#BlogTour - Ghost Story by Elisa Lodato

 

From the Costa First Novel Award shortlisted author of An Unremarkable Body

She came to write, but the island has its own story . . .

Off the windswept coast of Scotland lies Finish Island, rugged and remote. Once a home, it now stands abandoned, a place of dark history and deep memory, a place that holds its stories close. Unable to write since her daughter's death, it's here that Seren comes to work, hoping that the solitude and silence will inspire her next novel.

But the island holds memories of its own, restless and unwilling to stay buried. As unsettling occurrences become even more bizarre and frightening, Seren starts seeing uncanny resonances between her past and the island's history. There is something on this island, something ancient and unforgiving. 

Will Seren discover its secrets, before it's too late?

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An intriguing and unusual novel, GHOST STORY begins with an email exchange between Jamie Doughty and his late ex-wife, Seren’s publishers. It appears that Seren has passed away ‘on that island’ while writing the novel commissioned by the publishers and whose manuscript they would now like to publish. Jamie refuses, arguing that the manuscript in his possession is ‘not a work of fiction’ and it is apparent he holds the publishers responsible for whatever has happed to Seren.

What then follows appears to be that manuscript and tells Seren's story as she does indeed travel to remote Scottish Hebridean Ireland, inspired by the story of a massacre that took place there hundreds of years before and hoping that the location will reignite her creative spark. It's quickly evident that Seren’s manuscript is not a novel, at least not a conventional novel, but rather a memoir telling of the events that brought her to travel to the island and later when she gets to the island it takes the form of journal entries and dispersed with chapters of her intended novel. The prose is melancholy, and slow-moving, and utterly engrossing. Seren’s first novel was a huge success, her second a comparative failure. Her daughter and sister were murdered in an arson attack carried out by her sister’s deranged partner, and Seren’s marriage, to Jamie, did not survive the tragedy. Contacted by her publisher with an offer for a story about ‘“Ghosts…not ghosts that go bump-in-the-night but the inner demon, you know”’ Seren decides to visit the Western Isles, where she spent holidays as a child, Finish Island, uninhabited since 1912 but whose population had been massacred by clansmen centuries before. Seren hopes the location, and the solitude, will inspire her but the reader can’t help but feel that she is trying to escape the grief which which she has been living, grief which, perhaps quiet at times, never leaves.

It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot, suffice to say I found it gripping and intensely moving. Elisa Lodato is a talented writer. Her prose is exquisite, her dialog modern and realistic. Sadness and grief are present on every page but the book is never gloomy and GHOST STORY lives up to its title as a feeling of increasing dread takes hold in the latter stages. It is chilling and atmospheric. It doesn’t tie everything up in a neat bow, and I liked that. For days after finishing the novel I was still thinking about it - did things happen as they appeared to, as Seren had recorded them? Did the remoteness of the island take a toll on Seren’s sanity? Were the ghosts real or ‘inner demons’, or both? I don’t know but the questions will stay for some time.

#BlogTour - Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

A remote tropical island. Countless dangerous secrets. No way to call help.

‘A master of the thriller genre’ David Baldacci
‘Full-on action’ Sunday Times
‘The very definition of the word "unputdownable"' Tess Gerritsen
‘Masterful. Not to be missed’ Karin Slaughter
‘This thriller has enough twists and turns to make you dizzy. If you haven’t read Frankie Elkin yet, start now!’ Lisa Scottoline
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Missing persons specialist Frankie Elkin is on an isolated island off the coast of Hawaii.

Her mission: to find Lani, the missing sister of a Death Row serial killer known as the Beautiful Butcher who is awaiting execution in just three weeks’ time.

According to the Beautiful Butcher’s sources, Lani is being held captive by her millionaire ex-boyfriend on the island. The only way to gain access is for Frankie to go undercover.

But can Frankie really trust the word of a serial killer?

Plus, this island is no paradise with deadly creatures and suspicious co-workers at every turn, and an incoming tropical storm about to cut her off from the outside world.

Could this be Frankie Elkin’s most dangerous case yet?
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STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE is the third book in Lisa Gardner's Frankie Elkin series. I have read the author before but not this series, but found myself right at home from the start. The setup is the traditional detective novel, very familiar, but with a twist. Think The Big Sleep - the detective, Philip Marlowe, visits a prospective client, who wants him to find a missing person, Rusty Regan - immediately you know where you are. Here we have Frankie Elkin, unlicensed and self-driven missing persons investigator, visiting a prospective client, and being asked to find her missing sister. However, in this case, the client is a serial killer, a woman on death row for the murder of 18 men, who wants Frankie to find the sister she lost touch with 12 years ago, whom she believes is being held captive by a tech millionaire, The Beautiful Butcher's ex, on an isolated island in the Pacific.

