Liminal Places

I suppose you could say that I have been slow to catch up with thrillers and crime fiction by English or British writers. In 2009, when the Ruth Galloway novels began to be published, I was heavily into Scandi-noir and as always, anything at all written by or about Australia. So I have been a bit blindsided by discovering, when there were already eight novels, about Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist.

Better late than never. The reason that I have now stumbled upon Elly Griffiths is The Moonstone connection. In The Crossing Places, which is No. 1 in the series, Elly actually quotes from the novel, the description of The Shivering Sands which plays such an horrific part in The Moonstone; in this novel the place of the sands is taken up by a fictional but realistic place on the North Norfolk coast, a liminal area which has been inhabited, sanctified and walked over from the time of prehistory when it was attached to Scandinavia.

Ruth and others, including Erik (the Viking) have discovered a wooden henge in the marshland around Saltmarsh, some years later a random dog walker (or rather the dog) finds some human bones and DCI Harry Nelson arrives in Ruth’s life, not unlike a burr – you pull it off one place, only to find it sticking to another.

Together, and alarmingly they solve two crimes ten years apart, as well as finding an Iron Age burial or ritual sacrifice.

Tense, atmospheric, pacy the sky, sea and sand all around them, these two are destined to be found wherever there are bones.

The Janus Stone – more bones, another old crime and another hair-raising chase to find a killer, one who is cunningly hiding in plain sight. A very clever plot with plenty of rabbit holes to run into, trenches and digs abound and old sins hidden behind an immaculate reputation. Ruth and Harry Nelson up to their necks in it.

Nos. 3 & 4 are on the way. What a find!

Victoriana

I love Victorian novels, not just the Sensation novels, of which The Moonstone and The Woman in White are an example but others like No Name which address social problems, like illegitimacy. All this may seem a bit odd, seeing that in other posts I have said how little I appreciate Charles Dickens, whom many people regard as the sine qua non of Victorian literature, and who wrote several Sensation novels. I reserve the right to pick and choose and Wilkie Collins is right near the top of my list.

But I have an ulterior motive for devouring his novels again. I am soon to take part in one of the BBC Bookclub broadcasts which is recorded for, and transmitted on, Radio 4. Usually these programmes, fronted by James Naughtie, interview living authors but just occasionally it will be with someone else; in this case the crime novelist Ellie Griffiths and we will be discussing The Moonstone widely regarded as a classic. But any excuse to raid my shelves for the others.

The Moonstone is a heist novel. An exquisite jewel, raided from India and brought back to England (with a curse attached obviously) is given to a young English woman on her birthday, and promptly disappears. What happens next is related by several different characters who personally were present or in some other way involved in the disappearance and finding of the jewel.

Another Sensation novel by Wilkie Collins is the more widely read and more often filmed The Woman in White. But I recommend for readers newly acquainted with the author one of his other novels. No Name is a study of delay, disaster and the sudden change in fortune of two sisters. In a series of unforeseen accidents, the death of both parents renders the girls illegitimate, poverty stricken and almost friendless, apart from a faithful governess, Miss Garth. The irony is that Wilkie Collins went on to have illegitimate children of his own, it is to be hoped that he left them better provided for than the Vanstone girls.

Who’s who in Victorian literature?

This was the strangest novel, and probably had it not been written by Zadie Smith, I would not have picked it up.

The setting is a household. Living in the house is an author, and at first his wife and two daughters, then once the wife, Frances, has died, another woman, Sarah joins the family with Clara, her daughter by the author – born out of wedlock Clara was not recognised as the legitimate heir until sometime after the deaths of both Eliza and William. Presiding over the domestic and social sphere is the author’s cousin, Eliza Touchet, and it is her pen that scratches out the narrative.

The chapters are short and cover a wealth of information: who came to dinner, what was drunk (hardly ever what was eaten) and what they talked about. Unusually for the time, Eliza stayed even after the port was brought out. Partly, possibly, because Frances was ill, and then died and Eliza had no one to “retire to the drawing room” with. The characters at the dining table were, for the most part, the literary elite of the time.

