Month: October 2011

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Impossible Dead, Ian Rankin’s second book featuring Inspector Malcolm Fox is very readable, with a nicely complicated plot, and good characterisation. Fox is still in the Complaints, now officially called Professional Ethics and Standards, but it soon becomes apparent that really he wants to be in CID. I’m not sure what to make of Fox. He’s:

… diligent and scrupulous, never a shirker. He had put in the hours, been commended for his error-free paperwork and ability to lead a team: no egos and no heroes. He hadn’t been unhappy. He had learned much and kept out of trouble. If a problem  arose, he either dealt with it or ensured it was moved elsewhere. (page 105)

And yet, he’s another loner, working best on his own, not letting on to his boss what he is working on, disregarding procedure and getting involved in cases outside his remit. He doesn’t drink because he’s an alcoholic, his marriage failed and his relationship with his sister leaves a lot to be desired (although it does improve in this book). Fox’s family life intrudes into his work and gives insight into his background and his relationship with his father and sister. He’s a complex character and I began to think that maybe he’s turning into Rebus.

Detective Constable Paul Carter has been found guilty of misconduct and Fox and his team are called to investigate whether his colleagues have covered up for him. When Paul’s uncle, Alan, a retired policeman, is found dead Fox is convinced it was murder and not suicide and begins his own independent investigations, despite being told it’s a CID case. He oversteps his remit too by investigating a cold case. When his investigations reveal links back to 1985, a time of turmoil when Scottish militants were intent on a split between Scotland and the rest of the UK, he discovers new evidence concerning the unsolved murder of one of the activists at that time.

In the second half of the book the pace and tension increase as Fox delves deeper and puts his own life in danger. I found it quite easy to see who the culprits were because their identity was signalled, but nevertheless it was a satisfying conclusion to the book.

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Orion (13 Oct 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0752889532
  • ISBN-13: 978-0752889535
  • Source: I bought it
  • My Rating 3.5/5

One Book … a Meme

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Simon at Stuck in a Book posted this meme on Friday and I thought I’d join in as I did the last time he ran it. It’s all about the books you’re currently reading, have just read and want to read next.

Do have a go yourself, if you like – and if you do, let me know in the comments so I can come over and have a look!

1.) The book I’m currently reading. I’m reading two:

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris.This has been sitting in a pile by my bed for a few months now and I’ve been wanting to read it ever since I got it, but other books have got in the way. I decided this morning that the time to read it is now and I’ve just read the Preface and the first two chapters. It looks as though I’m going to enjoy it very much.

The other book I’m reading is:

Faulks on Fiction by Sebastian Faulks.I’ve been reading this a chapter at a time and have just finished the one on Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy. It’s a companion book to the TV series on the history of the novel – which I didn’t get round to watching. It tracks the development of the novel through looking at heroes, lovers, snobs and villains. Interesting.

2.) The last book I finished: 

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie. I finished this yesterday and my review will come later. Wonderful descriptions of Baghdad, based no doubt on Agatha Christie’s own experience. With an international plot to get the world’s two major powers at war this is a fast moving book with intriguing characters – no Miss Marple or Poirot – but a most resourceful shorthand typist,Victoria Jones.

3.) The next book I want to read:

King Solomon’s Carpet by Barbara Vine – one from my to-be-read books. Another dark, tense psychological thriller by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine.

4.) The last book I bought:

Westwood by Stella Gibbons. This is the next book at my local book group meeting at the end of November. It should make a nice change to read a ‘comic and wistful tale of love and longing‘ as The Times describes it on the back cover.

5.) The last book I was given: 

The Things We Cherished by Pam Jenoff – a review copy, sent to me by the publishers. This has two plots running parallel – set between the present day and wartime Germany.

