A portrait of the autist as an older man - Eyejaybee tries for 100 books again

Hello, everyone.

I am James, a 61-year-old widower and civil servant, theoretically based in Whitehall (although still predominantly working from home).

I am glad to be back for another year's reading challenge, and I am very grateful to Pamelad for setting up this year’s Challenge Group. I am also looking forward to seeing how everyone fares, and to picking up loads of book bullets as we progress through the year.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2024, with a feast of great reading.

Here are my counters for the Challenge:

Books read tracker:



Pages read tracker:

As in previous years, before plunging into this year’s challenge, I thought it might be worth looking back over my reading during 2023.

I read 129 books, just easing past my personal target of 120. While most aspects of my life have returned to their pre-pandemic norms, I still feel that my reading patterns are slightly affected by the impact of Covid. Like most of Whitehall, my department has been keen to have a greater proportion of staff working in the office, and I have generally been going in for about two days each week. This has provided useful reading time of about an hour each way twice a week, although I still feel i am missing out on the pre-pandemic feast of reading time that my commuting previously offered.

Looking back over the list of books that I read, I notice that once again I read far fewer non-fiction books than had been usual for me a few years ago. However, the book that I found most impressive throughout the year was non-fiction: Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell's wonderful biography of John Donne.

The fiction books that I enjoyed the most during the year (in chronological order of my reading, rather than in my estimation of their merits) were:

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett.
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.
White Riot by Joe Thomas
The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming

Of those, I think that The Perfect Golden Circle was probably the one I liked most, although I greatly enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, too.

I think that the book I enjoyed least during the year was Treacle Walker by Alan Garner.

Cumulative list of books read during 2024.

001. Swag by Elmore Leonard.
002. The Coldest Case by Martin Walker.
003. The Crash by Robert Peston.
004. The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths.
005. Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell.
006. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
007. The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie.
008. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.
009. Waterland by Graham Swift.
010. Dead Giveaway by Simon Brett.
011. The Last Word by Elly Griffiths.
012. A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin.
013. Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs.
014. The Final Round by Bernard O’Keeffe.
015. Simply Lies by David Baldacci.
016. City Primeval by Elmore Leonard.
017. The Tour by Simon Wilde.
018. Private Lessons by Bernard O’Keeffe.
019. The Camel Club by David Baldacci.
020. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke.
021. Lost and Never Found by Simon Mason.
022. The Tooth Tattoo by Peter Lovesey.
023. Every Trick in the Book by Bernard O’Keeffe.
024. Anna O by Matthew Blake.
025. To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker.
026. A Comedian Dies by Simon Brett.
027. Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain 1974-1979 by Dominic Sandbrook.*
028. Absolute Power by David Baldacci
029. The Stone Wife by Peter Lovesey.
030. Twelve Secrets by Robert Gold.
031. What Bloody Man is That? by Simon Brett.
032. The Collectors. By David Baldacci.
033. Death on the Thames by Alan Johnson.
034. A Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker.
035. The Drift by C. J. Tudor.
036. Stone Cold by David Baldacci
037. The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
038. Eleven Liars by Robert Gold.
039. Byron: A Life in Ten Letters by Andrew Stauffer.
040. Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan.
041. Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz.
042. Divine Justice by David Baldacci.
043. Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin.
044. Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci.
045. The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett.
046. Who Dares Wins by Dominic Sandbrook.*
047. A Study in Death by Iain McDowall.
048. Ten Seconds by Robert Gold.
049. A Decent Interval by Simon Brett.
050. Rather be the Devil by Ian Rankin.
051. Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan.
052. Double Jeopardy by Colin Forbes.
053. Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie.
054. Memory Man by David Baldacci.
055. Stagestruck by Peter Lovesey.
056.

Looking forward to another year of your detailed, thoughtful reviews, James.

#4 Me too!

1. Swag by Elmore Leonard.

Elmore Leonard established a reputation as a writer of so-called ‘hard-bitten’ crime novels (although I believe that earlier in his career he specialised in Westerns), and this is one of his better-known works. It introduces the character of Ernest Stickley Jr, generally known as ‘Stick’, who would appear in some of Leonard’s later works.

Swag was published in 1976 and would probably now be prefaced with warnings that it contains expressions and views that reflected that time. It is also heavily sprinkled with references to clothing atrocities that might trigger alarm among sensitive fashion-conscious current readers (and sparked the odd moment of embarrassment in me when I realised I had also been guilty of such crimes against common decency myself).

The plot concerns two minor criminals, ‘Stick’ and Frank Ryan (which allows for occasional puns about frank and earnest discussions) who come together in rather unusual circumstances, and agree to form a partnership to commit a series of armed robberies around Detroit. The story is very much plot driven, although while Leonard doesn’t enter into lengthy descriptions of the protagonists’ characters, it becomes clear that Stick and Frank have different approaches to their work, and also different ultimate objectives.

Leonard keeps up the fast pace, and he held my attention closely throughout. I felt that the book ended rather suddenly, but found reading it an enjoyable experience.

***1/2

I think crimes against fashion decency are a fundamental part of the human experience and good for the psyche. Things seem so standardized now I don't think my nieces and nephews will ever have that and it makes me a little sad.

The part of me that wants to read widely always thinks I should read something by Leonard just because he's one of those Big authors, but I might go with one of the more recent ones he's known for just to give myself the best chance of enjoying it (more due to that sudden ending and just author growth than to dated aspects in the language etc).

Hah. My youngest wears socks and sandals. This is anathema to my generation, and I think they're doing it because they know it pushes my buttons. :D

They also rock a very filthy mullet.

Regarding your 2023 reads, Yellowface was my favourite book of 2023, and honorable mentions to Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

>7 mabith: >8 wookiebender: I have certainly been guilty of more than my fair share of fashion outrages, and no doubt my colleagues would suggest that I still am.

2. The Coldest case by Martin Walker.

Affable Chief of Police Benoit ‘Bruno’ Courrèges returns in another charming Dordogne mystery, awash with local colour and yet more sumptuous meals.

This time, he finds himself engaged in an old case, hunting for the murderer of an unknown man whose body had been found thirty years ago near a local campsite. His colleague and friend, now head of the local Gendarmerie and starting to think about retirement, had worked on the case at the time – it was his first involvement in a murder investigation, and has been obsessed about the identity of the unknown victim throughout most of his career. While studying an anthropological display at a nearby museum, Bruno has an inspiration about a possible new approach.

Meanwhile, two members of Bruno’s circle of friends are (separately) following up rumours about the possibility that there might be agents from the former East Germany still under deep cover throughout France, and possibly now in positions of seniority within the administration.

As always, the plot is almost secondary to the marvellous descriptions of life, and particularly the food and wine, enjoyed in the Dordogne. That is not, however, to say that the story isn’t robust, and once again Martin Walker pulls off an entertaining and engaging story.

****

3. The Crash by Robert Peston.

One of my all-time favourite novels is A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Published in 2009 while the dust was still settling following the global banking crisis, it features an extraordinarily Machiavellian financier called John Veals, who devises and sets in motion a major couple which, in addition to winning him an immense fortune, will scupper the country’s foremost banking institution. Reading it shortly after its publication, while the wounds that virtually everyone in the Western world sustained from the banking crisis still felt rather raw, I was amazed at the apparent simplicity of Veals’s subversion.

As it happens, it was during that crisis that I first became aware of Robert Peston, who was then the BBC’s leading financial correspondent, and whose sanguine reporting helped offer some degree of understanding of terms being bandied around such as ‘subprime’ and ‘toxic debt’. Peston moved on to become the BBC’s leading political editor, before then moving to perform a similar role in commercial television.

His second novel revisits the crisis. The story is a first-person narration from Gil Peck, a high-profile journalist with the BBC, and opens in 2007 when he receives a tip that one of Britain’s banks, based in the north-east of England, may have seriously overreached itself and could be facing existential challenges. Peck checks with contacts in the Bank of England who confirm that there are issues with the bank in question. Peck uses the tip to secure a journalistic scoop, although that results in massive queues outside each branch of the ailing bank as customers rush to withdraw their money. But then Peck’s contact in the Bank of England is found dead, and it transpires that various other banks are experiencing similar problems, and may be looking for the government to bail them out.

Peston draws on his immense knowledge of the field to create a very tense thriller, full of twists. He also has an enviable capacity to describe highly complex financial transactions and constructions in a readily accessible manner. In a former incarnation I was an investigative tax inspector, but my experiences of forensic accounting would not have helped me to make much headway through the labyrinthine twists and deceptions that mar Gil Peck’s investigations.

My one cavil – a minor one – is that nearly all of the characters are so deeply unpleasant, including Peck himself. I don’t particularly need to be able to empathise with characters in order to enjoy a book, but it would be nice to find at least one that has some redeeming traits.

****

>8 wookiebender: One aspect that particularly struck me about Yellowface was how different it was from her previous novel, Babel, which was my favourite book from 2022.

>12 Eyejaybee: Babel was a great read, too. I should try some of her other books as well.

4. The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths.

I had originally picked this novel up more or less by chance and really enjoyed it. Since then I have (I think) read all of Elly Griffiths’ books (and as she is very prolific, generally publishing two novels a year, that is quite a lot of reading). I decided it to re-read it because her latest novel comes out very soon, and it features some of the characters from this one.

The book strays into similar territory to Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club, (which I had read just a few weeks before my first reading of this), sharing its evocation of the traditional, ‘cosy whodunit mystery of the past.

Peggy Smith was in her nineties, so perhaps it was no surprise that she should be found dead in her favourite seat in her apartment situated within a sheltered housing scheme in Shoreham. Peggy was, however, an unusual woman, and had been cited in the acknowledgements section of dozens of crime novels written by a wide selection of authors. It seemed that a lot of writers of crime fiction had come to view her almost as a consultant, and she was famed within those circles for her ability to suggest new ways in which characters might meet their end, or how their former associations with criminal life might catch up with them.

Not everyone is convinced by the apparent normality of Peggy’s death, though. Her Ukrainian-born carer, Natalka, thinks that she had seen someone watching Peggy’s apartment in the days leading up to the death. But then, as we will discover, Natalka herself is far from normal. Indeed, she proves to be one of the most entertaining characters I have encountered for a long time.

Elly Griffiths brings off a literary coup with this book as, while constituting a paean to the traditional detective novel, she peoples it with a host of unusual characters, who challenge the very idea of whodunit clichés. Natalka is aided in her investigations by a former monk who, having resiled from his vocation now manages a shack selling coffee on the beach, and a lesbian Sikh detective who dreams that some day she might manage to escape from living with her parents above their corner shop, although she dreads revealing to them with her hidden life.

The plot builds slowly at first, with Natalka and Co struggling initially to convince the police that their suspicions have any basis at all. The pace picks up, however, and takes in a visit to a crime fiction festival in Aberdeen (which itself offers a stark contrast to its fellow seaside town of Shoreham).

Deftly plotted, and full of engaging, yet also plausible, characters, this is a hugely enjoyable book, and perhaps my favourite so far by Elly Griffiths.

*****

5. Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell.

Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia returns for her ninth outing, As the novel opens, she receives a letter from Carrie Grethen, a psychopathic killer who has appeared in several previous books, and who has appointed herself arch nemesis for Kay, her niece Lucy, and crime fighting associates Benton Wesley (formerly the suave, head profiler for the FBI and now established as Kay’s Lover) and ultra rough diamond Police Captain, Pete Marino. Grethen is in custody, undergoing psychiatric assessment while awaiting trial for multiple killings. The letter is far from lucid, but within its frantic scrawl Kay perceives an urgent if undefined threat.

