The Impossible Thing: Belinda Bauer

The Impossible Thing is set in two different periods, approximately one hundred years apart. The stories are so different in every way that the two strands could each stand on their own as short stories. As it is, they’re tied together by the impossible thing – a scarlet guillemot’s egg, stolen from a bird on the Yorkshire cliffs in 1926 and the subject of robbery in the present.
Early in the twentieth century, a number of men made their living by lowering themselves over the cliff edge on ropes and stealing eggs from the se birds. This section of the book entranced me. The location is situated between Brampton Cliffs and Flamborough, an area I visited for many years, photographing puffins, gannets, guillemots and kittiwakes, among others. Bauer’s descriptions of the area took me back there, to the sounds and smells of the wheeling birds.
The story itself is quite simplistic. A young girl, Celie, steals the first red guillemot egg, setting in motion a chain of events involving an unscrupulous dealer, the repercussions of which echo down the years until we meet Patrick, a neurodivergent young man, and his friend, Weird Nick, who is – well, weird. The modern part of the story descends into a bit of a caper, as various people use any means possible to get their hands on the scarlet egg(s) – we meet egg collectors, the RSPB officers in pursuit of them and a scholarly chap who wants to complete his museum collection of the priceless eggs.
Some of Bauer’s recent books have disappointed me but she is back on form with his one. It’s sure-footed, well researched and has a satisfying ending.

Picture: Gannet at Bempton Cliffs © Jacqui Jay Grafton

Learning to love audiobooks

I’ve recently been forced to move from reading the printed/e-reader page to listening to audiobooks. Initially, it wasn’t what you’d call a roaring success. I quickly realised that most audiobooks stand or fall on the skills of the narrator and there were a lot of voices I just couldn’t cope with, even when sampling tried and tested authors. Ian Rankin is a case in point. The pantomime worthy Scottish accent of his narrator was like nails on a blackboard to me.
I learnt that I prefer to listen to a male voice rather than a female one. It’s a matter of dialogue – male narrators, in general, seem to be more able to handle female voices than vice versa. I also learnt to really listen to the samples provided before parting with my (usually) £7.99.
Stephen King has long been one of my favourite authors. I’ll even read his turkeys. (FairyTale, anyone?) So, I was pretty delighted to discover the voice of Will Patton as he narrated the Bill Hodges Trilogy – Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch. He was nominated for an Audie Award in the Solo Narration – Male category for his work on Mr. Mercedes. And richly deserved. He not only handles dialogue superbly but also infuses narrative with a range of emotions.
At present, I’ve just started the third in the trilogy and intend to search out more of Patton’s work in the future. And who knows, it might lead me to new authors and genres.

An Honourable Institution: Laura Lyndhurst

Laura Lyndhurst has taken a massive risk in creating a main character who is not only unlikeable but, frankly, abhorrent. Cressida is wealthy, arrogant, and has the morals of an alley cat. In the first chapters of the book, she doesn’t have a single redeeming feature as she uses her position to abuse and degrade those who are unfortunate enough to be drawn into her circle.
Cressida’s world implodes, however, when she is faced with a moral dilemma that will change her life forever, depending on the choices she makes. The path she chooses sets off a chain of events that affect everyone she comes in contact with, but also teaches her some of life’s toughest lessons.
The way in which Ms Lyndhurst teases out Cressida’s story left no doubt in my mind that the risk was well worth taking. Don’t expect a cosy bad-girl-turns-good-through-love scenario. That’s not what this story is about. Although Cressida does change (a lot), she doesn’t lose her essential character and, by the time the book came to its unexpected and startling conclusion, I was beginning to warm towards her.
An Honourable Institution is a rocky, uncomfortable ride that will stay in your mind long after you’ve devoured the last page. Read it. Today.

The Cold, Cold Ground: Adrian McKinty

Totally Immersive

I read this book some years ago and was instantly hooked on Adrian McKinty;s series set in Northern Ireland and featuring the maverick CID detective, Sean Duffy. As someone fairly new to audiobooks, I welcomed the chance to re-visit the books. A native of Carrickfergus himself, McKinty’s writing is rich with the atmosphere and idiosyncrasies of the province. The narrator, Gerard Doyle, threw me a little in the beginning because I had imagined Duffy’s accent to be harsher than portrayed here, but I soon settled in to this version and was very impressed with Doyle’s handling of the different characters’ voices.
The Cold, Cold Ground is a brutal story with many twists and turns and a wide array of interesting and multi-faceted characters. In other words, right up my street. It was a totally immersive experience and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Yellowface: RF Kuang

I dithered over whether to read this book or not but, swayed by the marketing and the excellent cover, I eventually spent one of my audible credits on it.
The plot in a nutshell – white female author steals a manuscript from a friend, a Chinese female author, when said friend chokes on a pancake and dies. She goes on to re-write some of it, publishes it and is highly successful. Told in the first person by a very unlikeable main character, the book delves deeply into themes of racism, plagiarism, the publishing world and social media trolling as the MC justifies her initial theft and the consequential criminal acts she engages in.
The book starts off well as it recounts the initial theft but degenerates quite quickly into a whining self-justification combined with criticisms of just about everyone except the main character. By the time I reached the two-thirds point, I felt like I was no longer listening to a work of fiction but being subjected to the author’s opinions and prejudices.
An initial five star read deteriorated into a disappointing one star conclusion.

The Wrong Neighbour: Caleb Crowe

Caleb Crowe is a new author to me and, as far as I can ascertain, this is his debut novel. It’s a fast-moving story of a young couple being intentionally terrorised by a neighbour who is intent on forcing them to sell their new home to him at a ridiculously low price. It’s a pretty basic plot covering well trodden ground, so kudos to Crowe for ramping up the tension and keeping it at fever pitch throughout the book.

His characters are vividly portrayed if a trifle over-drawn, especially the villainous Ron, who is almost cartoonish. We get it. He’s evil incarnate, but even the most horrid of antagonists need a touch of saving grace. I note that the author has attracted some criticism from the wokerati for ‘fat-shaming’ this character. To me, these people are merely attempting to curb the author’s creativity. They can dislike the character, of course, but not dictate how he is portrayed.

I skip read two parts of the book. Firstly, all the remembered advice from Tiffany, who never actually appeared in the book. Secondly, Megan’s dreams and the transcribing of them into a notebook. Neither of these added anything to the story but, without them, it would have been a much shorter book so I guess they served their purpose. It would have been better to know a bit more about Megan – why she left the admirable Niall for the untrustworthy Nick; a bit about the loss of her mother which was fleetingly referred to a few times but never enlarged on.
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Overall, though, it was a ripping good yarn although a little rough round the edges and needing more editorial input than it got. I have already downloaded Crowe’s second novel and I would recommend this one as a fresh voice in the psychological thriller genre.