Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman

Boxer, Beetle is a novel taking place in two different times: the present day, and the mid 1930s.

In the present day, our first person narrator is a Nazi memorablia collector and odd jobs man for a much richer collector. He's suffering from a genetic condition that makes him smell bad, so he lives most of his life on the internet, except, very little of that is in the novel: we join him as he finds himself tasked with resolving a mystery. Soon, dead bodies are piling up.

Meanwhile, the mystery is all about a short, young Jewish boxer and a scientist passionate about eugenics in the 1930s. This plotline follows the career and ups and downs of the boxer, and the British scientist who wants to use the boxer for experiments. Until he can achieve this aim, he has to contend himself with working on beetles.

The book is pleasantly entertaining, fast-paced and quite readable. It does occasionally allow itself a whopper of purple prose or two, though. Could there ever be a dafter sentence to start a chapter with than "The morning light peeked in through the windows of the mortuary, pasty and trembling like the sort of ghoulish little boy who would rather see a dead girl than a naked one" ?

The plot gets a little crazy, especially towards the end, when all the carefully built up attempts at authenticity go out of the window in favour of a finale that reeks of B-movie scifi. It's a book that wants to be a bit literary, but also pulp fiction, so we get repressed homosexuality, confident homosexuality, a murder mystery, a conspiracy theory thriller, a rise-and-fall chronicle of a boxer's career, a satire (with a lengthy, dialogue heavy conference of fascists, beset by petty personality conflicts and politicking), all in one relatively short book. It might aspire to be literary, but in the end it feels quite shallow. It reads a bit like a Quentin Tarantino movie, though more restrained in the first two thirds of its narrative. The book certainly squeezes a lot of ideas, anecdotes and themes into the novel.

Rating: 3.5/5

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Shades of Grey is a strange beast. It is a high concept, satirical novel set in a dystopian (or, perhaps, anti-utopian) future, where human civilisation has been static for about 500 years after a "Something that Happened" apocalyptic event.

The humans in this world have tiny pupils in their eyes, and can only perceive a limited colour spectrum - or indeed, no colours at all. Their family names, their rank in life, their roles and occupations, are all determined by their colour perception. People who can see yellow become the police / enforcers. People who see violet / purple are the leaders. Greens and reds have varied roles in management and public services. Blues are librarians and guardians of knowledge. And greys are the worker bees, who do all the hard grafting in this world.

Our hero, Edward Russett, is being shipped far away from the central towns of this chromatocratic nation, into a small town in the sticks, as punishment for rebelliously having suggested an improved queueing system (original thought is strongly discouraged), and to accompany his father, who has been seconded to temporarily replace the recently deceased medical professional in that community (a swatchman, they are called). Ed is a young man, almost 20 years old, who is just about to find out his fate in life / his colour-viewing abilities. He's trying to distance-woo a young woman who is higher up in the hierarchy, and would be an advantageous dynastic choice for his family. And, on the day the story starts, he witnesses a man's collapse, near-death, and a young grey woman (called Jane) with a very cute nose who watches the incident, concerned, from a distance.

The novel is a slow reveal of the crazy world these people occupy, where colours are highly valued because of their aesthetics, but also because of their drug-like powers over the mind and body (green colours are opiate equivalents, for example). It's also a world where the lightless night holds incredible terror for the citizens, every aspect of their lives is determined by a lengthy rule book created hundreds of years ago by an obsessive, perhaps OCD-afflicted dictator, every few years the society purges itself of old knowledge and technology by a "leap back", suddenly declaring entire swathes of technology forbidden, wealth is measured in merits (earned for snitching and being valuable to the community), etc. etc. etc. - it's a world with many quirks. Some of these are satirical and vaguely amusing (spoons, forbidden from being manufactured, have become a secondary currency of sorts), others are a bit pointless.

There is so much world-building going on in this novel that it often feels like it hasn't really got anything hugely significant to say. The dystopian elements and satirical elements are vaguely familiar, reminiscent of the movie Brazil in atmosphere - a Kafkaesque, whimsical, Monty Python-esque take on the standard Orwellian dystopia. Some things make no sense at all (how do colours cause reactions, when the person staring at the colour is unable to actually perceive it? So how does a green drug work for a Red person?)

