85 A new one from Henning Mankell

I have just finished reading the new Henning Mankell, The Man from Beijing [Harvill Secker £17.99 978-1846552571]. It’s the first one by Mankell that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It isn’t a Wallander novel, but it is a detective novel of a kind. The book starts off like a “conventional crime novel” (if there is such a thing) with a horrific murder involving no less than 19 victims all living in one tiny hamlet in Sweden. I did wonder if Mankell had gone over the top here, but it isn’t until much later on in the book that the reason why there are so many dead bodies becomes clear.

On hearing about the murders, Judge Birgitta Roslin realises that she is distantly related to one of the families involved and, independently of the local police in charge of the case, begins to make her own investigations. She travels from her home in Helsingborg to the small village to make some enquiries for herself. Just as it seems that she might be uncovering a vague Chinese connection, the narrative takes us back in time to China in the nineteenth century, when three brothers, peasants in a remote village, set out to walk to Canton where they hope to find work. When they arrive their hopes are dashed and they are tricked into joining a ship which takes them to America where they are used as slave labour to help build a railroad.

Slowly the connection between events in the nineteenth century and the murders in 2006 becomes clear, but not before we are immersed in a web of corruption at the very highest levels of the Chinese business community, a lust for revenge that knows no limits and a power struggle between the traditional Chinese communists and those who have imperial aspirations.

Birgitta Roslin is not a detective in the sense that she is the official investigator, but the clues that she finds drive her on to make her own investigations which take her to China and Chinatown in London. At times her curiosity gets the better of her and she unwittingly exposes herself to some dangerous situations. Whilst her marriage is giving her cause for concern, she does not have the domestic problems which Wallander has. In a recent interview with Henning Mankell on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book programme, he reveals what was the main inspiration for the novel. Whilst he doesn’t say whether Birgitta will appear in a future novel, he does reveal that there is one more Wallander novel to come.

Just a brief mention of a science biography that I really would like to read: Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes [ HarperPress £9.99 978-0007149537] covers the period from late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. The text is peopled by the likes of Joseph Banks, William and Caroline Herschel, Mungo Park, Humphry Davy and others.  It was shortlisted for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize which was actually won by Leviathan, or the Whale by Philip Hoare. I’m quite partial to anything about the history of science, so it may well go on my wish

84 A replacement for Richard and Judy?

Did you watch…

……the new Channel 4 “TV Book Club” which was on More 4 on Sunday? This is the new series of programmes with Jo Brand, Gok Wan and a few others sitting round a coffee table and discussing the odd book or two and having a good laugh at the same time. Maybe that’s not a fair description, but if you look at the comments about the programme on the web page you’ll see that quite a few people were unimpressed.  I’ve just watched the episode broadcast on 24^th January on 4oD.  My main comment on the programme is that there are a few too many people in the discussion group and they could have included another book (only two were discussed as far as I could tell!) in the programme, even though it is barely 24 minutes long.

The books that they are discussing over the whole series are being promoted in libraries and bookshops. Look out for the special “dump bins” headed by a photograph of all the celebrities etc taking part. You can find a list of the books , which include the new title by Sarah Waters ,The Little Stranger , Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant and Nick Hornby’s Juliet, naked on Amazon and on the TV Book Club web pages.

Costa

Just  a brief mention about the overall winner of the Costa Book Awards, which was announced only this week (26^th January). It’s A Scattering [Arete £7.99 9780955455360], which is a book of poems by Christopher Reid, a  tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane following her death in 2005.