Meanwhile, Kay and Marino are summoned to the site of a gruesome arson attack which has levelled the capacious house and stables of a prominent and immensely wealthy businessman, with whom they have crossed swords before. In addition to the string of horses housed at the property, a human body is found, prompting a federal, cross-agency investigation. The owner of the property is an African American, and racial motives for the attack are suspected.

This novel was slightly less frenetic that some of its predecessors had been, although Kay Scarpetta remains on the cusp pf paranoia. Her niece Lucy is slightly less objectionable that in some of the recent books, too, which certainly came as a relief.

The plot is soundly developed, and while by this stage of her writing career Cornwell seemed happy to leave no cliché knowingly overlooked, the story moves along briskly. It still seemed a long way from the string of excellent books that launched the series, such as Post Mortem, All That Remains, and Body of Evidence.

6. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.

I struggled with this book which taxed my limited reservoir of patience and credulity beyond comfortable limits

>16 Eyejaybee: Nice, crisp review - sometimes one feels a book deserves no more, indeed.

>16 Eyejaybee: I agree!!

7. The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie.

I was introduced to the works of Agatha Christie when I was about eleven or twelve, and started reading them one after another with that particular teenage boy’s avidity that can rapidly morph into mindless obsession. Looking back now, I am not sure whether I even especially enjoyed them at the time – I just turned to the next one as a manifestation of the compulsion to try to ‘complete the set’. I was much the same with the Sherlock Holmes stories, and remember reading the four novels and five volumes of short stories in one block during one school summer holiday.

Looking at Agatha Christie’s books now, I see that in my youth I completely failed to acknowledge any of the occasional wry social comment, or the frequent bitchiness. Indeed, having revisited some of the less well known works in the cannon, I see a brutal side to Ms Christie’s nature, with victims often described in the most starkly negative terms.

The Sittaford Mystery is one of Dame Agatha’s earlier novels, and a standalone story, not featuring any of her famous sleuths. It tells of the murder of Captain Trevelyan RN, a retired naval man who lived alone in Dartmoor, eschewing all company apart from that of his old friend Major Burnaby. Trevelyan is known as a rather solitary and unsociable character with a tendency towards parsimony. Receiving a surprisingly high offer of rent for his large house in Sittaford over the winter period, he has decamped, moving to the nearby town of Exhampton. Burnaby and Trevelyan have fallen in the habit of spending sociable evenings together twice a week, walking the three miles each way.

As the novel opens, heavy snow has all but blocked Sittaford off, to such an extent that Major Burnaby initially decides to miss his customary evening with Captain Trevelyan. Instead, he joins other guests at Trevelyan’s old home, where the new tenants are proving very hospitable to all their neighbours. As a diversion in the wintry evening, the house party decided to have a try at ‘table turning’ conducting an amateur séance. This exercise yields up an alarming message …

The novel is as engaging as Christie’s books generally are, although this is one that has not aged well, I suspect that it may well have been on the cusp of being rather dated even when it was first published. Christie was still honing her act, and had not yet learned to smooth all the potential wrinkles out of her plot, Captain Trevelyan is a surly character, and his taciturn misogyny seems too clumsy to be credible.

However, I enjoyed the glee with which Emily Trefusis and Charles Enderby, the self-appointed nemeses, pursue their investigation, although I felt that the crime when finally revealed lacked any real viability. If this had been the first Agatha Christie book that I had read, I am pretty certain that I would not have bothered with any others.

8. The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng.

This novel stirred a range of emotions, and also offered an insight into an area and period of history of which I am lamentably ignorant. The story is principally set in Penang in 1921, although it includes flashbacks to a few years earlier, and is mainly narrated by Lesley Hamlyn. She had been born in Penang and had married Robert who had established a thriving legal practice in the colony. In 1921, the Hamlyns paly host to celebrated English author, William Somerset Maugham, at that point nearing the zenith of his fame, having recently had four of his plays staged concurrently in London’s West End, a feat never previously achieved by any writer. Somerset Maugham is not travelling alone. He is accompanied by Gerald Haxton, ostensibly his secretary, but actually his clandestine lover. Lesley’s memories are interspersed with third person narratives following Maugham’s thoughts and deed in the colony.

Lesley’s recollections of 1910 bring a different focus as she recalls her encounters with the revolutionary Sun Yat Sen and his supporters, who were then touring Penang with a view to tapping rich Chinese ex-pats for funds to support their insurrection against the Chinese Emperor. If I felt somewhat ignorant of Somerset Maugham, I was hopelessly at a loss over Sun Yat Sen, and was intrigued to learn more about him.

I found this book both engaging and enlightening, although I did feel slightly disappointed that the writer didn’t convey more of the atmosphere of 1920s Penang. As a backdrop to the action of the book, it might almost have been everywhere. From my limited experience of Somerset Maugham’s writing (principally through the few short stories that I have encountered), he was able to evoke a strong feeling of his settings. Indeed, although very little of the story occurs in South Africa, the environment there is conveyed far more clearly than that of Penang.

Still, that is a minor cavil, and I found the book very enjoyable.

Do you have any good science fiction book recommendations for a 2nd year highschooler

9. Waterland by Graham Swift.

I first read this novel shortly after the paperback edition was released, almost forty years ago. It had been included in the previous year’s Booker Prize shortlist, and most of the reviews had been appropriately enthusiastic. I had just started in my first proper job, and was revelling in the awareness that, after years of student penury, I could now occasionally take a chance on buying a book on a whim, rather than having to weigh up every purchase against the risk of Micawberesque misery.

And what a book! In just over three hundred pages, Graham Swift offers the reader a history of East Anglia, including insights into political strife, land reclamation, flood management, the finer points of brewing, the beguiling mysteries of the eel, the culmination of the Cold War in the early 1980s, a love story, a murder, and a cautionary tale about incest, all wrapped up in a fascinating exegesis of the nature of history itself.

Tom Crick is, for the moment, Head of History at a large comprehensive school in London, beset with domestic challenges and facing strenuous effort by his headteacher to close his department. His Sixth Form lessons have, however, bucked the trend in which disaffected pupils move away from the humanities. His lessons are swell, because word has spread among the pupils of a new approach to teaching in which Crick’s lessons are suffused with vivid recollections from his own childhood. Crick’s pupils are dejected, convinced that the world is on the brink of a final nuclear war. Forty years earlier, Crick had been growing up in Norfolk during the Second World War, where his father was a lock-keeper responsible for vital flood management in that low lying land, contending with rationing and watching regular bombing missions taking off from the air force bases spread all around the county.

Swift takes his readers through numerous flashbacks, showing how Crick’s family had come to live by the river, and painting the history of the region. The flat landscape, and numerous waterways of the region play a key part in setting the atmosphere of the story. Swift’s prose is as clear as the water in Crick’s father’s lock, and his mastery of the multiple strands of the story is immense. He merges folklore with history, and manage the cast of characters deftly.

I can’t remember which book actually won the Booker Prize when this was a challenger – it must have been jolly good to have beaten this.

>20 Eyejaybee: that makes three of us here, you, me and Pam who have read and enjoyed this novel this January :)

10. Dead Giveaway by Simon Brett.

This is one of the earlier outings for Simon Brett's down-at-heel actor Charles Paris, set in the early 1980s, and finds him ruing the realisation that his career seems to be continuing its general downward spiral. As the novel opens he is at least in work, but the role is far from glamorous.

West End Television, a local commercial station in London, has a long-established record of focusing on the less intellectually stretching end of the television market, and is eager to move into the rapidly expanding field of game shows. To this end, it has secured the UK rights to a successful American TV game show Hats Off and, is preparing to make a series under the revised name of If the Cap Fits.

This scenario offers Simon Brett the opportunity for a searing satire of the world of game shows. The basic premise behind If the Cap Fits is that contestants drawn from the general public, and paired with celebrities, have to guess which of four representatives of different professions would wear which hat. Charles Paris is there … not as one of the celebrities but as an actor, because for the wacky world of 1980s TV game shows, actors can obviously be represented by Tudor bonnets. Of course, the actor in question has to be someone whom the public would be unlikely to recognise, which renders it a role made for Charles Paris.

Needless to say, before very long someone is dead, in questionable circumstances, and Charles finds himself delving more deeply for clues. In this case, the victim is Barrett Doran, the unwholesome host of the game show, and there is a large cohort of potential perpetrators.

When one of the Assistant Producers of the programme is arrested as prime suspect, Charles is called upon by her friends to help clear her name. As ever, Charles in turn suspects virtually all of the potential suspects in turn before alighting on the actual killer.

Simon Brett is a master at combining a robust murder story and investigation with comedy. Charles Paris is an appealing character – far from perfect, but all too aware of his flaws. Brett also manages to satirise (gently but tellingly) the pitfalls and shortcomings of producing television fodder for the masses.

11. The Last Word by Elly Griffiths.

Elly Griffiths has rapidly become one of my favourite authors, and this book exemplifies why. She creates engaging and highly plausible characters, whom she then places in intricate (yet always credible) plots. Natalka, who first appeared in The Postscript Murders, which was published a few years ago, is one of my favourite fictional characters of recent years. Beautiful, Ukrainian and resourceful, she had been working as a carer at the start of that earlier novel, although she had also amassed a considerable fortune through her mastery of bitcoin, although this had caused significant problems for her in the past.

Following the events related in The Postscript Murders, she is now managing the carers’ agency that had previously employed her. She is living in Shoreham with ex-monk Benedict (who runs a coffee shop on the beach, known for the high quality of its drinks), although their apartment now feels cramped as her mother, Valentyna, has fled war-torn Ukraine and moved in with them. But Natalka has other strings to her formidable bow. She has also set up a detective agency, which she runs with Edwin, an octogenarian and former presenter on BBC Radio 3 (the classical music station), who had also feature in the previous book. Most of their cases have revolved around instances of suspected infidelity, at which Edwin has proved unexpectedly adept. He relies on the tendency of younger people generally to overlook older people in their vicinity, which has enabled him to become proficient at tailing the subjects of his investigations,

They are, however, delighted when they receive a more challenging commission, to investigate the sudden death of a celebrated author. As Natalka and Edwin delve into the available material, they uncover possible links to the deaths of other writers This leads to Edwin and Benedict (not technically part of the agency, but always willing to lend a hand) to enrol in a nearby writers’ retreat, which had also hosted several of the dead writers.

Elly Griffiths marshals her material adroitly, and also takes the opportunity for some insights, and perhaps in-jokes, about the writing community. The plot is intricate, with numerous twists, and unforeseen tangents, and the characters are excellently drawn. Edwin is portrayed exquisitely, and the contrast or comparison between him and Benedict is beautifully managed. Indeed, she is wonderful at creating unorthodox characters, and imbuing them with a deep verisimilitude. Literary prejudices are hard to shift, but should always be challenged. If I had known before embarking on Griffiths’ wonderful series of novels following Dr Ruth Galloway that one of the characters was a cloak-strewn modern Druid, I think I would have passed, and moved to another author. However, it is difficult now to imagine those books without the marvellous character of Cathbad. Similar reactions to the prospect of a former monk as protagonist would have robbed me of the joy of reading about Benedict, with all his failing confidence.

