I was a bit nervous when I requested a copy of Sharon Maas's book 'Those I have Lost'. 20 years ago, I had read and loved her novel 'Of Marriageable AI was a bit nervous when I requested a copy of Sharon Maas's book 'Those I have Lost'. 20 years ago, I had read and loved her novel 'Of Marriageable Age' set in Guyana, but more recently, I'd found her novel 'The Speech of Angels' to be almost unreadable tosh. It was a risk; would I be getting the quality of her first book or the rubbish of the one I'd read more recently. Thankfully, I was relieved to find 'Those I Have Lost' was good, and also completely different to both the other books.
There's been quite the fashion for bodice rippers set amongst the tea plantations in the past decade. Many of those books are written by people who clearly wouldn't know a tea bush if it bit them in the bum. 'Those I Have Lost' is set in Tamil Nadu and Ceylon, and takes the form of a first-person tale told by a young English girl whose mother has died and whose father has complied with his late wife's wish that she goes to live with her mother's friend in Ceylon. Rosie is a character I could relate to - unusual but not extraordinary, a bit of an 'everywoman' if every woman were living in the last few years of British rule in India and Ceylon, She's compassionate, ambitious to be more than just a wife and mother, and has an interfering streak that gets her and her friend Usha into tricky situations. The 'aunt' in Ceylon has designs on marrying Rosie to one of her three sons (the aunt's sons, obviously) but the three men are very different people. The Second World War is a convenient plot device for introducing a lot of pace and peril.
I know the areas in which the book is set and I related well to the story. I didn't know the fate of Sri Lanka/Ceylon during the war, so I found the strategic location and its role in the war against the Japanese very interesting. The start of the book dragged rather, but once things got going - from about 40% of the way into the book - I was hooked.
This isn't the kind of book I'd read all the time but once in a while this sort of thing really hits the mark. Maas could have made things much worse for her characters than she does, and I applaud the light touch and her resistance to over-doing things in the way that many less accomplished authors probably would have done.
With thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for my copy.
Merged review:
I was a bit nervous when I requested a copy of Sharon Maas's book 'Those I have Lost'. 20 years ago, I had read and loved her novel 'Of Marriageable Age' set in Guyana, but more recently, I'd found her novel 'The Speech of Angels' to be almost unreadable tosh. It was a risk; would I be getting the quality of her first book or the rubbish of the one I'd read more recently. Thankfully, I was relieved to find 'Those I Have Lost' was good, and also completely different to both the other books.
There's been quite the fashion for bodice rippers set amongst the tea plantations in the past decade. Many of those books are written by people who clearly wouldn't know a tea bush if it bit them in the bum. 'Those I Have Lost' is set in Tamil Nadu and Ceylon, and takes the form of a first-person tale told by a young English girl whose mother has died and whose father has complied with his late wife's wish that she goes to live with her mother's friend in Ceylon. Rosie is a character I could relate to - unusual but not extraordinary, a bit of an 'everywoman' if every woman were living in the last few years of British rule in India and Ceylon, She's compassionate, ambitious to be more than just a wife and mother, and has an interfering streak that gets her and her friend Usha into tricky situations. The 'aunt' in Ceylon has designs on marrying Rosie to one of her three sons (the aunt's sons, obviously) but the three men are very different people. The Second World War is a convenient plot device for introducing a lot of pace and peril.
I know the areas in which the book is set and I related well to the story. I didn't know the fate of Sri Lanka/Ceylon during the war, so I found the strategic location and its role in the war against the Japanese very interesting. The start of the book dragged rather, but once things got going - from about 40% of the way into the book - I was hooked.
This isn't the kind of book I'd read all the time but once in a while this sort of thing really hits the mark. Maas could have made things much worse for her characters than she does, and I applaud the light touch and her resistance to over-doing things in the way that many less accomplished authors probably would have done.
With thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for my copy....more
I love Darjeeling: it's one of my favourite places on earth. From my favourite hotel room, I can see both the Planters' Club and Keventers so reading I love Darjeeling: it's one of my favourite places on earth. From my favourite hotel room, I can see both the Planters' Club and Keventers so reading 'Darjeeling Inheritance' was like a trip to a familiar place. Yes, it's true that I know it 80+ years after the book is set, but it's easy to recognise the location and the atmosphere.
