Hello St Marks

Elliot Perlman is an Australian writer and barrister who has won the Miles Franklin Award, so that's a strong start. 'Maybe the Horse Will Talk' is fabulous; very clever, witty, dry and wry and moving. Stephen Maserov is a teacher turned reluctant lawyer at heartless mega-firm Freely Savage Carter Blanche (and that's the genius of this book in a nutshell). Stephen is a very kind man "absolutely terrified of losing a job he absolutely hates". The company is a nest of vipers; a stronghold of toxic, entitled masculinity and casual discrimination and sexual assault, brilliantly wrought by Perlman. Can Stephen save his marriage and pay the mortgage without selling his soul?  'Pulphead' by John Jeremiah Sullivan came via the Street Library; thank you, Library Gods. Sullivan is an essayist and journalist who's written for all the big magazines (NYT Magazine, Harpers, Paris Review). 'Pulphead' is a collection of his longer essays about popular cult...

Be warned, this is not my brightest hour. You've heard of the Bridgertons? Netflix's most successful series, ever? I'd quietly read the first book in Julia Quinn's series last year, so—prompted by the outrageous success of the series—moved onto the second book, 'The Viscount Who Loved Me'. Oh my, it's just as silly as it sounds, but the silliness conceals a dark theme of power and submission played out in an escalating series of sexual assaults. That's not what Quinn calls it, of course. They get married in the end (spoiler, sorry), so all's well that ends well, but I was weirded out by it.  So then to Josh Malerman's 'Bird Box', another book later adapted for screen. I love an apocalypse story, and this one is solid. The world is overrun with creatures that turn you violently suicidal if you look at them. Four years on, Malory is raising twins behind shuttered windows, with blindfolds on, trained as babies to wake up without opening thei...

I did skip through a couple of chapters in this one; but in my defense, it was dull. Which was surprising, because journalist Nicolle LaPorte's account of the recent Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, 'Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal', should have been fascinating. A story about uber-rich Californians paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get their privileged kids into tier one colleges should have been an entertaining train wreck, or at least a nuanced reflection on entitlement. But it fell flat; there was no drama to the nonchalance with which parents paid up and later pretended not to know their 'donations' were illegal bribes, or that presenting their unexceptional kids as sporting superstars to gain 'side door' entry into Yale was a bit dodgy. I was struck by one parent who said she had no idea the payments were bribes because she'd been signing whalloping great big donation...

"The best Barclay so far..." said Stephen King on the cover. Starting from a very low base, I gather, having now read Linwood Barclay's 'Trust Your Eyes'. "Barclay is such an old pro you feel he can write these terrific thrillers standing on his head," said the [snarky] Daily Mail. In 'Trust Your Eyes', autistic Thomas spots a murder on Whirl360 (a Google Street View equivalent) and his nice brother humours him with a half-hearted investigation, and so on until the inevitable kidnapping and car chases. The Street Library delivers as many regrettable distractions as it does wonders.

"If you read only one American novel this year make sure that it is this one", says Sunday Express . I call foul on that one. Harlan Coben's 'The Final Detail' is a competent paperback about a vigilante sports agent, his sociopathic, deadly gorgeous best mate and the death of a New York Yankees pitcher; the tone is 21st century hard boiled detective bromance. To the point: "Sometimes the good guys break the rules because they know better". Lordy.