Something To Write Home About: THE MUSIC LIBERATION FRONT SWEDEN

I've always been fond of the story Sleeping With The Fishes, something I penned a good few years ago now. Very kindly, and without prompting, my brother Geoff recorded a version of it and left it out there so anyone could give it a listen (given that he's a top radio producer of quite some repute, that was a lovely gesture). And today I was sent a link to this new twist, put together by The Music Liberation Front Sweden. 

The story now comes with musical accompaniment, thanks to a splendid composition that successfully accentuates the mood of the tale. 

I'd urge you to go and check it out over here and give it a free listen at Bandcamp. I hope you enjoy the story, the narration or the music (any one out of the three means your time won't have been wasted).

Many thanks for trying.  

One Man's Opinion: STARTER FOR TEN by DAVID NICHOLLS

It's a snooker final day, so the University Challenge final has been knocked back from its rightful place until next Monday, which is okay by me as it simply delays the fun. 

I'm not an addict, but I'm a fairly avid watcher. Not that I can answer many of the questions. I tune in to marvel at the capacity of human minds and to enjoy the tension, pleasure and pain that comes with any competetive event that I care about. 

This year, it's easy to place my allegiance. From the off, I've been in the Anyone-But-Warwick camp, mostly on the grounds that Hart and Siddle take the most ungainly buzzer positions and partly because of that Hart's silver crucifix. He's a very clever guy, mind, so hats off really when all's said and done. 

None of which explains my choice of reading for the start of my holiday. Without the usual lineup on my home shelves, I picked out Starter For Ten as it's been catching my eye for a while now. Mostly, I've been avoiding it because of its size. Now, I'm delighted that I finally took the plunge. 

It's a coming of age story in the main, disecting the trials and tribulations of a young teenager moving away to university and attempting to navigate the pitfalls of growing up in a minefield of self-awareness and self-loathing. 

Brian is our main man. His dad is dead, his background is simple, his skin is acne-riddled, his muscles small, complexion pale, hair a mystery, dependence on alcolhol higher than it should be, self-doubt huge, ability to concentrate poor and his love for Alice way out of proportion. 

In a series of short chapters and extreme misadventures, we follow Bri through excruciting experiences, a mess of emotional roller coaster rides that suggest a law of nature that for every up there's a significant down and that for every significant down there's a pile of guilt and misery attached. 

He's aiming to get into the university challenge team, to become a great poet and to win Alice's heart. Not that Alice is a suitable partner. Rebecca might be a better match, or Lucy even. Which is all part of the fun. 

As well as the tangled knot of romance, there are complications with his family life and the world that he's moved away from. At first glance, he appears to have outgrown his old mates, but when Spencer turns up and brings his anger and contempt for the snobbery he encounters, it's not so clear what direction their friendship will take. 

I started this on Friday night and finished it on Sunday. Strangely, I can't recall reading it all that much and I've done plenty of other things besides. I think that's an indication of how much pleasure I got from the book. Lots of laugh out loud moments, some wonderful set pieces of embarassement and madness. the romantic drama and the whole University Challenge thing, it was an absolute delight. 

Nicholls writes with a pleasingly simple style that suggests novels just pour from an author's mind. Pick this one apart, though, and there's a complex structure framing the multi-faceted characters in which each move and step is deftly taken. Great entertainment and stimulation. The perfect way to pass time before the UC final. Lovely stuff. 

 

 

 

One Man's Opinion: SAVAGE SEASON by JOE LANSDALE

 

This one's a really intersting one for me. Going back in time, I read a string of Hap and Leonard books and absolutely loved them. The characters and the levels of connection I felt with them, as well as the tight action, had me riveted to the pages. 

I recently decided that I should check out the first book in the Hap and Leonard series, Savage Season, drawn in just like I was with Mucho Mojo et al with its crazy cartoon cover and twisted font when I saw it on the shelf. 

