The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest

There is something worse than finding that the book you’ve just finished reading has a sequel which you need to wait for. It could be that the author is dead, so is unable to write that sequel. Stieg Larsson is no longer alive, and I kept worrying as I raced through Luftslottet som sprängdes, that it would be too much in need of a sequel for me to be happy. Strictly speaking it doesn’t have to be continued, but you are left feeling that there is a continuation, which there is, as we know. Part of one, at least, and the question is how much of it exists.

Not that I’m sure it would satisfy to have half a book, or a short Stieg Larsson. And considering the mess his estate’s in, I doubt it can happen anytime soon. The more I read of book three, the more I was reminded of Stieg’s family. I’ll leave it to you to work out which characters reminded me of them.

The titles have had me thinking, too. Before reading Luftslottet som sprängdes I thought I knew what it meant. The same goes for the concept of kicking a hornets’ nest, but in both cases I’d say the meaning is almost the opposite of what I’d had in mind.

Where book two set Lisbeth Salander up with a worse mess than she’d been in before, the ‘concluding’ book sorts things out more than you are made to expect at first. It looks very, very grim to begin with. For me it was difficult to keep fact from fiction, as there is so much that belongs in real life, and I couldn’t quite draw a line anywhere. The prime minister is in there, and so is a named predecessor of his. Real life scandals and names are mixed with fiction.

If this had been a film and if Daughter had watched it, I know exactly how she would have screamed in delight through most of it. The last two thirds, anyway. It’s fun and it’s exciting. I did spend a little time wondering how much could be allowed to go wrong, and one of my suppositions only half happened. I just feel that a stage had been set, so maybe it’s for a later book.

The plot doesn’t do much to recommend the Swedish police or government or anything much. But when things look bleak, there are individuals with integrity dotted about here and there. Mikael Blomkvist is as capable and devious as before, and Lisbeth Salander, well, she is very much herself. There is a doctor who was based on one of Stieg’s friends, and he was written into the plot under his own name. Unfortunately he upset the Larsson family sufficiently to have his name written out again. Oh well, his acts speak louder than any name.

Stieg didn’t write in any great literary style, but it’s not necessary. The plot and the general excitement means that it’d be hard to come up with anything quite like it. It’s not just Lisbeth Salander who is on the autistic spectrum, I’d say. The neat and precise way the good characters plot the path to safety, suggests a fair amount of Aspie reasoning, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. I suspect that’s why it satisfies so much.

Engimals and other creatures

Hmph. I’ve been had. This is a worse case of sequelitis than previously experienced.

I like Oisìn McGann. I mean I like his books. But after this I may have to grab hold of his ear and do something. Don’t know what.

Just finished his new book The Wisdom of Dead Men. It’s great. Historical Irish crime adventure, featuring the seriously odd Wildenstern family, set some time in the 19th century. They have funny habits, those Wildensterns. They like killing each other, and there are rules for how you do it. Charming, in other words.

They also have pets. These engimals are part machine, part animal. Weirdly weird.

The Wildensterns are rich. Very, very rich. They go in for a lot of exercise in the shape of fighting and self defence. They are powerful in society.

It was a little hard to tell at first who’s the main character, but I’ll come to that. Nate Wildenstern is probably the mainest of the main characters, along with his lovely sister-in-law Daisy. There is also Daisy’s husband Berto, Nate’s little sister Tatiana, and his cousin Gerald. There are witches, lost relatives and revived relatives from hundreds of years ago.

Towards the end of The Wisdom of Dead Men, I was going ‘this won’t come to a proper end’, ‘yes it will’, ‘maybe’, ‘no it won’t’. And of course it didn’t. There has to be more, but neither the press release nor Oisìn’s website mentions a sequel.

What Oisìn’s website does mention, however, is the prequel, or rather the first book in the series. Because this wasn’t the first book. Ancient Appetites was. Wish I’d known. I suppose it’s a sign of excellence that it’s possible to write a second book without it being obvious that it is. Had a peep at the online shop’s reviews, and saw that people felt it was suitable for a sequel…

Yes, well.

