These are all excellent books from different writers, one exceedingly well known, one beginning to be very well known and one beginner.
Ann Cleves needs no introduction if you know Vera Stanhope or Jimmy Perez from the page or from the television. Her Vera series runs to eight novels and has been adapted for independent television over several series, some of them directed by Marek Losey (The Hide), the grandson of Joseph Losey (The Servant, Don Giovanni and other famous and fabulous films) and her Shetland series also runs to eight novels and is a regular series on the BBC.
The Long Call is the beginning of a new series and introduces us to Matthew Venn, a detective inspector in North Devon, based in the Barnstable area. He is married to Jonathan who works as the manager of a community project called the Woodyard.
When a dead body is found on the beach, the first thought is that it is an accident, but this is Ann Cleves, so obviously not…
Great beginning to her new man, our new man, write on, right on to glory!!!
East Fortune is a love story that involves an ordinary man, living precariously on the edge of things after the break up of his marriage; but a sudden extraordinary event disrupts his life, and as it alters his life it also helps to reveal his preoccupations. East Fortune is a real place in the Lothians, but the family is fictional. Jack Henderson has two brothers, Douglas and Angus; their parents, Ian and Elizabeth are elderly but as a family they are bonded and bounded with love.
James Runcie has captured the strange loneliness that follows the break up in a relationship when one partner has not seen it coming. He also nails the other marital relationships in this novel, both that of the parents and of Jack’s two brothers. Central to this book is the notion of trust, and what happens to it if bent or broken.
Anyone familiar with the Granchester series created for television by James Runcie may have followed through to read his other books, none of which as far as I know have reached the television – Canvey Island, The Colour of Heaven and The Discovery of Chocolate
The last book, but not the least by any means, is The God of Animals, which is both a coming-of-age novel and a love story, several love stories. Set in the American desert area an equitation centre suffers from a series of events, of natural and of human origin, but all of it is presented to us through the eyes of a twelve year old girl. The first event is the unexplained drowning of Polly Cain, who has been used to walk with Alice Winston from school, her body is found in the canal.
This is followed by an extreme drought, the stables begins to suffer. A new girl from a rich family across town (which in American can be a big deal) comes for lessons; then to make ends meet the stable begins to take on boarders (in the UK this would be called a livery stable). And thereby hangs the tail/tale.
This is about the love of horses and their relationship with humans as much as it is about the complicated lives of the people in this novel, and they are complicated and messy. The horses are straightforward though, and we learn a great deal about the reasons why people ride them or own them or think that they own them.
Aryn Kyle clearly knows and understands the animals, she certainly understands the doubts and confusions of a child in an adult world and here she has exactly created a believable, credible scenario full of joy and pain, cruelty, misunderstanding and glimmers of awakening. A brilliant debut.
