Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘Black River,’ by Joss Stirling

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Oxford. The Thames Valley Police. Names that evoke, in mystery fans, the unforgettable characters of Morse and Lewis, and the televised “Endeavour” prequels. But this is not one of those stories.

Black River, by Joss Stirling, is a different sort of mystery altogether, in the same setting. It’s billed as the first book in a series, although the story harkens back to previous events in the main character’s life, as if the reader already knew about them. Perhaps it’s a spin-off of another series.

Our heroine and central character is Jess Bridges, a short, pretty, curvaceous young woman who has ADHD, which makes her both impulsive and (apparently) ditzy. She has recently set up as a private investigator, specializing in missing persons. Currently she’s trying to contact a teenaged girl who has moved out on her mother and in with her recently divorced stepfather.

But that inquiry gets interrupted when, inspired by a bestselling book on “wild swimming” in England, she goes skinny-dipping at one of the author’s recommended spots, only to discover the body of a murdered man in a boat. This results in her meeting Jago Jackson, the author of the book himself, who happened to be cycling in the area, and Inspector Leo George, who heads up the murder investigation. The three of them (and several others) will meet again and again, as Jess goes undercover, taking a job with a movie crew filming at an Oxford college, and the two cases start overlapping. At least in terms of location.

The plot was complex – which really isn’t a negative criticism for a mystery. It was a pretty easy read, and the writing was good. There was a touch of French farce about the whole thing, as Jess tends to land in repeated, embarrassing sexual situations. My stuffy puritanism found that a little excessive.

However, I also noted that the author made an effort to avoid foul language. I didn’t love this book, but you very well might like it better.

Fiction, Reviews

Echo Island Is Filled with Roaring Silence

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“Some things are meant to be calculated. Mystery isn’t among them.”

Jared C. Wilson, author of many books and articles we’ve discussed here, has a new young adult novel called Echo Island. When four diverse, high school friends return from a camping trip, they find everyone in their home town gone. All people, animals, and almost every sound are gone.

They don’t notice all of that at first. They notice their families missing; neighbors absent from public areas. Cars parked at churches and buildings without anyone inside. The power is out, even batteries are dead. And there isn’t a sound of any part of natural life, except the lapping of waves at the shore.

These aren’t necessarily church kids, but a couple of them think naturally of the rapture. Maybe the four boys were left behind: Bradley, the tough one; Archer, the smart one; Tim, the loyal one; and Jason (maybe he’s the one with common sense). But of the four, surely Jason would have been raptured with the others, and tons of other Echo Island residents would have remained. It wasn’t a Sunday School campground.

Over the next couple days, the boys wander the island, looking for other survivors and clues to what took everyone away. What they find is completely out of this world.

The story is great fun. It was a good follow-up to Koontz’s The Taking, because when the rain starts to fall, I initially thought of the devastating apocalypse that comes in Koontz’s downpour.

I suspected part of the solution right away, but I did not anticipate where Jared ran with it or his larger story scope. He has given it spiritual depth that many will enjoy and perhaps others will find a challenge to their assumptions. Surprises, laughs. No dogs though; that will probably cost it one out of thirty stars.

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Jossing Affair,’ by J.L. Oakley

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The title of this book probably requires a little explanation, and I’m just the man to do it (though I actually had to look it up in Norwegian Wikipedia).

“Jøssing” was a common word used in Norway during World War II to describe patriots, those who opposed the Quisling collaborationist government. It arose after an incident in 1940, when British commandos attacked a German ship in the Jøssingfjord, rescuing 300 British POWs. The incident was one of the incitements for the German invasion, and the Nazis themselves originated the term as an insult against anti-Nazis. Like the name “Christian” in Roman times, the people who were being laughed at adopted it and wore it with pride.

The hero of J. L. Oakley’s The Jøssing Affair is Tore Haugland, a Resistance agent. He lives in the Norwegian town of Fjellstad, working as a fisherman’s helper. He poses as a deaf-mute. In fact he’s a University graduate and a former athlete, trained as an agent in England. He operates a secret radio transmitter and organizes “imports” and “exports” through the Shetland Bus – which at this point in the war (late 1943) no longer consists of Norwegian fishing boats, but of English submarine chasers.

Anna Fromme is the widow of a Resistance hero, a man who was tortured to death by the Gestapo. He was also a close friend of Tore’s, though Tore keeps that a secret. In spite of her husband’s heroism, single mother Anna is a pariah in Fjellstad – because she’s German. No one is sure of her loyalties, and no one trusts her.