I don’t mind series of books, although life is easier without them. But I want it to say so. Setting lack of time aside, I don’t feel I’d be up to reading Ancient Appetites now. Not now that I know that…

Gridzbi Spudvetch!

Who would not want to read this book? Granted, few of us could walk into a shop and ask for it very easily, but isn’t it an intriguing title? It does exist under this title, but not in very many copies, I believe. It’s also not the same book, because Mark Haddon re-wrote his earlier book.

Now it’s called Boom!, which is OK. And the book is very OK. Very funny, and it still has plenty of funny words in it, because that’s the language spoken by the aliens.

It’s got some stock type characters, but that’s fine. You know where you are with old characters. Jimbo and his friend Charlie are the kind of boys who happen upon adventures. You just can’t trust your teachers at school. (I’m reminded of a song that goes ‘the creature was a teacher..’) Spudvetch.

Jimbo has an older sister who is a pain and she has a boyfriend who is a worse pain. But they have their uses. Successful mothers, one potentially useless dad, aliens, brass wristbands, gourmet cooking, motorbikes, Volvos.

There must be something about Camasunary, because this is the second book I’ve read set partly in this remote corner of Skye. Funny goings-on in both cases, but Mark Haddon’s are the weirdest. I love Becky, the older sister. She is capable and someone you want on your side when things are difficult.

And who wouldn’t like an alien called Britney?

Snekkit.

Does blood matter?

We’re getting a little ‘Sophie McKenzie-heavy’ over here right now. But I thought I could squeeze in reading her Girl, Missing, while I was about to see her in Preston. So I did. And to my neighbour who found me at my local railway station clutching the book, who said he hoped it was a worthy read, I can say that it was. Though he was suitably impressed to hear I was about to meet the author.

I could have called this blog post Blood Ties, but I seem to recall that I just used that for a post about Sophie’s other book, which bears that title. Girl, Missing is also a romantic thriller, which deals with family ties and what’s important.

Many of us don’t realise, or don’t stop to think about, the differences or the similarities between blood relations and ‘other’ people. It’s not so much whether you are related to someone by blood that matters. It’s how you live with them, in the widest sense of the word. One parent only is fine, but so are six, should you be lucky enough to have that many. As long as they love you.

Most of us shudder when we hear about the babies who were switched at birth, and who are switched back. How can anyone face something like that? Some adopted people desperately need to meet their biological family. We all think that the alternative to what we have must be so much better.

Girl, Missing deals with Lauren, who discovers she wasn’t just adopted, but most likely abducted, as a young child. She seeks the truth, and discovers nothing is easy or simple. And you can’t go back.

Lancashire reads

You’ve all heard the joke about the traveller who jumps into a taxi and demands to be taken to his hotel, and is refused. The hotel turns out to be just across the road. I thought my taxi driver looked a little less keen than I’d have expected. It wasn’t quite across the road, but let’s say the meter didn’t have to tick for long. I’ll consult google maps next time I go somewhere, though Haggis-knee was quite happy to be driven.

First things first, so it was lunch in the company of shortlisted authors and library staff. Before much time had passed, we were given advance notice of one of the young readers, a boy who has taken part in the Lancashire Book Awards. He sounds just like my kind of person. The Lancashire awards people are very nice and friendly. There is literally room at the inn, even for bookwitches.

Not all the shortlisted authors could come, but here in Preston we’ve got Craig Simpson, who writes about things Norwegian; Sarah Wray, who sounds very Northern Irish – to me – for someone coming from England; this year’s winner, Sophie McKenzie; and Tabitha Suzuma, who’s brought her Mum.

They don’t skimp on the festivities up here, so Friday afternoon offered a Q&A session with a hundred and thirty readers from participating schools. The award is sponsored by the University of Central Lancashire, and that’s really good to see. Keep it up! I like a librarian with good taste in ties, and they have one here. (Btw, if anyone finds a dried cherry in the lecture hall; it’s mine, but I don’t need it back. I noticed food was banned, so nibbled on the quiet. Just happened to drop one.)