Our characters, meanwhile, are our narrating hero, the feisty, confrontational, cute-nosed, somewhat violent lady of his desires, some yellow and purple youths who are deplorably unpleasant, some red and green and blue youths who are vaguely pleasant but unimportant, and an artful dodger type who arranges many things, always with his self-interest at heart, devious, but not quite pure evil.

It takes a while to feel at home in this world as a reader, and all the way through, this is a novel of exposition, revealing different facets (and rules) of the world until the very last chapter. (Once the basic stuff is largely revealed, we still have to learn about the hidden, unknown history, the grand, rotten conspiracy at the heart of this world, etc.)

Jasper Fforde has sometimes been described as the "Welsh Terry Pratchett", but he certainly isn't. The number of jokes per page / chapter is much lower. His novels are gently amusing rather than downright funny. He is much more high-concept (Discworld, once you go past the turtle-elephant-disc construction of it, is just a satirical fantasy world, with wizards and dragons and so on). But the two of his novels that I've read so far were both, ultimately, less engrossing. From what I've read, his characters tend to be a bit less interesting, and Shades of Grey does lack strong charisma. (The artful dodger type is probably the most interesting character to be around, followed by the apocryphal man, but neither entirely steals the show).

Shades of Grey is a novel I would quite like to love, but don't. Pleasant enough, but sadly, no more than that.

Rating: 3.5/5

For another take on this novel, read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/90032575?book_show_action=false&page=1">Patrick Rothfuss's review of Shades of Grey</a>

I should also add, with hindsight, that Jasper Fforde has written some much more enjoyable novels - The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear, and the YA Dragonslayer Novels are superbly enjoyable.

Cwmardy by Lewis Jones

So, a communist activist, miner, public speaker and thinker in the 1930s is encouraged by friends to write a working men's story of the Welsh valleys, to give the world a glimpse at what it is like to live there and then, for regular people. The result is Cwmardy. (I have not read its sequel, 'We Live', included in this double bill)

The book has a lot going for it. Or rather, it should have a lot going for it. The story is told in easily accessible language; it features sex, violence, war, intrigue, conspiracies, high drama... purely in terms of "stuff happening", the novel is not that far off a thriller.

Then why is it so boring?

The answer is simple. Unfortunately, this novel is basically a soap opera set in the Welsh valleys. Stuff happens, but it's the story of (fictional) people's entire lives - not the story of a single, thrilling part of their lives. The book simply does not have the structure of a story, but is instead a neverending, eye-on-the-wall list of events.

A thriller thrills by giving us cliffhangers (usually at the end of chapters) and plot twists, revealed with impact and panache. The author of Cwmardy does not do either of those things - in fact, each chapter title gives away what the chapter is about. Chapter titles herald the plot twists, rather than setting up any kind of tense anticipation.

Meanwhile, our characters basically just want to get on with their lives. They don't seem to have big dreams and ambitions. Their struggles are, for the most part, everyday ones rather than anything exceptional enough to make a novel exciting. Even when they experience dramatic events, these are somehow narrated in such a matter-of-fact way that they aren't brought to life. They're also fairly flat characters.

Big Jim is a friendly, strong oaf, always ready to be a bit rough. Len is a more physically fragile, political young man. His mother is a mother hen, pecking at Len and Jim but ultimately always there for them. Ezra is a leader figure with doubts. Mary is intelligent. Jane likes boys. The characters all have their functions, but rarely have moments when they come across as fully human. For me, the one outstanding moment of humanity was when Len had to deliver the news of a death to the wife of the dead miner: standing at the door, he chokes up at her expression of horror as she guesses a tragedy has occurred, and tells her that her husband had a "little tap" but would be alright soon enough (even though the miners carrying the body can't be far behind). It is a rare moment that seems complex and human and unpredictable. The rest of the novel is only rarely unpredictable.

