The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society discussion
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Discuss the last book you read, or are currently reading
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The ninth in a series of crime novels set in a small town near Bergerac in Périgord, and, like its predecessors, absolutely irresistible. The central character is Bruno, the town's chief of police, the recurring cast of other characters engaging, the descriptions of local culture, cuisine, wine, landscape and tradition fascinating and enticing. The crimes and mysteries spring as often from the murky and painful history of occupied and post-war France as from current social problems, and are richly and perturbingly informative. If you haven't yet discovered Martin Walker's Bruno novels, you are in for a treat!"
Nigeyb wrote: "Just ordered the first one"
Andrew wrote: "You won't regret it, though anything less Hamiltonian is hard to imagine!"
I'm about 80 pages into Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker - the first of these books. Whilst no literary masterpiece, I am really enjoying the evocation of life in the Périgord region of the Dordogne - a place I've visited twice and loved. Lead character Bruno is an engaging fellow. I can see why this series has really taken off.
Thanks for the tip Andrew.
Bruno even has his own website...
http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com
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Thanks Andrew.
I have just finished 'Bruno, Chief of Police' by Martin Walker
In short, 'Bruno, Chief of Police' is a quick, easy, undemanding read with some great insights too. I will be reading the second book soon.
Click here to read my review
4/5
Delighted you enjoyed it! They are very addictive, so beware!
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Rebecca West: A Modern Sibyl by Carl Rollyson
Click here to read my review
3/5
I'm presently reading a book titled 'October Day' by Frank Griffin. Not only is it superb, it's very Hamilton-esque, and very nearly in league with Hamilton's finest.Originally published in 1939, the publisher sums it up thusly...
"It is Sunday, 4 October 1936. Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists are planning to march through the Jewish East End. Over 100,000 Londoners take to the streets to stop them. This is a vivid eye-witness record of 'The Battle of Cable Street'. It tells a gripping story of a famous victory in the history of British anti-Fascism through the eyes of seven people caught up in the events of the day: an unemployed labourer; a bus-conductor; a young woman just out of prison; a policeman; two young Communists; and the titled widow of a beer baron. Their lives suddenly collide on the streets of Stepney. Like Chaplin in 'Modern Times', they are swept along by historical forces they cannot see, in a narrative of struggle that connects a narrow street in the East End of London to the battlefields of Spain and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany."
In his introduction to the 2011 edition, published by New London Editions / Five Leaves, Andy Croft writes: "October Day was seen at the time as an example of the new "Cinematic Fiction" of the late 1930s. Among the best-known exponents of this new and experimental kind of novel were Patrick Hamilton, Arthur Calder-Marshall and John Sommerfield. These romans à fleuve represented a break with the traditional unities of character and plot in favour of a large cast of characters connected only by historical accident."
It ain't every day that I'm able to strongly recommend a book before I've even reached the half-way mark, but today is such a day, and this is such a book. Simple as.
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Mark wrote: "I'm presently reading a book titled 'October Day' by Frank Griffin. Not only is it superb, it's very Hamilton-esque, and very nearly in league with Hamilton's finest.Originally published in 1939,..."
It certainly sounds like it shares a lot in common with John Sommerfield and May Day.
CQM2 wrote: "Mark wrote: "I'm presently reading a book titled 'October Day' by Frank Griffin. Not only is it superb, it's very Hamilton-esque, and very nearly in league with Hamilton's finest.Originally publi..."
Which is a good thing in my opinion.
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Click here to read my review
I've just read The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, which I gave five stars. I have ordered the two other books in the trilogy, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely.
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Great news Greg - loved your review
You may also want to comment on the official Lynne Reid Banks TPHAS thread here...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Greg wrote: "I've just read The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, which I gave five stars. I have ordered the two other books in the trilogy, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely."I devoured the trilogy without skipping a word or regretting the time spent. Will look forward to reading your thoughts after you've read the other two.
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#truefact
The other half of that, of course, is that I know when to stay schtum and keep my guiltiest pleasures to myself!
Nell Leyshon's Memoirs of a Dipper [2015]This lean novel -- there's more fat on a butcher's pencil -- chronicles the life of Gary, a dipper... dips into purses, dips into pockets, dips in silver paper when his pint goes flat.
It's a story of childhood, of dreams, of hell and disappointment and lessons and redemption. Leyshon's gift is not only her ability to create a very real character, but also her ability to ease her reader into the character's head and masterfully control how the reader responds.