Tentatively and almost involuntarily, the two of them slip into friendship, and then love. But that love – and much else – will be threatened when Tore is betrayed into the hands of the Gestapo, and the Nazis, aware they’re losing the war, crack down harder than ever on the Resistance, exploiting love, friendship, loyalty and trust to crush all opposition.

Author J. L. Oakley is – based on my reading of this book – a good storyteller, but a less good writer. The story had lots of dramatic tension, and I cared about the characters. It illuminated splendidly a part of World War II history that most people don’t know, and I myself wasn’t entirely aware of – the time at the end of the war when German armies were surrendering all over Europe, and the free world rejoiced – but in Norway the Nazis held on fiercely, declaring their determination to defend Fortress Norway or die in a Götterdämmerung, taking the Norwegian people down to hell with them.

What I liked less about the book (and I’ve been complaining about this in my reading reports here) was the sheer length of the thing. I thought the story could have been told faster and more simply. I had trouble keeping the characters straight (even the hero – he uses multiple aliases). Also, there were a number of word mistakes and typos in the text.

Some sexual content, but it was fairly mild. All in all, The Jøssing Affair was a good book and I’m glad I read it. (Some of the action takes place on the island of Hitra, where one of my great-grandmothers was born. I also liked the absence of pro-Communist cant, which you often find in such stories.) But it sure took a while to read. (There was a strange sense of déjà vu as I read about a population suffering deprivation, looking for liberation by Christmas, but having to wait until spring for relief. Hmm, what does that remind me of?)

Poetry, Reviews, Uncategorized

‘The Fall of Arthur,’ by J. R. R. Tolkien

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Not long ago I reviewed Beren and Luthien, Christopher Tolkien’s scholarly reconstruction of much-revised textual material left behind by his father, J. R. R. Tolkien. I judged the book a sort of a scholarly exercise.

I’d have to say the same about The Fall of Arthur. Tolkien, always a promoter of Anglo-Saxon literature, wanted to demonstrate what he could do with Anglo-Saxon-style verse (pretty much the same as Old Norse verse), by re-telling the story of King Arthur in that meter. There’s a certain irony in that project, as the real King Arthur (if he ever existed) spent his life fighting the Anglo-Saxons.

Still, to the extent that it was finished, the poem works extremely well. There’s real vigor in alliterative verse, and the way it “sings” is strongly reminiscent of passages in The Lord of the Rings. One sees where Tolkien acquired his highly effective literary style.

Foes before them,
flames behind them
ever east and onward 
eager rode they, 
and folk fled them  as the 
face of God,
till earth was empty, and 
no  eyes saw them, 
and no ears heard them in 
the endless hills,
save bird and beast  bale-
ful haunting 
the lonely lands….

The poem, unfortunately, was left as a fragment, breaking off before it’s properly underway. Arthur is returning from his campaign in Europe, having been warned that Mordred has raised a rebellion in his absence. Much has been made of the fact that Lancelot, who betrayed the king with Guinevere, has not been summoned to help him. No doubt more would have been made of that, and this could have been a pretty rousing work of literature. But as it is, what we have is another interesting scholarly exercise.

There are notes at the end, and a couple essays by Christopher Tolkien. I should have read those, but wasn’t aware of them until just now.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Verdugo Dawn,’ by Blake Banner

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A man wakes up, sitting in a Jeep in the desert. He has no idea who he is.

All he knows is that he’s a killer. A highly trained, efficient killer (He becomes known as Verdugo, the Executioner). In the next few days he will have plenty of opportunity to do what he does best. He will tangle with the US military intelligence and drug cartels, and meet a woman to whom he is drawn, who knows who he is but won’t tell him.

All the elements of a pretty compelling thriller are here in Verdugo Dawn. Lots of action, plot twists and setbacks, an intriguing protagonist.

But the book didn’t work for me. Although I’ve enjoyed Blake Banner’s work, I had trouble with the latest of his series I tried, due to repeated targeting of the Catholic Church as a villain. Religious matters also turned me against Verdugo Dawn. The narrative is interrupted in a couple places by references to Carlos Castaneda and dream-like dialogues with an old wise man named “Olaf” who talks a lot of solipsistic physics that we’re expected to view as profound.

Also the action was often implausible. And there were lots of spelling and homophone errors in the text.

Didn’t work for me.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Killed,’ by James Kipling

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I started out liking this book very much. In the opening chapter of James Kipling’s Killed, the author breaks the rules of thrillers by just spending time with our hero, Detective Jake Walker, on an ordinary day, before the bodies start falling. I personally liked this. I found Jake likeable and relatable – a dedicated police detective (in an unnamed city) whose work has destroyed his marriage, but who is still determined to do right by his three daughters.