It's a book that sets out to tell what life is like for Welsh miners in the early 1900s. It does not set out to entertain. It wants to make points, and as such, it is functional, matter-of-fact, sometimes preachy, full of characters that are walking illustrations of arguments rather than people in their own right. The end result is a boring narrative that is often predictable and never entertaining... basically, it's about as rewarding an experience as walking into a small local town museum, with its faded black and white photographs and a few pickaxes in glass cabinets. If you feel excited about Welsh mining heritage, this book is for you. Perhaps even if you like endless soap operas. I don't have any fondness of either, so it really wasn't a book I'd recommend.

(To its credit, the book has some quite harrowing / affecting passages, and, especially early on, quite a few uncomfortable scenes of brother-sister intimacy - but once Len starts working in the mine, the novel is just a lengthy slog with axes to grind and points to make. Even the worst possible workplace harrassment / bullying for people to join a Union is glorified as harmless prank / a justified way to teach a lesson.)

Rating: 2/5

Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon

One morning, on the way to work, the London Underground proves to take Niall Peterson to his limits - a suicide next to him, closures, disruptions, stressful phone calls to his ex-wife... no wonder he has a heart attack.

No wonder he dies.

Then he wakes up again, revived by a grey-haired elderly lady, and nothing will ever be the same again, for now he is one of the Fey, the Fair Folk, the Others, the mythical, magical races from stories.

Sixty-One Nails is a novel of urban fantasy set in London. Few cities inspire as much urban fantasy as the big smog, and Sixty-One Nails is one of the better novels set here. The atmosphere is often rich and engrossing - if Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was to your liking, or perhaps Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich, then chances are, Sixty-One Nails will be a pleasant experience, too.

Being the first novel in a series, we basically spend most of it learning the rules, receiving exposition, and following Niall as he stumbles from one enigmatic, secretive mentor figure to the next. A lot of thought clearly has gone into the meshing of myths and urban world, and it is well executed.

However, the novel disappoints a little on the editing. A lot of the dialogue is a bit clunky - treading the same ground several times over in quick succession, with repetition, questions being asked and answered the same way several times in the same scene. The amount of repetition is quite grating - it's as if the author needed to get some exposition delivered, had a go at it, wasn't quite happy, had another go, was happier, then decided to reinforce the point by having yet another go, and then, after delivering the same tidbit of explanation/exposition three times over in a single scene, decided to keep them all in the draft. I would have expected an editor to rein in this nonsense a bit. The dialogue also tends to meander a little, sometimes modern, sometimes in noble fair folk speech pattern, sometimes in enigmatic mode... the characters do not feel like they are quite settled, yet. As well done as the story is, the repetitive streak, occasional stylistic inconsistencies, and sometimes clunky descriptions let the book down - all things that a good editor should have polished away before sending the book to the printers.

As it is, this is an enjoyable read, and one I would recommend to people who like urban fantasy novels, London, or novels about the Fair Folk, but it falls a bit short of the highest standards / benchmarks. I wouldn't really recommend it to people who are not already fans of (urban) fantasy - it could have been on a par with the best, but as it is, it's just a bit too rough and unpolished.

Rating: 3.5/5

(I have since read the two next novels in the series, and to my disappointment, the lack of editorial intervention continues throughout the series. I gave up after that, as the frustrations built up)

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

Whispers Under Ground is the third book in a series. I'd definitely recommend starting at the beginning for anyone interested in this series - the book largely assumes that the reader is familiar with the characters and at least some of the previous events. There isn't a huge amount of direct plot continuity, but without reading Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho first, you'll probably find this book quite bewildering.

So, Peter Grant, the Constable working on uncanny / weird / magical stuff for the Metropolitan Police, is back in action, investigating ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night. If this sounds like a children's series, then don't be deceived: it's a series of "urban fantasy" for adults.

This is by no means the only urban fantasy novel - this is a lively sub genre. London, in particular, is the hero of many urban fantasy tales (Neverwhere, Un Lun Dun, Kraken and many more).

However, most of the urban fantasy novels I've read so far struggled to get the balance right. More often than not, the fantasy element and the urban setting start out aligned, but slowly become separate during the course of a novel.