Lean and potent and visceral and moves along like an amphetamine sulphate rush.
Not that I've ever indulged in amphetamine sulphate, mind. Let's be very clear on that point.
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Thanks as always.
'Leyshon is a master of domestic suspense' - Observer
'There's different ways to do it: I can slowly move closer step by step, or I can do it in one movement and bump into them. Easiest is in a pub then I can put my drink too close to theirs. Move my stool near theirs. Anything to cross the line.'
Gary is a dipper, a burglar, a thief. He is still at junior school when his father first takes him out on the rob, and proves a fast learner: not much more than a child the first time he gets caught, he is a career criminal as soon as he is out again. But Gary is also fiercely intelligent - he often knows more about the antique furniture he is stealing than the people who own it, and is confident in his ability to trick his way out of any situation, always one step ahead. But all that changes when he falls for Mandy...
Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang, by Max DecharneFive stars
Casting its net from Francis Grose to Sid The Sexist and from Elizabethan London to Bronx hip-hop, Vulgar Tongues enlightens and entertains in equal measure while engaging the reader much like a brilliant raconteur propping up the bar one stool down. With a presentation every bit as rich and colourful as the subject matter itself, the origins and evolution and endurance of slang are laid out in chapters devoted to drink, drugs, body parts and bodily functions, music and military, crime and much else besides. Crossing continents and cultures, centuries and classes, slang fascinatingly alters and remains the same in equal part. Absorbing and revelatory, Vulgar Tongues is certain to charge you large and leave your wig fried.
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I reckon you'll have a lot of fun with it. Hopefully enough fun to make up for the misguided Paul Cain tip!
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I have just finished re-reading Rose Macaulay's 1956 novel "The Towers of Trebizond"
I first read Rose Macaulay's last novel in the early seventies, some twenty years after its publication, entranced by and from its famous opening sentence: ' "Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.' Over forty years later this marvellous book has lost none of its wit, prescience or relevance, with its themes of opposed religions, the search for faith, the necessity of love. Ostensibly a picaresque tale of a group of eccentric British characters travelling through Turkey and Syria as Anglican missionaries, it is by turns satirical, laugh out loud funny, poetic, elegiac and deeply moving.
5/5
I recently read the first novel in chronological (not writing) sequence of C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series, Time of Hope. Compelling account of a rather dislikable young man's doggedly determined struggle to rise from the lower middle class into genteel professional respectability.
Nigeyb wrote: "Interesting. Thanks. I keep meaning to try C.P. Snow - what would you recommend Patrick?" Well, that's the only one I've read, and since it's the first in his major series, it seems the place to start. I plan to move on to the next volume soon.
The literary critic and historian Martin Seymour-Smith loathed Snow and called his work "drab", which of course it is in a way - but that's the appeal. How many books are there really about staking everything in your life on getting ahead in a SMALL way?
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I will be most interested to hear your take.
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Yes, I am very interested in series like that. Romans fleuves, they flow like a river through many volumes. Simon Raven's Alms for Oblivion / The First-Born of Egypt series stretches to 17 volumes, Henry Williamson's A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight to 15, Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage to 13. I haven't tackled any of those yet, but I love the idea of doing so.
"Alms For Oblivion" is a major achievement, and engagingly filthy; "The First Born Of Egypt", though intermittently entertaining, is a series of potboilers. A linked novel by Raven, featuring minor characters from "Alms", "The Roses of Picardie", is hugely enjoyable nonsense!
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The Power of the Dog is my first book by Don Winslow and, if it's typical, then I can't believe it's taken me this long to stumble across him. The Power of the Dog is epic and compelling and reminds me more than somewhat of James Ellroy. Yep, I don’t make that comparison lightly. Not saying it’s quite as good as Ellroy but it has the same scope and, like Ellroy, shines a light deep into the morally ambiguous, dark heart of the American dream….
Click here to read my review
I loved the other books I've read by Ben Macintyre so when I heard about Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War I was keen to read it. Whilst not as jaw dropping as Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal, or as edge-of-the-seat thrilling as Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, it's nevertheless an absorbing read….
Click here to read my review
I have seen "Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution” described as a manifesto. A manifesto is a public declaration of policy and aims - something this book conspicuously lacks. It’s actually a selection of articles by a clever and gifted writer who highlights some important, sometimes shocking, things about our world. But that’s all it is….