Charlotte is fresh back from boarding school in the UK, chaperoned on her voyage by Ada, an older woman travelling to India to marry a dull but dependable tea plantation owner. On arrival, Charlotte finds her father has just died, she has inherited his tea plantation, and her mother wants her to marry the son of the neighbouring plantation owner. Can Charlotte take time to discover who she is and what she wants before 'settling' for life as a tea-wife?
There is absolutely nothing in this book that I couldn't have predicted after the first few pages. The plot plays out exactly as I expected, but oddly, I'm not too bothered about that. Great literature it's not, but it's a pleasant jaunt through simpler times when British plantation owners held sway and feared the influx of well-to-do Indian folk spoiling the exclusivity of their bolt-hole, and when men were men and women were supposed to be grateful. Did I entirely believe young Charlotte wanted to learn the tea making process (when she was terrified of snakes and leeches)? Not entirely, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And I was more than satisfied with the predicted ending.
Merged review:
I love Darjeeling: it's one of my favourite places on earth. From my favourite hotel room, I can see both the Planters' Club and Keventers so reading 'Darjeeling Inheritance' was like a trip to a familiar place. Yes, it's true that I know it 80+ years after the book is set, but it's easy to recognise the location and the atmosphere.
Charlotte is fresh back from boarding school in the UK, chaperoned on her voyage by Ada, an older woman travelling to India to marry a dull but dependable tea plantation owner. On arrival, Charlotte finds her father has just died, she has inherited his tea plantation, and her mother wants her to marry the son of the neighbouring plantation owner. Can Charlotte take time to discover who she is and what she wants before 'settling' for life as a tea-wife?
There is absolutely nothing in this book that I couldn't have predicted after the first few pages. The plot plays out exactly as I expected, but oddly, I'm not too bothered about that. Great literature it's not, but it's a pleasant jaunt through simpler times when British plantation owners held sway and feared the influx of well-to-do Indian folk spoiling the exclusivity of their bolt-hole, and when men were men and women were supposed to be grateful. Did I entirely believe young Charlotte wanted to learn the tea making process (when she was terrified of snakes and leeches)? Not entirely, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And I was more than satisfied with the predicted ending....more
This is a fascinating tale of past and present, with plenty of mystery to engage the reader. I found the treatment of women in the surrealist art movemThis is a fascinating tale of past and present, with plenty of mystery to engage the reader. I found the treatment of women in the surrealist art movement particularly interesting, and the interweaving of a Paris artist's apartment and a crumbling stately home made for great settings.
If I had a couple of small niggles, they would be that the start was rather slow, the 'voices' of the two students were not sufficiently 'different' (so I had to keep checking who was narrating), and I did spot the key plot twists well before they were revealed.
Despite those points, I did enjoy this and would want to read the author(s) again.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read....more
Sam Wyndham is a British detective based in Calcutta in the 1920s. Surrendranath Bannerji is his Bengali side-kick and (since this is a days of the RaSam Wyndham is a British detective based in Calcutta in the 1920s. Surrendranath Bannerji is his Bengali side-kick and (since this is a days of the Raj novel) his subordinate.
It's the fifth of the series featuring these two men. By now, if you've read all the other books in the series, you'll know what to expect. If you've not, and this is your first dip into their world, you'll probably not take long to work out how things are. Actually, if you know the previous books, you might notice more what's missing than what's the same. Perhaps the most prominent changes are that Sam's no longer an opium addict and (thank goodness) they've stopped banging on about the 'surrender not' pun on Bannerji's name. The latter of those two topics was getting very tired even by the end of the first book.
The book is set in both Calcutta and Bombay - so if, like me, you know both Kolkata and Mumbai, I think it helps. The pictures in my head are there when they navigate the two cities. I know Mumbai much better than Kolkata though, so the parts of the book set there were more vibrant for me.
