Hello St Marks

Monica McInerney is famous for feel-good fiction. 'The Godmothers' is her 12th book, so she's very, very good at it. I read this one fast and casually, probably not doing it justice. Glamorous godmothers, international locations, handsome brothers—all the ingredients are in place for "a great big hug of a book" (according to the blurb), but meh. 

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley's 'The War that Saved My Life' was a Newbery Honor Book winner but that was not the book I was reading. 'The War I Finally Won' was the sequel; yes, perhaps I could have guessed. A very battered copy arrived in the street library absent a back cover, so I read 'Finally' with care, lest the final pages detach altogether. Had I lost those last pages I would have been mildly put out, but my 12 year old self would have been devastated. Damaged child heroine Ada Smith is orphaned and—with reason—deeply ignorant and deeply distrustful. In 'Finally' the abuse she escaped in 'Saved' has lingering effects; Ada's defiant recovery plays out among familiar WWII tropes (English village, courageous sons and their mothers, the healing power of horses), creating the blend of dark and light beloved by the Newbery and earnest young readers. 

Alex Verus is a diviner, quietly running a magic shop in contemporary London. This is urban fantasy by Benedict Jacka, very well done and justifiably popular—as evidenced by the 10 books which came after 'Fated'. The final book is due in December 2021. I won't be embarking on the full dozen but tip my hat to Jacka for his clever world building. If you could have divination or teleportation, which would you choose? Now I know. 

I expected to enjoy 'The Wych Elm' because I'd loved 'The Searcher', but no. Entitled man-child Toby, antihero of 'Wych', was loathsome company compared to thoughtful retired detective Cal Hooper from 'Searcher'. Bloody Toby all but ruined 'Wych' for me, despite French's ferocious talent for characterisation and cracking Irish dialogue. Handsome, educated, charming, charmed—Toby is oblivious to most everything until he's the victim of a violent robbery and retreats, brain-addled and humiliated, to the summer house of his childhood. When a human skull is found in the wych elm, Toby's fractured memories smash against a new, darker reality. 

'Providence' is a warship. Probably sentient, but best not to think about that too much. Better for its crew to pretend they're not just passengers chosen for their media-friendly back stories: hunky warrior, adorable geek, stoic captain, bubbly propagandist. In this war against the aliens known as 'salamanders', the four humans dutifully take to their stations—Weapons, Intel, Command, Life—when the enemy is engaged but, again, best not to get in the way. Then, half way through a four year tour, closing in on 600,000 kills, the salamander hits the fan and the four crew members have to dig deep to find strengths they definitely weren't recruited for.  Max Barry is a successful Australian sci-fi writer, so quite a rare breed. I didn't love this book, but I celebrate the Max Barrys of Australian fiction. 

Nerd thriller. Geek hero. Intellectual swashbuckler. Andy Weir's 'The Martian' spawned some unexpected word combos plus the immortal battle cry: "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this". Who hasn't used that one? In 'Project Hail Mary' junior high science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spaceship, with no memory, and has to save the world. Cue the hyper-technical problem-solving monologues which define the Weir Way. I have no idea what Grace is talking about almost all the time, but the science talk has a cadence which carries you along. I love it. 

The central mystery of 'We are all Completely Beside Ourselves' is: what happened to Fern? Fern and Rosemary are sisters, all but twins, inseparable until Rose is five and Fern, inexplicably, is gone. 'We are all Completely Beside Ourselves' was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction so we know going in that this novel about family, siblings and psychology will be both good and clever—which it is. It's also charming, uncomfortable and twisty.  

The Street Library has gifted me with a copy of 'The Kraken Wakes' so old it has a price of 3'6 on the cover and is held together with sticky tape. This is one of John Wyndham's catastrophe novels, written in the 1950s and in print ever since. Like 'The Day of the Triffids' and 'The Midwich Cuckoos', 'Kraken' is a perfect short novel. Succinct, very clever, astutely observant and never overwrought. Very British of its era, or so I imagine. In 'Kraken' interstellar monsters colonise the deep oceans of Earth and set about changing the climate to their ends, so among the joys of this book is a 1953 perspective on climate change denial, propaganda and response. With more tape, this one goes back to the library — a 1963 edition of a 1953 novel, ready and relevant for another 2021 reader.  Postscript: I'm delighted to advise that 'Kraken' lasted less than a day in the Street Library before finding its next reader. 

“Strange customs, you know?”. Duncan Peck is ‘The Last Good Man’ of the title. A hard man, hard to like, but he knows right from wrong and that’s going to matter in this village on the moors, “a village living in the shadow of an enormous wall”. Anyone can write on the wall, and if its written, there are consequences. There’s no law, just the will of the people written on the wall. Flee, and the chasers will hunt you down and bring you back to be burdened—literally burdened, a fridge tied to your back—or placed in the stocks, or wounded. And then it’s done, the crime forgiven, justice done. Peck’s a stranger, newly arrived from the dystopian horror of the city and deeply invested in finding a safe haven in this place. But, he can’t help think. But.  “The wall, in that moment, seems to Peck to be alive in its malignancy, conscious in its efforts to do them harm, and he would not be surprised to see the lines between slabs open and close with the slight course of breathing.” Thomas M...

'The Last Mrs Summers' is the 14th book in the the 'Royal Spyness' series by Rhys Bowen (AKA Janet Quin-Harkin). When you're 14 books in, it's like a old family friend comes visiting and you settle in for a long chat. We met  Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie Rannoch in 1932  when she was 20ish, 34th in line to the throne currently held by Queen Mary and flat broke. "I am constantly being reminded that it is my duty to make a good match with some half-lunatic buck-toothed, chinless, spineless and utterly awful European royal, thus cementing ties with a potential enemy", says Georgie, and flees the ancestral castle in Scotland. Too aristocratic to work, she's ill-equipped for independence (she knows where to seat a Archbishop at dinner but can't boil an egg), accident-prone, plucky and kind—the perfect protagonist for a comic historical cosie. Then a Frenchman is found dead in a duke's bathtub and away we go. But I can't be glib ...