Almost a “forgotten gem”

Last year I wrote about a 1950/60s novel called Deliverance by L A G Strong and called it a “forgotten gem”. Well, ever since then, I’ve been on the lookout for another forgotten gem. I thought I might have found it in The House of Moreys by Phyllis Bentley (1894 – 1977) – well, not quite, but still worth reading. It was one of the titles chosen as part of the Companion Book Club series in the 1950s

Phyllis Bentley

It’s set at the start of the nineteenth century (yes, so was the book I wrote about last week, but this is very different) and has a rather familiar theme of a young woman, Eleanor Moreys, whose father dies in a debtor’s prison in London (through no fault of his own) and who is invited to go and live with Charles Moreys, her cousin, in the Yorkshire Dales. She finds it very difficult to fit in with the quite dysfunctional family in an alien environment, but succeeds after many trials and tribulations. Her cousin, Charles Moreys is 15 years her senior and already a widower and prone to sullen moods. There are two young children, Dick and Tessie, living in the same house as well as two young men Jacob and the unsavoury Joah. There is also a rather strange old crone of a housekeeper, Adah, whose involvement in the history of the Moreys family turns out to have much more relevance than at first appears. It takes Eleanor years to fathom out who is the son/daughter of whom and what happened to Charles’ first wife and who pushed who into the mill pond, before she eventually marries Charles  and they have a son and daughter of their own.

Having re-read the above précis, it hardly seems like an exciting book, but there were times when I found it hard to put down. I sometimes wish I had a family tree to refer to so that I could understand all the revelations about who was whose child and so on.  I haven’t read any of Phyllis Bentley’s other books, but I suspect that the amount of melodrama and sentimentality involved is typical of her writings. It’s perhaps not a perfect example of “trouble at t’mill”, but worth the effort for anyone who likes historical novels. Phyllis Bentley would have known something about life in those times as she herself was the daughter of a mill owner and is fondly remembered in the West Riding of Yorkshire

83 Fossils and detective work

Fossils might not seem like the ideal subject on which to base a novel, but that’s what Tracy Chevalier has done with her latest book Remarkable Creatures [HarperCollins £15.99 9780007178377, ] about the lives of two women, Mary Anning, who searches for fossils to sell for a living and Elizabeth Philpot, a fossil collector. It is the beginning of the nineteenth century and Elizabeth and her two sisters are forced to leave their family home in London as their brother is about to marry and sell the house. They decide on Lyme Regis, now part of what is known as the Jurassic Coast, as a place where they could afford to live comfortably.

After finding an ammonite fossil on the beach at Lyme, Elizabeth soon becomes a keen fossil hunter. She strikes up a friendship with Mary and together they hunt for fossils along the beach. One day they discover a skull and then a whole skeleton which is much coveted by the local lord of the manor and eventually ends up in London. The skeleton, the first of several, arouses much interest amongst scientists and fossil collectors. The skeleton eventually ends up on display in London. But this is to condense the story too much. The whole theme of the book is not just about fossils, but about the struggle of women for recognition in a very male dominated world, particularly in the field of science. What the present day creationists believe about the origins of the world was at that time generally accepted. They also could not conceive of an animal becoming extinct. This is all pre Darwin of course. The skeleton is at first believed to have been a crocodile and any suggestion that it might have been an animal that had become extinct was regarded as heresy.

I didn’t realise until I got near the end of the book that the story was based on fact and that there really was a Mary Anning and an Elizabeth Philpot. The skeletons of prehistoric animals that Mary found are now on display at the Natural History Museum in London and the Museé National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. The story is told by Elizabeth and Mary in alternate chapters so that the reader gets both points of view, but each chapter skilfully moves the story on with little overlap. I found the book a real page turner and I’ll be including it in my list of “best reads” for 2010. The paperback is due in April.

Now for a couple of detective novels and I’m reading another of Stephen Booth’s excellent Cooper and Fry series, The Dead Place [Harper £7.99 978-0007172085]  set in the Derbyshire Dales. What I love about this series is the realism. Many Derbyshire towns and villages are featured in the stories, albeit with a little tinkering with the geography. The characters are so realistic too – Stephen Booth told me in an interview (which is still available in one of my postings at the end of 2008) that many police officers enjoy his novels as they remind them of what it’s like in real life. But the realism is not ordinary or boring: the author knows how to keep the reader in suspense. I’m half way through this novel and it’s hard to put down. Read it! Stephen Booth will be the topic in my next Chad feature to appear in the Mansfield Chad the second week in February and his next book in the Cooper and Fry series – Lost River – is due in April.