A Hindu theologian is killed early in the book and Bannerji is unfortunate to be the first on the scene. Despite being a policeman, he's accused of being the killer. Wyndham needs to find out who really killed the man (and why) in order to clear his friend's name. It's not always clear who the bad guys are in this one, with attacks and connivance coming at the pair from multiple directions.
Being so far from Calcutta, Wyndham can't rely on the help of his wealthy friend Miss Grant, but fear not, she has friends everywhere, and passes Sam and Surrendranath over to her friend, a wealthy Parsee lady who fulfils Miss Grant's normal role of lending the boys her car, her money, and her (superior) intellect to help their case.
There are times when I found Wyndham's ignorance of Bombay quite surprising - for example, when he thinks that Haji Ali is a person (not a famous mosque on a causeway), but I guess there wasn't the level of cross-country communication 100 years ago.
I like these two. I like that the opium is gone, that Bannerji is treated better by Wyndham, and that the case they are solving is multi dimensional.
I'm a little worried about whether this is the end of the line. I believe it was published in 2021. I hope there's more still to come. I recently read Abir Mukherjee's new book set in the USA and found it to be entirely competent but completely forgettable and I hope he'll be back to set more books in India - whether the 20th or 21st Century, I don't mind. ...more
It took me a long time to get around to reading this book. Mostly, that was due to a misunderstanding on my part. I had mentally logged this as 'just It took me a long time to get around to reading this book. Mostly, that was due to a misunderstanding on my part. I had mentally logged this as 'just another of those books set in exotic places'. Think of The Storyteller of Casablanca, the Beekeeper of Aleppo, and others in the same vein. This is the problem with receiving coverless ARC copies through NetGalley - you don't get the visual cues about the book and I've often forgotten the blurb by the time I get around to reading.
Shame on me. Nothing to do with Jericho in Israel at all. And even more shaming, I have no excuse for that mistake because I used to live on the Woodstock Road about half a mile north of Oxford's Jericho. In fact, my knowledge of the area made the book all the more poignant. I knew people who lived on the canal, I cycled through Jericho most days although, somewhat shamefully, I couldn't have told you where Sommerville was.
This lovely book handles many tricky issues about life as a poor young woman before, during and after the First World War. Peggy and Maude are twins, orphaned and living on Calliope, a canal boat, they both work at the Oxford University Press, folding and collating the pages of academic books. Maude has learning difficulties and Peggy loves her but feels tied to her. As a result of meeting Gwen, a wealthy student at Sommerville, Peggy realises that she might be able to achieve things she had always thought were impossible.
We get interesting perspectives on the war. The initial welcoming of Belgians fleeing the war and seeking sanctuary, their rejection when our own 'boys' start getting killed, tales from the nurses on the front line and those of the girls back in Oxford helping the injured and damaged young men sent back from the war. Add in the drive for women to get the vote, and the low social status of women at the OUP and you've got lots to get your teeth into.
I really enjoyed it. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy....more
I have been to Mysore and Srirangapatnam a couple of times and have read quite a lot about Tipu Sultan and the history of his many and varied conflictI have been to Mysore and Srirangapatnam a couple of times and have read quite a lot about Tipu Sultan and the history of his many and varied conflicts. Hence, the moment I heard that the protagonist of this story was a toy maker, I knew exactly where the story was going to go.
BUT, I was wrong. There was so much more to this book than 'poor young boy makes political automaton'. Lots more. I would even dare to say that the story only really gets going once it leaves India and Abbas and Jehanne go in search of the Tiger and attempt to get it back.
Did I believe the story? Not so much. Too many things seemed to slot neatly together to have any great sense of realism, but I enjoyed it none the less. It was certainly a lot more readable than some of the more academic books I have on Tipu.
Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for my copy....more
I love Victoria Selman's Ziba MacKenzie series so I was happy to pick up a book by her that was a standalone novel.
I liked Truly, Darkly, Deeply but nI love Victoria Selman's Ziba MacKenzie series so I was happy to pick up a book by her that was a standalone novel.