So, we have echoes of The Big Sleep, The Silence of the Lambs, Glass Onion, perhaps a bit of Jack Reacher in our nomadic central character. We also have an intriguing protagonist in Frankie Elkin, and a talented author in Lisa Gardner, who takes these familiar elements and builds a singular, unusual and pulse-pounding thriller, which bears comparison to the influences. I liked Frankie a lot. She is driven by a need to fight for those forgotten, or ignored, by the traditional authorities, witty and funny, yet full of self-doubt and uncertainty. The plot is full of twists, keeping the reader guessing right until the end. The supporting characters are rounded and interesting, and some of their backstories could make for very readable novels themselves. Lisa Gardner's prose is excellent and makes you want to continue reading, her dialogue is realistic and natural. Above all, her research is incredible, and used to flesh out the story rather than being an information dump. Nothing I learned pulled me out of the exciting events but, later, I was inspired to learn more about Pacific atolls, and disturbing coconut crabs, and wolf spiders, and pirate treasure (yes, pirate treasure...)

I thoroughly enjoyed STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE and will be exploring Frankie's other adventures. Thanks to Century Books UK, Compulsive Readers and, of course, Lisa Gardner for the opportunity to take part in the BlogTour. 

 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a surprise. I have owned the book for years as part of a Great Science Fiction collection, but never got round to reading it. I have struggled to focus, particularly on fiction, in recent months and downloaded this from Audible as the description sounded lightweight, something to pass the time, an easy read...

In the 2050s, Oxford historians explore the past using time travel, sending well-prepared scholars back to the period of study to witness the people, and the lives they led, first-hand. Kivrin, a student of Medieval England, travels back to the 14th century, despite the concerns of her professor, Mr Dunworthy, who is fearful of potential harm which could befall her. Arriving in the 1300s, Kivrin, intending to pass herself off as the survivor of a bandit's assault on the road, is ironically knocked unconscious and 'rescued' by a local, losing the location of her pickup point by which she can return to the 21st century. Meanwhile, in 2054 illness overcomes a panicked technician who seemed to be on the point of revealing an accident or error in calculations affecting Kivrin's time travel, but falls into a coma before he can explain. As the Oxford campus is locked down in quarantine, Dunworthy struggles to understand what has happened and work out how to bring Kivrin home.

DOOMSDAY BOOK was written in 1993. The 2050s characters act and speak, and the settings feel, more like the 1950s. It feels dated, although enjoyably so, with its Christmas Carol services, bellringing, local pubs, and gifts from Debenhams (a department store which, once thriving, no longer exists). Yet Connie Willis seems to predict the recent pandemic, or something very like it, possibly also Brexit and its associated protests and counterprotests. Characters use videophones but, in another old-fashioned touch, dial numbers and use public phoneboxes, email or instant messaging, the internet even, missing from the author's predictions.

In the 1300s meanwhile, the characters are realistic and sympathetic and it is hard not be drawn into the tragedy of their lives. In a parallel to the outbreak in 2050s Oxford, and indeed the Covid-19 pandemic, Kivrin finds herself not in 1320 but in 1348, the time of the Black Death. Her story is harrowing and heart-breaking, far from the light adventure I was anticipating.

Ultimately despite, perhaps partly because, of the anachronisms and the Agatha Christie-like portrayal of Oxford academia, I loved this book. As quaint and 'proper' as I found the future characters, especially compared to the hardships and struggle of the medieval cast, I found both to be well-drawn and relatable. And it is the characters who drive the story, not how time-travel works, and it is Connie Willis's expert touch with the characters which makes DOOMSDAY BOOK incredibly emotional and moving. Not what I was expecting but probably what I really needed.

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#BlogTour - The Silent Man by David Fennell

A father is murdered in the dead of night in his London home, his head wrapped tightly in tape, a crude sad face penned over his facial features. But the victim's only child is left alive and unharmed at the scene.

Met Police detectives Grace Archer and Harry Quinn have more immediate concerns. Notorious gangster Frankie White has placed a target on Archer's back, and there's no one he won't harm to get to her.

Then a second family is murdered, leaving young Uma Whitmore as the only survivor. Once again the victim's face is found wrapped and inked.