Head of the household was William Harrison Ainsworth, at his table on any one day might be Charles Dickens, George Cruikshank, William Thackeray and many another. Over the period of the novel, which runs randomly and out of sequence, there might have been a falling out with one person or another and then a rapprochement; a character (notably CD) may have died and been interred in Westminster Abbey but will then be fully alive and chatting with Ainsworth later on; regular spats between the authors (who reviewed each others’ work) and especially with Cruikshank who thought that he alone was entitled to illustrate WHA’s books, though that didn’t also preclude him from illustrating the new man on the block, Charles Dickens, caused social friction.

Running alongside the evenings with these literary giants, is the story of the trial of the Tichbourne case. Eliza and the second Mrs Ainsworth are duly fascinated with this trial and attend as many of the hearings as they can.

The Tichbourne Claimant has just one staunch ally, an enslaved African recently liberated from Jamaica; the trial, slavery and racism, the iniquities and the abolitionists are much discussed at the famous dinner table and say a lot about the illusions of the elite as to the welfare of the slaves. Eliza and Sarah both sneak off to attend abolition rallies and radical meetings about votes for women.

The Fraud is a fascinating account of the gossip, the speculation and the literary output of the time. London is expanding, railways are snaking across the country and one of the longest trials in history is taking place. Also of interest is the Queen, her wayward offspring and her widowhood, this being something that Eliza at least, knew about.

The Tichbourne case takes us in the imagination to South America, Australia, Wapping, Willesden (especially St Mary’s Church and its Black Madonna, already missing from its alcove) and the Court of Criminal Justice and ultimately to Newgate. The Ainsworth entourage were frequently on the move, sometimes up market and sometimes down – it depended on his pen and his novels. Hard to imagine now, but WHA was more successful that Dickens. Who reads him now (apart from me)?

The novel is full of wry humour, Eliza has a shrewd outlook, and black comedy often illuminates her observations, mostly in the line of men’s apparent superiority as borne out by the women they consort with. You may imagine what Eliza thinks of that, she makes her views abundantly clear.

O Joy! Another series…

Val McDermid is prolific as an author of a stream of detective thrillers with the same character in the lead. And now we have another new series. 1979 opens a series of five books in which the rookie journalist, Allie Burns strives to make her way in a competitive, and largely masculine world. 1989 is on my doorstep as I write, and in theory at least, we will continue to follow Allie every decade until 2019 – which as it happens is the year before Ms McDermid began 1979. That is, she was mostly writing the first one during lockdown.

My copy has an introduction by Val McDermid herself, explaining her thinking about this series. And even that had my juices flowing. You will know that I am a bit OCD about series, and like to start at the beginning, so to have found one of hers right as it starts is a double bonus – since it goes without saying it will be worth following…

And this lived up to expectation! Cannot wait for number three…

By any other name

John Banville is another author whose novels I do not always admire, to the extent that I still cannot understand how The Sea won the Booker Prize. But his Strafford and Quirke series is shaping up nicely. Each one is stand-alone or part of a sequence. Obviously better read in order! That is to say Snow, April in Spain and now The Lock-up.

The Quirke Series, featuring the same character, a pathologist, is written under another name – Benjamin Black (aka John Banville). Why he suddenly switched – who knows?

By the time we meet them in The Lock-up, there is a considerable amount of history between Quirke and Strafford, and they do not like each other, any more than they like or admire the Chief. Into this tangled triangle falls a complicated mystery which takes them back into Germany and World War II, connections made there, apparently making a lot of money in the present in Israel and Ireland; one connection that has as murky a resonance as it is possible to imagine, but which still has a stranglehold on at least two of the men – so go read on…it is not what it seems.

Not The Gift but…

Anyone who has listened to The Gift on BBC Radio 4 will know that occasional mistakes are made in IVF treatments, very occasionally the wrong sperm reaches the wrong egg. Seth, a baby born by IVF and a surrogate mother, to Alaric and Mary is unusual, but not more than any other neurodivergent young person. He seems to have no concept of risk and an unusually keen sense of proximity, to animals and people. As a young lad he is bullied at school, but like many others says nothing.

Sebastian Faulks is once again exploring what it is to be human, this time through the life of a child that has been created artificially, in this case with intent. The ramifications of this novel are startling, in the light of several experiments that are already in the news. The concept is dangerous and radical but whether actually possible or not is less clear.