I liked Truly, Darkly, Deeply but not to the same degree as her series. There's just a bit too much repetition, too much "What if he did? What if he didn't? Is it all my fault" soul searching for my like.
It starts slowly - really rather too slowly - but picks up pace in the second half, and the end - when you finally get there - is oddly satisfying.
Perhaps what I liked best was her excellent eye for detail and attention to time and place. These killings are set at the time when the Yorkshire Ripper was doing his thing. All the references to women being afraid to go out after dark were very real. All the political and social nods towards life in the early 1980s resonated with me.
The book examines how much people will look the other way in the hope that their darkest fears will simply go away.
As a footnote: if I were casting the role of Matty for a film, this would be one I'd really want to go to James McAvoy. I think he'd be perfect....more
Career opportunities for a widow of limited means were not great in Victorian England and Mrs Wood has found herself achieving far more than her poor Career opportunities for a widow of limited means were not great in Victorian England and Mrs Wood has found herself achieving far more than her poor childhood might have led her to expect. Via an abusive husband, a controlling but talented mother, and a dedication to the maintenance of 'illusion', she has become one of the most celebrated mediums in London. All this at a time when mediums were kind of the rock stars of their day.
People wanted to believe they could connect to their dead relatives and friends and those who could help them to do so were very well rewarded. Mrs Wood appears to have it made.
And then, up pop a young girl who wants to learn from her.
Worried that her place at the top of the medium tree could be at risk, she decides that taking on an apprentice might help to keep her craft fresh. The girl - Miss Finch - isn't entirely as controllable as Mrs Wood had hoped.
Very little happens in this book that isn't well-signposted a long time in advance. It's not an unusual story in its plot, but setting it in the murky world of mediumship is interesting. We can assume that all of the women in this field are charlatans but some of them are better at hiding their fraud than others and all live in fear of being uncovered.
Can Mrs Wood fight back against the devices and schemes of her protege and protect her position in society?
The book picks up in the second half. The first half feels as if it contains way more seances than are really necessary to establish the plot. It's more plod than plot. But once Miss Finch reveals her true colours it gets a lot more interesting.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy....more
Val McDermid's Allie Burns series is an absolute delight - more so, perhaps if you were alive and following the news in the years when they are set. IVal McDermid's Allie Burns series is an absolute delight - more so, perhaps if you were alive and following the news in the years when they are set. I enjoyed 1979 but perhaps was too young to have fully followed the events of that time. 1989 hit the mark for me.
Before reading, I'd predicted certain things that would be in it; Lockerbie, AIDS, the end of the Communist block. But I hadn't recalled Robert Maxwell stealing from his pensioners, which becomes a not very disguised sub-plot (with Ghislaine replaced with a Genevieve and all the many siblings of the Maxwell clan non-existent). I hadn't expected mobile phones (heavy and expensive) or some kind of proto-emails for submitting copy.
I like books that remind me that things were not always as they are today. When you can't rely on being able to phone people any time, any place, anywhere and when communication means posting a letter, it introduces deeper plot development. I'm frustrated by modern novels that rely on nothing more than a DNA reveal or some mobile phone records to fix the whodunnit.
The issues around an exodus of Scottish AIDS sufferers heading south due to poor levels of care in their home country was not something I'd know about at the time. Given that 1979 touches a lot on how long it took Scotland to decriminalise homosexuality, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
I lived in Manchester in 1989 and there were some lovely touches that brought back memories. At one point, Allie has lunch with a contact in a bar that served bread and cheese - I knew it well. It was called Duke's 92 and was a regular Sunday lunch haunt when I started work a few years later. I was surprised that the Madchester music scene didn't get an airing.
I'm now starting to wonder which news will feature in 1999. For sure, we should see the spectre of Y2K, war in the Balkans (McDermid did an excellent book set against that backdrop a few years ago), and perhaps a touch of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton.
Books about Empire-era India make up a popular sub-genre of historic fiction. Most are quite lightweight romances with rather obvious plots. Cochin FaBooks about Empire-era India make up a popular sub-genre of historic fiction. Most are quite lightweight romances with rather obvious plots. Cochin Fall is such a book. It's a light, fluffy distraction but not something you should expect to remember a couple of weeks later.