When the call comes (on his weekend off) to come to the scene of a murder, he is galvanized – because the murder has taken place on the university campus where his oldest daughter is a student. The victim turns out to be the star player on the football team, tortured and murdered slowly. Jake is convinced this has to be a personal crime. When further bodies are found on campus – and later off campus – he continues certain that this is not an ordinary serial killer at work, but someone with a particular grievance to avenge.

The further I got into Killed, the more disappointed I grew with the writing. Although Jake interested me as a person, I had trouble buying him as a cop. I’m not an expert on police procedure, but the way he ran the investigation didn’t “ring true” to me. His superior seemed to be taking orders from him, and when they called in the FBI for help, Jake himself made the decision (I think that would be his boss’s call). And when the FBI did show up, there was no jurisdictional friction – the Feds and the locals always posture a little for precedence, at least in books.

And I figured out the killer before I think I was supposed to.

So I found Killed a bit of a disappointment. Not hard to read, but poorly plotted, in my opinion. Cautions for the usual.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Wonders Will Never Cease,’ by Robert Irwin

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Tiptoft is not happy with Anthony’s reply and says, ‘People prate about how wonderful life is, but I swear to you that reading is better. Search how you may you will never find happy endings in life. It is only there in books.’

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Robert Irwin’s Wonders Will Never Cease. It didn’t quite satisfy me, but it’s the kind of book where I don’t know whether that’s the author’s fault or mine.

The book is reminiscent of Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. And, I suppose, of my own Erling Skjalgsson novels. It’s a book set in real history, where the supernatural and the magical intersect with historical events. It’s related in the present tense in a very spare, apparently artless, voice – I wasn’t sure at first (not being familiar with the author) whether this style indicated an inexperienced writer or a greater artistic purpose. I kept reading, and discovered it was the latter, successful or not.

The narrative begins with the Battle of Towton in 1461, when the Lancastrian forces of the English King Henry VI are overcome by the Yorkist forces of Edward IV (if you have trouble keeping your Roses kings straight, as I do, Edward came just before Richard III). Young Sir Anthony Woodville and his father fight on the losing side, but his father immediately switches his allegiance and becomes a favored retainer of King Edward.

But before that, Anthony is killed in the battle. He wakes up, however, a couple days later, remembering only a vision of the Grail Castle of Arthurian lore. As a man raised from the dead, Anthony is the subject of considerable curiosity, hero worship, and envy as he learns to become a great knight and servant of the king. Eventually his sister will marry King Edward. He will meet, among other people, Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Mort D’Artur. All through his life he will be surrounded by wonders – miracles and horrors and visions and witchcraft, and fictional characters he himself invented who take on alarming lives of their own.

And yet, this book full of wonders is oddly not very wonderful. The magic and miracles Anthony observes prove to be ultimately pointless, as are his dreams and adventures. The ultimate message I carried away from Wonders Will Never Cease was that, even if you saw lots of marvels, it wouldn’t make your life marvelous.

To repeat myself, I just couldn’t make up my mind about this book. It’s an interesting read, but ultimately flat, like a shaggy dog story. But that may have been the author’s intention.

Cautions for language, mature subject matter, and the occasional bit of blasphemy.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Roxanne,’ by Peter Grainger

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The Kings Lake Investigations books are a quiet pleasure for the mystery reader, consistently excellent and engaging, without sensationalism or hype. Author Peter Grainger produces readable, satisfying books about people you care for.

In Roxanne, the latest installment, the new Kings Lake murder squad investigates the death of a young woman found dead in a brand-new automobile. The car was her own (though there’s no record of her paying for it), and her body shows no signs of violence. It also appears she did not die where she was found.

DCI Cara Freeman, the new chief of the squad, leads her relatively untested team (we spend much of our time with DS Chris Waters, a hold-over from the days of Inspector DC Smith) as they examine the life of Roxanne, a wild child who had (according to her parents) gotten her act together, with a plan (though a problematic one) for making a future for herself. Problems within the team will be almost as much a challenge as identifying the murderer.

“Conspicuous by his absence” would be a good way to describe this series, now that the fascinating DC Smith is retired and has been relegated to the sidelines. Cara Freeman is interesting in her own way, but it’s kind of a negative way – she’s good at her job, but she remains a mystery to her team. They know nothing of her life or motivations – though the reader will get some insight in this book. Chris Waters is also a sympathetic character, and it’s good to watch him work, and to observe his relationship with his blind girlfriend.

