'Atkinson has never had as much fun as this; it’s a triumph'
This week there’s murder everywhere and dark tales in the west of Ireland, plus some WWII darkness in fiction.
Death at the Sign of the Rook, Kate Atkinson, Doubleday, €18.99
It’s another Jackson Brodie novel from this much-loved author and this time it’s about art theft, with a couple of fresh corpses thrown in for good measure. Jackson is hired by a retired brother and sister after their mother’s death. There’s a painting missing from the mother’s bedroom and Brodie is being paid to track it down. Why don’t they inform the ‘real’ police? Well, they don’t want to ‘make a fuss’. And the painting is only of ‘sentimental value’, mar dhea. It looks like the mother’s carer took it, but she has disappeared. And in nearby Burton Makepeace, the local Big House, a Turner has gone missing. There’s an insane multiple murderer on the loose, too, and a snowstorm has turned a Murder Mystery weekend hosted in Burton Makepeace into chaos. Atkinson has never had as much fun as this. It’s a triumph.
The Story Collector, Evie Woods, One More Chapter, €9.49
One hundred years ago, young Anna was hired by an American PhD student to translate local Irish folklore and fairytales into English, drawing the stories from older people in her village in County Clare. But as the project progressed, Anna realised that something wasn’t right. In the present day, Sarah Harper finds herself – accidentally – in the west of Ireland instead of her sister’s home in Boston. She got on the wrong plane and nobody noticed! She decides to make the best of her mistake and spend Christmas in Clare. She rents an Airbnb, where she finds Anna’s diary from over a century ago. She does some digging, with surprising results. A fireside read as the evenings close in.
Gold Rush, Olivia Petter, 4th Estate, €20.30
This novel is set in 2017, before the #MeToo movement and the fall of Harvey Weinstein. It’s a consent novel, but one where the perpetrator is vastly wealthy and world famous. The victim is 20-something Rose, a PR company employee, charged with accompanying this man to a work event. She can’t believe her luck, nor can she believe the attention he’s giving her. He invites her to his lavish home and much drink is taken. Rose, when she wakes up, doesn’t know how she got home or why she’s been bleeding. This is a contemporary text by a young author, so there’s lots of mobile phone use, influencers, the stuff of everyday life for women in their 20s today. The problem, though, is as old as the hills.
Cross, Austin Duffy, Granta, €15.99
A searing novel set in the Troubles in 1994, the year of the ceasefire, the story opens with the murder of an off-duty RUC man shot dead while attending choir rehearsal one evening. Francie has overseen the hit but recoils at the pride his teenage shooters take in their ‘success’. As the head of the local IRA brigade in the lawless border village of Cross, Francie is a quiet, non-drinking, astute watcher of human habits and behaviour.
There are other characters, too. A teenage girl who’s the daughter of a mixed marriage. Her father has been murdered, a suspected informer or ‘tout’. And the Widow Donnelly says her son is on the run from the IRA for being another suspected tout. She goes on hunger strike in a plea to have her son be allowed home safely. But this is not the kind of place where anyone, from either side, can have their safety guaranteed. There’s a persistent feeling of claustrophobia throughout and it’s a tense, powerful novel, depicting just how bad things in the North used to be.
A Short Walk Through a Wide World, Douglas Westerbeke, Jonathan Cape, €21.99
If you’re a fan of fantasy and magical realism, this book is for you. In fin-de-siècle Paris, Aubry, a spoilt young girl, finds a wooden puzzle ball and, deciding it’s not interesting, throws it over a fence. The ball turns up in her school satchel the next day. Soon she is afflicted with a sickness and she bleeds from her eyes, nose and mouth. The bleeding only stops when she leaves wherever she is for another place, and so begins a journey around the world, covering space and time. An inventive novel that keeps the pace going, elegantly written.
The Dead City, Michael Russell, Constable, €18.99
In his ninth Stefan Gillespie novel, Russell has Garda detective Gillespie dispatched to Berlin as WWII draws to a close. But it’s not over yet, although as Gillespie sees the destruction all over the city and its starving citizens, he wonders how Nazi Germany can possibly limp onwards. He has secret information to deliver to the Irish ambassador, now trapped in Berlin, and as always he will succeed in his mission but with plenty of obstacles along the way. The tension rarely lets up in these novels and this is no exception – the pacing is excellent. Before writing this series, Russell was a writer on A Touch of Frost, Midsomer Murders and Between the Lines; he knows how to keep the suspense going. An atmospheric, tightly written historical thriller.
The Perfect Place, Amanda Cassidy, Canelo Crime, €14.99
They’re writing novels about god-help-us influencers now! But to be fair, this particular novel is well constructed and I’m just showing my age. When homes and interiors influencer Elle Littlewood gets the opportunity to buy a ramshackle chateau in Provence for a pinch, she jumps at the opportunity. But there’s always a catch, isn’t there? To keep her million-plus audience of followers satisfied and her sponsors in tow, she needs to buy this house, or her fans will dwindle and the sponsors disappear. But there’s trouble in Paradise, not least from a secret in Elle’s past that just might be exposed. An entertaining thriller in a beautiful setting.
Footnotes
Dublin Fringe Festival continues until this coming Sunday the 22nd, with lots still to see. Information on fringefest.com. The community theatres and local arts centres are coming alive again with shows for the dark evenings, so do check out what’s happening locally.