Everything that happens is well sign-posted in advance. Everything is very obvious. Good looking young bucks, and conniving lower-class employees compete with solid but dependable gentleman for the hand of young Clara, back from school in England and ready to be married off for the most commercial advantage.
There are tons of these books set in the Himalaya and I had to keep reminding myself that this one was set in Kerala. Unfortunately, the lack of depth or insight about Kerala suggested that the setting was probably derived from a half-hour travel documentary. It's all Chinese fishing nets and rice barges. Local people are barely there in this story unless you want a tireless brown fellow with a string tied to his toe to pull the punka are a liveried footman to serve a Gimlet. ...more
Tish Delaney's Northern Ireland is a harsh place. The weather is cold and wet, relationships are cold and unloving, lives are sad and underlived, and Tish Delaney's Northern Ireland is a harsh place. The weather is cold and wet, relationships are cold and unloving, lives are sad and underlived, and gossip and judgement are the order of the day. The greatest sin is to be an unwed mother.
I loved her first book 'Before My Actual Heart Breaks' so much that I instantly snapped up her second, The Saint of Lost Things. It has many of the same themes as the first, but follows an older woman whose life has held very few pleasures. Lindy is the illegitimate daughter of a farmer's daughter and a gypsy. To her Granda, a violent, bitter old man, the only thing worse than being a girl is having gypsy blood. When Lindy's mother dies, she's given over to the care of her mother's twin sister, Bell; a woman whose life has been one long series of disappointments.
Locals think Lindy's a bit simple. I'm not sure whether it's true or not. Brought up in an environment of hatred and prejudice, I'm not sure any of us would come out 'normal' - whatever that might mean. She lives a very small life with Aunt Bell - one that has far more frustration than pleasure. It wasn't always so. Back in her teens, Lindy got a passport (a British one - now that also REALLY upset Granda) and went to work in London in a hospital for people with severe mental health problems. Outside work, she discovered bars and drinks and fun but it didn't last for long.
The book feels as long as a cold night on the sofa with Aunt Bell watching talent shows, as long as a wet Ulster afternoon, as cold as the judgement of several generations of gossips. I can understand that many people will be put off and might not stay the course. I urge you to stick with it. I hope you'll find it's worth it.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy. I loved it. I knew that I would....more
I have read the first and third books in this series so I was long overdue to fill the gap. I can't say I remember everything from the one before, butI have read the first and third books in this series so I was long overdue to fill the gap. I can't say I remember everything from the one before, but I believe you can read any of these books in isolation as enough is always explained.
The writing style is simplistic but that's not really a problem. I do wonder whether people like Lisbeth really existed to challenge the prejudices of the South, and I hope these stories are not told through too much of a 21st century filter.
In Mustard Seed the Civil War is over and the slaves are free - or at least they should be. In reality, many are living exactly as they did before. Whilst technically not slaves, they're not paid either. Mattie's family from the North have travelled south to try to persuade an indentured cousin to return north with them. At the same time - and let's be honest, it's quite a coincidence - the white girl Mattie once cared for - Lisbeth - is also heading south to look after her dying family.
This is the type of writing where coincidences happen a lot. Despite that, I like the way these difficult topics are handled and I'm glad I've now completed the series. ...more
I can't really explain why it took me so long to read The Storyteller of Casablanca. It might be that I had it mistaken with other books that had sligI can't really explain why it took me so long to read The Storyteller of Casablanca. It might be that I had it mistaken with other books that had slightly disappointed me in the past. There's a slew of books along the lines of "The person with a strange job of somewhere exotic' - the beekeeper of Aleppo springs to mind,
The book wasn't what I expected. I was rather surprised. It's a bit cliched, follows well-worn tropes, and yet in spite of that, it's still very endearing.
The book follows two women - or a woman and a girl. One is a mother, expatriated to Casablanca with her husband and struggling to fit in. She has some mental and physical health issues, has forgotten how to communicate with her husband and needs a new community of friends. The other is a teen-aged girl from 1941, part of a wealthy Jewish family fleeing France in hope of moving to the USA via neutral Portugal.