I can’t deny I’d prefer to see DC Smith going through his paces indefinitely, but Roxanne was a good, low-key, sympathetic mystery which I enjoyed from beginning to end. I don’t recall any objectionable content, except for a lamentable misuse of the phrase, “begs the question.” Recommended.

Music, Reviews

FIlm review: ‘Fisherman’s Friends’

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For many years, I’ve declared Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero my favorite movie. There are other films I enjoy very much, and sometimes my moods change, but I tend to return in the end to Local Hero for its scenic Scottish setting, understated humor, gorgeous music, and fish out of water point of view.

Thanks to recommendations, I’ve found a movie that belongs next to Local Hero on the conceptual shelf. Fisherman’s Friends, a popular romantic comedy that a number of you have probably already seen. Still, a movie isn’t really complete until I’ve passed judgment on it, right?

The story is a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Fisherman’s Friends, an all-male folk singing group from Port Isaac, Cornwall that specializes in sea shanties (my kind of music, by the way).

As the film tells it, the story begins with a group of London music producer buddies who travel to Cornwall, where one of them is being married. They happen to hear this local shanty group, and our hero Danny Anderson (Daniel Mays) is challenged by his boss to sign the group to a recording contract. He’s not aware it’s all a gag, and when his buddies leave him high and dry in the town, he sets about getting the fishermen’s agreement – which is hard, because they cherish a dearly bought mistrust of outsiders. By the time Danny learns he’s been made a fool of, he has come to value the fishermen’s trust and is falling for a local girl, so he sets about making the big deal on his own.

The rest of the story is pretty much what you’d expect, and you’d be disappointed if it weren’t. It’s well done, and funny, and moving, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.

I saw a whole lot of references to Local Hero in this production – I can’t document it, but I strongly suspect they used it for a model – and they couldn’t have made a better choice.

When I’ve talked with people who don’t like Local Hero, I’ve often gotten the comment that they don’t like the ending. They find it a downer. I think at this point the difference may be one of experience. The ending of Local Hero is how things tend to end in my life; there’s a kind of sad comfort for me in it, a feeling that I’m not alone because Peter Riegert’s character is in the same place.

Most viewers will certainly prefer the very different ending of Fisherman’s Friends.

Fiction, Reviews

The Taking: When the Rain Compounds Your Fear

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His gaze tracked across the ceiling. “It’s not falling toward us anymore.” His voice quieted to a whisper. “It’s moving eastward . . . west to east . . . as big as two mountains, three . . . so huge,” whispered Neil. He made the sign of the cross–forehead to breast, left shoulder to right–which she had not seen him do in years.

Suddenly she felt more than heard a great, deep, slow throbbing masked by the tremulous roar of the rain.

“. . . sift you as wheat . . .”

I picked a good time to read Dean Koontz’s 2004 novel of apocalyptic horror, The Taking. We had a full day of heavy rain when I started reading, which was perfect atmosphere for blurring reality with imagination, if one were into that sort of thing. I don’t read horror novels, so I worried this one might work me over, but I’m fine. Don’t worry. Really, I’m fine.

The story begins with a sudden gullywasher of luminescent rain that scares coyotes onto the heroine’s porch. No thunder or build up. Just a heavy downpour with a slick glow in the water.

Molly Sloan is disturbed by her impression of watchful evil and the nasty feel and smell of the rain. She’s scared when her husband, Neil, cries out in his sleep. Later they turn on the news to discover the oceans have been sucked into the sky and poured out on the entire world. Chaos has broken out in many cities. The world appears to be under attack by aliens with unseen ships. At least, that’s the best theory they have so far.

Neil and Molly leave their house to try to team up with neighbors and find one of them dead in his bathroom. There’s evidence he tried to fight something off, but no evidence that his shotgun harmed anyone but himself. In another minute, this dead man would be in the shadows behind them, saying, “I think we are in rats’ alley.”

That’s a line from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

Eliot gets a lot of attention in The Taking, filling the role of one of Molly’s favorite authors. His words are quoted by a number of characters, which forms one thread of mystery that caused me to wonder if this apocalypse was all in Molly’s head. The most bizarre and disturbing events tie to her personal fears and tastes. I began to wonder if she was having a miscarriage or revisiting the trauma of abortion in the real world while the living dead, animated fungi, and dismembered townsfolk occurred in her mind. That would have made for a lousy book. The resolution Koontz offers is more of a spiritual take on alien invasion. More importantly, it works.