The Peter Grant series is the one outstanding exception: here, fantasy and urban setting stay well and truly on the same page. Mixing irreverent, funny police comedy narrative with hocus pocus and a deep-rooted, affectionate knowledge of London, the book oozes all the right things: convincing London atmosphere, fascination with urban mythology, and a world of supernatural goings-on that feels just about credible. Whispers Underground tackles the iconic tube (and sewer) systems of London - and anyone who has ever lived in London will know that there are many myths and legends about these. Londoners love knowing that there are long-abandoned stations and branch lines, WW2 shelters, and other relics of the city's organic evolution, hidden away from sight but alluringly glimpsed from passing trains if you know when to press your face against the tube window... In short, the Underground is a setting with huge potential - and Whispers Underground lives up to that potential.

Whether we're in disused tube tunnels or sewers: the darkness, smells and convincingly authentic myths we encounter with our hero, Peter Grant, are richly atmospheric and beautifully brought to life. The first person narration, meanwhile, is quirky and amusing. I laughed out loud quite a few times - I get the sense this book contained a lot more gags / humorous dialogue than the two predecessors. (The only flaw: some of the dialogue sees ALL the characters wise cracking, a bit like the cast of the movie Lake Placid, so they don't feel entirely individual when they speak). But the thing that really, really lifts the Peter Grant series above most urban fantasy is that our hero once wanted to be an architect, and has a fantastically vibrant way of telling the reader about history and describing buildings, whether ugly concrete blocks or Victorian town houses. Reading the book is almost like a tour of the city - but a tour led by a wizard policeman. What could possibly be better than that?

Unlike the first two novels, the main plotline in this one is a little more reserved. There is less scenery-churning, super-powered villainy, less operatic evil, and less of a feeling of supercharged threat. However, this only seems to make the book better. It might not build up tension in quite the same way, but it feels more grounded and authentic and pleasant than the first two novels. The series has settled into a certain rhythm and is now flowing along with joy and happiness rather than feeling the need to amp up the shock factor.

In short, it's the best book of the series so far - and a huge delight to read.

(If, that is, you like funny, fantastic, London-based supernatural magic police popcorn literature. Which I do.)

Rating: 5/5

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Angela Carter is one of those writers who have been on the periphery of my personal reading radar for a while. Feminist friends revere her work. She's one of the big literary names who deal in fairy tales. And she's been massively influential.

Nights at the Circus is a novel about Fevvers - a cockney pronunciation of Feathers. She's a miraculous woman who has wings and can fly, and she's found a career as an acrobat. The book is divided into three parts. In part one, she tells her story to an American journalist, backstage in a London theatre, over the course of a night. The journalist wants nothing more than to prove her fake and burst the bubble of her fame. In part two, she starts on a world tour with a circus, and the journalist, seduced by the mystical attraction of circus life, follows along, signing up as clown and living incognito in the circus. Part three, ... well, I'm not going to spoil the story.

The novel is written in quite dense prose. It is not a quick read, and requires some concentration. The story moves in unexpected ways, and every aspect of the novel becomes more and more surreal and dream-like as it progresses. Starting with a relatively straightforward biographical narrative, the growing sense of unease is infused into the story gently: something odd is happening with the passage of time. There are unspoken things, sudden changes in the flow of conversation, meaningful glances get exchanged.

In part two, the surreal / fantastical elements become more prevalent. Animals are different. Clowns have their own mythos. Some magic appears to occur (beyond a winged, flying woman). And part three - well, all bets are off in part three, and we're deep into surreal, dream like, trance like crazy. Narrative voices change from first person to third person from one paragraph to the next (up to this point, all was in third person), among other twisted writing methods. Part three feels like a bit of an acid trip in the 1960s, in some ways. But the story still gets (largely) rounded off.

