Love Lane by Patrick Gale

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Tinder Press| 26 March 2026| 294 pages e-book| Review copy| 5*

Synopsis

A journey. A reunion. A longing for a place called home…
When veteran Canadian wheat farmer, Harry Cane sails home to an England transformed by two world wars, his arrival triggers unwelcome self-examination for the family he abandoned.

His daughter feels duty bound to take him in but is ambushed by a long buried anger she has never before expressed. Harry’s effect on the next generation is less predictable, and enables his granddaughter to deal with an unspeakable trauma, while her gentle husband feels seen for who he truly is.

Can Harry stay and make a new life before it’s too late, or will he find himself cast out again, punished for having witnessed and understood too much?

LOVE LANE is a searing portrayal of escape and entrapment, and a powerful exploration of what home and family can really be.

I’ve read two of Patrick Gale’s books – Notes from an Exhibition and A Perfectly Good Man and enjoyed both of them. So when I saw Love Lane was available on NetGalley I requested it hoping it would be just as good – it is! Actually it’s a follow up to Gale’s earlier book, A Place Called Winter, which I haven’t read, but it reads perfectly well as a standalone. I love it. It’s so beautifully written and I quickly became engrossed in the story.

Set in the 1950s this is above all a character-driven plot about Harry Cane and his family. Harry was born in England, but the story begins in Canada, where had lived, near the town of Winter, Saskatchewan, for many years. In his earlier novel, A Place Called Winter, Gale tells the story of Harry’s life when he had emigrated to Canada and his relationship with Paul, a neighbouring farmer, secret lovers although each lived alone. Now, nearing retirement, Harry is forced to sell his farm, and leaves Canada to return to Liverpool in England to reunite with his daughter Betty and the family he had abandoned. All their lives change as they get to know each other again. It’s not just Harry’s story as we see events through Betty’s eyes and those of her husband Terry, a prison governor and of Pip, his granddaughter and her husband Mike, also a prisoner officer.

I really enjoyed this book for the characterisation, each person comes across as real, portrayed with compassion and understanding. It examines several issues, family relationships above all, and the attitudes to homosexuality. This really is a book that takes you back in time and place to a world long gone.

Patrick Gale has based his novel on the life of his maternal grandfather, using memories, stories and letters passed down to him by his family. In particular he used his grandmother’s unfinished memoir and the many letters between her and his parents. But he states that Love Lane is a novel, not a memoir.

And now I must read A Place Called Winter!

Many thanks to the author and Tinder Press for a review copy via NetGalley.

Maigret and the Old People: Book Beginnings & Review

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Friday Book Snippets combining Book Beginnings on Friday and the Friday 56, is co-hosted by Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book’s opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please.

This week I’m featuring Maigret and the Old People by Georges Simenon, book 56 of 75 Inspector Maigret.

1st snippet, Chapter 1 :

It was one of those exceptional months of May, the kind you only encounter two or three times in your life, and which have the luminosity, the smell of childhood, memories. Maigret called it a ‘May of hymns’, because it reminded him both of his first communion and his first spring in Paris, when everything was still new and wonderful to him.

2nd snippet, page 113:

Here everything was too perfect. Everything had a logical explanation, everything except the old man’s death.

Description from Goodreads:

When a wealthy aristocrat is found murdered in his home, Inspector Maigret must navigate a high-stakes case in the moneyed world of Paris’s upper crust.

Maigret is called to the home of Armand de Saint-Hilaire, a highly respected diplomat who has been found by his housekeeper, shot dead in his study. Maigret is urged to be discrete in his investigation, but after interviewing everyone concerned, the inspector is at a loss to the identity of the perpetrator—until he comes across a series of letters spanning decades between the victim and a widowed woman. As Maigret uncovers the details behind the pair’s relationship, he gets closer to discovering the tragic truth behind the official’s demise.

With the pressure mounting, the inspector must navigate class divides and his own position in society to uncover the killer. Maigret and the Old People is an absorbing mystery and a thoughtful examination of the different worlds money creates.

My thoughts:

Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Inspector Jules Maigret, published chronologically in French from 1931 to 1973. I’ve been reading the Maigret books completely out of order for years now and I think they read well as standalones. Maigret and the Old People (aka Maigret in Society) is the 56th book, first published in 1960, so one of the later books in the series. My copy is an e-book, translated by Shaun Whiteside and published by Penguin. It’s a novella of 159 pages.