Saturday Snapshots – Great Hetha Walk

Published on by Margaret22 Comments

We’ve been having a mix of weather recently what with wet days, windy days, dull grey days and a few beautiful sunny days. Wednesday was one of the days when the sun shone the sky was blue and it even felt a bit spring-like. So that afternoon Dave and I decided it was time we took a walk in the Cheviot Hills.

We’ve lived just north of the Cheviots for nearly two years now and have been saying ever since we arrived that we must go walking in the hills. I don’t know how many hills there are that form the range, but there are many of these rounded hills bisected by valleys. They straddle the border between England and Scotland, that area of land fought over in the past, a land where the Border Reivers held sway. The Cheviot, itself is the highest point at 815 metres and the last major peak in England, but we decided to start small with Great Hetha above College Valley and work up to walking the Marilyns.

The photo above shows the view at the start of our walk with Great Hetha on the skyline. It’s 210 metres at the summit where there are the remains of an ancient hillfort. We parked in the car park just south of Hethpool and the walk began easily enough along the private road through the Valley. The photo below shows the Valley looking south:

After a short distance and turning right it’s a steep uphill climb described in Walks in the Cheviot Hills by David Haffey as a ‘strenuous climb‘! I was soon struggling for breath. We stopped halfway up to look at the view northwards to Scotland (and to get our breath back!).

Looking up at that point we could see a small cairn on the summit, still a steep climb ahead.

It was worth the climb to reach the hillfort. This is an Iron Age hillfort dating from about 500BC. The remains of the stone ramparts are still there and it was easy to imagine what it must have been like in such an isolated place, being able to see for miles around, aware of any approach to the hill. According to the Walks guidebook such hillforts would have contained several timber-built round-houses within the stone ramparts, probably being occupied for several centuries.

From there we left the route in the guidebook and walked down the other side of the hill to the valley below and crossed the Elsdon Burn. The sky was most dramatic:

It was getting towards the end of the afternoon and as we headed back to the car, the sheep were being rounded up in the field, below a wooded dome-shaped hill known locally as the Collingwood Oaks (after Admiral Lord Collingwood – there is a hotel in Cornhill called the Collingwood Arms, more about that another time maybe). I wasn’t quick enough to take a photo of the running sheep (they were galloping!) but I managed to snap the farmer and his three sheepdogs on their way back, with the Collingwood Oaks in the background.

There are more photos of our walk on Flickr.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce, At Home With Books.

Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Subtitled The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II, Operation Mincemeat is about the Allies’ deception plan codenamed Operation Mincemeat in 1943, which underpinned the invasion of Sicily. It was framed around a man who never was.

The success of the Sicilian invasion depended on overwhelming strength, logistics, secrecy and surprise. But it also relied on a wide web of deception, and one deceit in particular: a spectacular con trick dreamed up by a team of spies led by an English lawyer. (page xi)

At first I found this book a little confusing and far too detailed, but as I read on I became absolutely fascinated and amazed at what had actually happened. The plan was to take a dead body, equipped with false documents, deposit it on a beach in Spain, so that it would be passed over to the Germans and divert them from the real target into believing that the preparations to invade Sicily were a bluff.

Operation Mincemeat would feed them both a false real plan, and a false cover plan – which would actually be the real plan (page 58)

The corpse was a Welsh tramp who had committed suicide. His body was clothed in the uniform of an Royal Marine with documents identifying him as Major William Martin and letters about the top-secret Allied invasion plans. This involved creating a fictional character, a whole host of imaginary agents and sub-agents all with their own characteristics and imaginary lives – just as in a novel. The details of the deception were dreamt up by Ewan Montagu, a barrister and Charles Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley), a flight-lieutenant in the RAF seconded to MI5, the Security Service. Both were enthusiastic readers, which stood them in good stead:

For the task of the spy is not so very different from that of the novellist: to create an imaginary credible world, and then to lure others into it, by words and artifice. (page 62)

The plan was not without its faults and and indeed it contained some potentially fatal flaws, but incredibly it succeeded.

Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history. (page 307)

This is a book, totally outside my usual range of reading. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did and I think I did enjoy it because it was so far-fetched to be almost like reading a fictional spy story. I marvelled at the ingenuity of the minds of the plans’ originators and the daring it took to carry it out.

Library Loot/Teaser Tuesday

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

It’s been a while since I wrote a Library Loot post and as I went to the library today I thought I’d combine it with a Teaser Tuesday post.

I’ve dipped into each book. From top to bottom they are:

Follow Your Heart by Susanna Tamaro, translated from the Italian by Avril Bardoni. I fancied reading something different from my usual type of book – this book won the Premio Donna Citta di Roma in 1994. From the book jacket – ‘it reflects on feelings and passions and how failure to communicate leads to futility, misunderstanding and tragedy – a meditation on existence.’ An old woman writes to her granddaughter:

As I have wandered aimlessly through the empty house these last few months, the misunderstandings and bad temper that marred our years together have vanished. The memories surrounding me now are of you as a child – a vulnerable, bewildered little creature. (page 3)

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. A book I’ve known of for so many years and never read. I had no idea that it is a detective story! I love the way it begins:

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous, anybody could tell he didn’t belong – belong to the early summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind of the sea, the holiday crowd. (page 1)

I can just see the scene!

White Nights by Anne Cleeves. I’ve been looking out for this book, the second in her Shetland Quartet, ever since I enjoyed reading the first one – Raven Black. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez investigates what seems at first to be a straightforward suicide. This is my teaser:

‘I don’t know my name’, he said flatly. No drama now. ‘I can’t remember it. I don’t know my name and I don’t remember why I’m here.’ (page 16)

Sister by Rosamund Lupton. More crime fiction, a psychological thriller. I’d read about this book on a blog (sorry, can’t remember which one – it may have been more than one blog) and thought it sounded good. Beatrice’s younger sister Tess is missing. She refuses to give up looking for her and  is determined to discover the truth about Tess and what has happened to her.

For a moment, amongst the crowd, I saw you. I’ve since found out it’s common for people separated from someone they love to keep seeing that loved one among strangers; something to do with recognition units in our brain being too heated and too easily triggered. This cruel trick of the mind lasted only a few moments, but was long enough to feel with physical force how much I needed you. (page 26)

I have high hopes of all four books.

Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I really enjoyed reading Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant. When Joan emailed me to ask if I would like a review copy I nearly said no thank you, because I have so many books to read and I couldn’t say when I’d get round to reading it. I’m glad I didn’t because when it arrived I soon found myself reading it and then I couldn’t stop. It’s a dramatic (but not melodramatic) and thought provoking book.

It’s about three people, and the narrative moves between them beginning with Yona Stern, an American visiting her sister Dena, a settler living in the territories near Hebron on the West Bank. Yona has come to make peace with Dena, after being estranged for ten years. It then moves on to Mark Greenglass, a Talmud teacher in Jerusalem, now visiting his parents in New York, before returning to Jerusalem. He’s come to a crisis point in his life where he is questioning his faith, his life and his career. The third person is Aaron Blinder, a young American and a somewhat pathetic individual who gets involved in an unofficial commune just outside Jerusalem. Events gradually connect the three, changing all three lives.

Wherever You Go is convincing, with a strong sense of location, believable characters and a fast-paced plot. I’m neither Jewish or American but I thought this was an interesting view of life in Israel, and of the relationship between Israel and America and of Jewish Americans living in both countries. It also conveys the conflicts and tensions of Israeli life, emphasising the dangers of religious and political extremism. But it’s not just a commentary on the political and religious issues, as it explores each of the characters’ personal issues – seeking forgiveness, looking for the truth in religious beliefs, and reconciling family relationships. All in all, a well-rounded novel, which captivated me.

  • Paperback: 253 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.; Reprint edition (9 Sep 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0393339890
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393339895
  • Source: review copy from the author
  • My rating 4.5/5