Hap and Leonard are going about their business and just about keeping their heads above water, when in walks Trudy. Trudy's an ex of Hap's and his huge attraction to her and the memories he holds of their relationship are his own form of Kryptonite. Back when they were an item, they were idealistic youngsters hoping to change the world by any means necessary. 

As it turns out, Trudy's re-appearance is no accident. She's after Hap to find some money for her. It's stolen money and it's likely to be at the bottom of a river somewhere, but if he can locate it, he'll get a cut and that will be the end of it. 

Hap deals Leonard in and the pair set off with a set of diving equipment on a hiding to nothing. 

Which is when they meet the rest of Trudy's team, a bunch of revolutionaries who never grew out of their ideals and didn't manage to come to much of anything between them. Their plan is to retrieve the money to fund an operation that they hope will bring meaning to their empty lives. 

The chemistry of the group is odd and Hap and Leonard's addition sets off a set of reactions that create a whole lot of friction.

The funny thing about Savage Season is that, if I'd actually started with this book, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have moved on to any of the others. For me, it lacks energy for too long. The first half is slow and lacks interest. It picks up as the search for the money finally gets underway and definitely kicks off in an exciting way for an explosive final fifth, but it's not quite enough of a payoff. 

I'm not sure whether the book doens't measure up to the others because I've changed or because the books got better as Mr Lansdale got to know his creations, or whether I'm simply wrong, so I'd be interested to hear what you think. Let me know in the comments. 

One Man's Opinion: TRICKS by ED McBAIN

 

Tricks is has so many threads it's amazing that it never once gets tangled up in itself. 

As usual, the title has multiple meanings. There's the murder of a magician who has been cut up and disposed of about the city, the trick-or-treaters who are robbing stores and there are the tricks of the sex workers who hang round in a bar where two of their colleagues have recently been murdered. There are some elements of sleight of hand to go along with it and many aspects of the characters and plot are not what they seem (Hawes is pulling the wool over the eyes of his cop partner and Parker is somehow making himself popular as he pursues an attractive woman from a previous case). 

Though the dead magician story feels like the main player, it's outdone by the police casualties in the robbery case, which is further trumped by Annie and Eileen who are reunited in the undercover world of prostitution as they try to get their man (this has enough to fill a novel all by itself). 

Tricks is an excellent example of the multiple case procedural. With so many plates spinning at once and so many characters involved, it's amazing that McBain keeps them all in the air with apparent ease. To me, it's a masterclass of the genre, with depth, pacing, intrigue, humour, tension and satisfaction perfectly balanced. A wonderful piece of fiction.

One Man's Opinion: TRUE GRIT by CHARLES PORTIS

 

In case it's of interest, I struggled to find a book cover with Mattie Ross and felt that she deserved top billing, so here's a shot from a movie promotion. 

True Grit might easily have been named True Grip, as it's fair to say I was glued throughout. It's one of those stories where twenty minutes can pass and you suddenly realise that you've been so totally absorbed in the book that whatever has been going on around you has been totally missed. I surprised myself at one point when I looked up to find that I was on a bus rather than eating biscuits by a camp fire (I kid you not). 

Mattie Ross narrates this tale. She's a young teenager seeking revenge for the murder of her father. She manages to punch way above her weight by using her intelligence, education and stubborness to get things to happen. 

While dealing with her father's body, she spends time in a courtroom, boards in a shared room at the back of her lodgings, witnesses a hanging and forces a serious business man into giving her what she is owed. She also encounters two men who are in the business of tracking down criminals and bringing them to trial. There's Rooster Cogburn, a rough-around-the-edges-and-in-the-middle civil war vet turned marshal and LaBoeuf, a meaty and mean Texas Ranger who only has eyes for the bounty prize he's chasing. 

Mattie persuades Cogburn and LaBoeuf to take her along as they hunt down her father's killer, though neither of them is keen and both try to do everything they can to dissuade/lose her. 

