Rohase Piercy's Blog, page 4

Review - 'Those People' by Louise Candlish

Those People by Louise Candlish

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This one is a real page-turner! The plot is actually very simple: the Neighbours from Hell move into a leafy residential street in an affluent area of South London. Feathers are ruffled. Sleep is lost. Opposition is mobilised. Tempers are frayed. Confrontation is increasingly threatening. And then, following a tragedy that was just waiting to happen, a flip side emerges - supposing, just supposing, it's not 'those people' who are the Neighbours from Hell, but one of the other households? And if so, which one?
It's gripping stuff, and Louise Candlish has a wickedly accurate eye for middle-class pretentions, insecurities and guilt - I laughed out loud at a couple of scenes involving coffee grinders, artisan bread and The Guardian - but is equally spot-on in her description of working-class chutzpah.
It's brilliant, from start to finish! Give it a go!



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Review: The Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Published in the US as 'Oscar Wilde and a Death Of No Importance', this is the first of Gyles Brandreth's 'Oscar Wilde Mysteries', and I liked it enough to want to read the second. For one thing, Brandreth has Wilde's conversation and mannerisms down to the T; for another, it celebrates the real-life unlikely friendship between Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, and that's right up my street!

The mystery surrounds the murder of a young rent boy, and the narrator is another of Wilde's real-life friends, Robert Sherard, who wrote several biographies of Oscar during the first half of the 20th century. Sherard himself doesn't come across as particularly likeable – he's a womaniser and a dimwit, and plays a very poor 'Watson' to Wilde's 'Holmes' – but he tells the story at a good pace, with an authentic late 19th century voice and with enough twists and turns and red herrings to satisfy. Conan Doyle appears only sporadically, but is sympathetically portrayed, modest about the success of his first Holmes story, 'A Study In Scarlet', and as kindly and tolerant as he reportedly was in real life.

But, but, but. There are two glaring problems. Firstly, Oscar just doesn't fit the role of an eagle-eyed, Holmes-like detective any more than Sherard fits the role of Watson (unless it's a bumbling, knuckle-headed Nigel Bruce-type Watson). You can't suddenly endow a literary, fantasy-prone, truth-embellishing, social butterfly with Holmes' encyclopaedic memory for facts, microscopic powers of observation and lightning deductive skills and expect the reader to swallow it whole. Brandreth does seem to realise this, and has Doyle make his new friend the model for Mycroft, but Oscar Wilde, super-sleuth, just doesn't do it for me.

No more does Oscar Wilde the ladies' man. Yes, he was absolutely charming, gallant and easy with the opposite sex, but Brandreth here presents him as a lover of women, devoted to his wife Constance and only aesthetically interested in young men. Again and again, he has Oscar praise the delights of heterosexual love, and the charms of womankind; again and again, he has Sherard insist that even though his friend may, 'on occasion, in moments of weakness, in the privacy of a darkened room ... succumbed to the sins of the flesh', his aesthetic appreciation of the masculine form was misunderstood at his trial and has been misrepresented ever since. It's such an extraordinary re-writing of Wilde's character that I'm left wondering just what the agenda is here.

But maybe as the series progresses, and Bosie Douglas enters stage left, things will change – if nothing else, I'm curious to see what Brandreth (or Brandreth's Sherard) makes of that particular relationship! So because of the good story, because of the meticulous period detail, and because I could genuinely hear Oscar's voice, if not recognise his character, in these pages, it's three stars from me, and a promise to read more.



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Review: 'Daddy' by Loup Durand

Daddy by Loup Durand

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This amazing novel has been on my bookshelf for years, one of Mr B's all-time favourites but unread by me because I had myself down as 'someone who doesn't go for WWII fiction'. But lock down has closed the libraries and sent me casting around for reading material, and boy am I glad that I finally got round to this!