For a quite different sort of detective novel, try those of Henning Mankell – if I say Wallander, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you are a Wallander fan, you may be disappointed to learn that the detective in Mankell’s new novel, The Man from Beijing [ due  from Harvill Secker in February £17.99, 9781846552571] has a new detective, Judge Birgitta Roslin. I’ve been lucky enough to win an uncorrected proof of the book prior to publication (courtesy of a Waterstone’s competition) and I’ll be reading it in the next week or two. I’ll tell you what I think of it in a few weeks’ time.

82 Deric, Gervase and more

It was last November when I dropped in on the Mansfield Woodhouse Library Readers’ Circle and this week  in the Chad(Wed. 13^th Jan), I’ll be telling you all about my visit. At that particular meeting the Circle was discussing the book which they had just read over the previous month – Deric Longden’s Paws in the Proceedings, which is his latest book about life at home with a menagerie of cats [Corgi £7.99 9780552153119]. It was described as a “pleasant interlude between more serious reading “ by one of the members, though others (mainly cat lovers I suspect) quite enjoyed the book. The previous month they had read a book by D H Lawrence, so I suppose it was a bit like from the sublime to the ridiculous. Not that Deric Longden hasn’t written some more serious stuff: Lost for Words for example, about his mum in her declining years. The book was made into a play for Yorkshire TV in 1999.

I wonder what the Circle would think of books by Gervase Phinn.  Professor Gervase Phinn taught in a range of schools for fourteen years before becoming an education adviser and school inspector. He is now a freelance lecturer, broadcaster and writer as well as working in various capacities for three universities. He has been hailed as a born raconteur and writes a weekly column for the Yorkshire Post entitled “Yorkshire Life”. He now has a string of books to his name, the most recent being A Load of Old Tripe [Michael Joseph £10 9780718155513] about eleven year old Jimmy Johnson growing up in the industrial landscape of South Yorkshire.

His next book is Road to the Dales [Michael Joseph 978-0718149116 no price available) which will be out in March. This is about his early childhood. His series of five Dales books will be issued with new covers this Spring.

Out this month is a new novel from the pen of Neil Cross, an author I haven’t come across so far. In Captured [Simon and Schuster £12.99 9781847373977] Kenny, an artist, discovers he has a terminal illness and in the time he has left decides to find his childhood friend, Callie Barton, who was very kind to him at school. Callie, however, has disappeared, believed to have been murdered. Her husband was suspected of her murder, but no proof was found, so now he has remarried. Kenny decides to find out what happened and avenge Callie’s death.

The trial in Italy last year of Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher was headline news across the world. In Darkness Descending [Simon and Schuster £7.99 9781847398628] TV producer Paul Russell, crime writer Graham Johnson and Luciano Garofano, a forensics expert, claim to reveal the full truth behind this sensational murder and trial. Graham Johnson says there was no “smoking gun” evidence which might prove conclusively that those convicted were guilty, so we are likely to here more in the news about this in the next 12 months.

Finally one of the really nice books I got for Christmas; Memories of Steam – reliving the golden age of railways [ David and Charles, £25,9780715329566]. Yes, I know it’s full of nostalgia – reminiscences about railways and lots of lovely back and white (and some colour) photos, but it’s just the book to browse through sitting by the fire on a cold winter’s day when it’s snowing outside.

81 Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a good break and managed to get some reading done. Unfortunately the time I had for reading over the holidays was rather limited, so I’m only half way through a book which I had hoped to have finished by now. Matthew Engel’s Eleven Minutes Late [ paperback ed. due out in February: Pan £8.99 9780330512374] is subtitled “a train journey to the soul of Britain” In it Engel tries to demonstrate that railways have suffered from “perhaps the longest running policy disaster in the world”. He begins with a journey on a train run by a new company that is connecting Wrexham and Shrewsbury to London on a direct service, but points out all the absurdities involved, like stopping at certain stations for setting down only and not being able to call at others.