With a serial killer at large, DI Archer and DS Quinn must stay alive long enough to find the connection between these seemingly random victims. Can they do it before another child is made an orphan?

David Fennell is a new author to me. THE SILENT MAN is the third in his DI Grace Archer series, something I didn’t know when starting the book. The novel begins with a very tense and chilling murder of a father, by a killer who gains access to the victim’s home without force, without detection, and leaves no trace other than a man suffocated, his head taped, and a son who heard nothing, unaware until his discovery of his father’s body next morning.  We then meet DI Archer and DS Quinn.

Initially a little confusing, there is a lot going on, with several callbacks to events in previous novels but, like Marvel Comics used to do, anticipating that this might be a first reader, Fennell brings us up to speed, without excessive exposition, respecting his readers’ intelligence and ability to put it together. Di Archer is a prime target for a London Crime Boss who blames her for the death of a jailed family member and so targets Grace’s grandfather. There are moles in the Metropolitan Police and the organised crime gang seem able to attack Archer with impunity. It’s a little Infernal Affairs/The Departed in Charing Cross, and, while I wasn’t drawn to it as much as the concurrent hunt for the killer, possibly due to a lack of familiarity with the characters, it is well-plotted, very well written, and the protagonists engagingly drawn.

When a second body is discovered with seeming links to the first, another child the sole survivor, Archer and Quinn suspect a serial killer and it is here that things really took off for me. The killings, seen from the murderer’s POV, are harrowing and heart-stopping. The search for evidence is painstaking and littered with red herrings. As a procedural crime narrative the novel is first class, the constant threat hanging over the main detective, heightening the tension constantly. There are other subplots which eventually dovetail with the main threads and the author expertly garners the reader’s sympathies for the characters, and not always for those you might expect.

Yes, it may be have been better to start at the beginning of the series, but I did not feel lost or my enjoyment of the story irrevocably harmed by not doing so, and I look forward to dropping back and catching up.

The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree

“Odd, creepy, funny, The Black Lagoon meets the Six Gun universe. High up on the way-cool factor. You need this.” —Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award–winning author of the Hap and Leonard series 

As an unlikely found-family flees toward Galveston, a psychic young girl bonds with Charlie Fish, an enigmatic gill-man. Meanwhile, they are pursued by bounty hunters determined to profit from the spectacle of Charlie. But the Great Storm—the worst natural disaster in U.S. history—is on its way. Josh Rountree’s strikingly original debut novel ranges effortlessly between the Gothic, pulp, literary, Western, and comedic. With his vivid imagery, evocative storytelling, and uncanny wit, Rountree enters the fine tradition of Texan storytellers, wading into True Grit by way of The Shape of Water

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Paradise was a whirlpool of unnatural greens and gold coral reefs, phosphorescent flowers and palaces cut into the heart of undersea caverns. 

THE LEGEND OF CHARLIE FISH is quite simply one of the best novels I have read this year. Set at the turn of the 20^th Century, a time when the American Old West was beginning to disappear, it is the story of damaged characters - Floyd Betts, estranged from the late father whom he arrives in town to bury, and the orphans he ‘adopts’, Nellie and Hank, whose parents have been murdered by the townspeople who condemned their as a witch. On the return to Galveston, the trio rescue a creature from two ‘scoundrels’ they encounter on the road. While Floyd initially thinks the men have captured a huge fish, Nellie, who has inherited a form of telepathy, ‘whisper talk’, from her mother, recognises the captive as a sentient being, whom she names Charlie Fish.

There are obviously fantastical elements - the titular character is a Creature From The Black Lagoon-like amphibious man - but it is thoroughly grounded in reality, and what a reality; the climax plays out against the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Josh Rountree’s description of the storm is frighteningly visceral; you really hear, and feel, the wind and surging water, the buildings moving, the almost complete disorientation. I would have to think long and hard to find a better evocation of the destructive power of nature.

I believe this is Josh Rountree’s first novel but his prose is beautiful, even when describing intense violence, either of the storm or the swift retribution of a semi-lawless society. THE LEGEND OF CHARLIE FISH is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, of Joe R. Lansdale, but Rountree has his own voice. I thoroughly enjoyed it and rushed breathlessly through the story. I will reread it and look forward to see what comes next from the author.

About the Author: Josh Rountree has published more than sixty stories in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, The Deadlands, Bourbon Penn, PseudoPod, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and A Punk Rock Future. Several of his stories have received honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth and Twenty-First Annual Collections, as well as The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection. His latest short fiction collection is Fantastic Americana: Stories from Fairwood Press. Josh lives somewhere in the untamed wilds of Texas with his wife and children, and he tweets about books, records, and guitars at @josh_rountree.