Mattie isn't for giving up and she's soon tracking with her adult employees, finding herself in the midst of no end of dangerous and exciting adventures. 

I got so much pleasure from following the journey that the occasional flinch due to out-dated language was overcome and the slighlty stilted dialogue where contractions don't appear anywhere did little but nudge me from my stride. The narration style is perfect and Mattie's character is complex and outspoken. 

Definitely one to read whether you've seen the movies or not. 

One Man's Opinion: POISON by ED McBAIN

 

My latest outing with the 87th Precinct was Poison. It's an excellent tale on the whole, with perhaps one big flaw that I could have lived without. 

Carella and Hal Willis land a case with a poison victim where suicide seems highly unlikely. They're drawn to the last number that he called and eventually get through, finding a really interesting woman was the subject the victim was attempting to contact. Her name is Marilyn and she has a lot of casual partners, each of whom find her absolutely adorable. 

All the detectives have is the names of her lovers and they set about tracking them down . In the meantime, another of the lovers is killed, which creates a whirlpool of intrigue. 

It's great to get a story told where Willis is the lead character and, the way things pan out, it's difficult not to enjoy spending time with him. As he spends time with Marilyn, he gets sucked in by her special qualities in a way that so many have done before. It's not long before he's totally hooked, which is problematic given that she's a significant suspect in the murder cases. The joy for the reader is that it's not clear what her involvement is until the final revelation.

Marilyn is also a fabulous character. As is increasingly clear with the evolution of the series, the sensual and sexual are at the forefront. On the whole, that's pretty cool, though I did feel it created the flaw mentioned earlier. As we find out about her, there's a significant chunk of plot dedicated to her back story. It's interesting and tragic, yet I struggled to stay with the book at that point because I was so engrossed in the detective work and the awkwardness of Willis's position. The subject matter here was difficult and the interruption to my enjoyment was, frankly, irritating. That complaint aside, the rest of the piece is terrific and is wonderfully put together. I have no idea how McBain managed to churn out such beauties without diluting the content or becoming dull- the 87th Precinct novels are an amazing creation and my respect for them simply grows as I get through them. 

A nice aside for Columbo fans, there's a link here to Uneasy Lies The Crown which I'm sure many will appreciate (if that's a spoiler for you, congrats on being such a Columbo fan and I apologise in advance). 

One Man's Opinion: WATCHMAN by IAN RANKIN

This one I should have read years ago. Still, better late than never. 

Watchman tells the tale of Miles Flint, a long-time spy who spends his life watching people for a job and as an excuse to occupy his time so that he needn't go home to his wife. 

Early on, he becomes ensnared in a case involving the shadowing of an individual in a fine London establishment. When the target of the observation slips away and throws Miles a knowing smile, something seems off. And it most definitely is. What follows in an unraveling of the investigation and all it touches.  

It took me a while to get into this. The opening pages stutter a little. There's a lot to get across and it feels slightly laboured. Thankfully, early jitters were soon overcome and I was sucked into the story so far that I couldn't stop reading. 

Flint's world is intriguing. It's set in a time of Irish terrorism and there's a spate of bombings in London that are keeping everyone busy. The structure of his organisation is fascinating and the characters, generally likened to specific species of beetle, are highly individual. It has a nice drive and a lovely sense of humour (P G Wodehouse meets The Thirty Nine Steps?). 

As the machinations unfold (infidelity, government ministers, journalists, terrorist cells, family complications, cross and double cross, betrayal and back-stabbing, to name those that come to mind) Watchman picks up the pace until it's fairly rattling along. I was loving every minute.

The plot is rather involved and it's a matter of trust that all the loose ends will be explained and tied up by the end. I'd say that the closing chapters are a little like the flesh of the villain as he is exposed- doughy and a on the sticky side. Though everything was ultimately resolved, it felt a bit too contrived and not quite as explosive as the earlier scenes. I guess I just wanted something more. 

All in all, a lot of fun and, bar the opening and close, riveting stuff.