I have enjoyed all of Elly Griffiths’ books, and am additionally impressed at the speed with which she produces them. She seems to have published two books a year for several years now, without any suggestion of such prolific output compromising the high standard. I hope we get to read more about Natalka and Co very soon.

12. A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin.

I found this a very enjoyable and engaging novel. I was also intrigued to see how prophetic it was in many ways. It was written in 1982, some three years into Mrs Thatcher’s first term in office, and before the Falklands War, success in which did so much to secure Thatcher’s subsequent terms in office. It is set in the year or so following a general election in 1989 at which the Labour Party has ousted the previous Government of National Unity (presumably a Conservative-led Coalition) and secured an unexpected landslide victory.

As the novel opens, we are given the reactions of various Establishment stalwarts, including press barons, bankers, industrialists and several Civil Service mandarins, all of whom are appalled at the prospect of a genuinely socialist government assuming power. While they seethe with rage and fear we learn something of Perkins’s background.

As a young man Harry Perkins had followed his father into employment in a Sheffield steel mill. Once there he became involved in the trade union movement and quickly rose through the local ranks. Spotted as a potential high-flier, he was awarded a union scholarship to Ruskin College in Oxford, and continued his rapid progress through the part machinery until he was selected as an MP for his home town.

Following a spell as an energetic and diligent back bencher he enters what is clearly the Wilson/Callaghan Government of 1974 to 1979 (though neither of those two leaders is specifically named), eventually rising to Cabinet level with responsibility for maintaining the national grid. I think that this is intended for the cognoscenti as a veiled reference to Tony Benn. In this capacity, despite obstructions posed by officials in his own department, he awards a contract for a nuclear power station to British Industrial Fuels, and they duly build an installation by Lake Windermere.

When the Conservatives return to power under Mrs Thatcher following their own landslide victory in 1979 Perkins surprises everyone (perhaps including himself) by eventually becoming leader of the Labour Party. An election is called in 1989.

Perkins certainly has a radical suite of policies and is eager to commence the withdrawal of the UK from NATO and the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal. He also threatens to dissolve the prevailing newspaper monopolies. As we have already read, the Establishment is appalled, and starts to fight back using its own range of weapons. Sir George Fison owns many of the most popular press titles and uses his papers to mount a concerted effort to undermine the new administration. Meanwhile the military Chiefs of Staff mobilise their own machinery, undertaking almost treasonous activities with Western Allies to circumvent the Government’s planned reductions. The various Whitehall Permanent Secretaries work together to confound the administrative process wherever possible. These mandarins are steely, ruthless characters – very far from the popular perception of Sir Humphrey, but with all of his determination to have their own way.

The author, Chris Mullin, would subsequently become a Labour MP and would even briefly serve in Government himself, although at the time that he wrote this novel he was an investigative journalist fighting high profile alleged miscarriages of justice. However, his understanding of the Whitehall machinery is very clear, and he paints a very plausible picture of the relationship between Ministers and senior officials. The novel is always entirely credible, and often very humorous. I particularly enjoyed a description of the drab corridors in the Treasury Building where I currently work.

The novel is also rather alarming as it displays the relative ease with which the combined forces of the banks, the press and senior officialdom can confound the aims of government, regardless of the size of the electoral mandate. One thinks of the persistent rumours, fuelled by memoirs from the likes of Peter Wright, of concerted campaigns by the intelligence community to undermine the Wilson government in the 1970s.

>26 Eyejaybee: This book completely passed me by when it was published 1982, probably because I was in the process of emigrating. It is now on my TBR list.....thanks. Coming from someone who works in Whitehall, how could I ignore it?

>25 Eyejaybee: I too, enjoy Elly Griffith's books. I will look for this one in my library.

>27 scunliffe: I hope you enjoy it.

13. Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs.

As I embarked up this novel I had very high hopes for it. Apart from any other considerations, I was intrigued by the setting, having previously had no knowledge about Montreal at all. Sadly, my initial rapture faded fairly quickly.

As I understand it, I believe Kathy Reichs was prompted to write this novel from a sense of pique at the success of Patricia Cornwell’s books featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta. Apparently Reichs felt that Scarpetta’s role and background was very close to her own, and believed that she might be able to do better. I am not convinced that she has, although to be fair, after a great start with her first four or five novels, I think that Patricia Cornwell started to lose her way, too.

However, enter Dr Temperance (‘Tempé’) Brennan, her counterpart to Lay Scarpetta. Brennan is American but has spent the last year working in Montreal, liaising with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, the local municipal police force, and the Sûreté du Québec which covers the whole of the Province. While I am sure that the technical content relating to the forensic anthropology and autopsy procedures is correct (or at least more than good enough to convince a scientific ignoramus such as myself), I found the story less than gripping. For a start it seems unnecessarily long, coming in at around 560 pages in the edition I read. That included an awful lot of padding.

I also felt that Ms Reichs succumbed to too many crime story tropes. Right from the beginning, Tempé’ finds herself clashing with Detective Claudel, the officer leading the investigation. While I am glad that I read this, I doubt that I will be pressing much further with the series.

14. The Final Round by Bernard O'Keeffe.

I am always keen to discover a new fictional detective, and Inspector Garibaldi, working in the Barnes area of South London, is a welcome addition to the cadre. Of course, as is now mandatory for any fictional detective, he has a complicated backstory. In his case, we learn that he separated from his wife a few years ago, and that she has taken up with a very wealthy new partner, and that, as a consequence, their son now attends a very exclusive private school. There are also oblique references to some sort of breakdown that Garibaldi suffered.

Barnes is situated on the south bank of the Thames, and is probably best known to non-Londoners as being on the route of the Boat Race, with the competing boats having to shoot the central span of Barnes Bridge. It tends to be overrun with sightseers on Boat Race Day, and the pubs do huge business, although the influx of outsiders is less welcome to most of the local residents. It is on the evening of Boat Race Day that the novel opens, with someone being murdered in the parkland around the Leg of Lamb Pond.

Two weeks earlier, a group of six people who had known each other decades ago as students at Balfour College, Oxford, had gathered for their annual reunion, which took the form of a charity pub quiz. This year, it all went fairly smoothly until a mystery voice offered some salacious statements about each of the six alumni, and asked the assembled crowd to decide which (if any) they thought were true. It is this exchange that sets in motion the events that will lead to the murder.

This sets the scene for Inspector Garibaldi and his colleagues to investigate, which they do capably. The plot is well thought through, and the necessary clues are there (even if I didn’t spot all of them myself). This is merely the first in a series, which already stretches to three books, and I am looking forward to reading more.

I read Deja Dead some years ago, as my mom was a fan of the TV show Bones, and was also extremely underwhelmed. It seemed to particularly suffer from the modern mystery novel disease of requiring a very smart main character to lose all their intelligence for a while in order to make the plot work/get the character in the right place.

>32 mabith: Yes, I found Dr Brennan's complete abandonment of any semblance of common sense, after having gone to such lengths to demonstrate how smart she was, very irritating.

15. Simply Lies by David Baldacci.

I am not sure why I hadn’t read any of David Baldacci’s novels before. I know he has been prolific, and his book are immensely popular – perhaps there was some subconscious attempt to resist that aspect of the crime fiction zeitgeist. If I am going to be honest, I only really tried this because I was able to buy an e-copy at a ridiculously cheap price.

It was money well spent because I found it very enjoyable. I was gripped within a few paragraphs, and found myself enmeshed in a very complex plot involving various local and federal police and investigative agencies, and the extensive tendrils of organised crime gangs. Mickey Gibson works from home in her role as asset tracer for a prominent private investigation agency. A former police detective, she has moved into the private sector to utilise their more flexible working pattern so that she can also look after her two young children. One morning, shortly after concluding a case discussion with her boss, she takes a call from someone else purporting to work in the organisation asking her to check out a substantial property nearby.

This pitches her into a murder investigation, and brings her up against Francine Langhorne, an expert in the art of manipulation, who has a very complicated agenda of her own. The story develops along several directions, and moves with great pace. Baldacci doesn’t indulge in deep or detailed descriptions of his characters, but they all come across as highly plausible.

I enjoyed reading this, and will certainly look for more books by Baldacci.

16. City Primeval by Elmore Leonard.

This novel is now over forty years old, and it has not aged well. Nowadays when broadcasting programmes that were originally aired several decades ago, the BBC often gives a warning that it reflects opinions and attitudes prevalent in that time. This book would certainly be subject to any such caveats.

However, it was not just the heavy scattering of heavily racist and sexist views that made it difficult to read. The approach to telling the story was very different, and the absence of detail or any attempt to delve beneath the skin of the characters was all too apparent.

17. The Tour: The Story of the England Cricket Team Overseas 1877-2022 by Simon Wilde.

This is a comprehensive history of the overseas tours by England’s cricket teams, stretching from 1878 up to the Ashes tour of Australia in the winter of 2021/22.

Simon Wilde has been reporting on cricket for decades and followed a lot of these tours himself. Obviously, the initial prospect of a tour to a warmer climate during the depths of the English winter is alluring, but Wilde’s account shows how arduous such tours can become.

In the early days, such tours were taken under the aegis of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), rather than badged as England. Several weeks were required in which to cram in all the necessary games (which would include a full test series against the host country’s national team, strewn among a handful of other fixtures against local and regional teams, often of widely varying calibre, and on some unkempt, and occasionally downright hazardous, pitches. Indeed, up until the early 1960s, not only was a great swathe of time required to accommodate the various fixtures, but teams might find themselves spending several weeks on a boat sailing to and them from the host country.

Cricket tours encountered all sorts of problems, ranging from local political unrest and agitations against unpopular governments to full on demonstrations aimed at the cricketers themselves. Administrative and consular support was not always available, and shortage of money could often be a problem. Sometimes the host country had only sporadic provision of aspects of infrastructure taken for granted back home. Often the attitudes of the players or their managers provoked wider problems.

Wilde delve into all of these issues and more. Having been a passionate cricket fan for many years, I was engrossed by much of the content of this book. It is always nice to have distant memories of hitherto long forgotten incidents sparked into life. My own slight cavil was that the book would have benefited from a few more light-hearted anecdotes, which might have broken up hat occasionally felt like a turgid serving of Geoffrey Boycott’s batting of the deadest of dead pitches.

18. Private Lessons by Bernard O'Keeffe.

I am indebted to The Times for recently choosing to review Every Trick in the Book, the most recent book by Bernard O’Keeffe. I hadn’t been aware of him until then, but their enticing review encouraged me to try him out, leading me to read his first novel, which introduces Detective Inspector Garibaldi, who lives and works in Barnes, situated in west London on the south bank of the Thames. This novel is Inspector Garibaldi’s second outing, and easily lived up to the promise of the first.

It opens with the discovery of the body of Giles Gallen, a young local man who had been working as a private tutor for several wealthy households in the area. We soon learn that in affluent Barnes, the use of a private tutor to enhances children’s learning is commonplace – indeed, almost de rigeur in some of the more exalted circles. Giles had been highly rated for his skills as a tutor, and his services were hired out by Forum, an ambitious local agency.

One of Giles’s clients is a wealthy Italian family who are currently residing in an opulent Barnes mansion. During the summer they had returned home for several weeks, taking Giles with them for a long and luxurious break. Everyone is astounded when Giles is killed. The mystery deepens when one of his friends, who had also worked for Forum, is attacked in the street, and urged to keep their mouth shut, although they are not told what should be kept secret.