Click here to read my review
From mid-October 2016 through to early January 2017 I read all eleven of the Bernie Gunther series - at least until April 2017 when the 12th instalment, 'Prussian Blue’, is due to be published. There are rich rewards for anyone who follows Bernie through this series and these continue in 'The Other Side of Silence’….
Click here to read my review
What about you?
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Going Off Alarming by Danny Baker
Review here...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
I've got front row tickets to see Danny Baker on stage...
The stage has always been my first love. Let me put that another way. I have never done anything like this before in my life. However, to travel from town to town addressing a fabulous gathering of like-minded chums each night seems to me exactly what Shakespeare would have done had not the hefty rent at The Globe kept him in London. As a consequence, William Shakespeare toured about as frequently as Kate Bush. Well not me. I own very few theatres anymore and so I am now totally free to charge about here and there wowing the folks with my anecdotal back catalogue, games involving sausages and impressive six octave range.
No two nights of this extravaganza will be the same. This is less of a boast than admission that a) I am hopeless at learning scripts and b) I still have no idea what I am going to include. Perhaps you can help? If youve read my books, watched the series based on them or, indeed, ever caught anything I have presented on television/radio then maybe you might contribute to the feast of reason and flow of the soul that I guarantee these evenings will contain. Questions like, Did your friend really eat saveloys from a pith helmet or What was meeting John Lennon/Michael Jackson/David Bowie/Kenneth Williams like? or, I suspect, most popular of all How comes youve made so many rotten TV programs, Dan?
I will of course arrive in front of you going off like a Cacophonous Catherine Wheel of Chat, armed with hundreds of tall tales to tell many complete with proof from my family picture album to stop you thinking I am simply raving. Ive been at this showman racket a full 40 years now my friends there is truly much to discuss and plenty to be held to account for.
A night at the theatre can either be deep dish or high kicking. What I promise to haul before you is very much in the latter category. Content wise I will make Springsteen and Dodd look like short changing slackers. I cant wait. This is the sort of radio Ive always wanted to do, ie, radio without radio. Just me and you.
In fact, if you dont show up Im going to do it in your local theatre anyway. So you may as well come. Why should the ushers have all the fun?
So, in short, roll up, pile in and hang onto your hats. I am back where I belong. On the stage! Shove over Tommy Steele theres a new sheriff in town
See you there.
Huzzah!
Technically not a review of the last book I've read, because I've only just passed the half-way mark, but I already rate Zoe Howe's biography of Lee Brilleaux, Rock & Roll Gentleman, as one of the finest rock bios Ive ever had the pleasure of spending time with.Recommended with confidence, but beware: It'll have you obsessively revisiting your collection of Dr Feelgood platters.
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Thanks for reminding me about it.
My pleasure entirely. As you know, I pretty much swore off reading music bios a few years ago, as they all struck me as being the same book written over and over, with only the pronouns changing. Perhaps more frustratingly, they all seemed to be written by people desperate to put themselves across as being somehow cooler than their subject matter. Rock & Roll Gentleman is a refreshing break from all that.
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Anything that is published by Penguin Modern Classics is instantly alluring in my mind and, given I’d heard positive things about Eric Ambler, I was keen to sample his work. I’d heard that 'The Mask of Dimitrios' (1939) (aka 'A Coffin for Dimitrios') was one of his very best.
Charles Latimer, an English crime novelist, is in Istanbul where he meets Colonel Haki of the Turkish secret police. Haki tells Latimer about Dimitrios Makropolous, a murderer, drug dealer, assassin and general rogue, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios's steps across Europe to find out more about him.
The plot conceit of having a writer of detective novels as the protagonist is a great way of contrasting detective novels with real world investigation. The plot machinations of Latimer's investigation make 'The Mask of Dimitrios' a rich source of European history during the early 1920s through to the end of 1930s. Despite WW1 being over, Europe was still awash with ethnic cleansing, ideological conflict, political assassination, and crime. Prime ministers were assassinated, drugs, women and state secrets were bought and sold, and the fascists and communists took what advantage they could. Amoral entrepreneurs like Dimitrios exploited the situation and 'The Mask of Dimitrios' effectively relates his story.
For all the many good things about 'The Mask of Dimitrios’, Charles Latimer is an annoying character: a slow witted and naive prude who really should have foreseen the consequences of much of his decision making. It's hard to imagine that his detective fiction could amount to much. This aspect of the book confused me and undermined my enjoyment. However, putting this qualm to one side, it is an undeniably enjoyable, informative and compelling tale.