Engel then writes about various events in the history of the railways in Britain which illustrate how bad decisions  affected the railways long term. He begins with the first railway fatality at the Rainhill trials when a member of the Cabinet, William Huskisson was mown down by Stephenson’s “Rocket”. Other topics covered are the appalling conditions that railway passengers had to endure in the nineteenth century, until some enlightened person at the Midland Railway Company decided to upgrade third class accommodation and abolish second class carriages, thus forcing competing companies to follow suit. He also describes the indelicate matter of how passengers in non-corridor coaches coped with going to the loo en route – don’t ask: read the book! Gradually we are brought up to date with the cock-ups performed by a succession of Ministers of Transport. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book. It’s got humour, nuggets of railway and general British history and Matthew Engel knows what he’s talking about.

Now here’s something for all those who like dog stories, but from an unexpected source. Dean Koontz is of course world famous for his horror fiction, but his first ever non-fiction book is about his dog. In A Big Little Life [HarperCollins £7.99 9780007336821] Dean writes about his dog Trixie and the joy she gave him. Reading this deeply moving book will, according to all reports, mean that you will need a box of handkerchiefs at the ready.

I was in one of the Waterstone’s shops in Glasgow just before Christmas and happened to see another in the growing series of spin-offs from “The Broons” strip cartoon series. I’m not quite sure which is the latest one, but Maw Broon’s Remedies An’ Suchlike: My Wee Book O’ Bits and Pieces [Waverley books £9.99 978-1902407951] is pretty new. It has a host of remedies which Maw Broon at No 10 Glebe Street has used to cure all manner of ills, remove stains and such like. The format is similar to the Cookbook with Maw’s own handwriting and cuttings from old newspapers and magazines which appear to be stuck in with sticky tape. I’m not sure how useful this book is, but it is sure to appeal to all fans of The Broons

Later on, in a garden centre (where you are almost bound to find a book section ) I found The Broons’ Book of Gairdenin’ Wisdoms (gardening to Sassenachs)[ Waverley Books £9.99 9781902407982], a book crammed with all sorts of useful gardening advice along with some humour and you don’t have to live in Scotland to appreciate it.

80 Parrots and war memoirs

For the final posting for 2009, I’m going to tell you about a couple of books which have been sent to me by local authors or publishers.

If I was looking for a book to read, I probably wouldn’t reach for a book on parrots, but the new book by Rosemary West proved to be very interesting. When I received a copy of Go West for Parrots: a South American Odyssey by Rosemary Low [Insignis Publications £11.95 9780953133765] I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I needn’t have worried.  In this very readable book, Rosemary briefly describes her many journeys to Central and South America beginning in 1975 and spanning 33 years.  Her prime reason for visiting such places as Jamaica, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Argentina and many other Caribbean and South American countries was of course to see parrots, but she also describes other birds and animals as well as her travel experiences and a little about local people and culture.

So this book is part travelogue as well as an account of her observations of parrots. She puts things in context by describing a little about each country on her itinerary. Costa Rica for example is a country with no armed forces (something I certainly didn’t know) and Nicaragua is its poorer neighbour. Parrots in many parts are suffering from habitat destruction and other predations by humans and for most of the places she visits there is an update on what has been happening since her last visit, such as the progress of conservation projects and how various species are faring. So for anyone who wants to see exotic birds in their natural habitats in the Caribbean and Central and South America this book is for them. Of course it would be even better if there were colour illustrations, but that would considerably increase the price. There are identification guides available – at a much higher price.

Rosemary Low has written more than 20 books on parrots which have been translated into several languages.She is also the founder of the Notts Parrot Club which meets every month in Shirebrook.  Her new book is available from Insignis Publications, P O Box 100, Mansfield, Notts NG20 9NZ, Tel 01623 846430 and the price is £11.95 plus £3 postage. (Make cheques payable to Rosemary Low.)