I found Inspector Garibaldi an empathetic character. He is an avid reader and an auto-didact, and has developed a tendency towards pedantry which is often manifested by an urge, which he battles against, to correct his colleagues’ grammar or errant literary allusions. I have worked with several people like that, and found him highly plausible. He also works well with Gardner, his Detective Sergeant, who is less well informed on cultural issues, and who consequently has some comic misunderstandings of Garibaldi’s comments.

Garibaldi has a fair amount of baggage arising from domestic woes, and worries that his son is being unduly influenced by his ex-wife’s wealthy new partner. There have also been references throughout this book and its predecessor to an apparent breakdown a few years ago, although no further information has been forthcoming to date.

The plot is well-constructed, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the setting. I have been to Barnes a few times, and always enjoyed my time there, and am looking forwards to exploring it further, and checking out some of the landmarks mentioned in the books.

19. The Camel Club by David Baldacci.

I found this thriller very entertaining. I had got rather out of the habit of reading books like this, and had forgotten how enjoyable a well-written thriller can be.

Set a few years after the 9/11 attacks, it recounts a plot against the American President hatched by a group featuring radicalised Islamists, and the various countermeasures undertaken by the various (indeed, numerous) intelligence and security agencies. The Camel Club of the title is a group of disaffected citizens living in and around Washington DC who have been reviewing the proliferation of power accumulated by the security agencies in the wake of 9/11, along with all sorts of conspiracy theories abounding within the fringes of life in the capital.

The principal member of the Camel Club now goes by the name of Oliver Stone, in a nod to the film director’s works challenging aspects of the establishment version of history. We gradually learn that he has a dark history in which under his real name he had been an accomplished servant of the agencies on which he now attempts to keep tabs.

The narrative continually moves perspective, at different times following Stone, initiates of the terrorist group, or members of the various security organisations. This was managed deftly, and enhanced, rather than hampered, the flow of the story.

20. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke.

I have always been a huge fan of Arthur C Clarke’s novels, and this, which was his first major commercial and critical success, was apparently his own favourite. Published in 1953, as the Cold War was gathering in intensity, the novel starts with the Americans and Russians in the midst of a space race (prefiguring the bitter competition that would flourish during the latter half of that decade and then throughout the 1960s). This is, however, rendered redundant by the arrival of a fleet of huge spaceships from an alien race, immensely more powerful and technologically accomplished than mankind.

The aliens, known informally as The Overlords, assume power over the Earth almost immediately, with the human population realising that resistance would be pointless. The Overlords are benign, and under their suzerainty the world embarks upon an extended period of peace, accompanied by a surge of technological advancement and economic growth. The world’s woes are largely vanquished, and the population can concentrate on a life dominated by leisure. Not everyone is happy – some feel that their cosseted existence is robbing mankind of its initiative and ability to progress.

Clarke’s description of the Utopian lifestyle afforded the world under the benevolent guidance of The Overlords is beguiling and demonstrates his awesome prescience. In a throwaway remark he predicts the introduction of a readily accessible, reliable oral contraceptive and something that seems remarkably, almost frighteningly, similar to DNA fingerprinting, decades before either would become a reality.

I think that Clarke was a great science fiction writer because, in addition to being an accomplished scientist, he had that happy knack, so rare among other performers in the genre, of being a genuinely good writer. He understands the intricacies of plotting and development of plausible, sympathetic characters. In Childhood’s End, plausible characters abound, ranging from gushing socialite Rupert Boyce, independent and dangerously inquisitive astrophysicist Jan Rodricks; and the domesticated Gregsons, George and Jean and their two children. Clarke’s compelling verisimilitude over the everyday makes the fantastic seem utterly credible. More than seventy years since its publication, and nearly forty since I first read it, the book remains just as gripping, enjoyable and rewarding.

>29 Eyejaybee: It is available only as an eBook. My iPad has decided it won't work. sighhhhhhhhh

21. Lost and Never Found by Simon Mason.

I enjoyed Simon Mason’s first two novels featuring the mismatched paid of Detective Inspectors, Ray and Ryan Wilkins, taking especial delight in the wholly inappropriate behaviour of Ryan in contrast to the wholly correct Ray. Embarking on the third novel, however, I felt that the novelty had well and truly worn off, and I actually found Ryan’s antics simply annoying.

The plot seemed rather flimsy, too, and after having looked forward to reading it, I found myself very disappointed with the book.

22. The Tooth Tattoo by Peter Lovesey.

The thirteenth novel featuring the churlish Superintendent Peter Diamond represents a welcome return to top form for Peter Lovesey. The action is, as usual, set in Bath but this time centres around the intense circles of string quartets.

The body of a young Japanese woman is retrieved from the Avon, and she is identified by means of a tooth tattoo in the form of a musical note. Further investigation reveals that she had been passionate about classical music and had formed an obsession about Staccati, a leading string quartet that has only recently resumed performing, having replaced their virtuoso viola payer who had disappeared four years previously. As might be expected, all four members of Staccati have their own idiosyncrasies, and it is surprising that they have managed to stay together. However, when united for a performance they cohere with devastating impact.

Lovesey has obviously undertaken a huge amount of research and imparts a wealth of information about the type of music that string quartets play, without ever seeming to lecture or harangue his readers. Even the surly, Diamond, who generally wears his philistinism as a badge of pride, briefly succumbs to the power of music, although regular readers will be relieved to know that his customary bad temper soon reasserts itself.

The plot moves through various twists, but never loses credibility, and, as usual, the city of Bath plays a huge role. I wonder whether Lovesey receives commission from the city's tourist board, and I am surprised that, given how photogenic the city is, these books have not made their way onto television.

23. Every Trick in the Book by Bernard O'Keeffe.

This marks the third outing for Detective Inspector Jim Garibaldi (‘like the biscuit’, as he has become tired of acknowledging whenever anyone seems surprised by his surname), and is a very welcome return. Garibaldi lives and works in Barnes, a village-like district of London found on the south bank of the Thames.

Garibaldi is that relatively rare character, a bookish policeman, and while his biggest regret is that he never had the opportunity to go to university, he in an academic manqué, which manifests itself in his frequent inability to stop himself publicly correcting his colleagues’ grammar, or making comments designed primarily to let others know how clever he is. Despite this, he is an engaging and empathetic character.

I had already enjoyed this series with its clever plots and entirely plausible characters, with the added spur of knowing Barnes fairly well.. Bernard O’Keeffe’s description of it is affectionate and accurate. However, I found this instalment especially enjoyable as I have always loved metafiction. This book opens with Garibaldi and his domestic partner Rachel attending a public reading of a crime novel by the local author who had recently retired from their work as a teacher at a nearby independent school. The novel revolves around the death of its primary protagonist, who also turned pout to be a recently retired teacher who had worked at a private school near the Thames.

Life imitates art yet further when the novelist is killed in exactly the same way, and in exactly the same place, as the protagonist of the novel. Similarities then emerge between various aspects of the dead man’s life and that of his character. Garibaldi and his colleagues investigate, and find themselves enmeshed in complications as they try to unravel the similarities and contrasts between the real and fictional lives. The vicinity of Barnes is lovingly depicted, and emerges almost as another character in the book.

I am already now impatiently waiting for the next book in the series.

24. Anna O by Matthew Blake.

There was a certain serendipity about my purchase of this book. I read a favourable short review of it in The Times, but decided to buy it as a consequence of a misunderstanding about the author. I misconstrued a throwaway comment in the review, and thought that Matthew Blake was a pseudonym for another writer whose recent spy fiction I had greatly enjoyed.

This was not, then, the espionage thriller that I had anticipated, but it proved no less enjoyable for that. It actually recounts the bizarre story of a young woman who was presumed to have murdered two friends and business partners while sleepwalking, and has remained in a state of sleep or catalepsy ever since – a span of four years at the time the book opens. That must sound bizarre, but this is all conveyed in a far more plausible manner in the book than my synopsis would suggest.

The book is largely narrated by Dr Ben Prince, a psychologist specialising in sleep issues, and especially cases of very deep sleep, with occasional interpolations from other characters, including Prince’s estranged wife (who was the first police officer on the scene of the original murders), and a woman who had been trying to investigate an infamous similar crime that had happened twenty years earlier.

I was hooked within the first three or four pages, and found the book positively fizzed along. While there is a lot of discussion of the psychological aspects of irregular sleep patterns and sleep deprivation, the jargon is never allowed to intrude in an awkward and inaccessible manner.

25. To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker.

Well over a dozen books in, this series shows no sign of tailing off in quality. True, Benoit ‘Bruno’ Courrèges, the Chief of Police for the Dordogne village of St Denis and the surrounding area, may sometimes seem almost too good to be true. However, the strong cast of characters, the sumptuous descriptions of the amazing meals that Bruno cooks, and the glorious landscape that Walker portrays, together with solid and soundly constructed plots and a regular cast of appealing characters, all make for very enjoyable reading.

Walker is also adept at remaining highly topical. While St Denis and its neighbouring countryside might sometimes seem like an oasis from an earlier time, he peppers his story with a lot of references to contemporary issues. This book touches on the dispute in Ukraine, while focusing more closely on unrest in Spain following the attempted secession of Catalonia from Spanish rule. Fake news and Russian bots are in evidence, and Bruno finds himself once again working with the shadier elements of the French security services.

Another winner. I was glad to have read this, but am sadly conscious that I have now almost caught up with Walker’s output, and will all too soon be right up to date with the sequence.

26. A Comedian Dies by Simon Brett.

I find Charles Paris a very engaging character. Now middle-aged (there are hints in this novel that he has just entered his fifties, although, paradoxically, in some of the later books the approaching milestone of fifty looms over him very menacingly – a feeling I recall all too clearly) he is more or less resigned to playing out the remainder of his acting career in minor roles.

As the novel opens, we find Charles enjoying a temporary rapprochement with his long-suffering wife Frances, and they are spending a week in Hunstanton, on the Norfolk coast. Now long beyond its Victorian heyday, the allure of Hunstanton as a holiday resort has faded, and finding the weather relentlessly miserable, Charles and Frances take refuge one afternoon in a ‘summer’ revue matinee, an old-fashioned variety show featuring a selection of musical acts, dancers, conjurers, jugglers and a couple of comedians. Even when this book was published, some forty years ago, the live variety show was already a fading and dated phenomenon, and the ensemble performing at Hunstanton was unlikely to reverse that downward trend.

Charles is, however, intrigued to see that one of the comedians on the bill is Lennie Barber, who many years ago had enjoyed considerable success as the leading partner in Barber and Pole, one of the most popular comic double acts of the 1950s. Another of the acts in the show, Bill Peaky, has been widely tipped for future stardom and has already secured a considerable fanbase from his occasional television appearances. However, his career is truncated in the most brutal fashion when he is electrocuted on stage as a consequence of a faulty connection in the stage sound system.

As usual, Charles Paris suspects that there is more to this than simple mischance, and becomes involved in one of his amateur investigations, which also affords him the opportunity to try out a selection of disguises, and to use some of the different voices and accents that he has employed throughout his startlingly unsuccessful acting career. This novel marked one of the first occasions in which Charles accompanies his disguises with reminiscences of the generally negative comments from critics. Like so many actors, he tends only to remember the particularly cruel comments that reviewers have offered up.

Also as usual, Charles ends up suspecting virtually everyone in scope of the investigation in turn before eventually discovering the actual culprit. I realise that this might all sound rather bland and predictable, but Simon Brett writes in an appealing manner, and the insights into different aspects of the theatrical and television worlds that his books afford are always enjoyable.

