues Sigurður Óli and Elínborg.

This one absolutely led the way, demonstrating that this lump of volcanic North Atlantic rock could be the backdrop for outstanding crime fiction, with all of the elements adding up to something much more than the sum of their parts. It’s also a great movie and it’s a mystery why Erlendur hasn’t made more appearances on the screen.

1990s

Dead Horsemeat, by Dominique Manotti

I found one of Dominique Manotti’s books more or less by chance, devoured it almost immediately, and then did the same with all the rest that were available in English.

These are books that not only didn’t shy away from taking on tough themes before they became controversial, they positively grabbed them by the horns and were way ahead of their time.

Thirty years after they were published, this is still razor sharp stuff, some of the sharpest, smartest crime fiction with a strong political edge. These are another mystery. One of Dominique’s books won an International Dagger (Lorraine Connection, in 2008) and Dead Horsemeat (originally published in French in 1997) was shortlisted in 2006. So these books are clearly held in high regard, so why aren’t they better known?

1980s

Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess

I’ve just noticed that this is the only one of my five that isn’t a translation… The 1980s were when I was a seaman, and hefty books were just what was needed for long spells at sea. All the same, this vast (650 page) tale, spanning six decades, just flew past.

Anthony Burgess seems to have dropped out of fashion, but he’s very much worth discovering. The prose sparkles with wit, erudition and wordplay, deftly told, and Earthly Powers has one of the most brilliant opening paragraphs there is.

1970s

The Flounder, by Günter Grass

OK, it shouldn’t be called The Flounder, as the magical fish in question is actually a turbot, but The Flounder is a better title. This is a substantial book, and this one spans centuries rather than just a few decades, telling in terms of magic, gastronomy, politics and social upheaval the story of chunk of the Baltic coast, a part of the world that has been subject to more or less constant upheaval for as long as humans have lived there. It’s a complex and engrossing tale, or set of stories within a story, with many voices and a huge cast of characters, in addition to the those of the fisherman and his wife, and peppered with food, sex, joy and tragedy all the way through.

1960s

Asterix in Britain, by Goscinny and Uderzo

This was a birthday present when I was just starting to read. It was like a comic, but it was so much cooler and cleverer than the Beezer, and it opened up a whole new world. Of all the Asterix books, this one remains a favourite, poking gentle and affectionate Gallic fun at the Rosbifs across the Channel with their passions for boiled food and warm beer, the fact that it’s always raining (except when it’s foggy), and the ancient Britons carrying around with them portable roofs to stop the sky from falling on their heads.

Of course, I didn’t appreciate this when this arrived on my eighth birthday, but the first Asterix books were translated by Derek Hockridge and the extraordinary Anthea Bell, who brought to the translation a neatly humorous light touch that I suspect may equal (or even surpass…?) the original. The jokes and puns have to be theirs – as these are notoriously untranslatable – and the names… Calling the pub landlord Dipsomaniax is just a stroke of brilliance.

One of the things I love most about sharing the Decades selections each week is that it helps readers find new books to love. I don’t know if may of us will know all five of these selections but I have been investigating already and I am definitely going to be seeking out Jar City and getting it into my TBR.

What really made my heart sing though was seeing Asterix gain a place in the Library. My own childhood was a series of weekly trips to the village library where I would always take out an Asterix or Tintin book to include in my reading. Huge thanks to Quentin for the wonderful mix of old and new.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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