I have discovered an unexpected fondness for Johnny Depp among the authors gathered here. And I think that taking up writing books as an antidote to too much football at home, is a most sensible thing to do. As is considering a career as a reader. But I will have to disagree with Tabitha; I positively crave happy endings, and according to her Mum the book I have read is the happiest of the lot…

Friday evening it was time for a grand dinner. It’s a hard life, but someone has to go to events like these, and I’m glad it was me. How many authors can you fit into the back seat of a small pink car? Two, plus one mother, in this case. Plenty of hilarity over seat belts, with conversation along the lines of ‘I’ll do yours, if you do mine’ and much giggling. Almost a shame the drive was even shorter than my taxi ride.

I think I could just about get used to dining with a live string quartet in the background. Plenty of speeches, from adults (politicians, librarians, that kind of thing) and from children. The young speakers were all astoundingly accomplished, and a hanky wouldn’t have been entirely out of place. I was especially taken with Leesa from my table, who may have been very nervous, but who spoke un-scripted and exceedingly well. The mayor type chap with the fancy necklace seemed to be in agreement with the witch on this.

They are a little wrong about stuff like Lancashire being the centre of the Universe, however. Actually, no, maybe they are right. I’d love to come again, folks. (I know, I know. I was seriously under-dressed, but that can be remedied. I’ll get out the family heirlooms.)

A little disappointed that ‘facilitator’ Adèle Geras never got as far as singing, but that is a pleasure still to come, I hope.

Blood Ties

I’ll make a sexist remark here. Sophie McKenzie’s Blood Ties is the kind of book I’d expect to have been written by a man. Not that women can’t write this sort of thing; but they tend not to. I’ve tried to think of a similar novel written by a female author, but am not getting anywhere. No doubt you will be able to correct me.

It’s very good, and I’m not in the slightest surprised that Sophie keeps winning awards. It’s got almost everything – action and adventure, romance, sci-fi and normal teen life – so my prediction is that Sophie may have to put up with travelling round the country to pick up prizes. Other writers may want to look into having her banned. (Only joking!)

Genetic engineering is the background to the story about Theo and Rachel. They don’t know each other, until they suddenly find themselves in the middle of genetic engineering terrorism. Their lives go from almost normal to seriously strange and full of danger and action.

The story is told in alternating chapters from Theo’s and Rachel’s points of view, so you get to see how they both see the same series of events.

I’m very pleased to find a book with a slightly fat and unpopular heroine, although in true fiction style Rachel improves herself surprisingly fast.

The only thing I found difficult to take in, is why people would be quite so terrifyingly organised against genetic engineering. Some of the attacks are reminiscent of anti-abortion groups, except these people take things a lot further. And I’m not sure why.

Blood Ties is a great, fast paced read, and probably better geared towards girl readers than some other action style fiction, while still being right for boy readers.

Fifty Grand

To think that I actually won my copy of Adrian McKinty’s Fifty Grand in a drinks competition is a little worrying for such a sober witch. But it was my witch instincts that told me from the start that the likely number of drinks Adrian would have consumed at the Ambos Mundos bar in Havana was close to 66. Seems he was fairly restrained and it was only 61, but close enough.

And I will say this now; if Adrian really did start writing a sequel to Fifty Grand, and the manuscript really did get eaten by a dingo, then he needs to do something about that. Either give the dingo the Red Riding Hood wolf treatment or simply write it again. Because I must have a sequel. Fifty Grand is that good. I think the Hemingway bar surroundings did have some effect on Adrian after all.

This ‘novel of suspense’ begins at the end, with the heroine literally on thin ice in Wyoming. And things don’t look too good. There’s a few very bloody and violent bits in Fifty Grand, and the first chapter is one of them. Then the novel meanders back and forth in time, to describe what went before the cracking ice, and why, before returning to the ice.