27. Seasons in the Sun by Dominic Sandbrook.*

This fourth volume of Dominic Sandbrook’s immense history of the 1970s and 1980s opens with 1974, now best remembered as a year of two general elections, and, as it happens, comes into the period from which my clearer awareness of politics begins. Sandbrook catalogues the trials and success of the Labour Governments under Harold Wilson and then Jim Callaghan in close, but never intrusive detail. While he focuses on the politics of the day, he sets them against a fascinating portrayal of the prevailing social and cultural context (including the horrors, and occasional delights, of 1970s rock music and television programmes).

One figure who looms large in the political toing and froing is Tony Benn, although for much of that period he was still in his intermediate incarnation of Anthony Wedgwood Benn (the persona that he initially adopted after successfully renouncing his title of Viscount Stansgate, in order to remain eligible for the House of Commons). Indeed, although he remained in the Cabinet throughout the Wilson and Callaghan administration, he represented one of the Government’s most trenchant opponents, frequently undermining, or even directly opposing, policies agreed by his colleagues. I certainly remember him as a divisive figure from that period, and one who frequently provoked the bitterest tirades from my father when his latest ‘enormity’ was announced on the television news. There was little indication then of the figurehead of respect into which he would metamorphose by the end of his political career just a few years ago.

The historian and political thinker Sanatyana famously observed that those who do not study the past may be condemned to relive it, and Sandbook’s marvellous book certainly seems to offer proof of that worthy dictum. Harold Wilson has gone down in history as being paranoid, and convinced that he was being undermined, and conspired against, by various factors within the Establishment, including MI5 and the rest of the security and intelligence services. His paranoia was not groundless, and his own Cabinet remained a hotbed of dissension, featuring a broad church of left wing views. Tony Benn followed his own path on the far left, hurling money at workers’ collectives indiscriminately and with scant regard of the economic realities for their business plans (if anything so elaborate ever existed beyond the crumpled back of an envelope or fag packet), while other prominent figures (Callaghan and Denis Healey prominent –though not alone – among them) veered far further towards the right of the party (despite Healey’s youthful membership of the Communist Party). Other more stalwart figures, such as Barbara Castle and Anthony Crosland, tried to hold firm to socialist principles while conceding the pragmatic need for occasional compromise.

What emerges most clearly from Sandbrook’s account is the extent to which Wilson seemed desperate to retain power, while simultaneously acknowledging how little he enjoyed it and the extent to which high office robbed all pleasure from his life. In recent years, we have become obsessed by the extent to which political advisers and consultants, lurking in the background at Number 10, have come to exert undue influence, almost to the extent of subverting the democratic process. After all, the New Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 had the likes of Damian McBride, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls coming to the fore as special advisers (before the latter pair’s election to Parliament in their own right), while the Conservatives had their own Machiavellian figures such as Dominic Cumming and Henry de Zoete functioning behind the scenes during the Coalition and beyond. This is not a new phenomenon. Marcia Williams (later Lady Falkender) was Harold Wilson’s political adviser, and seemed to exert unprecedented control within Number 10, even to the extent of managing the Prime Minister’s diary to the exclusion of his officials. Sandbrook’s account suggests that Wilson may even have been physically scared of Ms Williams – certainly not likely to help him overcome his paranoia.

The greatest political issue in Britain over recent years has been the continuing reverberation of the country’s decision, in the referendum of 2016, to leave the European Union. For a few years thereafter, Brexit dominated every political report, and it cluttered the current legislative agenda within parliament, to the extent that manifesto commitments across other departments have had to be dropped for the moment, despite one parliamentary session being stretched to double its customary length. In 1975, the country faced its first referendum on Europe. While Edward Heath had taken the country into what was then the EEC without a referendum, leaving the elected parliament to ratify entry, in its manifestos for both elections in 1974 Labour had committed to holding a referendum to confirm that membership should continue. What struck me most sharply was the prescience of some campaigners against continued membership, pointing to the threat of eventual loss of legislative sovereignty. I still think that the referendum decision was wrong, but I was intrigued to see what I had conceived as relatively new concerns voiced by the ‘Brexiters’ had been articulated (often far more articulately) forty years earlier by the likes of Enoch Powell and Tony Benn. Harold Wilson allowed his Cabinet free rein as to their views, and took virtually no part in the campaign himself, beyond an early indication that he believed that, having gone in, we should stay in.

Another precursor to more recent times arose in the form of referendums in Scotland and Wales about devolution and an element of home rule. Indeed, it was the Government’s insistence upon specific victory requirements (i.e. in addition to a majority of votes actually cast, that forty per cent of the whole electorate must vote in favour of devolution) that led to the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists withdrawing support from the embattled Labour administration. This in turn led to the Government losing the vote of confidence that led to the spring election in 1979 (Callaghan had decided to try to hold out until the autumn, by which time he hoped that improvements in the economy would have become more evident). ‘Turkeys voting for Christmas’ was Callaghan’s judgement.

I turned eleven in 1974, and the elections had a particular relevance for me as in September, I entered Loughborough Grammar School. This school was one of a few ‘direct grant’ schools scattered around the country. Some of each year’s intake of new pupils at these schools (around half, in the case of Loughborough Grammar School in 1974) were supported by the local authority while the remainder were subject to fees paid by their parents. During its period in opposition, the Labour Party had committed to abolishing direct grant schools, leaving great uncertainty among the parents of prospective pupils scheduled to join in September 1974. This uncertainty was, of course, replicated across many other policy areas when the general election in February proved so inconclusive.

Sandbrook deals with education in great detail, offering an entertaining insight into life at Crichton School in North London. In the early 1970s this school was experimenting in a liberal approach, under the headship of Molly Hattersley, wife of future deputy leader of the Labour Party, Roy Hattersley. I found this, too, particularly engrossing as Crichton subsequently metamorphosed into Muswell Hill’s Fortismere School (situated literally across the road from me as I type this) which, after sinking to seeming limitless depths of inadequacy during the 1980s, is now the flagship school of the London Borough of Haringey.

Sandbrook extends his clarity of insight into the troubles in Northern Ireland, which he covers with equanimity and neutrality, as well as documenting the emergence, and almost as meteoric decline of punk rock, while plumbing the depredations of progressive rock.

Following on from his previous books, Never had it so Good, White Heat, and State of Emergency, this volume bring a triumphant conclusion to a supreme feat of academic endeavour. His greatest success is his ability to approach complex subjects and render them accessible to the modern reader.

I had never heard of this series of histories, probably because I left England in 1980.
I was 10 in 1956, when the series starts, and I often wonder how accurate my memory is of the subsequent years, so the first v volume at least is now firmly on my to-read list.

28. Absolute Power by David Baldacci.

This was David Baldacci’s first novel, and he clearly got off to a flying start.

A professional burglar breaks into an opulent house near Washington DC. He has done his research, and confidently expects that the house will be empty, as the occupants are supposed to be on holiday in the Caribbean. However, while he is in the property, he hears people coming into the house, and as luck would have it, they come up to the master bedroom, where he had been clearing out the contents of a large walk-in safe. He withdraws into the safe, pulling it closed behind him. At this point he realises that the mirror on the door of the safe is two-way, and from his vantage point he watches proceeding unfold.

And those proceedings are noteworthy. The newcomers on the scene are the young wife of the octogenarian owner of the house and her new lover, who happens also to be the President of the United States. Things do not go to plan, and the woman ends up dead, shot by members of the President’s security detail, who, it seems, accompany him even on such trysts. After the President and his party withdraw, the burglar makes good his escape, stopping only to retrieve a vital piece of evidence of what has taken place.

Initially unaware that a witness has been on the scene, the President’s party return to the scene to clear away al traces, and become aware that a burglar had been there, and that evidence has gone missing. This leads to a massive clandestine operation to discover who is involved, and what they might plan to do with their knowledge.

This may all sound rather contrived, but that is more down to my clumsy synopsis. To the reader, it all comes across with great urgency and plausibility, and I was caught up right from the start. I believe that before becoming a full time writer, Baldacci was a solicitor, but his spare and clear prose, and his ability to unwind a compelling and gripping story suggest he might also have made an admirable journalist.

29. The Stone Wife by Peter lovesey.

I may have remarked before that I am surprised that Peter Lovesey's novels featuring Superintendent Peter Diamond haven't found been dramatised for television. After all, the combination of the photogenic city of Bath, the irascible protagonist and the engaging and soundly constructed plots strikes me as a winning formula, readily susceptible of the same effect that the Inspector Morse series has had for Oxford.

This latest instalment, which revolves around the shooting at an auction room of a scholar specialising in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a welcome addition to the series. Superintendent Diamond is always entertaining, alternating between down to earth common sense and explosive rage, and in this latest outing he also displays hitherto unsuspected remorse and concern for the wellbeing of his junior detectives. Having spent much of my time as a student translating Old and Middle English literature, and having read through the whole of The Canterbury Tales in the original, I particularly enjoyed the various details that Lovesey shares about the Wife of Bath and her tale (the Stone Wife of the title). He had clearly done a lot of research into Chaucer and his works, because the comments and opinions offered up throughout the story are all perfectly valid.

Lovesey tends towards the gentler end of modern crime fiction, and doesn't subject his readers to the more gory aspects that so frequently proliferate in crime novels today. Indeed, one of the more notable facets of Superintendent Diamond's psyche is his reluctance to attend post-mortem examinations. The corollary of this is that, occasionally, the plots veer away from strict plausibility. This is not, however, necessarily a fatal flaw. The novels may be slightly escapist, but they are certainly enjoyable, and Lovesey uses Diamond's prickly sensitivity and his interaction with junior colleagues (the feisty Sergeant Ingeborg Smith in particular) to great effect.

30. Twelve Secrets by Robert Gold.

More than twenty years ago, Ben Harper’s life was ripped apart when his fourteen year old brother was one of two schoolboys brutally murdered by two girls of the same age. The girls had shown no remorse throughout their trial, and had been convicted and imprisoned. Just over ten years ago they had been released with new identities, and under strict injunctions never to revisit the small town in the close hinterland of London in which they had grown up, and where the killings had taken place.

Ben still lives in what had been the family home, and commutes into London when necessary for his work. He is now an investigative journalist working for a leading news website, and is asked by his editor if he will consider writing a piece about what had happened as another anniversary linked to the crime approaches. Initially (and understandably) reluctant, Ben is gradually convinced, especially in the light of a related news story suddenly breaking.

The plot is a bit of a whirlwind ride, with new twists constantly arising, and the field of suspects frequently shifting. Robert Gold catches the feel (almost claustrophobic at times) of a small town very capably, and his characters are all finely drawn. I was initially reluctant to embark on this book, being wary about the hype it seemed to have provoked, but I think that all the plaudits are definitely deserved.

31. What Bloody Man is That by Simon Brett.

Charles Paris is back, this time playing a selection of minor roles in a new production of Macbeth at the Pinero Theatre in Warminster, which is being directed by his old friend, Gavin Scholes. Other members of the cast include: John B Murgatroyd, an itinerant actor whose career has been almost as devastatingly unsuccessful as Charles's; George Birkett, a man who despite possessing little more than journeyman ability has encountered considerable commercial success through having played pedestrian roles in a selection of mindless situation comedies; Felicia Chatterton, an alluring yet intense actress whose previous career has been almost exclusively served in the Royal Shakespeare Company and who has to devote hours to think herself into her role; and Warnock Belvedere, an outrageous old ham who prides himself on being a theatrical "character" encompassing all the worst traits of old self-aggrandising stars but sadly without any compensatory talent.