The modern-day woman finds the diary of the girl under the floorboards of the house she's renting.
The books starts out feeling a bit obvious. The writing style is gauche and simplistic but as things progress, we are drawn into both lives. Not everything that happens is obvious - far from it - and we have to wonder how it is that the book came to be left there.
My irritation is with the pacing. If you found a book under the floorboards, a diary no less, wouldn't you just sit down and read it from cover to cover instead of seeming to drag it out over many weeks?
This is a surprisingly life-affirming book. Bad things happen but they could have been so much worse, and the ending is a lot less obvious than I expected. Very enjoyable. I'm kicking myself for taking so long to read it.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy....more
20+ years ago I was in love with Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap books. I absolutely loved them I bought spare copies for friends, I told everybody h20+ years ago I was in love with Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap books. I absolutely loved them I bought spare copies for friends, I told everybody how great they are. I haven't read her since. I don't think the time gap did me or her any favours. Whilst there's a lot to like, I can't work out if I've moved on and she hasn't, or if we've just gone in different directions.
I liked Dominica's story. I could have done without Matelda's. I didn't see any of it as a great historic mystery.
What I really didn't get and wouldn't have missed (because I really couldn't see it connecting with the rest of the story) was the tale of the Jewish jeweller who had to flee the Fascists. I'm still not sure what that diversion added to the story.
On the plus side, I was largely ignorant of the persecution of Italians in the UK during the second world war. I guess I should have guessed such things happened but that was largely new to me. The storyline about the ship of exiles was very moving and emotional.
All in all, it's an OK book. But I won't be buying spares for family and friends. ...more
I have both the author's autobiographies - A Mountain of Crumbs and Russian Tattoo - and I loved them equally.I was deeply disappointed by this novel.
I have both the author's autobiographies - A Mountain of Crumbs and Russian Tattoo - and I loved them equally. I thought "If she can make such interesting books about her own life, surely she'll write a stunning novel when she doesn't have to stick to what actually happened".
I was wrong. Very wrong.
A Train to Moscow was dull, dull, dull. I didn't care about most of the characters, and found the plot to be overly slow and plodding. It was absolutely not what I expected. I was mildly intrigued by the story of her uncle during the war but not interested in Sasha's on again off again romance with her childhood sweetheart.
I will stick to her non-fiction in future and recommend her earlier books highly. This one is a miss for me. ...more
This is the third of Vaseem Khan's Persis Wadia series. I already owned - but had not read - the first two, and so I spent some time catching up beforThis is the third of Vaseem Khan's Persis Wadia series. I already owned - but had not read - the first two, and so I spent some time catching up before I started reading 'The Lost Man of Bombay'. From his second book, I know this was originally intended to be The Lost Man of Dehra Dun, but I can only assume the author reflected on the general public's ignorance of Indian geography and concluded that Bombay was more likely to sell books.
The novel starts with the discovery of a body in a block of ice in the Himalaya. The man has had his face smashed in and is carrying a notebook that he asks be passed to his wife. Within the notebook are clues to solve a mystery that Persis will need to uncover.
Soon after the ice man's discovery, two people are murdered in their beds - one of them with his face disfigured in a similar way to the ice man. And soon after that, another man is killed in a similar way.
You need to suspend quite a lot of disbelief to follow Persis on her journey. The idea that the same 'first ever woman police inspector' would randomly be assigned two completely unrelated dead people is quite hard to believe but this is fiction, and if you can accept that, you'll be fine.
Persis Wadia's attitude to Europeans is largely despising - especially towards the British. And yet, the coincidence of the first three books can't be missed. She ALWAYS gets challenged to find out who killed white people. It sits a bit uncomfortably for me with her disdain for India's colonial past.
This story twists and turns and keeps you guessing. The connections need to be established between the men and in doing so, the author gives us insights into WW2 treatment of 'enemy aliens' which wasn't a topic I'd encountered before.
Her on-again-off-again interest in geeky British forensic scientist Archie is still active but in this book we also find Persis's father, Sam, getting embroiled in his own romance and stirring up jealousy and resentment along the way.