The second book I received is quite different, but no less interesting and just as well written. Earlier this decade, Harry Stephenson published his book A Bit about Upper Langwith and Thereabouts. Included in the book were memories of people who had lived and farmed  in the Upper Langwith area in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and one of the family names mentioned was that of Turner. A copy of the book went to a younger member of the Turner family who contacted Harry to say that his father, Cornelius Turner, had written his life story. He had tried to get it published, but to no avail. Harry said he would love to read the book and, having done so, decided to put it into a format suitable for publication. The result is There and Back: memoirs of a Derbyshire lad in war and peace [9780955962806] a fascinating  account of growing up on a farm near Palterton in the early 20^thcentury followed by experiences in the second world war with a return to farming when the war ended.

The first half of the book is taken up with Cornelius’ life on the farm and his attempts to get away from a life he called boring, but eventually grew to like. Many local towns and villages feature here – including Bolsover, Chesterfield, Tibshelf, Astwith and Doe Lea. Then in 1936 he joined the Derbyshire Yeomanry and later the Sherwood Foresters. Later still he joined a glider squadron and won his wings. His numerous exploits are described including a meeting with Marshal Tito. Don’t be put off by the rather uninspiring title: it’s a really good read.  The book is available from Arizown Productions, 84 Berry Hill Road, Mansfield, NG18 4RR and the price is £9.99 plus £1.95 post and packing.

I certainly enjoyed reading both these books and hope they will reach a wide audience. That’s it for 2009, but I’ll be back next week with more. In the meantime, thanks for reading my blog and a Happy New Year to All.

79 Life in the ’70s and Sir David’s Life stories

Are you old enough to remember the 1970s? I have to admit that I remember the ‘70s quite well, though I’m not sure I took as much interest in world affairs as I do now. Perhaps that’s just as well, as I might have been rather worried by what was happening in various parts of the world. In his book Strange Days Indeed [Fourth Estate, £18.99 9780007244270], journalist Francis Wheen takes a look back at all the shenanigans of that decade. Over in the States, Trickie Dicky was caught out by the Watergate scandal, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. He thought everyone was out to get him so he, along with Henry Kissinger and cronies, was out to get them first. Over here Harold Wilson thought that “they” were out to get him, but it was never clear who “they” were, although in a strange way, he was right. Then there were the various guerrilla groups causing mayhem around the world – the Tupamaros in South America and the Baader-Meinhof gang for example – who seemed to want revolution for revolution’s sake. It was also the decade of the three day week and when Uri Geller started bending cutlery and meeting extra-terrestrials  and the most populous country in the world was governed by “a pair of raging hypochondriacs”. For more revelations to whet your appetite, have a look at the three short videos of Francis Wheen on the Amazon website, or read the review in the Guardian.

On reading this book, you are inclined to think “thank goodness things have changed”, but has this decade, which is about to end, been any better? Find out for yourself by reading this captivating and occasionally funny book (yes, we can laugh about it now). I didn’t manage to read it all as it was needed back at the library for another request. I’ll have to request it again or buy it. Or, should I wait for the paperback due in April 2010?

Now to a very different book. If anyone can be described as a “national treasure”, then in my humble opinion, it is Sir David Attenborough. I have watched just about every wildlife series on TV which he has made and I’ve bought several of the books. In fact the book I have my eye on at the moment is Life by Martha Holmes and Michael Gunton, the book of the series which is narrated by Sir David. Life Stories by Sir David Attenborough [Collins £20, 978-0007338832] is rather different. In 2009 Sir David was asked by BBC Radio 4 to write and read a series of short  (10 minute) pieces about any subject he cared to mention. If you were able to catch these talks, you will know how beautifully crafted they were. It isn’t easy to write pieces to fit into a fixed time span, especially if the time allowed is only ten minutes. Sir David seems to manage this task with ease and the stories reproduced in the book are delightful to read. At the end of each story there are photographs specially chosen by him to accompany the talk.