Almost from the start Belvedere shows himself to be obnoxious, overriding the feelings of anyone else in the company and blatantly undermining the director. Within days of the company first coming together there is no-one whom he has not driven to utter fury. Consequently, there is an immense feeling of relief, which politeness and propriety do little to hide, when he is found dead in the cellar of the theatre's bar, having apparently fallen over and knocked himself out while simultaneously dislodging the CO2 hoses. Drunk and unconscious he rapidly succumbed to asphyxiation. This is put down as a dreadful accident, and just another manifestation of the dreadful luck that historically bedevils companies staging "the Scottish Play".

Predictably the body is discovered by Charles who, having himself overdone things in the bar earlier in the evening, had fallen asleep in his dressing room and awakened a few hours later to find himself locked in the theatre. It is only gradually afterwards, as he struggles to reconstruct the events of the night, that Charles recognises vital clues that serve to indicate that Belvedere's death was murder. He also realises, equally gradually, that the perpetrator must be another member of the theatre company.

Brett is always capable of weaving an intricate yet plausible plot, which he lightly peppers with humour. Charles Paris is always a sympathetic character - flawed (a virtual alcoholic and recalcitrant philanderer) yet essentially well-meaning, even to the point of frequent self-disgust. The conflicting ambitions and lifestyles of the different members of the theatrical company are also well constructed, and Brett clearly knows the theatrical milieu very well. Brett is also sufficiently conversant with the text and subtexts of Macbeth to throw in some convincing exegesis of the play's more obscure stretches.

Most entertaining on a number of levels!

32. The Collectors by David Baldacci.

After several years in which I largely eschewed the thriller as a genre, I have found myself rapidly becoming addicted to the books of David Baldacci. I don’t know whether this represents the passage of years eroding unnecessary genre divisions in my preferences, or a hardening of the cerebral arteries and weakening of my discernment. Whichever it might be, I have been enjoying racing through several of Baldacci’s books, which certainly seem capable of snaring and retaining my attention within a few pages.

This is the second in the Camel Club series, and marks a welcome return for the staunch campaigner who has adopted the name of Oliver Stone to betoken his utter cynicism towards the corridors of power in Washington, along with his various partners. It is one of the less prominent members of the club who initially becomes involved in the tangled plotline. Caleb Shaw works at the Library of Congress where he supervises some of the most rare and valuable books owned by the nation.

A quiet and withdrawn man, Caleb perhaps epitomises the stereotypical perception of a librarian. He is, therefore, notably ill-equipped to find the body of his suddenly deceased director at the door to the Library’s inner vault. Indeed, he passes out at the scene, although that subsequently proves to be less straightforward than initially thought. Just a few days earlier, the newly-appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives, who had established a reputation as a crusader against corruption, had been assassinated.

Meanwhile, Annabelle Conroy, a highly dexterous hustler, is putting together a complicated and ambitious scam to defraud the head of one of the largest and most crooked casinos in Atlantic City. As the events in Washington DC unfold, she is engaged in gathering a powerful crew to assist her.

Baldacci ties these various plot strands together seamlessly. His characters are carefully drawn, and I find the membership of the Camel Club both credible and empathetic. The book fairly fizzes along, too, and I was absolutely hooked.

33. Death on the Thames by Alan Johnson.

I have always enjoyed politicians' memoirs, and Alan Johnson’s first volume of autobiography, This Boy, must rank as one of the best I have read. I was particularly keen to read it as Johnson had, briefly, been Secretary of State in my Department. It's true that, throughout his short period in the Department for Education, he had been conspicuous principally by his virtual invisibility but I still thought that he might have some juicy morsel to dispense, with which to whet the salacious appetites of my fellow functionaries. As it happens, that book drew to a close before his political career had even started, and while I enjoyed the subsequent volumes (Please Mr Postman and The Long and Winding Road), they didn’t quite match the first one for its dramatic impact.

Since his retirement from front line politics, Johnson has gone a considerable way towards acquiring ‘national treasure’ status, partially as a consequence of the volumes of memoirs mentioned above, which show a great triumph over considerable early adversity, but also from his pragmatic and open approach, and his self-deprecating sense of humour.

Since then he has reinvented himself as a crime writer, and this is his third novel to feature Louise Mangan, now at the lofty rank of Detective Chief Superintendent. The novel opens, however, back in 1999, when Louise was a relative newcomer to the force, and still in the rank of Constable. As the book opens, she is engaged in an operation designed to catch a man who has been assaulting women in Southwest London. A man is arrested … indeed, Louise herself arrests him, but owing to the odd circumstances, she is never wholly satisfied that he is the actual assailant.

Meanwhile, preparations are under way for a monthly television programme highlighting prominent crimes. Although the programme has reached its current popularity as a consequence of close collaboration between the police and the programme makers, an issue has arisen. The producers want to lead with a story exposing the leader of a gang responsible for a massive proportion of the capital’s drug deals, but the police are threatening to withdraw their cooperation. And then the glamorous female presenter of the show is shot dead on her own doorstep. There are obvious resonances with the real murder of Jill Dando, who had presented Crimewatch for the BBC. Those similarities are carried further in the book, cleverly woven through the main plotline of the story.

Johnson’s ministerial career included a brief stint as Home Secretary, and he clearly draws on insights culled from those days in his portrayal of the working relationships (and especially the jealousies and resentments) between officers in the top echelons of the Metropolitan Police Service. He also portrays some of the sexism and racism with which many officers have to contend, and a lot of issues that are currently drawing media attention are brought into focus.

I particularly enjoyed Johnson’s deployment of his local knowledge. A lot of the action of the novel takes place on Tagg’s Island, a small island in the Thames near Hampton Court. Having never heard of this, I wonder ed whether Johnson had made it up to suit the requirements of the plot, but it does exist, and from my foray there over the Easter weekend, it is clear that Johnson knows it well, as he captures it very accurately.

This is a light-hearted yet still plausible novel, and highly entertaining.

34. A Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker.

This latest instalment in the chronicles of Benoit ‘Bruno’ Courrèges, the Chief of Police in St Denis, a small provincial town in the Dordogne region of south west France, maintains the high quality of the series to date. It opens with Bruno and friends attending an elaborate reenactment of a medieval battle in one of the larger neighbouring towns, in which the invading English forces were routed by the locals. As the event nears its climax, the actor playing the charismatic leader of the French forces seems to depart from the rehearsed moves and suffers a serious injury,

This accident proves more serious than anticipated when more details about the injured man emerge. Although he had a long track record of eager participation in such historic re-enactments, he is actually a senior figure within the French security networks, and has been leading development of the country’s cybersecurity potential. The local police are left to wonder whether his injuries are the consequence of a genuine accident, or whether darker motives lie behind the incident.

As usual, Bruno finds himself being pulled in several different directions, struggling to fulfil his duties as a local policeman and pillar of the community while also being co-opted to help the security forces as they investigate further. Also, as usual, Bruno cooks some amazing meals, and generally keeps the local community ticking over. This may all sound rather twee, but the book is far from that, blending genuine excitement with yet another charming insight into life in the Dordogne.

I feel slightly sad as I have now caught up with Martin Walker – this is the most recent book in the series, although I understand that a new one is due for publication in a couple of months.

35. The Drift by C. J. Tudor.

This was a speculative buy, principally because it was on special offer in my local bookshop, and it was payday! Still, it proved a serendipitous discovery, and I found it very gripping.

I don’t know how many dystopian novels set in the aftermath of a destructive and disruptive pandemic. Until not long ago, it was all too easy to shrug and dismiss such a story as an intriguing idea, but not one that could really happen. Of course, we all know differently now.

The pandemic context underpinning this novel is that the world has clearly been challenged by a devastating virus, to such an extent that society has been riven, and some people whop have succumbed to the virus have been driven away, expelled like medieval outlaws.

The book takes the form of three narratives that seem to unfold simultaneously. One follows a group of people on a coach destined for a ‘Retreat’ although their role there is never made entirely clear. As the novel opens, while traversing some remote countryside, the coach crashes, and is pitched off the main road into a deep snow. Meanwhile, a small group of people find themselves in a cable car suspended high about a snowy landscape, which suddenly grinds to a halt. When the occupants recover their balance, they see that one of them is dead.

The third narrative follows a group of people at the Retreat itself, Located in remote countryside, the people running the centre have to contend with extremes of weather and wild animals , but their greatest concern comes from the Whistlers, terrifying strangers left to survive on the fringes of society.

C J Tudor weaves these threads together very capably, and the book fairly fizzes along. There are numerous twists along the way, and virtually all of them had me fooled.

36. Stone Cold by David Baldacci.

The Camel Club is back, and its members are up against it once again. We are aware that the man now known as ‘Oliver Stone’ has a shady past, and now it seems set to catch up with him. While this does work as a standalone novel, there are strong resonances from the Camel Club’s previous outings.

It appears that someone is killing members of the 666 Group, a secret cadre of highly trained assassins that had been run by the American intelligence service. The fact that someone is capable of killing such capable victims sends shockwaves through that cloistered community, and all sorts of conspiracy theories are unleashed.

Meanwhile, virtual Camel Club member Annabelle Conroy is still being pursued by the Atlantic City gangster whom she stung for $40 million in the previous novel. He is as tenacious as she is evasive.

As always, Baldacci ties all the various threads together very capably, and sucks the reader in right from the beginning of the book.

37. The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

Quite hypnotic! This novel paints an intriguing picture of the internecine struggles within the gangster community in New York in the late 1940s. It starts with various supplicants visiting Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather, on the day of his daughter's wedding to request a favour. On such a day Corleone is unable to decline any request. We see him respond to several requests, and are given an insight into the nuances that govern a revered mobster. While he agrees to act on one request, he makes clear that he is hurt by the way that particular supplicant had avoided contact with him in recent years. For others, he readily accepts the request and acquiesces. The message is passed down the ranks, and whichever deed or service is sought is discreetly delivered.

Vito Corleone is a surprisingly sympathetic character given that he leads one of the big five gangster families that between them control most of the crime bedevilling New York. When the thin patina of peace shatters, Corleone is shot and severely wounded, and then his eldest son is ambushed and killed. This proves to be the catalyst for his youngest son, Michael, hitherto remote from the family business, to step in and "make his bones", claiming his first murder. From that moment it is clear that he will succeed his father as The Don.

This book was published in the 1960s, but still feels remarkably sharp today. Obviously it is difficult to read it now other than through the prism of the almost legendary films that it spawned. It does, however, match them in its engrossing power.

38. Eleven Liars by Robert Gold.

This picks up more or less immediately after the end of Gold’s previous novel, Twelve Secrets, and once again focuses on Ben Harper as he tries to unravel a new set of mysteries. The novel opens with him walking back to his home in the riverside suburb of Haddley, when he notices a fire in the old community centre in the grounds of the local parish church.

Ever the reporter, he rushes to investigate, and realises that someone is trapped in the building. He manages to release them, but before he can check that they are unhurt they rush off into the night. This sets in motion a bizarre investigation that will involve the police, and rake over events from long in the past.

Robert Gold catches the atmosphere of the small, close-knit community in which several people have dark and old secrets very adeptly. The story switches between first person narrative from Ben, and third person accounts following a variety of protagonists. This is a well-plotted and entertaining novel.