The plot is actually relatively simple: The year is 1942. The location is occupied France. Thomas Van Gall, an eleven-year-old boy, has locked away in his memory the codes to over 350 million dollars, secreted away in multiple bank accounts for Jewish clients by his late grandfather. The only other person who holds this information is his mother, Maria Weber, a brilliant and wealthy former socialite, now being hunted by the Nazis. Leading the search for the missing millions is obsessive, wily, intelligent Gestapo agent Gregor Laemmle. Laemmle, a paedophile, has hitherto been unaware of Thomas' existence, let alone his extraordinary mental capacity and the fact that he shares his mother's secret knowledge – but all that is about to change.
Anticipating her own demise, Maria has instilled into her son's memory a series of instructions to be followed in the event of just such a discovery, and appointed crack marksmen, survival experts and safe houses to guard and guide her son to safety in Switzerland where he will finally be able to divulge the list he has memorised; she has also written a letter to an old lover, unsuspecting American banker David Quartermain, informing him that he has a son who is in mortal danger.

And so, as Sherlock Holmes would say, the game is afoot. The cat-and-mouse dance is long and complicated, as three minds try to second-guess one another and stay half a step ahead. At one point, Thomas is captured by Laemmle and challenges him to a game of chess – a game he could easily have won in a few moves, but as a test of the older man's capacities he draws it out for as long as possible before announcing the final 'Check'. This game comes to symbolise the whole complex relationship between man and boy. Meanwhile Quartermain, initially dismissed by his estranged son as just another pawn to be sacrificed in the cause of the greater good, gradually moves to centre stage as his journey of self-discovery leads him to cross inner boundaries as well as the borders and checkpoints of occupied Europe.

Actually for me it's Quartermain who makes the most shocking discovery of the story, a series of facts coolly embedded in the fictional narrative: namely, the activities of American banks and businessmen determined to make a profit out of WWII no matter which side won. I had no idea, for instance, that the Yanks were complicit in financing the manufacture of Zyklon B (the gas used in extermination camps such as Auschwitz); that American oil companies supplied the Nazis with aviation fuel; or that Hitler's rise to power was largely financed and maintained during the 1930s by Wall Street bankers. Obviously it wasn't just American financiers who turned a blind eye to the repercussions of their business deals, but considering the retrospective self-congratulation on 'winning the war' still paraded on occasion by the US, and the heavy wartime cost to Britain of persuading the Yanks to join the Allies at all, I found this information every bit as sickening and disillusioning as Quartermain does!

Anyway, I won't spoil the ending, but trust me, it's heartbreaking and well worth waiting for. For me, 'Daddy' merits a rare five-star score.



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Holmes and Watson to the song 'Where You Are'

I first came across this back in 2010, when I was so much of a technophobe I had to get my daughter to post a comment on it for me!

I recently stumbled across it again, and once more I was so moved and amazed to think that My Dearest Holmes had inspired someone to put it together.

Big thanks to Barbuzuka, whoever you are, for doing this, and of course to Deine Lakaien for the original, beautiful song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dTQy...

Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Now I'm very ignorant about indigenous Mexican culture, to the point of being hazy on the difference the Aztecs and the Mayans, but I do love a story about human encounters with the Old Gods so I thought I'd give this a go. So glad I did!

Casiopea is eighteen years old - named for a starry constellation, but a poor relation in her widowed mother's strait-laced, snobbish family in 1920s Uukumil on the Yutacan Peninsula where she's despised for her father's Mayan blood. Her tyrannical grandfather Cirilo treats her like a servant, and her cousin Martin likes to goad and torment her. Then one day, left alone in the house while the family enjoy a holiday outing, she opens an old chest in her grandfather's room and discovers the bones of an imprisoned God. And not just any God - Hun-Kame, Supreme Lord of Xibalba, the Mayan Realm of the Dead. With Cirilo's help he has been imprisoned and supplanted by his younger brother, Vucub-Kame, who now rules Xibalba and has plans to restore the practises of ritual sacrifice and blood offerings on the Yutacan peninsula and beyond, so that Gods can feast once more on the fear of mortals.