The Seventh Son is a beautiful narrative about a much loved child, loved by his parents and also in a different way by his surrogate mother, whom he only gets to meet after he is twelve. The institute which engineered his birth follow his progress through life, but he is among seven others being monitored, so there is no particular worry there, until rumours begin to circulate, Seth just happens to be Number 7. A blind testing that has surfaced rather suddenly to the detriment of the institute and everyone concerned.

More reading between screenings 2023

Just as Boiling Point lands on BBC television as a series, Sarah Gilmartin produces an equally gripping kitchen-sink drama. This is a combination of a sexual abuse narrative set against the sweaty, sweary heat of a restaurant. Daniel Costello, Michelin starred chef-owner of a Dublin restaurant, is accused of raping a waitress. Hannah, also a waitress at the same place, contributes her part of the story and Julie, the wife has her say too. The trajectory of the novel is presented in a sequence of one person narratives, each character taking up a whole chapter as the court proceedings carry on. It is very much a contemporary novel, the scenes in the restaurant at a Tiger-economic time for Dublin are fictitious, as is the court room drama for all sorts of reasons, but they are nevertheless, all too believable and horrible. Entitlement and power – a heady combination.

If you dare

This is some novel! Whether or not you were ever bullied at school; whether or not you belong in some sense to an ethnic/religious minority; whether or not you are a mother who finds she doesn’t really know what is going on for her teenage son – then if you read The Wolf Hunt, you may end up with an inkling of what it feels like to be any one or combination of these emotions.

Ayelat Gundar-Goshen writes in Hebrew, this is a translation. The novel is set in Silicon Valley: the greenest, quietist, safest place in America, until it isn’t. The trigger words, massacre in a synagogue, Nation of Islam, Mossad all will tell you that something is going to happen. But the parents of Adam are both blissfully unaware of the great wave that is about to crash over them.

This amazing novel brilliantly evokes all the uncertainties and paranoia that can result is the smallest jar in an apparently uncomplicated life, but once the crack opens it can widen until it is an abyss of incomprehension, doubt and fear. But what, or who, is behind it all? Sometimes you can never be entirely sure.

From behind the bar

The mantra of today is often about work/life balance and being in the moment. The characters in this novel, Jess and Malcolm,could be said to have a good work/life balance, the only trouble is that Jess is a lawyer, currently working a steady normal working day, while Malcolm owns a bar, the eponymous Half Moon.

The Half Moon is a well-crafted and compelling novel. The bar that Malcolm owns takes up a great deal of his energy, their money and their lives, since Jess has barely returned home before Malcolm has to leave. Mary Beth Keane writes sensitively about the complexities of marriage and relationships, and in this novel she touches on some of the troubles that beset couples.

Although Jess was pregnant when they married, that infant was lost. Since then, years of infertility treatments have cost a great deal of money, but have failed. The toll on their relationship is tremendous, so when Malcolm thinks that it is his turn to spend money, it adds a dimension to the layers of sadness that accompany childlessness, in a woman who desperately wants a child and finally Jess decides to take some time out.

The setting, the weather and the part of town that they live in, all contribute to the fabric and texture of the narrative. Everyone in Gillam knows everyone else, and the bar is full of interesting characters, friends and colleagues, so there is a compactness about the trajectory of this tale, and then someone goes missing, there is a tremendous winter storm and everyone needs to take stock…

Stranger than fiction

This is a very strange book. You can see that my copy has a sticker saying it has been signed by the author, which indicates which cover to open first, but you could equally begin at the other end, the red side and read to the middle. The Turnglass is a tête-bêche. A book designed to be read from one end to middle, and then from the other end to middle – two twin stories but from different angles.

Gareth Rubin has written a Gothic horror at one end, opening in 1881 and an American thriller at the other end set in 1930s California. I read it Black first and then Red, but I think it would work both ways.

Unlike a previous novel with a similar switch, Susanna Clarke‘s novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, in which there were two different copies, a black one and a cream one, and though they were the same story, the perspective switched between the two characters, and one did not usually read them both; The Turnglass is two quite separate novels one intimately and intricately wedded into the other. Not to read both would be unsatisfactory.

The Turnglass is an un-put-downable romp, with nefarious characters and double-dealing, murder and mishap, exactly what you might expect from either genre, ab-sent any ghosts. It is clever and engaging.