 

To Die in June by Alan Parks

There are a few authors for whom I will drop all current reading when their latest book drops. The latest addition to this select list is Alan Parks. His Harry McCoy series has been excellent from the start and continues to get better. The sixth in the series, TO DIE IN JUNE, is no exception. It finds McCoy and Wattie seconded to ‘the shithole of shitholes’ Possil police station, only the former knowing the real reason for their transfer, to expose the corruption centred on the station.It is Glasgow, June 1975. At Possil Police Station, a woman reports her son missing, but there is no trace of the boy, no proof that he even exists. The woman is the wife of the firebrand pastor of The Church of Christ’s suffering, ‘a look in her eyes when she talked about her religion:shining eyes and a conviction that the Lord was on her side and no one else’s.’ Just the thing to get under the Christian brother educated McCoy’s skin.

At the same time, Glasgow’s elderly wino population seems to be decreasing at an unusually high rate, bodies turning up in parks and on the banks of the Clyde, McCoy becoming increasingly concerned with the fate of his down and out father.

Add into the mix his new colleagues extortion rackets and the high likelihood that Stevie Cooper is about to embark on another turf war against fellow gangsters. McCoy’s life, seemingly on the up, a new relationship burgeoning, is about to take a dive…

As with the previous books in the series, Glasgow is as much a character as McCoy - seedy, dirty, crime ridden -  yet the novel is full of dark humour, pathos, social commentary; it is funny, moving and thrilling. Park’s writing gets better and better. It is a lazy comparison to hold the McCoy books up against McIllvanney’s LAIDLAW series but that doesn’t make it inappropriate; the books are that good and can stand alongside the master.

I loved TO DIE IN JUNE and look forward to whatever July brings. I suspect the times the are a’-changin’

#BlogTour - Infinity Gate by M. R. Carey

From the international bestselling M. R. Carey comes a thrilling novel set in the multiverse – the tale of humanity’s expansion across millions of dimensions, and the AI technology that might see it all come to an end . . .

INFINITY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds – except that they’re really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they’ll eradicate it by whatever means necessary, no matter the cost to human life.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth’s environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel. It could save everyone on her dying planet, but now she’s walked into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of.

And she needs to choose a side before it kills her.

Discover the spectacular first novel in The Pandominion – an exhilarating new science fiction duology from the author of the million-copy bestseller The Girl With All the Gifts. Perfect for fans of The Space Between Worlds, The Long Earth and Children of Time.

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M. R. Carey’s THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS was one of my favourite novels of the last several years, a fresh take on the zombie apocalypse theme, and his recent KOLI trilogy was an equally original variation on post-apocalyptic society, so it comes as no surprise that INFINITY GATE is an equally thrilling twist on a familiar trope. In his new novel we get Carey’s version of the multiverse.

Hadiz Tambuwal is a scientist striving for a solution to her world’s impending ecological disaster who accidentally stumbles upon Step technology, a way of travelling to an alternate earth. With the, initially unwelcome, help of an opinionated AI, Hadiz begins to use drones to collect data from other Earths, at least in the vicinity of her base in Lagos and, when she ultimately fails in her quest to prevent her planet’s environmental implosion, she makes a home on the reality most resembling her own.

Essien Nkanika lives by his wits on the streets of Lagos and does whatever it takes to live - working jobs others would avoid, stealing, working cons, prostitution. Initially using Essien for sex, possibly for company, Hadiz eventually takes him into her confidence, sharing with him her discovery of the multiverse. And, of course, even though he has no idea how it works, Essien decides to steal the technology for his own profit. And the Pandominion is watching.

The Pandominion controls commerce and facilitates movement across a federation of multiverse worlds. They force order through the Cielo, the largest military organisation in history. And they do not take kindly to unauthorised Step Technology…

INFINITY GATE is a fantastically exciting Sci-Fi novel which pays homage to Carey’s influences but does not imitate them. There are echoes of THE FOREVER WAR and STARSHIP TROOPERS in the depiction of the Cielo but, at least to me, Carey’s characters are more relatable, more human (even, maybe especially, in the case of Paz), than Haldeman’s or, particularly, Heinlein’s, and I love those novels. INFINITY GATE can stand alongside them.