I'd place this book as better than the first of the series but not as beguiling as the second.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy....more
In this second of the series featuring female police officer Persis Wadia, the writer and his characters seem to have settled into their skins nicely.In this second of the series featuring female police officer Persis Wadia, the writer and his characters seem to have settled into their skins nicely. It's more assured than the first book with a lot less ranting about prejudice and a lot more getting on with the sleuthing.
A British academic has gone missing with a priceless copy of Dante's Divine Comedy. He's left a trail of cryptic breadcrumbs for Persis and Archie to follow in rather a classical style. Readers are unlikely to know enough about the cultural references to solve the mystery themselves, but the clues are still satisfying. Meanwhile, Persis is second string on a murder mystery for a beautiful young woman found dead on a railway line. Could the two crimes be connected? Let's see.
There's more action and less explaining which is a good thing. The odd thing is that when we finally work out what's going on, it's soon apparent that the setting in Bombay is a bit irrelevant to the crime and the motivations - which is rather a pity. For a protagonist who dislikes the old Empire ways and the influence of the British, the plot relies a lot on institutes and systems set up by them.
None of this distracts from the story. Chuck in a bit of a frisson between Persis and Archie and the return of the man who took her innocence and there's plenty to enjoy this time....more
Val McDermid's new book '1979' took me back to my early days reading her Kate Brannigan series. Like new protagonist, Allie Burns, Kate was a news repVal McDermid's new book '1979' took me back to my early days reading her Kate Brannigan series. Like new protagonist, Allie Burns, Kate was a news reporter. Whilst her series was set in the early 1990s, we had the same reliance on old-school sleuthing; working out whodunnit without the need to rely on DNA, CCTV or cell phone signal tracking. I miss those days. Far too many of today's crime writers seem to fall back on technology as a substitute for a proper whodunnit trail and plot development.
I was 13 at the time this book is set. I don't remember the Winter of Discontent, even though I clearly lived through it without really noticing. I do remember the musical references - Parallel Lines, Armed Forces (although that one only released on the 5th of Jan 1979 so would have been exceedingly fresh at the time of the plot) and the occasional TV reference.
I love that this is a time when characters make an arrangement and have to keep it - no ringing on your mobile to say you can't make it, oh no! They're keeping pockets full of coppers to use the nearest phone booth. No DNA 'reveals' - just an old homeless drunk with a good eye for detail.
I was too young to be aware of the shocking levels of supertax that were being charged to the super-wealthy. You need to get your head round that for the tax avoidance scam to make sense. It wouldn't work today. And it helps to be aware of just how bad the impact of the Troubles in Northern Ireland were at the time - not only in NI, but all over the rest of the UK too.
I learned new things. I had no idea that homosexuality wasn't decriminalised in Scotland until 1981 (compared to 1967 in England). I mentioned it to my husband who shrugged and said "Great timing! Become legal and then get knocked back with the arrival of AIDS". A sobering thought.
It's good - as much for the setting and the layers of historic detail as for the plot. Bring on the next one - I think it's 1989. I can hardly wait. ...more
I was recently successful in getting an ARC for the third book in this series. On investigating my Kindle book collection, I discovered I had the firsI was recently successful in getting an ARC for the third book in this series. On investigating my Kindle book collection, I discovered I had the first and second already and decided I'd better read at least the first before taking on the third. Clearly, I'd been sufficiently intrigued by the premise of 'India's first woman detective' to buy them but not to actually get around to reading them.
Let me first address the elephant in the room: possible plagiarism.
Let me be nicer - I don't want to get sued for libel. Let's not call it plagiarism. Let's call it 'extreme coincidence'.
I'm referring to Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry series of novels which were published a couple of years before Vaseem Khan's.
Perveen is 'India's first woman lawyer'. Persis Wadia is 'India's first woman detective'. Perveen and Persis are both based in Bombay. Both are Parsee women - a convenient way to explain away their willingness to be so unconventional it would seem; a part of local society but also apart from local society. Both fight the sexism and prejudices of their colleagues. Both are tenacious in their determination to find justice. Both have unfortunate past love affairs. The only key difference is that Perveen's stories predate Persis Wadia's by around 30 years.