39. Byron: A Life in Ten Letters by Andrew Stauffer.*

George, Lord Byron, is a classic example of the paradox in which a generally ghastly person can produce sublime art or literature – somewhat in the mode of Salvador Dali. This month marks the bicentenary of Lord Byron’s death, which was presumably behind the publication of this fascinating biography (which fortunately makes no attempt at hagiography, which would presumably be beyond even the literary skills of the subject himself).

I have to confess woeful ignorance of both the life and the works of Lord Byron, so I was rather surprised at just how outré his life was, encompassing rampant affairs with both sexes and a long-term incestuous relationship with his half-sister, with the constant accrual of staggering debts running on in the background. I had, of course, been aware of his Bohemian lifestyle, although not perhaps the extent of his licentiousness. Until reading this biography, I had not read much of his verse, although I have delighted in various cantos from Don Juan and Child Harold’s Pilgrimage by way of background reading while engaged with this book.

I was intrigued by Andrew Stauffer’s approach. Framing the biography through the device of ten letters works well, although it also flagged to me how poor a writer of prose Byron was. These letters do not speak in their style of a literary behemoth, but of a selfish, self-obsessed solipsist. Of course, the two things are not mutually exclusive, but no one would remember Byron for the scrawled offerings here, yet he seemed capable of dashing off a dazzling ode or a verse essay at the drop of a hat.

He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his more prominent long-term lovers, as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, and these letters suggest that he revelled in that reputation, and seemed eager always to push it even further.

40. Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan.

There has been a lot of publisher’s hype surrounding this novel, and as far as I can see, it is all justified. I think that this was one of the best novels I have read for a long time. It reminded me at times of John Lanchester’s Capital (another favourite of mine).

The principal figure is Campbell Flynn, an academic art critic whose recent biography of Vermeer has drawn considerable critical acclaim and unusual commercial success. Gratifying though this is, Flynn is in need of a far greater economic upturn. To this end, and in a marked divergence from his previous works, he has written a self-help book, His publishers assure him that the book is likely to be a huge success. He is anxious, however, to conceal his identity as the writer, and, by chance, meets a successful actor who has just concluded a long run in a highly popular television series. The actor is persuaded to be ‘the face’ of the book, and in exchange for one third of the royalties, agree to undertake all the promotional activities including media interviews and book-signing events.

In the meantime, Flynn finds himself becoming more closely involved with one of his students, Milo Mangasha. Milo is half Ethiopian, half Irish, and has been taking one of Flynn’s courses as a subsidiary subject while pursuing his computer engineering degree. Milo introduces Flynn to radical new schools of thought, which push the older man in new intellectual and political directions. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of awkward strands from Flynn’s family life rapidly unravelling.

There are far too many subplots to capture in a review or synopsis, but they are all interwoven with great dexterity, many of them centring on Caledonian Road, a long thoroughfare extending from Kings Cross through Islington and up towards Highbury. As it happens, I know the Caledonian Road very well, having driven along it daily for many years as part of my regular commuting journey to Westminster. O’Hagan captures it marvellously, in its unusual blend of pockets of great opulence alongside others of deep deprivation.

The book features a huge cast of characters – in fact, the author offers a list of principal figures at the start of the book with more than sixty names – but they interact effectively. All strata of society feature, from hereditary peers, minor aristocracy, Russian oligarchs, students and rival street gangs. This is a rich literary feast, and one I am sure I will be revisiting shortly.

41. Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz.

Anthony Horowitz must be one of our most prolific current authors, seemingly able to write novels, plays and television scripts in huge numbers, without ever compromising quality. This latest book is another in the highly entertaining series featuring jaded former policeman Daniel Hawthorne and the author himself, as the former’s (frequently reluctant) sidekick.

This time around, Horowitz tweaks the format slightly, and revisits an old case that Hawthorne had investigated several years ago, on that occasion assisted by a different sidekick. The plot centres on a gated community of properties in Richmond, in southwest London. One of the residents, with whom all the other residents had had occasion to row shortly beforehand, is murdered, shot through the neck by a crossbow bolt. While all the neighbours are initially considered to be suspects, one come to the fore as the owner of the crossbow that had been used. This suspicion seems to have been vindicated when he apparently commits suicide. The case is closed.

Several years later, Horowitz is persuaded to look at the case more closely, and explores it further, although this time it is Hawthorne who is reluctant to delve more deeply.

This is another well crafted and enjoyable novel, full of twists, and I didn’t spot the killer.

42. Divine Justice by David Baldacci.

This is the fourth book in David Baldacci’s Camel Club series, and follows on very soon after the resolution of its predecessor volume, Stone Cold. Following the shooting of Carter Gray, former director of the CIA, Camel Club leader, Oliver Stone, is on the run. Not wanting to cause any additional disruption to the lives of his friends, Stone disappears.

Following a series of unforeseeable mishaps, Stone finds himself in Divine, a small town in West Virginia. The town is in decline, and there are only two local employers of any size. One is the coal industry, although the extraction of coal from the mountainous area offers only a grim and highly dangerous life. The other is the nearby Federal ‘super prison’ which contains hundreds of extremely dangerous convicts, most of whom have been shipped there after proving too dangerous to be incarcerated within more conventional jails.

Stone finds that life in this remote town seems almost as dangerous as he had found it in Washington DC. Wherever he goes he seems to find himself having to intervene in vicious fights. Meanwhile, he is being hunted down by Joe Knox, one of the CIA’s most efficient agents who has been tasked with killing Stone, rather than merely arresting him.

This is all fairly standard Camel Club fare, and Baldacci keeps the tension high. At times the book almost seemed like a modern version of a Clint Eastwood western (possibly High Plains Drifter), in which a solitary outlawed man wanders into a town beset with woes, and strives to redeem it. Baldacci’s writing style suits the content – there is no flowery prose, just a strong gripping tale, told without distraction.

43. Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin.

Some fictional coppers seem to have Peter Pan qualities, continually investigating and solving serious crimes without ever getting older. For instance, Chief Inspector Wexford and Superintendent Dalziel emerged fully formed from their respective creators' brows and made their first appearance already adorned with high rank.

When creating his thrawn protagonist, Ian Rankin chose a more realistic approach, and we have seen John Rebus age in real time, becoming increasingly cantankerous and inimical to his superiors' authority. As this twentieth Rebus novel opens, he has finally finished work and left the police force. Even his cold case work, which had offered a slight reprieve from the looming threat of being left entirely to his own devices, has now dried up, and he is, officially, retired.

Crime, of course, continues in Edinburgh unabated, and as the novel opens Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke, for so long Rebus's protégée (whether she liked it or not), is part of the team investigating the murder in his own house of David Minton. This is a high profile case drawing attention from the local and national press as well as politicians, senior officers and the judiciary because David Minton was also known as Lord Minton, former Lord Advocate of Scotland, and one of the most senior prosecutors of his generation.

The attack on Lord Minton had been brutal and protracted, leading investigators to consider whether the murder represented revenge for the outcome of one of his cases. However, shortly afterwards a local retired businessman is shot at, also in his own home. Always interested whenever firearms are concerned, the police's attention is additionally piqued because the retired businessman in question is one Morris Gerald Cafferty, who as 'Big Ger', has dominated organised crime in the capital for the last few decades. Having been alerted to the gunshot by a neighbour, the police find that Cafferty won't allow them into his house, and he will only agree to talk to John Rebus, his long-time adversary.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox, formerly of 'the Complaints' (the internal investigation department) but now returned to mainstream policing, has been asked to act as liaison with a special surveillance team over in Edinburgh from Glasgow. They are watching a Glasgow gang boss who they suspect is wanting to establish a toehold in the capital.

Rankin's principal characters are now well-established, developed over the years and resonate with authenticity and credibility. There is, as with many of Rankin's books, a strong undercurrent of melancholy. Different characters make bleak jokes throughout the book, though there is never any hint that any of them might be taking much pleasure in life. Clarke now seems slightly world-weary, and after years of disapproving of Rebus's prodigious alcohol intake, might now be drinking rather too much herself. Fox is slightly lost, struggling to work his way back into the police fold after his years in the leper colony of Complaints. Rebus, like Sir Bedivere at the end of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King', sees the days darken around him, and the years ...

Rankin manages the separate plot strands as capably as ever. The story rattles along and even twenty pages from the end there is little indication of how the various subplots will be resolved, and as always, the city of Edinburgh looms throughout the story, like a character in its own right. A very worthy addition to the Rebus canon.

>60 Eyejaybee:
Does Stauffer mention the strong influence of Byron on the Bronte sisters. Like you I don't know much about him, but his darker side could have helped create the detestable Heathcliff.

Certainly taking a book bullet on Caledonian Road.

>65 scunliffe: Stauffer doesn’t really develop that aspect. Early on he describes an anecdote from Moore’s biography of a Byron in which he overhears a woman whom he loved making a slighting comment about him. Stauffer suggests that this might have inspired the similar scene in Wuthering Heights when Heathcliff overhears Cathy’s rejection of him.

44. Hell's Corner by David Baldacci.

This is the final volume of David Baldacci’s very entertaining Camel Club series of novels. As with each of the previous instalments, it picks up well straight after the conclusion of the previous book.

Oliver Stone has been cleared of charges pending from his previous escapades, and is effectively recruited back into government service, at the behest and direct command of no lesser a personage than the President. An operation has arisen that requires his own p
particular brand of skills, and no one else seems even vaguely suitable.

However, before he can commence his preparations, he is overtaken by events in the most direct manner when a bomb is detonated in Lafayette park, across the road from the White House. As it happens, Stone is on hand and sees the explosion and its immediate aftermath. Once again, he finds himself plunged into a frantic investigation in which the multiple agencies of the American intelligence and security community seem to be vying with each other. On this occasion he also finds himself working alongside an officer from Britain’s MI6. She is almost as resourceful and capable as Stone himself. I did occasionally feel, however, that the efforts to emphasise her Britishness made her sound like a modern day rendering of Dick van Dyke’s cockney chimney sweep. She didn’t actually say, ‘Cor blimey, guvnor, strike a light’, but she came quite close.

Until I came across David Baldacci’s books more or less by chance earlier this year, it had been a long time since I had made a habit of reading this sort of thriller. I am glad I rediscovered how much fun they can offer. Baldacci has a habit of pitching his readers immediately into the action, and however outlandish the story might be, he makes suspension of disbelief very easy.

45. The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett.

Like her previous novel, The Appeal, this book is a triumph, and highly entertaining. It is presented as a series of documents, featuring emails, WhatsApp exchanges and SMS messages from a number of characters, all of whom have been involved in the events surrounding the production of a community pantomime by the amateur dramatic society in the small town of Lockwood.

As with the earlier book, a bundle of papers is delivered to two young paralegals in a firm of solicitors, and they are invited to study them with no prior knowledge of the case or its context, and see what conclusions they come to.

The plot revolves around the actions and jealousies found among the members of the Lockwood Amateur Dramatic Society. The correspondence is cleverly presented – we don’t always see both sides of an exchange, and all sorts of sub stories emerge.

The characterisation is great, too. All in all, this works wonderfully – far more effectively than my clumsy synopsis might suggest - , and all sorts of subplots and strained relationships emerge. When I first encountered the book, I had my doubts about the format, wondering whether it might simply be gimmicky. That could not be further from the truth. The drip feed of information, like an old fashioned epistolatory novel, works excellently.

Janice Hallett manages the plot adeptly, too, and I lost count of the unexpected twists and turns, all of them entirely plausible.