However, with Casiopea's help (a splinter of his bone having lodged in her hand and drawn mortal blood), Hun-Kame is alive again in the form of an ageless but handsome man, and ready to take vengeance upon those who've betrayed him. And like it or not, he and Casiopea are bound together - his bone working its way into her hand, her mortal essence leaking into his Godhead - as they set out on a quest for justice.

As a votary myself, I do love stories of reciprocity between Gods and mortals. The Ancient Romans summed up the relationship as 'Do Ut Des' - 'I give so that you will give.' As the bond between the mortal girl and the immortal God begins to affect and change them both, and as Hun-Kame's quest for justice becomes more and more desperate, the question is faced - just how real is your love for your God, and theirs for you? And when the chips are down, just how much would you - or they - be prepared to give?

If you love tales of Gods and magic, then this is for you, and there's a glossary of Mayan terms at the back to help you on your journey. A rare five stars from me!



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Review: The Coin Of Carthage by Bryher

The Coin of Carthage by Bryher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'd never come across this author before and was intrigued by the mysterious name - 'Bryher' is in fact one of the Isles of Scilly off the Cornish coast, and was adopted as a nom-de-plume by Annie Winifred Ellerman, an amazing woman by all accounts who as well as writing fifteen novels and several non-fiction books, lived an unconventional life in Paris, London and Switzerland, moved in literary circles that included Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, set up a 'receiving station' for refugees escaping Nazi persecution during WWII, and entered two 'marriages of convenience' with literary men whilst maintaining a lesbian relationship with poet Hilda Doolittle until her partner's death in 1961. 'Bryher' herself continued to live and write until 1983, and 'Coin Of Carthage', published in 1963, is set during the Second Punic War.

Two Greek traders, Zonas and Dasius, thrown reluctantly together on a journey, have a brief chance encounter with the great Carthaginian leader Hannibal that is to change both their lives. Whilst the conflict between Rome and Carthage rages in the background, we follow the fortunes of each as they separate, one to travel to Carthage, the other to settle on the outskirts of Rome. When Zonas saves the life of a young Roman officer, Karos, he is rewarded with the stewardship of his mother's farm; and while Karos seeks in vain high and low for his beloved companion, Orbius, captured by the Carthaginians and carried off to their city as a prisoner, it is Dasius who eventually find the changed and embittered young Roman years later ...

This is a book about relationships, some of them with homoerotic overtones (Karus and Orbius, Dasius and the Mago, the ship's captain who offers him shelter in Carthage), and about the everyday lives of ordinary people on the periphery of great historical events. The most detailed descriptions are not of armies, cities or warfare, but of humble inns serving wine, fish, figs; sunlit courtyards with cool, stone fountains; bustling markets with loaves, acorns, trinkets, jars of honey spread out on brightly dyed cloths; seaside quays with the tang of salt on the air; the soft, velvety muzzle of a donkey. The attention to detail is both loving and vivid, and although I was disappointed not to 'see' more of the great temples of Carthage, or indeed of Hannibal himself, I found this gentle, understated depiction of life in Rome and Carthage utterly absorbing.



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Review: Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land

Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wow, what a debut for Ali Land! This dark thriller had me hooked from beginning to end.

On the face of it, the storyline is simple: Annie has finally been driven to betray her mother's monstrous secret to the police - nine little children, seven boys and two girls, tortured and murdered in their house and buried in the cellar.
Now, with a new name and a new foster-family, 'Milly' has a mammoth task ahead of her - to adjust to a new life and learn to act normally - whatever 'normally' is.
The fact that her mother's trial is looming, and that her mother's voice is constantly in her head, doesn't help with this process. Nor does the fact that her foster-father, who is also her psychotherapist, is less insightful than he claims to be, and remains obstinately blind to the growing tension between his new foster-daughter and his own brittle, damaged and spiteful daughter Phoebe.
It was never going to end well.

The author's insight into the mind of a deeply traumatised teenager, born from her experience as a CAMHS nurse, makes this a horribly credible story right up until the end. And her reticence about the actual extent of Milly's mother's depravity, the lack of detail about the sexual abuse and exactly what games went on in the room she called 'the playground', is both merciful and clever, ratcheting up the tension and speculation whilst sparing the reader a gore-fest.