I know that trends in writing are not unusual but the coincidences between these two series are more striking than most.
But................let's put that aside and get on with the book.
Pluses: 1. The setting, just after the end of Empire, is an interesting one, as is our dead victim. There's still a great deal of festering resentment to unpack and examine. Most of the Brits have gone home but our dead man has been investigating crimes associated with Partition. Might he be a 'good egg' who really cares about India, or will Persis find he's rather more out for himself? He's murdered at his own New Year's Eve party, left without his trousers, with a slit throat and the burning embers of some hastily incinerated papers in his fireplace.
2. The exploration of not only Partition in 1947 but also unrest in the Punjab arising from the infamous Jallianwallahbagh Massacre back in 1919 is to be commended. There aren't enough books looking at those important events and the massacre and its impact on one of the characters is handled in a very interesting way. The sins of the father are still very much visited on the son. Khan also manages to squeeze in murderous behaviour in Burma during WW2. I applaud the history lessons that he offers.
3. After a very slow start, the book picks up pace in the second half and the plot thickens considerably. I was very close to spotting the killer but not quite there - right reasons, wrong person. I always appreciate a story that logically leads us to a rational conclusion
Cons: 1. Persis is not a convincing female protagonist. There's very little about her that suggests the author really has any idea how to write a female character. Aside from the odd bit of flirtation with her British side-kick, you could pretty much go through the book, switch the pronouns and replace her with a man. I didn't buy her as an authentic character at all.
2. The first half is a drag. It's a slow plod around Bombay as we're introduced to a wide cast of characters, none of whom really get going until over halfway through.
3. The tactic of "let's give the case to the least experienced detective who's sure to screw it up but then again, maybe not" is straight out of the book of classic procedural devices for Indian crime novels. It popped up a few days ago in the last book I read (The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury) and it was so obvious as to be almost insulting.
In short, it's a mixed batch of a book. I will read the next two - possibly in the wrong order - and see if they develop further. I'd prefer my 'first woman detective' to be a bit more three dimensional. Let's see if she improves with familiarity. ...more
This book took me a very long time to read. Partly I was taking it slowly to enjoy the writing, but partly I have to say that it was just too darned cThis book took me a very long time to read. Partly I was taking it slowly to enjoy the writing, but partly I have to say that it was just too darned complicated. There are too many storylines from too many time periods and they don't entirely knit together.
I read a lot about Pakistan, Bangladesh and India and I did find new perspectives in this book. It was a novel approach to take a child from his home and his mother to be brought up in another place with another family, and then used by his bio-father many years later to cover up a crime. I'll give a good score for the novelty value.
We get to meet a lot of characters at a lot of times. We are in North Africa with a captured Indian officer fighting with the British and his friend who later becomes a big hotshot politician. We are in the red light district of Lahore at multiple different periods in time. We are in Bengal during the Bangladeshi independence war and then in India in a POW camp after that war. We bounce between the eponymous here, Faraz Ali, and his estranged sister the fading filmstar beauty, her daughter, her mother, her various lovers, and then Faraz's bio-father, that man's friends and a cast of red light hangers on. It really is all over the place.
The timings are interesting. There is far more time given to the role of soldiers from the sub-continent in WW2 than there is for the 1947 Partition of India. Since every writer that spans that time always includes Partition, its absence was notable. I've read a lot - in as much as there aren't that many - of books set during the later split of East and West Pakistan into Bangladesh and the smaller Pakistan - but this one is very light on the horrors of that conflict compared to most.
This book contains so much potential but gets a bit lost. I'm not entirely sure I really knew who killed the young prostitute as the 'reveal' at the end was rather light considering how long we took over getting there. And much was hinted at the rise of General Bhutto, but never really fleshed out. Corruption abounds but concrete revelations are hard to find.
I'll read this author again but I would recommend they get an editor who is willing to be a bit more forceful in keeping the focus of the story in the right places.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy....more
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