C.S. Boag's Blog, page 6

Call for the Dead by John Le carre

I was one of the lucky ones - not reading a Biggles book until quite recently. Biggles was the xenophobic, misogynistic hero of numerous books by someone called Capt. W. E. Johns and he was forever crouched over an ops table or fighting savages in some far -flung part of the British Empire between the wars.
Reading this early Le Carre ( the author was 30 when it was published) evokes memories of Biggles.
Spies George Smiley and Peter Guillam join forces with an Inspector Mendel in an awkward little whodunnit involving the death of a spy. and not a desirable woman in sight. Smiley's fat and brilliant and the other two are what they are. The writing shows promise of what is to come but the long ending is like reading this (still short) novel all over again

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

There's a book in this material, but this is not it. Le Carre has inside knowledge ( he was a spook) and an agenda (he's an humanitarian who hates treachery).
all good. But I fought sleep in many parts of this tedious work and it wasn't that I was tired. The book slogs along at a turgid pace, explaining, over explaining, and going up by-ways that, quite frankly, could have been bypassed.

The author thanks a lot of people at the end (always a bad sign), which shows he's done his research, but where's the terse control of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold? Is there a time in a great writers life when he should stop writing? And does it coincide with the time when editors are afraid to edit him? This le Carre should have been quartered.

A Mad and Wonderful by Mark Mullholland

I need a book to leave me something, a trace of something. To do this a book has to do more than tell a story or it will vanish in the mist. It needs to present me with a character who has something memorable about him; a theme that resonates; an insight, preferably profound; and if possible all three.
This should have been a great novel. In the tradition of "All Quiet on the Western Front", it presents us with a picture from the other side, a sensitive look at the attitude of the terrorist, his life, loves and motive forces.
To me while the novel starts promisingly, it achieves little of these things. Any sympathy I have for John Donnelly is lost in a welter of ghosts, dreams, and absolute whimsy. I love Ireland and, despite the IRA's oft-time barbarity, wrongheadedness and sheer idiocy, have real sympathy for their cause. The British are trespassers, they shouldn't be there.
But Mulholland lost me, there is little suspense. The dialogue is at times superbly Irish but that's the best I can say.

A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre

I hate Le Carre. How can anyone possibly write that well. Here is a book with all that depth and compassion, that doesn't preach at you, written with such deceptive simplicity. It is like Joan Sutherland singing - there is so much more below the surface. An old Foreign Office retainer, a common soldier and a man with brains and integrity. The book is about conscience and what to do about it, an abject lesson in right and wrong, developing around duplicity and truth. Such a worthwhile work. How could anyone score it other than 5/5

The Ante-Room by Leonard Cottrell

The Ante-Room: Early Stages in a Literary Life by Lovat Dickson (Deceased)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I happened to have the book, picked up at random, started to read it and almost put it straight back down again. Lovat Dickson's first volume of his autobiography started all talking about his illustrious ancestors. Who cares, I thought....


But then it started, the sweet journey of a boy from darkness into light. The work is so original, so full of deeply felt setbacks that he confronted only to foul again.


The book is honest and moving. The writer doesn't spare himself. This is no dressed up dummy for a publisher's shop front. Well written, this zig zag of one human life up to the age of 26 years is beautifully realised and done and dare I say it - unputdownable. But marks off for an appalling beginning. 4/5



View all my reviews

The Bull of Minos by Leonard Cottrell

This is a fine journalistic effort to marry myth and reality and bring both within the scope of the common reader -eg, me.
Cottrell travels to Greece and traces the work of amateur archaeologists in the 19th century and early 20th century to show how the myths like that of the famous minotaur have their basis in fact. So much that I was brought up to believe fairy stories happened. The Bull of Minos is a sweet, slow moving threnody. Enlightening

From View To A Death by Anthony Powell

Such a shame. Here is a great writer who in this novel anyway deals in trivia. A silly uppity young man comes to stay, seduces a couple of women, and dies. Some one else dies as well- hence the title. there is not very much point to this slight vignette of useless middle class country life between the wars. Oh, and a farcical cross dressing refined major goes balmy. That's it. I read it for the writing. But as a novel, it just doesn't rate. How did he get this published? And by Penguin, no less.

Mister Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomon

It is terrifying that a book like this can become a no.1 bestseller. But is understandable when you realise that Kellogg's Cornflakes outsells all competition in the way of breakfast cereals.
This is a truly light weight jaunt in the country. It is down there with "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" complete with poor attempts to capture accents.
The book provides its own metaphor, the blasted molehills. This is a mountain made of a mole hill.The only humour in it the odd snigger, there is little art and no moral.
One must be determined -but this business of being English isn't determination, its an obsession that finds is expression in farce.
In short, I found it cringe worthy. Cliché after cliché dribbles at our feet, distance is always "respectful", anticipation is always "eager" and appreciation "raucous".
"That's 'im" says Curtis sagely, "'eard 'ee was comin'" I echo Curtis soundly. If I'd eard 'ee was comin' I'd ave ducked for cover, which is the only thing to do with ducks.

Bullets at the Ballet

The fourth book in The Mister Rainbow series " Bullets at the Ballet" is due out the 23rd June 2014. Start now with Rainbow Red
A trip to Paris in the company of a beautiful dame would be many men’s idea of heaven. But a flight to France with the gorgeous Helen Damnation rapidly spirals into a journey to hell. Rainbow’s daughter’s missing and he doesn’t know who’s taken her – or why. Nor does he know where she might have gone – until he enlists the help of a childhood mate – now a spy – Ace Mollema. But can he trust the spook? Or the beautiful dame, for that matter? Above all, can he save the kid? Sparks fly when the Rainbow assumes a temporary identity to get a passport – and those sparks quickly turn to fire. Can Rainbow rescue his daughter? And if he does, can he work out the significance of the Bullets at the Ballet…

Bullets at the Ballet

The fourth book in The Mister Rainbow series " Bullets at the Ballet" is due out the 23rd June 2014. Start now with Rainbow Red
A trip to Paris in the company of a beautiful dame would be many men’s idea of heaven. But a flight to France with the gorgeous Helen Damnation rapidly spirals into a journey to hell. Rainbow’s daughter’s missing and he doesn’t know who’s taken her – or why. Nor does he know where she might have gone – until he enlists the help of a childhood mate – now a spy – Ace Mollema. But can he trust the spook? Or the beautiful dame, for that matter? Above all, can he save the kid? Sparks fly when the Rainbow assumes a temporary identity to get a passport – and those sparks quickly turn to fire. Can Rainbow rescue his daughter? And if he does, can he work out the significance of the Bullets at the Ballet…