Those of you who like good value for your money may be a little disappointed at the amount of white space in this book as well as the larger than normal type face for each of the stories. The illustrations are not printed on glossy paper, which detracts from their appeal. Having said all that, the book in every other respect is superb, providing as it does numerous snapshots of Sir David’s life filming the natural world.

Finally I’ll mention two books in passing; in Betjeman’s England [John Murray £18.99 9781848540910] edited by Stephen Games, we have the scripts of over sixty television films produced by John Betjeman about the ever changing English countryside. The films were shown about fifty years ago, so the book provides a snapshot as seen by Betjeman of countryside and buildings which might have now have vanished or changed completely. Stephen Games has edited several other collections of Betjeman’s writings.

A spot of trivia to end with; some of the minutiae of world history can be quite amusing if you know where to find it. Now Ian Crofton has collected it for us by compiling History without the Boring Bits [Quercus £7.99 978184243744]. In its edifying pages we can discover that the poet William Wordsworth had the job of Distributor of Stamps for the County of Westmorland, why custard powder was invented and why a dead pope was dug up and put on trial in AD 897. Lots of useless facts to impress your friends at parties?

There’ll be one more posting before the end of the month, so in the meantime, very best wishes to everyone for the festive season.

78 Pick of the year

Christmas is coming and, as well as trying to decide what books to buy for the book lovers in my life, it’s time for me to look back over the past 12 months and tell you about the highlights of my reading year.

One of the titles that stands out from the early part of the year is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows [Bloomsbury £10.99 9781408800485 ]. I have to admit that it was the title that attracted me to begin with, but I was completely absorbed in this tale, set just after the second world war, of a London author who is looking for inspiration for her new book. She hears about this strangely named society in Guernsey and begins a correspondence with the members of the society to find out more.

Later on, I read The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson [Canongate £7.99 9781847671691] which was on the Richard and Judy list. Whilst in hospital a patient from the psychiatric wing begins to take great interest in a man who has just suffered horrific burns in a car accident. Her name is Marianne Engel and she is a sculptor of grotesque statues and gargoyles. She insists that she has known the burns victim in another life in Europe in the 14th Century and bit by bit she relates the story of her life at that time and how they met. Very graphic in places, but quite compelling.

Another fascinating and un-put-downable novel for me was The Somnambulist [ Gollancz £7.99 9780575082144], by Jonathan Barnes, the story of a Victorian illusionist, Edward Moon. Moon’s chief claim to fame is to be able to thrust several large swords through the body of his accomplice, known only as The Somnambulist, without causing any loss of blood or discomfort as the main attraction of his nightly performances. He is also a bit of a detective “on the side” and is called on to help Scotland Yard with a couple of murder cases which involve a strange religious sect. Very odd, but very good!

As for non-fiction, I was totally hooked by the story of the Fitzwilliam family of Wentworth House in South Yorkshire. It’s called Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey [Penguin £8.99 9780141019239]. The book chronicles the decline and fall of the Fitzwilliams and is set in the largest privately owned house in Britain, which is nowadays a crumbling and forgotten palace.  There’s a lengthy review of the book in The Times Online Property section – of all places

As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m quite fond of “TV tie-ins” and I’d like to mention a couple published in 2009, which I haven’t bought, but wouldn’t say no to.  The Victorians; Britain through the Paintings of the Age [BBC £25 9781846077432] by Jeremy Paxman is a good read as well as being lavishly illustrated, to use a well worn phrase (but this time I think it’s justified).  The second is one not previously mentioned in the blog, and that’s Life [ BBC Books £25 978-1846076428] by Martha Holmes and Michael Gunton: the TV series is excellent (the last instalment to be screened on Monday Dec 14^th)and so is the book.

Now for local history and local authors: Jonathan Foster’s book about the mysterious life of scientist and inventor Harry Grindell Matthews The Death Ray [Inventive Publishing £11.99 9780956134806] is a really good read- essential for anyone interested in the history of science. Janet Roberts’ book Oil under Sherwood Forest [£4.99 Janet Roberts Booklets  9780956190208] is a fascinating account of the American “invasion “ of Nottinghamshire when extra help was needed during the second world war to sink the oilwells around Eakring.

