The Polish Officer by Alan Furst / A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride / Fade To Black by Tim McBain and L T Vargus

The Polish Officer by Alan Furst
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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The Polish Officer by Alan Furst was recommended and a copy given to us by our friend Dave Dyke. Set across Second World War Europe, the novel follows the activities of a Polish former-cartographer, Alexander de Milja, who has been recruited into their intelligence services.

I appreciated Furst's detailed descriptions of the towns and cities to which de Milja is sent. The atmosphere often almost crackled with tension and I was interested to read of the beginnings of the war from a non-British viewpoint. I have always been encouraged to believe that Britain leapt into the fray as soon as Poland fell, and it was only the Americans who dithered. It would seem that we weren't exactly quick off the mark ourselves. Furst cleverly includes fascinating minutiae without slowing the pace of his tale - how to locate a wireless operator, why peasant women might be paid to collect rags - which adds to the convincing authenticity and from a historical point of view, I very much enjoyed this book.

My problem with it was our protagonist, de Milja. Most of the other characters are static, while de Milja travels constantly, so we only meet them briefly and I found it difficult to gain much sense of them as real people. De Milja often doesn't know much of their backstory so neither do we. Unfortunately, de Milja doesn't give away much about himself either. In order to succeed in his new career and identities, he needs to be aloof which makes him difficult to empathise with. And the deeper he gets, the more detached he becomes. By the time we get to Russia, I wasn't actually bothered about him at all and had no emotional involvement remaining in the story. As it turned out, this was a good thing because the story just stops, presumably to be continued in a sequel, which is one of my real pet hates! Authors: please write proper endings!

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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The Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2015 has recently been announced which seemed like the perfect time for me to get around to the 2014 winner, A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. I have read that it took ages and plenty of refused submissions before McBride found herself a publisher and I can understand that in a way. This is not an easy novel, not in its language or in its subject matter. I think that it is brilliant though!

I downloaded A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing from Audible as an audiobook and believe that this is the perfect way to experience this book. As I already mentioned, the language is not easy. It is written from the point of view of an unnamed young woman who speaks directly to the reader as though she was actually speaking - confessing or recounting - so there are stops and starts, part sentences, abrupt exclamations - at times it could even be poetry. This all makes perfect sense when actually narrated, especially as my audiobook was narrated by McBride herself, but I think it could be extremely hard work to follow as prose. If my review tempts you to try this book yourself, get spoken word!

McBride sweeps many themes into her work. This is an angry scream of a novel encompassing child abuse, rape, the insanity and hypocrisy of religious fanaticism and the intense pain of losing the person we love most. The central family is fractured and violently dysfunctional, yet keep returning to each other despite the pain and guilt this incurs. McBride has written perhaps the most realistic literary portrayal of a rape I have ever encountered and completely understands the self-destruction of her protagonist. Practically every character is shocking, believably real, and I am sure that A Girl will be a novel I will think back to repeatedly over the coming weeks. It requires effort and emotional strength from its readers (and listeners), but is well worth the time put in. An outrageously powerful book.


Fade to Black by Tim McBain and L T Vargus
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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I have already read one McBain and Vargus novel, Casting Shadows Everywhere, and thought it good enough that, when I saw a box set of their new Awake In The Dark trilogy on sale at 99p as a newsletter promotion, I would give it a try. The first in the trilogy is Fade To Black.

I enjoyed the beginning with its graphic and detailed description of what might be real or might be a bizarre dream as our hero, the implausibly named Jeff Grobnagger, finds himself hanging by his ankle and needing to escape from a hooded murderer. Again. Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets and I struggled to get more from the book. Jeff's backstory is tragic, but only stated and not really explored in his character. He repeatedly tells us he is a loner, yet clings to a new-found friend, Glenn, who doesn't really have a character but seems to exist to explain philosophical ideas to the reader. He makes lots of long speeches!