4/5
Click here to give my review a like
I plan on bashing out a proper review later, but for now, I just wanted to shout about High Dive by Jonathan Lee -- easily one of the best contemporary works of fiction that I’ve read in ages. Many thanks to Nigel and Susan for placing it on my radar. I have a hunch that it’s one of those books which, along with its characters, will stay with the reader for a very long time. Recommended with supreme confidence.
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High Dive is indeed a very good book. Here's what I wrote when I finished it....
Absolutely superb.
It was GoodReads friend Susan's five star review of 'High Dive' which inspired me to read this. I am very glad I did.
I well remember 12 October 1984, the day the IRA bomb blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton, and where the Conservative Party was holding its annual conference. I was living in Brighton then and had, coincidentally, been in the hotel a few hours before the device went off.
The genius of this novel is that whilst we know what's going to happen, and how afterwards five people will have died, alongside numerous others who were injured, we don't know who. Quite probably some of the dead or injured will be characters that Jonathan Lee has so beautifully brought to life in the pages of this book.
Teenager Freya is the star of the show, full of the uncertainty and bravado of youth. Her father Moose is the Deputy General Manager at the Grand Hotel, and she works at the hotel too, alongside a host of other well drawn characters.
One of the bombers is Dan, whose sections are the darkest but which are equally credible. Dan lives with his aged mother in a Protestant area of Belfast where some of the neighbours harass them, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary humiliate him and his Catholic friends. Dan blames the police for the death of his father, who was hit by a brick during a civil rights rally.
To say anymore about the plot is to undermine a brilliantly told story which, despite the dark subject matter, is frequently gentle, funny and life reaffirming. Highly recommended.
5/5
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I was so knocked out by High Dive that I’m set to begin reading his first novel, Who Is Mr Satoshi? later this afternoon. I can’t imagine it disappointing, as Jonathan Lee has already proven to be a hell of a good writer.
I’ve just chased Jonathan Lee’s High Dive with his debut, Who Is Mr Satoshi? and, happy to say, it was superb. Unlike High Dive, this one was a bit of a slow burn, morphing into a great novel in increments. By two-thirds of the way through, it was difficult to close and, unlike High Dive, I had no clue as to what the ending might bring.Very much looking forward to following Jonathan Lee’s career, and will buy whatever comes next upon publication.
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I loved it
If, like me, you’ve been meaning to read this book for years, then delay no more, it’s a classic. If you’re interested in social trends, and post-war fiction, then read it. Actually, just read it.
Click here to read my review
5/5
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Craig Brown, who I have never read before, does an inspired job of taking this rigorously research material and creating a highly original, always compelling, thought provoking read. By the end I was genuinely fascinated by Margaret and felt I had got to understand her.
For all Margaret's snobbishness and privilege, I felt quite sorry for her by the book's conclusion. Her ill treatment by her husband, and the diarists who laughed at her behind her back, helped render her bizarre life a tragedy.
Click here to read my review
Oddly enough, that book had caught my eye a few weeks ago, leaving me curious. I think it may have had something to do with the juxtaposition of the subject matter and the jacket design. Either way, I pretty much brushed it off as a misguided impulse, but now, after reading your ringing endorsement, I'm thinking my hunches might have been right. Thanks for that!
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Improbably Adelle Stripe has managed to make a page-turner out of this material, and that is a credit to both her writing skill, and also to the extraordinary Andrea Dunbar. All the dialogue rings true and the glimpses into Andrea’s thoughts and feelings are also completely credible. It’s a brilliant, concise (230 pages), darkly humorous, tragic, fascinating book which brings a talented, troubled, shy young woman to life whilst also unerringly evoking 1980s Britain. Wonderful.
5/5
Click here to read my review
The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society
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I have just finished reading:
" A Very English Scandal" by John Preston.
This enormously readable account of the late 1970s Jeremy Thorpe/ Norman Scott affair and trial is extraordinarily contemporary and timely. Written almost as a thriller, and despite the fact that one must sometimes ask about the authenticity of the reported conversations and telephone calls, to which there were no witnesses, it is nonetheless a compelling and disturbing, at times desperate portrayal of the corruption, immorality and hypocrisy of the Establishment political elite, closing ranks to protect one of their own.