46. Who Dares Wins: Britain 1979-1982 by Dominic Sandbrook.8

Dominic Sandbrook continues his vast history of Great Britain from the 1960s up to the present day. This is the fifth immense volume (weighing in at almost a thousand pages) and extends from Margaret Thatcher’s general election victory in May 1979 until the victorious conclusion of the Falklands War in 1982.

I should say straight away that I am a huge fan of Dominic Sandbrook, and feel that this is his finest book yet, although I recognise that that might simply reflect my greater familiarity with, and recollection of, the events about which he writes. Where he excels is in drawing together, without any semblance of artifice, so many different strands of life. He gives a detailed account of the political issues dominating day to day life, but also sheds light on prevailing trends in entertainment, literature and music, as well as changing aspects to domestic life.

A thousand pages for just three years might seem excessive, but those three years saw almost seismic shifts in British life. Political commentators had expected Prime Minister James Callaghan to call an election during late summer or autumn 1978, but he chose instead to let his tenure run for full term. That proved to be a fatal misjudgement. Not only was he beset by what came to be known as the ‘Winter of Discontent’, with public service unions bringing many elements of daily life to a standstill through concerted industrial action, exacerbated by a particularly harsh winter, but he fell foul of Scottish and Welsh Nationalists.

Callaghan had inherited No. 10 from his predecessor, Harold Wilson, who had stepped down from the premiership in 1976 in response (as we now know, although it was never acknowledged at the time) to signs of the early onset of dementia. Callaghan was a benign and popular figure, and is the only person to have held any four great offices of state (Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary). He is, unfortunately, now generally remembered for having presided over the Winter of Discontent, and for losing the parliamentary confidence vote which led to the May election that brought Mrs Thatcher to power. Wilson had secured a very small majority in the autumn election in 1974, but that had gradually been eroded throughout the course of the parliament, leaving Callaghan dependent upon the support of the small Scottish Nationalist Party and Plaid Cymru cohorts within the House.

It is always tempting (if pointless) to speculate about the ‘What if?’ moments of history. If Callaghan had gone to the country in autumn 1978, as most of the pundits anticipated, would he have won? If so, the whole course of British political history would have been completely different. Mrs Thatcher would almost certainly have been deposed as Conservative leader, perhaps to be replaced by a rival of more moderate views.

It was not just the Winter of Discontent that led to Callaghan’s defeat. On 1 March 1979 voters in both Wales and Scotland voted in respective referenda about the issue of devolution of power, with a view to establishing their own parliaments. A majority of those voting in Scotland did indeed opt for a Scottish parliament. They did not, however, do so in sufficient numbers to meet the additional criterion insisted upon by Callaghan’s Westminster government, that, as well as a majority of votes actually cast, at least forty per cent of the total electorate in each country had to support devolution. On a snowy and painfully cold day, overall turnout in Scotland was too low for the vote to cross that hurdle, and the bid for independence failed. The SNP and Plaid Cymru immediately withdrew their support for Callaghan’s government, rendering it only a matter of time before it succumbed to a vote of confidence. ‘Like turkeys voting for Christmas’, was Callaghan’s verdict, before he bowed to the inevitable and, having lost a crucial confidence vote, fell back upon the whim of the electorate.

Mrs Thatcher is one of the most divisive figures in British political history, but one who is now generally the subject of rampant vituperation. Having just turned sixteen, I was too young to vote in the 1979 election, but contrary to the revisionist view prevalent today, I remember that there was a feeling almost of euphoria when Mrs Thatcher emerged victorious from that election. This was, it is true, more a feeling that change … any change … had to be welcome. Things had been so relentlessly grim over the preceding seven or eight months that any sort of new start was welcome. Of course, no-one would have believed in May 1979 that the Conservatives would remain in power for the next eighteen years, and, as if to prove Santayana’s adage about the cyclical nature of history, there was the same sense of euphoria or relief when Tony Blair’s New Labour finally ousted them.

The Falklands War proved to be the pivotal moment in Margaret Thatcher’s first term as Prime Minister. Indeed, if Argentina had not invaded the Falkland Islands, it is unlikely that she would have secured even a second term, far less a third. The British economy plummeted during her first years as Prime Minister, and unemployment soared, extending beyond three million. Of course, this was particularly ironic given the success of the Conservatives’ election campaign, a key element of which had been billboards showing huge queues outside a Job Centre with the slogan, ‘Labour isn’t working’. Even senior figures within her own party were starting to challenge her approach. During the opening years of her premiership, Britain saw vicious riots spreading throughout the country, in places as far apart as Brixton, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Cardiff.

Sandbrook captures all of this and far more, and renders it all very accessibly, and offers some very wry observations along the way.

47. A Study in Death by Iain McDowall.

This was a strange novel, and notably dissatisfying.

Ambitious academic Dr Roger Harvey is found dead in his apartment, having been beaten about the head. There are no readily discernible motives, and very few clues. The police investigation is led by DCI Jacobson and DS Kerr.

Presumably intending to make them ‘interesting’ characters, Iain McDowall bestows angst-ridden personalities on both of them. Sadly this move fails, and serves only to render them, and the book as a whole, very tedious. Not one character betrays any vaguely empathetic trait found myself steeped in apathy with regard to the resolution of the mystery.

This is not a series that I will be returning too. Apart from any other consideration, the prose was of a flatness and deadness that suggested to me that the author had been even less interested in the story than I was.

>70 Eyejaybee: Thanks to your earlier review of Sandbrook #4, I have just started #1 Never Had it so Good. I am old enough to remember being aware of the 1956 Suez crisis, I was 10 at the time, but had no idea what the crisis was about other than the Suez Canal. Now I know, what a comeuppance for Eden, believing he could pull off such a move without consulting the U.S. first. The result could be a dictionary definition of hubris.

>73 Eyejaybee:. I hope you enjoy it. I hadn’t appreciated before I read Never Had It So Good the extent to which Anthony Eden had been so widely viewed as the Golden Boy of British politics.

48. Ten Seconds by Robert Gold.

Ben Harper is back, once again confronted with a bizarre mystery arising from what would normally appear to be the very quiet West London suburb of Haddley. This time the crime is an abduction, and the victim is Madeliene, Ben’s boss and editor of a leading online news site. As it happens, Ben had been with Madeleine immediately before her abduction, having joined with her and her father to celebrate the latter’s birthday. She is whisked off in her car, unaware that her regular driver has himself been attacked, and replaced by the kidnapper.

Ben and Madeleine’s father then find themselves racing around the country, struggling to pick up clues to her whereabouts. It soon transpires that her abduction is related to a story that she had covered years ago, and which led to the conviction and imprisonment of a young man who had committed a gruesome murder in Haddley.

Robert Gold writes in a fluid style that sucks the reader in. Ben is a very engaging character: he has had more than his share of traumatic experiences himself, and these have made him empathetic. Other characters are very plausible too, not least Dani Cash, a Detective Sergeant based in the local police station, and her colleagues on the Force.

This is a quirky and light-hearted series, but no less rewarding for that.

49. A Decent Interval by Simon Brett.

Charles Paris is back! After a break of several years during which he has concentrated on his Fethering series of novels (with alliterative titles such as The Body on the Beach and Murder in the Museum), Simon Brett returned to Charles Paris, the down-at-heel and rather mediocre journeyman actor who is, to my mind, his finest creation.

In this outing Charles lands a part (well, two parts, actually) in a production of Hamlet which is scheduled for a tour of provincial theatres around England before a hopefully triumphant run in London's West End. Charles is gratified to have the roles of The Ghost and the First Gravedigger, and is looking forward to an enjoyable spell of work. The title role is, however, to be taken by Jared Root, recent winner of a reality TV singing competition (clearly modelled on the X Factor) while Ophelia is to be played by Katrina Selsey who had landed the part as her prize for winning a similar television competition.

It soon becomes clear that Jared Root can't act at all, while Katrina Selsey has delusions of stardom way beyond her as yet untested talent. Just before the opening night in Marlborough, first stop on the provincial run of the production, part of the stage set falls down, seriously wounding Root. Shortly afterwards, Katrina Selsey dies under strange circumstances. Charles decides to investigate.

The Charles Paris novels are always amusing, filled with Brett's insight into the trials and tribulations of an actor's life (exacerbated by Charles's relentless drinking). This latest in the series is well up to standard, and I found it most enjoyable.

>69 Eyejaybee: I also enjoyed The Appeal, despite it breaking one of the commandments of detective fiction by keeping information secret not just from the reader but from the investigators. I have added The Christmas Appeal to my wish list and am prepared to be misled.

50. Rather be the Devil by Ian Rankin

John Rebus is proving to be one of the most durable of fictional crime fighters. Now retired not just from Lothian and Borders police but also from the cold case team that he had joined after leaving the mainstream force, he has a lot of time on his hands. He also has plenty on his mind since, as the novel opens, he is waiting for the results of a biopsy taken after doctors discovered a shadow on his lung. As a consequence of this, while keeping his concerns to himself, he has finally given up smoking, rendering him even more thrawn than ever.

Meanwhile, his former would-be adversary turned grudging friend, Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox, previously local head of the Professional Standards Division, has been transferred to the elite Police Scotland Crime Squad based at Gartcosh near Glasgow. Siobhan Clarke, long time work partner of Rebus (and fleetingly romantic partner of Fox) is still in Edinburgh, slightly resentful of the opportunity afforded Fox, and increasingly concerned about Rebus’s health.

Fox is commissioned to investigate Edinburgh ‘businessman’ Darryl Christie, another former adversary of Rebus, Fox and Clarke, who is suspected of involvement in organised money laundering through the electronic gambling machines in the chain of betting shops that he owns. Meanwhile, a suspected associate of Christie, financial adviser Anthony Brough, grandson of the former owner of Brough’s private bank, has gone missing. Nearly forty years earlier Brough’s father had been a suspect in a murder scandal that ensnared much of Edinburgh’s top society. And then, back in the present, Christie is found severely beaten up in his own garden.

What follows in an intricately woven story that shifts between the past and present as Rebus and Co struggle to unravel a financial morass mired against a background of underworld alliances and gang conflicts. Of course, Rebus’s sworn enemy, Maurice Gerald Cafferty is there to muddy the waters with his own brand of Mephistophelean woe, too.

Rankin always offers robust and plausible plots, which benefit from the use of genuine locations. This time around, however, I felt that the principal charades lacked their customary solidity. There was a coarseness about Rebus in this book that had been absent, or more deeply hidden in previous volumes in the series. Clarke, too, lacks some of her edge, although who could blame her for lacking some of her brio after years of bailing Rebus out of the mire. Even with these slight cavils, this is still an entertaining and enjoyable book, and I am confident that the series could sustain several more volumes yet.

51. Double Jeopardy by Colin Forbes.

This was absolute rubbish, and served to show how far the thriller has evolved in the last few decades.

The plot was fatuous, and the characters were trite and pandered to the most inane stereotypes. Even allowing for the fact that the book was published more than forty years ago, the sexism was painful to behold, with no cliché knowingly overlooked. Forbes’s characters made the James Bond of Ian Fleming'snovels seem almost like a woke warrior.

>78 Eyejaybee: Thank you for this wonderfully scathing review. Made me laugh.

>79 pamelad: My library does not have this book. I found one by him and have it on hold. Just had to read (or try) to read one by him.

>80 jbegab: >79 pamelad: Apparently ‘Colin Forbes’ was just one of several pseudonyms that were used by Raymond Harold Sawkins. He was very popular throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.