Carey keeps the reader guessing, as to where the story will go next, but also in how we feel about the characters. The idea of infinite realities could be overwhelming but Carey writes in deceptively simple prose which draws the reader into an immersive narrative so that we always understand what is going on, even when we don’t know what’s going on. I loved it and I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

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About the author:

M. R. Carey has been making up stories for most of his life. His novel The Girl With All the Gifts was a word-of-mouth bestseller and is now a major motion picture based on his own screenplay. Under the name Mike Carey he has written for both DC and Marvel, including critically acclaimed runs on Lucifer, Hellblazer and X-Men. His creator-owned series The Unwritten appeared regularly in the New York Times graphic fiction bestseller list. He also has several previous novels, games, radio plays, and TV and movie screenplays to his credit.

#BlogTour - The Messenger by Megan Davis

‘A sharply written, clever and classy thrill-ride through the streets of Paris. Atmospheric and twisting, The Messenger is a wonderful debut.’ Chris Whitaker   


Wealthy and privileged, Alex has an easy path to success in the Parisian elite. But he and his domineering father have never seen eye to eye. Desperate to escape the increasingly suffocating atmosphere of their apartment, Alex seeks freedom on the streets of Paris where his new-found friend Sami teaches him how to survive. But everything has a price - and one night of rebellion changes their lives forever. 


A simple plan to steal money takes a sinister turn when Alex's father is found dead. Despite protesting their innocence, both boys are imprisoned for murder. Seven years later Alex is released from prison with a single purpose: to discover who really killed his father. Yet as he searches for answers and atones for the sins of his past, Alex uncovers a disturbing truth with far-reaching consequences.



In the heart of Paris, against a backdrop of corruption, fake news and civil unrest, The Messenger is a mind-racing new thriller that follows one son's journey to find redemption and expose the truth. 

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 Set in Paris, Megan Davis’s THE MESSENGER is the story of a dysfunctional family, of Alex Giraud, an angsty teenager, born in France raised in USA, and struggling to fit in Paris to which he, and his father Eddy, have recently returned. Increasingly estranged from his father, bullied by his peers at school, Alex escapes to the streets of Paris where he meets Sami, a small time dealer, a survivor, who introduces him to drugs and the small-time criminals who traffic them. Alex sees a way to use the supply of recreational narcotics to buy his way into the circle of those whose approval he craves, but actually hates, and together he and Sami hatch a plan to rob Eddy, Alex’s father, a plan that ends in tragedy. 

The novel actually begins with Eddy’s death on Christmas Eve. Sami flees the apartment telling the hiding Alex not to go in, that, “He’ll be all right. He was still speaking.” Running to he father, Alex finds Eddy dying from stab wounds. And, seven years later, Alex is released from prison, having served a lighter sentence than the 25 years given to the older Sami, determined to find out who really murdered Eddy Giraud, and why. 

THE MESSENGER is engrossing, tightly plotted and peopled by realistic, characters most of whom are simultaneously fascinating and unlikeable. It is slow-paced but never boring and, as the author alternates between NOW and THEN, we learn a lot about Alex, his relationship with his father, and the events that led to Eddy’s death and Alex’s incarceration; we see the older Alex’s obsessive drive to find his father’s real murderer and clear his and Sami’s names. Megan Davis reveals just enough information so that both timelines build in a deliberate, measured way until, about two thirds of the way in, the pace explodes, the stakes get much higher, and we career to the shocking conclusion. 

 It is difficult to believe that THE MESSENGER is Megan Davis’s debut novel, such is the ease with which she handles the plot. The whodunnit elements are satisfying, the atmospheric setting, the seedy Parisian underbelly, thoroughly convincing, and the suspicion of a deeper conspiracy seeded just enough to build the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere. It feels ‘real’ and I was completely won over. 

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About the author 

Megan Davis was born in Australia and grew up in mining towns across the world. She has worked in the film industry and her credits include Atonement, In Bruges, Pride and Prejudice and the Bourne films. Megan is also a lawyer and is currently an associate at Spotlight on Corruption. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Her debut The Messenger won the Bridport Prize for a First Novel in 2018, judged by Kamila Shamsie, as well as the Lucy Cavendish Prize for unpublished writers in 2021. She has lived in many places, including France for a number of years, but now lives in London.

Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Mr Bumble got it wrong. The law isn’t an ass. It’s a lot more sinister than that. The law is a devious, conniving bastard."