I really enjoy these books, following Maigret’s life and career as he ages. As the title indicates old age is one of the themes in this book. Maigret himself is aging, nearing retirement and, apart from him, all the characters are aged between 65 and 85. It begins as Maigret is remembering his childhood, thinking of his communion and his first spring in Paris. He is feeling both light and melancholy, reflecting about his awe when he first entered the Police Judiciaire building, and realising that the Seine hadn’t changed and neither had the anglers who were still in the same spot, as if they hadn’t moved from it. This is one of the things I enjoy about Simenon’s writing, the way he describes the setting, as in the opening sentences so that we know that is spring in Paris, followed by the insight into Maigret’s thoughts and his nostalgic mood.

The novel is full of Maigret’s memories of his childhood, spent in the shadow of the chateau owned by the Count and Countess of Saint-Fiacre where his father was the estate manager. It is in this frame of mind that he investigates the death of the former ambassador, the Count of Saint-Hilaire, who had been found shot in his study, by his housekeeper of 42 years, Jaquette Larrieu. Maigret is asked to be discreet, but with no obvious motive or suspects, he is hampered. He proceeds with caution, not wanting to make hasty judgements. But, he had lost his confidence

… unprepared in the face of people whose existence he hadn’t even suspected. All their attitudes, their ideas, their reactions were alien to him, and he tried in vain to classify them under any particular category. (page 146)

He finds a bundle of letters from Princess Isabelle of V, who had been a lifelong friend of Saint-Hilaire’s. The two of them had fallen in love, but she had married Prince Hubert of V, of one of the great French families. So for fifty years they had written to each other every day, but they had never met.

After interviewing everyone concerned, Maigret is still puzzled. And so was I. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly enjoy Maigret’s methods of investigating, his intuition and the way he spends time pondering the psychology of the characters. I also liked the glimpses into his past, explaining his awkwardness with the aristocracy, as well as the insights into his life with his wife, Louise, usually referred to as Madame Maigret.

I have no expectations that I’ll read all 75 of the Maigret novels, but I’d like to read as many as I can.

The Third Man by Graham Greene: #The 1949 Club

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

This is my second and final book for this week’s 1949 Club, hosted by Simon of Stuck in a Book and Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. I read an e-book copy of The Third Man by Graham Greene, which includes a short story, The Fallen Idol. This is just a short review with some thoughts that struck me as I read the book.

Vintage Digital/ 2010/ e-book/ Print length: 162 pages/ My own copy/ 4*

The Third Man was not intended to be a book. It was an early draft for a screenplay, commissioned in 1947 by the film producer Alexander Korda. Greene wrote it whilst he was on holiday in Italy in 1948. After the release of the film in 1949, Greene’s draft was published as a short novel, or novella, in 1950.

Description from Amazon:

The Third Man, Graham Greene’s most iconic tale, takes place in post-war Vienna, a ‘smashed dreary city’ occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates…

The Fallen Idol is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight’s holiday, Philip realises too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

I’ve not seen the film and knew very little about The Third Man, apart from the fact that it’s about Harry Lime. But I’d no idea who he was, or what he did.

Vienna after the end of the Second World War is vividly described, ‘a smashed dreary city’ partitioned into four zones – in the control of Four Powers, the Russian, British, American and French, each region marked only by notice boards. Each Power was responsible for the security of the city for a month at a time. This was new information for me as I knew nothing about what had happened in Italy after the War.

The book begins as Rollo Martin, a writer of cheap American westerns, arrives in Vienna. His old school friend, Harry Lime had invited him, promising him a job. But he arrives in time for Harry’s funeral, where he meets a British military policeman Colonel Calloway, who narrates the story. Harry died in a road accident outside his apartment.

It has a terrific atmosphere throughout, classic noir, seedy, somewhat dreary and depressing. There is a enormous feeling of danger, fear and tension as Rollo tries to find out exactly how Harry had died and who was the third man who had witnessed the accident. Greene’s writing conveys a sense of the melancholy and tiredness that filled Vienna at that time.

Colonel Calloway describes it as

… a city of undignified ruins which turned that February into great glaciers of snow and ice. The Danube was a grey flat muddy river a long way off the Second Bezirk, the Russian zone where the Prater lay smashed and desolate full of weeds, only the Great Wheel revolving slowly over the foundations of merry-go-rounds like abandoned millstones, the rusting irons of smashed tanks which nobody had cleared away, the frost-nipped weeds where the snow was thin. (page 7)

And as Ian Thompson describes in his Introduction ‘Virtually every Viennese was involved in black-marketeering of one kind or another; there was not merely defeat in the former Nazi outpost, but debasement.’

I did find it confusing in places and some time I’d like to re-read it to clarify the sequence of events. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Don’t read the Introduction by Ian Thompson before you read the book, because it gives away the plot. It compares the book and the film and gives a summary of The Fallen Idol. It is very interesting and worth reading – after reading the book.