For a short novella length book, a fair bit of the prose is repetitive, but it's nicely written for an easy read with no indie-curse typos (although chapter 17 is repeated). However, I didn't like the frequent plot holes and several scenes stop rather than end - at one point gunshots are fired through Jeff's windows. Then he arrives at Glenn's house. How did Jeff escape? Weren't the villains waiting for him to exit? Was it just a random drive-by? More attention I think needs to be paid to flow as the pace varies from chapter to chapter and the story often jumps forward with minimal, if any, explanation. Then the whole thing stops, abruptly, and that's the end of Fade To Black.

I am sure that pertinent details are set to be revealed in the rest of the trilogy and beyond into at least a fourth book so far. This is probably why Fade To Black is effectively just a prologue and not a story in its own right. However, I am irritated enough by the assumption that, having started a series, readers will obediently shell out for several books in order to get one complete story, that I probably won't bother reading even the rest of what I already have. Disappointing.


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Past Habitual by Alf MacLochlainn / The Turning Over by William McCauley / Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Waterstones have a special offer for the late May Bank Holiday weekend: an extra 10% off when you spend £25 (or more) simply for entering the code MAY10 when checking out. Click here to take advantage! The offer ends on Tuesday the 26th May at 12pm which I think means midnight, but might mean noon so don't spend too long browsing!

Past Habitual by Alf MacLochlainn

One of my WorldReads from Ireland
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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I received a copy of Past Habitual from its publisher, Dalkey Archive, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. This is my twelfth review for Sophie and Suze's NetGalley Challenge.

Childhood play, scarlet fever, a first kiss, befriending a Nazi spy--the narrative of Past Habitual roams through experiences both commonplace and formative, all under the uneasy canopy of wartime Ireland. Moving with ease between the voices of a young child, a German immigrant, an I.R.A member, and colloquial chatter, MacLochlainn forms a web of interactions that expose a century's tensions. A combination of traditional prose, poetry, monologue, and music, Past Habitual is an engaging and fascinating depiction of an Ireland struggling through the effects of war--both distant and on her doorstep.

Past Habitual is a collection of some twelve short stories all of which are set in Ireland. Alf MacLochlainn uses a variety of writing styles and, judging by the extensive bibliography at the back of the book, has incorporated a lot of real sources and events for his tales. Unfortunately I found that this has resulted in a lack of cohesion. I did enjoy three of the stories: 'A stitch in time', 'Why did I volunteer to kill the kittens' and 'Squitlings of memory or imagination on the Upper Shannon'. The remainder however either were difficult to read or lost me completely because of long tracts of dry historical or technical information, or long dialogues. I did encounter some moments of vivid description where MacLochlainn's Ireland suddenly sprang to life, but there was little in the way of strong characterisation. The synopsis intrigued me but I was disappointed by the resultant book.


The Turning Over by William McCauley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I received a copy of The Turning Over from its publishers, The Permanent Press, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. This is my thirteenth review for  Sophie and Suze's NetGalley Challenge

I have made a few Kiva loans to Sierra Leone but, other than a vague awareness of the vicious war there, know little about the country so I jumped at the chance to read The Turning Over when it was offered. I didn't at first realise that the book isn't exactly new. I believe it was first published in the late 1990s and has been re-edited for a 2015 reprint.

The Turning Over's great strength is in its portrayal of the minutiae of life in 1980s Sierra Leone. Ex-Peace Corps Volunteer Robert Kelley has stayed on in the country working in paid employment at a fisheries project. The project is now losing its support and he must turn it over to a corrupt local official, knowing that this will be very bad for the people dependent on it. I loved McCauley's descriptions of houses and livelihoods, the differences between both Sierra Leonans and white ex-pats, and also between different groups of Sierra Leonans. He manages to convey the desperation of the poorest people without judging, and contrasts this against the affluent white life.