Underlying the novel are a rather large number of ideas, half-thoughts and notions about gender, women, men and feminism. Sometimes they are voiced by the author, in a carefully chosen phrase in descriptive text. At other times, characters openly discuss these themes (a particularly memorably dialogue is an argument about relationships where a maternal figure tries to convince Fevvers that falling in love might be more harmful to her self than prostitution would be). Sometimes, there are plot developments that are symbolic or metaphorical. Women, on the whole, fare best when they connect and interact with other women: even a whore house is utopian and idyllic, with no conflict between the whores, just as long as the men are not around. But as soon as men are involved, there is violence. Wife beaters, wife murderers, sinister religious oppressors, rapists... even our male protagonist at some point casually considers raping a vulnerable, almost unconscious woman who finds herself temporarily in his care, although it never goes beyond a hateful throwaway thought. Women without men (or children) flourish in this novel. Men (and children) bring suffering and complete loss of self.

No wonder Angela Carter's novels are dear to the heart of any English students tasked with writing essays about feminist literary theories.

Densely written and surreal, at times experimental - this novel is not my usual fare at all. It has some beautiful passages and chapters and ideas. Fevvers is a memorable character, cheerfully low brow, sweaty, smelly and untidy, described in vivid detail and imprinting herself in my memory.

Yet as a story, the novel is not entirely satisfying. There are long passages where I was bored as a reader. Some plot devices seem too strange to have meaning or reason. Some storylines remain unresolved. In short, by the time I finished reading, I felt only half satisfied with it.

Rating: 3/5

Kingdom of Strangers by Zoë Ferraris

Kingdom of Strangers is the third crime novel in a series set in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. It follows from The Night of the Mi'raj and City of Veils. Some of the characters from the first two novels make appearances, but the novel could probably be read on its own. (That said, the novel is much more enjoyable when you know the history)

By now it is clear who is the undisputed hero of this series: Katia, a female forensic scientist, working for the police, mostly stuck in a lab, but keen to have a more active role in the investigations. (The first novel centred more around Nayir, a Bedouin desert guide who got involved in a murder investigation and met Katia, but by now, Katia is the central pillar of the stories)

Kingdom of Strangers starts with the gruesome discovery of 19 dead bodies in the desert. A serial killer in Saudi Arabia - almost unheard of. And he's been busy, undiscovered, for ten years...

Meanwhile, the newly arrived inspector Ibrahim, tasked with leading the investigation, is having an affair outside marriage - and, when he turns up at his lover's flat, she is missing.

The novel is quick to set up its main plot strands, but chisels away at them at a pace that is steady, confident and not too rushed. It's not the sort of novel where each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and each cliffhanger is more unbelievable than the last. Instead, the tension is amped up at a steady, confident pace, and the novel is engrossing all the way through. For a few chapters, I thought it might descend into stereotypes (serial killer toying with his pursuers, making it personal, etc.), but thankfully, the story stops feeling as if it were following a template soon enough.

One of the big attractions of this series has always been that it is set in Saudi Arabia - a country most of its readers might never set foot in (I doubt I ever will), and a country with a culture that is about as far away from Western philosophies as it is possible to get. The book treats its characters with a credible level of complexity, and the reader with a degree of respect. As Westerners, the readers would miss a lot of information if it was not spelled out, and so it is, but never in an obtrusive way. Exposition is handled masterfully. We are simply part to characters' thoughts and analyses - and those thoughts are often determined by the expectations of the society around them, and their own internal conflicts whenever they chafe against the limits (or when they transgress). There is an awful lot of chafing in this novel, but it seems quite credible that regular people in Saudi Arabia have to tightrope walk on a very thin line for much of their lives...

The book is not entirely without flaws. Coincidence, that cheat, does affect the plot, and one revelation is preceded by a cloaked premonition in a dream. Both are forgiveable - the novel would have worked just as well without the latter, and the coincidences are small in number, and occur early in the timeline of the novel.

Of the three Jedda murder novels written by Zoe Ferraris, this has become my favourite. I breezed through it in two days (which is fast, for me), and was completely hooked all the way through. Encountering an actual adulterous character - and his unique crises of conscience, challenges, and the threats hanging over his head - was an incredibly effective source of tension. It made the serial killer mystery pale by comparison, and turned this book into a real thriller.

I enjoyed the story so much, I would recommend the entire series to anyone. I would definitely recommend reading the first two books before tackling Kingdom of Strangers, just so this one can be appreciated fully. The preceding novels are both good books in their own right - but this one is absolutely brilliant.

Rating: 5/5