The new book on Hardwick Hall, Hardwick ,A Great House and its Estate, by Philip Riden and Dudley Fowkes [Phillimore, £14.99 9781860775444] was only recently published in the “England’s Past for Everyone” series. I have looked for it in the shops, but it doesn’t seem to have filtered  through yet, so I’ll hopefully report on that in the near future.

In brief: other titles which made an impression on me during the year were A Lifetime in the Building [Aurum £16.99 9781845133962] by Christine Adams, the story of how May Savidge literally moved her house from Hertfordshire to Norfolk;  Deliverance by L A G Strong [now out of print] is a forgotten gem from the past. It’s set in the West Country and is about an orphan set loose from the orphanage to find his own way in the world; and finally Devil in Amber [Pocket Books £7.99 9780743483803] by Mark Gatiss a gripping surreal novel with a touch of humour about the unlikely named Lucifer Box who tries to stop someone with an equally improbable name – Olympus Mons – from taking over the world.

There’ll be another posting before Christmas.

77 Two Kinds of Light

This time I want to talk about murder in the far north and the life of a blind hero in the French Resistance during World War 2. First though, a quick mention of my column in next week’s Chad (Dec 9^th) which will offer suggestions for books as Christmas presents. If you make a careful choice, books can make ideal Christmas presents: I hope you will approve of my list.

Now though, to the Shetland Isles. This is perhaps a rather unlikely setting for a series of detective novels, but Anne Cleeves has done just that with her “Shetland Quartet”. This began with Raven Black [Pan £6.99 978-0330512947 – new ed. due in February] and will end  – unless it becomes a quintet, or sextet(!) – with Blue Lightning [ Macmillan £16.99 978-0230014473] which is due out in hardback next February . I’m not a regular crime reader, but I’ve just enjoyed number two in the series called White Nights[ Pan £6.99 978-0330448253]. The “star” of the series is Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez (good Scottish name that, but there’s a reason for it, too detailed to explain here)who sometimes has to call in help from the mainland and even gets help, in this book at least, from his girlfriend.

It’s midsummer in Shetland, when there is hardly any total darkness and in a tiny hamlet a world renowned artist, Bella Sinclair, is having an exhibition. For some strange reason far fewer people turn up for the show, due probably to someone wearing a clown’s mask handing out leaflets in Lerwick which claimed that the show had been cancelled. During the evening a stranger appears who studies the paintings and suddenly bursts into tears. Jimmy Perez, being a friend of the artist, is on hand and finds that the stranger appears to have completely lost his memory. Shortly afterwards the stranger is found hanging in a shed near the quayside. It’s quickly proven that it wasn’t suicide and the search is on for the killer and the identity of the stranger who had no documents with him. Then another body is found at the bottom of a cliff – suicide or was he pushed? And then what happened to the man who at one time was tipped to marry Bella, but suddenly left the island?  I’m not going to spoil the story, but I can tell you that you’ll be kept guessing to the end, but take note of the clues.

I couldn’t help comparing the style of Ann Cleeves with that of Stephen Booth, Nottinghamshire’s own bestselling crime writer. Their styles are very similar, but I do think that Stephen Booth has the edge over Ann Cleeves. Possibly it’s because I felt more at home with the setting of Stephen Booth’s series of detective novels set in Derbyshire – the Cooper and Fry novels – , but I really think it’s more than that. Something I can’t put my finger on.

Well, that was one kind of light – the sort you get in Shetland in the summer when it never really gets dark – here’s another , which I suppose is best described as inner light. Jacques Lusseyran was a leading figure in one of the French resistance organisations, in spite of the fact that he was blind. In fact , blindness was an advantage sometimes.  In his book And there was light [Floris Books £9.99 9780863155079] he tells how he lost his sight in an accident at the age of eight. In spite of being totally blind, he never became downhearted and spends a lot of time in the book explaining how he overcame his difficulties and  how he was filled with a kind of inner light, which only disappeared on the rare occasions. It’s hard for a sighted person to understand how a blind man can “see” in this way, but Lusseyran does his best to explain.