I do have one criticism: I cannot quite believe the final scene between Milly and her foster-father. He is not only a well-meaning, kindly carer, he is supposed to be a trained clinical psychologist - not a ditsy, emotional social worker. Yes, his situation is extreme, but I still don't believe he could have been that dumb, that uncontrolled, or that gullible.

Apart from that, it's absolutely brilliant. More from this author, please!



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Preview - In The Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson

In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This latest collection of 'micro poetry' from Frank Watson is divided into ten sections of uneven length, each clustered around a theme – which may be as general as 'Time And Space', as specific as 'An Entrance To The Tarot Garden' (which takes us through the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana), or as idiosyncratic as 'Percussion Mind', which explores the poet's love of Jazz.

When interviewed about his preference for short, image-focussed verses, Watson explained that whilst working on translations of ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry he came to appreciate the social function of short verses like the haiku - often composed on the spot as a greeting or a thankyou when visiting or leaving a home or gathering. This idea of 'social poetry' - a brief, pithy verse conveying one central, visual image – took root and became his preferred poetic form; an ideal one to share on social media such as Twitter and Instagram!

A micro-poem should conjure up a lasting, vivid image in the mind of the reader, and Watson does this splendidly in some verses whilst falling short in others. Phrases such as 'on a blue evening/ swimming in Jazz' (Interlude, Percussion Mind), 'spinning /into centuries/of cracked earth/ with stories told/ of continents/ that drift apart' (Continents, Within the Weeping Woods), and 'Because she does not seek/the golden bird/ it rests on her branch' (Empress, An Entrance To the Tarot Garden) are eloquent and powerful; others such as 'when the crows/ carve their claws/into the electric night' (Hemlock, Beneath The Raven Moon) and 'mist rises in the aftermath/and whistles the sound/of graveyards in the wind' (Battlefield, Omens) are clumsy and make no grammatical sense – in a micro-poem, attention to detail is everything, and I do feel that Watson sometimes misses his mark.

Having said that, his poetry is haunting and evocative, and the beautiful art that intersperses the pages (including paintings that have inspired a particular verse) captures the mood of his words perfectly. If you love words and images, this is a book to treasure and dip into time and again.



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Review: Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the fourth in the Rivers Of London/Peter Grant series ... I liked it better than the third, the suspicious deaths which might, just might, involve paranormal activity keep coming and the action really picks up here. We delve into magic architecture (with a mixture of real and imaginary architects referenced), plus we get to meet a Dryad and a Night Witch. DC Peter Grant is as goofy and loveable as ever, his magical practise is improving nicely under the tutelage of DCI Nightingale (he of the deceptively youthful appearance and mysterious wizardly past); and as for Peter's sidekick, DC Lesley May ... well, let's just say there's a big surprise coming.

And the icing on the cake for me is that it's all set around the Elephant and Castle in South London, a place I remember well from childhood. The Brighton Detention Centre at Hollingbury gets a brief mention as well, so I feel quite at home. Having said all that, I'm going to take a brief break from this series before going further - I just fancy a change of style. But it'll draw me back, of that I have no doubt!



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Review: Whispers Underground

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The thing with the 'Rivers of London' series is, the books don't stand alone - you really have to have read them from the beginning in order to understand the subsequent books. Given that, however, this saga of magic and malevolence in modern London is shaping up nicely. 'Whispers Underground' has lots of witty dialogue, black humour, interesting historical information, and goblins. Or dwarves, or troglodytes, or mutants or whatever you want to call them. Oh, and there's an FBI Agent on the case as well, because this episode's victim happens to be the son of a US Senator. She gets put in her place by the gallant Officers of the Met - very satisfying.

If you're into this series, you'll thoroughly enjoy this - if you've stumbled across 'Whispers Underground' by accident, you won't have a clue what's going on. Anyway, onwards and hopefully upwards ...



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