While Robert, as our protagonist, doesn't really do much and is often a pretty unsympathetic character, he does allow the reader to view the moral conundrums posed by The Turning Over. Although when finally overtaken by what seems the outbreak of civil war, his river escape is exciting. I wouldn't recommend The Turning Over to fans of action thrillers, but as an insight into an often unrepresented country, it is a very interesting novel.


Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my sixth review for the Read Scotland 2015 challenge.

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Having not been particularly impressed with my first Kate Atkinson read, When Will There Be Good News, I have had Life After Life sitting on my Kindle for months unread as I kept overlooking it in favour of other titles. What a mistake! Atkinson has created a incredible premise in Ursula's reliving of her life and executes her idea with wonderful skill.

I particularly liked the strength of the surrounding characters and found it easy to imagine Pamela and Maurice, Sylvie and Hugh, Teddy, Bridget and Mrs Glover and the irrepressible Izzie as real people. Their speech and behaviours seemed always spot on for their portrayals. Most fascinating however is Ursula's fluctuating character as the events which shape her future life either do or don't take place. Episodes such as Spanish influenza are so sad and shocking. This is not a relaxed read as it is impossible to guess from where the darkness will next fall.

Atkinson's impressive research carries the tale, without getting in the way, and I appreciated her viewing of the Second World War from both sides. Perhaps the end few chapters are a little too much 'must have a happy ending' for my tastes, but for sheer inventiveness and keeping all those plot twists logical, Atkinson deserves high praise indeed.


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The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel / The Indecent Proposal by Louise Marley / The Full Cupboard Of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am probably the only person who has not yet read Wolf Hall, having been put off by its general brickness and also varying reviews of Mantel's writing style. I didn't want to find myself despondently trudging through hundreds of unengaging pages, yet I hate not finishing a book! So when I saw this shorter work on Audible, I thought it would be an ideal introduction. The Giant O'Brien is a historical imagining of the arrival in London of a particularly tall Irish man, Charles O'Brien, together with his hangers-on. At the same time, a Scottish surgeon, John Hunter, an early scientist, also comes to town to assist his brother and learn as much as he can about everything he encounters. The basic tales are true and Mantel has done a wonderful job of fleshing out the characters, the bizarre lives of displayed freaks in London at the time, and the shady underworld of procuring corpses for experimentation.

There is a lot of humour in The Giant O'Brien. While Charles, the giant, himself is eminently sensible and a compelling storyteller, much of the naivete of his group is played up. Initially this adds lightness to a desperate scene of poverty-stricken Ireland, but as the men sink into the London morass, their actions become selfish, decadent and, ultimately, sickeningly violent. On the other side of town, one of the funniest scenes is our surgeon listing tools to his grave robbers and explaining how not to get caught. Wooden shovels and rope ladders are quieter. Taking a body is no crime as it doesn't belong to anyone, but the shroud and funeral clothes do so leave them behind!

I enjoyed listening to this book and feel I learned a lot about the period. Mantel's characters are all strong individuals, although I wasn't convinced by Patrick Moy's voicing of all of them. The descriptions of the degradation of the Irish at English hands are sobering to hear and I was especially affected by the naming of Irish men and women who had been executed or died essentially as a result of their poverty. I think Mantel has put excellent research into this book, the detail is fascinating and, based on my positive experience here, I might just add The Brick (Wolf Hall) to my Goodreads TBR list!

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The Indecent Proposal by Louise Marley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I discovered the short story, Indecent Proposal, through visiting Louise Marley's website where she very kindly announces that it is free on Amazon as a taster for her longer works! At only forty pages, Indecent Proposal is a fast read and its subject matter isn't too taxing either. Our naive heroine, Megan, thinks her rock star boyfriend, Ryan, is cheating on her having seen a magazine photo of him with another woman and jets off to Italy in consolation.

There isn't a lot of scene setting or character depth in Indecent Proposal, but the story has a good pace throughout and a suitably romantic conclusion. I liked Marley's writing style although the tale itself is too light for my taste. However, I'd definitely recommend this short to romance novel fans to introduce a new author.


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