Lusseyran was born in 1924 and by the time the war started he was in his mid-teenage years. When France was occupied by the Germans, he resolved to start a resistance movement.  Jacques put his skills to good use as an interviewer of prospective members of the movement, judging by the sound and tone of their voices as to their suitability, weeding out the weak and the traitorous. His movement’s main task was the publication and distribution of an underground newspaper . Eventually he and many of his comrades were betrayed to the Germans and transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He was one of only about thirty to survive .

I enjoyed reading this autobiography, though the first half of the book is rather slow in pace: it speeds up to an almost frenzied pace at times when the resistance movement begins. Jacques Lusseyran was probably one of the “lucky”ones after losing his sight, since he was able to more than compensate for his sightlessness by recognising the light within himself. How tragic then to note that he died in 1971 in the United States in a car accident.

Next time: Pick of the Year 2009.

76 Fascinating trivia and two good causes

I’m not old enough to remember the 2^nd World War, having been born three years after the end of it, but books about what it was like during the war (rather than books about military campaigns) often fascinate me. The Black-out Book [Osprey £9.99 9781846039232] is a case in point. It’s a compilation of games puzzles, short poems, quotations and so on which were intended to help while away the hours spent stuck in air raid shelters during the long nights of the blitz. The compiler is “Evelyn August” – actually a pseudonym for two people: Sydney and Muriel Box, who were both film producers and one of their films won an Oscar for best original screenplay in 1946. As to the book, well it’s probably something you’ll love or hate. I found it very twee and dated, but then that’s what it’s bound to be. Perhaps in spite of myself, I couldn’t help dipping into it time and time again. It really is something that still fulfils its purpose of helping to while away a spare moment. We may not have any air raids going on at the moment, thank goodness, but the world still has plenty of troubles and we need to be distracted from time to time to keep our heads.

There’s a series of books that has been available for some time now which seems to be aimed at those who fondly remember  their school days and the old fashioned ways in which we used to learn.  I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways to Remember Stuff [Michael O’Mara  978-1843172499 £9.99] was one of the first and one which I may have mentioned before.  Later ones include Thirty Days Has September [Buster Books  £7.99 978-1906082260]. It’s a later addition to the series, but seems to be aimed more at young people than adults. It claims to help you remember all those rules of science, spelling, history and geography by employing all those tricks which have stood the test of time. It includes a lot of mnemonics such as My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas being a way to remember the names of the planets – as long as you can remember what the letters stood for.  By the way, I was always taught that it was “Thirty days hath September”.

If it’s maths you have trouble with, then you might need As Easy As Pi: Stuff about numbers that isn’t (just) maths by Jamie Buchan [Michael O’Mara Books £9.99 978-1843173557] It’s aimed at all number enthusiasts and includes not just useful mathematical rules but also fascinating numerical facts (such as why is the number 7 so significant?), numbers used as slang and even pop culture trivia. There’s even a section on numbers used in TV programmes, including fake telephone numbers.

Finally two books, each with a worthy cause in mind; The Hero Inside [ Quiller Publishing, £9.99 978-1846890765 ] looks at the efforts of those who have been fund raising for the charity Help for Heroes and the heroes for whom they have been working.  It’s the officially authorised fund-raising book for Help for Heroes, the charity founded in 2007 to support servicemen and women wounded in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is superbly illustrated and the front cover photo includes Joanna Lumley – what more could you want?

Another worthwhile cause is the BBC’s “Children in Need” charity and, for Terry Wogan fans, one way of contributing to that is to buy See John Run by Kevin Joslin [Headline £9.99 978-0755319961]. It’s a complete collection of the Janet and John Marsh stories as read by Terry during the last four years on his Radio 2 morning show. Full of double entendre and innuendo,  it has been almost unanimously acclaimed as a really good giggle.