Review: IQ

IQ by Joe Ide
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When a publisher describes a first novel as "a combustible cocktail of Bosch, Hiaasen and Conan Doyle" they are asking for trouble, and not just because of the confusion of characters and authors in the blurb... Unless, of course, the novel is as good as IQ.

In Isaiah Quintabe, Joe Ide has created a likeable protagonist, a 'street' investigator whose deductive reasoning and observational talents do indeed echo Sherlock Holmes. The writing, plot and dialogue, is excellent and merits the comparison with Michael Connelly. From the prologue which introduces IQ and his abilities straight away, through a skilful handling of interwoven timelines Ide proves to be a nimble and entertaining writer. The plot alternates between 2005, Isaiah's coming of age, his 'origin story' as an investigator, and 2013 as he investigates the attempted murder of a rap artist. Along the way we meet Dodson, the likeable rogue sidekick, and a gallery of music business hangers-on all of whom bring depth and humour to the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and look forward to reading the follow up, Righteous, soon.

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Review: Corpus

Corpus by Rory Clements
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was hard work. When a publisher advertises a novel 'for fans of Robert Harris' I expect more. Harris is a master at taking historical events, building believable characters, bringing dialogue to life and creating real suspense - even when the reader knows the outcome. Rory Clements doesn't.

The synopsis was very promising - the abdication crisis, Europe on the brink of war. A skilful novelist could get into the heads of Stanley Baldwin, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (and the suspicions of Nazism around them), George VI. A novelist can go places that a historian cannot. What were they thinking? What were the motivations? Instead we get a central character, Tom Wilde, Cambridge history professor, who is as tedious and unsympathetic a protagonist as I have read in a long time. We get a cardboard cutout Baldwin. We get Nazi and Communist caricatures. We learn less about the crisis than a quick Wikipedia search would provide. A tangental plot involving Spanish gold which adds nothing. And dialogue of which Dan Brown would be proud (Brown can create suspense however...).

Very disappointing. I struggled to finish it and may have done just to see if some character, the Midsomer policeman perhaps, would ask Tom Wilde who he was and why he was here...

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Review: Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's nothing like a big, thick Stephen King novel, and this is nothing like a big, thick Stephen King novel....

Actually, that's not true. 'Sleeping Beauties' is big and thick (700+ pages) and is very like a Stephen King novel, possibly too like some of his previous books but that doesn't make it a bad book. I enjoyed it a lot. King excels at long narratives with large casts of character. When it works (The Stand, IT) it works brilliantly. In the odd case (Tommyknockers) when it doesn't work, the results can be a car-crash (and not the horribly graphically described car-crash a Stephen King would excel at...). Like 'Under the Dome', 'Sleeping Beauties' is closer to the former than the latter but, unlike 'Under the Dome' doesn't, for me, have and ending which lets it down.

The book is written with Owen King and, not having read Steve's younger son's work, I am not qualified to say how much of the book, or which parts, Owen writes. 'Sleeping Beauties' reads like a Stephen King novel although it there are fewer horror-tropes and more fairytale fantasy elements than usual (perhaps down to Owen?). There is also a very strong feminist subtext.

Like 'Under the Dome' the plot here involves a small town subjected to supernatural, unexplained events. In 'Sleeping Beauties', the women of the town fall into a deep, cocooned sleep and the men fight over whose fault it is. The phenomenon is worldwide but the focus of the story is on the town of Dooling and much of the action is concentrated in the nearby women's prison, a setting which allows the Kings to examine male/female relationships in a more black and white way; there are few shades of grey and little in the way of allegory. While this can become a little heavy-handed at times, the current exposure of sexual predators in the political and film worlds suggests the exaggeration may be warranted.

So, not King's best but a very entertaining big, thick novel.

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