I read William McIlvanney's THE BIG MAN years ago, when it came out, but didn't get round to reading his Laidlaw novels for many years afterwards, only reading the second novel, THE PAPERS OF TONY VEITCH, when I discovered Alan Parks' 1970s Glasgow set series starting with Bloody January. Even then, it took Ian Rankin's completion of McIlvanney's unfinished final Laidlaw story, THE DARK REMAINS, to remind me that I had never completed the original trilogy, an error I have now corrected. Why did it take so long?

‘When a finger points at the moon,’ a Paris graffito had once said, ‘the fool looks at the finger.’

Written, unlike the preceding two novels, in the first person, STRANGE LOYALTIES is the distillation of Jack Laidlaw. We get right into his head and it is a fascinating, sometimes frightening, place to be. Where we previously witnessed Laidlaw's sometimes contradictory actions we now hear the thinking behind them, Jack's acknowledgment of the flaws in his personality and his musings on the reasons and causes of them. Ostensibly the story of Laidlaw's investigation into his brother's sudden death, the detective is simultaneously intimately involved yet somehow detached from events; Laidlaw commentates on and analyses his own, and other characters actions and motivations even as they occur.

As easy as it is to understand how the Laidlaw books laid the foundations for 'Tartan Noir', influencing Rankin, Parks, McDermid and others, it is perplexing how some critics could have derided such literate, articulate writing as mere 'crime fiction' when these books say more about the human condition than many 'literary' novels could ever hope to. It took me far longer than it should have to get here but I am so thankful I did, and as STRANGE LOYALTIES links directly back to THE BIG MAN, I will be re-reading McIlvanney's story about Dan Scoular at the earliest opportunity.

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White Riot by Joe Thomas

White Riot by Joe Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first of a trilogy, set in Hackney and based on real cases, Joe Thomas's WHITE RIOT is a gritty, uncomfortably authentic thriller.

1978 - punk, Rock against Racism, National Front, Anti-Nazi League, reggae, police corruption, Margaret Thatcher...

1983 - Style Council, more corruption, more racism, more Thatcher...

The more things change…

Against a background of political and racial tension, seen through the eyes of DC Patrick Noble, investigating racist attacks in the area and with undercover agents in both far-right and left wing groups, Suzi, a photographer in the music scene, and Jon Davies, a Hackney council solicitor, Thomas captures the feel, the sounds, the smells of the time. WHITE RIOT is very reminiscent of the RED RIDING books by David Peace, whose blurb adorns the cover.

It is a relatively downbeat story, as anyone who remembers, or has an interest in, the time might expect, and it is full of uncomfortable parallels to the Britain of today. The reader cannot help but compare the events in the novel to the divided, unequal society we now live in. I really look forward to seeing where this story goes, even though I fear I already know.

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Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation by Steven Hyden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have just finished Steven Hyden’s Pearl Jam book, a series of personal reflections and essays, very well written and entertaining. Reading the book is like having a conversation with a friend about a shared love; I don’t agree with his opinion on some points, and eras of PJ, but I really enjoyed the debate.

The book is structured as a mixtape with each chapter, loosely, focused on one song, in many cases a live performance of a particular song. Focused is perhaps wrong; the song actually acts as a springboard for a wider discussion of some aspect of the band’s history, recordings and concert tours, their activism and politics, their conscious retreat from stardom. I really enjoyed this way of approaching my relationship with a band who, in most days, remains my favourite.

Hyden maintains the mixtape analogy by dividing the book into two sides. Side A is the’90s - the incredible success of the first three albums, Pearl Jam’s, and particularly Eddie Vedder’s, struggle to cope with it, especially in the wake of the suicide of Kurt Cobain, leader of Nirvana, the band most closely tied to, and setup as rivals to, Pearl Jam by both the music and mainstream press. Side B concentrates on what Hyden considers is Pearl Jam’s second phase when albums became less important than live shows and I do agree with him to a large extent, although some of my favourite PJ songs have come in the 21st century.

A Pearl Jam concert is a unique event though. The band never repeat a setlist. A full-album show is a surprise, one-off event rather than the money spinning world tour that many other acts would do. Hyden is right that Pearl Jam survived, when others didn’t, by putting ‘their mental and physical health above rock stardom’ and by making ‘good decisions, including the ones that looked like bad decisions at the time.’ That ‘difference’ is partly why I saw them three times in the summer of 2022, all three concerts, in London and Italy, being different from each other, and different from any of the times I had seen the band before; its the reason why I, and countless other fans pour over setlists and gladly buy official bootlegs of the concerts to which we have been, and many more to which we wish we had been.

I'm now heading off to listen to every bootleg from the 2000 Binaural tour...

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