The Fallen Idol tells the story of a small boy who was left alone in a grand London house in the care of the parents’ butler and his jealous wife. It has a tragic ending but I thought it was interesting because its seen partly through the little boy’s eyes. Like The Third Man it has a great sense of unease and dread.

Many thanks to Simon and Kaggsy for choosing 1949. I found both Brat Farrar and The Third Man give fascinating insights into what life was like in 1949!

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey: #1949Club

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’ve read two books for this week’s 1949 Club, hosted by Simon of Stuck in a Book and Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.

This is the first one – Brat Farrar, one of Josephine Tey’s standalone novels, first published in 1949. Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother’s first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother.

My copy is an e-book, published in 2023 by Evergreen Publishers, print length 157 pages.

I really enjoyed it. It’s a story about identity and family relationships, set in a post Second World War England reflecting the social attitudes of its time. Patrick Ashby is the heir to Latchetts, the Ashby family estate on the south coast of England. But, in despair after the death of his parents in a plane crash, at the age of thirteen he had disappeared, leaving a note that was interpreted as a suicide note found in his jacket near the seaside cliffs. That left Simon, his younger twin brother as the heir. Eight years later Simon is approaching his 21st birthday when he would inherit his mother’s fortune.

Then Brat Farrar who bears an uncanny resemblance to Patrick Ashby, appears claiming to be Patrick and the true heir. The family’s solicitors investigated and accepted his claim. The family accept him, with the exception of Simon, who is sceptical and suspicious. The reader knows from the beginning that Brat is an imposter, but I soon began to like him and dislike Simon. As events unfold Brat decides he really wants to discover the truth about Patrick’s disappearance.

Horses play an important role. The Ashbys had survived financially after the death of the children’s parents because of the profit from their stud. Brat loves horses and grew up working with them, breaking them for the Lazy Y ranch in America. Tey’s own love for horses shines throughout. I love Tey’s descriptive writing and I could easily visualise the locations and the characters, all of whom are clearly described and believable. It’s both crime fiction and a family story about what happened to Patrick intertwined with what will happen to Bret. I think it’s almost as good as The Daughter of Time, the fifth Inspector Grant novel in the six book series, which investigates Richard III’s role in the death of his nephews and his own death at the Battle of Bosworth.

The Essex Serpent: Friday Book Snippets

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Friday Book Snippets combining Book Beginnings on Friday and the Friday 56, is co-hosted by Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book’s opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

This week I’m featuring The Essex Serpent by Sarah Parry, one of the recent additions to my TBRS. I first heard about this book when it was first published four years ago and read rave reviews singing its praise. So when I saw it was one of the 99p books on Kindle in September I snapped it up.

Book beginning, New Year’s Eve:

A young man walks down by the banks of the Blackwater under the full cold moon. He’s been drinking the old year down to the dregs, until his eyes grew sore and his stomach turned, and he was tired of the bright lights and bustle.

Second snippet: Page 56

She has recently come to Essex together with her son and companion in order to study the coastline there (something about fossil bird remains at Walton -on-Naze, I believe) and has been staying in Colchester. Of course I told her about the legend of the Essex Serpent and the rumours of its return, and about the curious carving in All Saints church, and she was most intrigued, and plans to visit.

Description from Goodreads:

Sarah Perry’s award-winning novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century and inspired by true events.

Moving between Essex and London, myth and modernity, Cora Seaborne’s spirited search for the Essex Serpent encourages all around her to test their allegiance to faith or reason in an age of rapid scientific advancement. At the same time, the novel explores the boundaries of love and friendship and the allegiances that we have to one another. The depth of feeling that the inhabitants of Aldwinter share are matched by their city counterparts as they strive to find the courage to express and understand their deepest desires, and strongest fears.

The 1949 Club

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The 1949 Club, hosted by Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, starts today. This week we will be reading and writing about books published in that year.

In the past I’ve read and reviewed these six books

  1. Crooked House by Agatha Christie
  2. Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
  3. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
  4. A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute
  5. My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon
  6. The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier

I’ve just finished reading Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, first published in 1949. I’ll be posting my review later this week.

I’m currently reading an e-book copy of the The Third Man by Graham Greene, along with a short story, The Fallen Idol. Its publication history is interesting, in that The Third Man was not intended to be a book. It was an early draft for a screenplay, commissioned in 1947 by the film producer Alexander Korda. Greene wrote it whilst he was on holiday in Italy in 1948. After the release of the film in 1949, Greene’s draft was published as a short novel in 1950. And I’ll write more about later this week.