It’s cleverly done, and gets the reader thoroughly interested in Detective Mercado’s journey from Cuba to Colorado and Wyoming, and her reasons for doing what she’s doing. I think Adrian is knowledgeable about life in Cuba, but I could be wrong. For an old revolutionary like the witch (well, you know) he has a somewhat negative view of life in Cuba, but I’m not saying he’s wrong. He certainly knows what he’s talking about as far as Colorado is concerned, having lived there for years (we’re talking Northern Irish writer residing in Australia), and it shows. I almost believed that Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt really were in the book.

Another thing Fifty Grand does, is show us the lives lived by illegal Latinos in the US. Very enlightening.

Great book. Very exciting (housework suffered, and so did feeding the family), and Adrian has some wonderful minor characters. And I really must stop typing his name as a drain. Easily done, though. He’s too nice and polite for me to behave so badly. 

If you’re only going to read half a dozen books this year, I have to insist on Fifty Grand being one of them. That’s despite the inconvenient fact that I don’t think it’s out in the UK yet. (When?)

The drawback of having liked Fifty Grand so much, is that I will probably have to find some time to read Adrian’s other books, too.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

I was so tired. The night I was just going to read a chapter in Helen Grant’s book before going to bed, and then I found myself compelled to finish the whole thing, so my night was a lot shorter than expected. Scheisse.

Began reading this book on the plane to Germany, which felt a little strange when it turned out that the main character also used the same airport, and her home town of Bad Münstereifel was close to where I was heading. And it’s very refreshing with some light swearing in German. Offspring like to say Scheisse, and I’ve worked up quite a taste for it now, as well.

In fact, that’s one thing I like about this children’s crime novel, written in English, but set in Germany. There is plenty of real German, both in speech and description, and it adds to the story in a way I’ve missed in other books.

I was a little surprised to find The Vanishing of Katharina Linden reviewed in the adult crime section of the Guardian recently. But why not? The language is simpler than for an adult book, but not by much, and the main characters are children aged ten. The story, about disappearing school children in the small town of Bad Münstereifel, is quite complex and very interesting.

It’s a bit of a horror story, too, with lots of local history and legends. Pia and her new friend Stefan (who is only her friend because her Grandmother exploded) find themselves puzzled by the disappearance of  first one, then several of their school friends, and decide to solve the mystery. It was sort of possible to work out who must have ‘done it’, but not how and why. It gets surprisingly tense and scary as you read on.

Bad Münstereifel is a chocolate box kind of town, with German style ‘Tudor’ houses. Everybody knows everybody else, and the place is choc-a-bloc with snooping old women who believe children should have good manners.

Helen Grant has been hand-picked by Puffin as an exceptional new talent, and that kind of thing generally brings me out in a rash, but with Helen they’ve got it just right.

List mania 2

Aha. I see what they are doing. Those cunning people over at the Guardian and the Observer are not actually listing the best of Love (yesterday) or Crime (today). They are simply compiling lists of their favourite books, or possibly books that must be listed. Then they sit down over their lattes or whatever you drink in the capital, and divide those books up into the seven categories.

I woke up to find today’s Crime already counted. 146 books on Crime. I have read 36 and watched another 7 as films. That’s only marginally better than Love.

As well as counting diligently, the Resident IT Consultant pointed out that there were no books by either Allingham or Marsh. How can they leave them out, and then list several books by some barely criminal authors? They listed the only Josephine Tey I haven’t read, but that’s OK. And I can almost forgive them for getting things so very wrong, because they do have two Sara Paretskys.

But, come on. Jurassic Park? There’s fantasy later in the week. And I have never thought of Brighton Rock as crime. There is crime, but it isn’t crime, surely? And Kim is crime too? OK, maybe. I’ll be generous. The Crying of Lot 49??? Crime? Of Mice and Men? Therese Racquin? I have missed a lot in my reading past, that’s all I can say.

I’m pleased they did Crime today, though, as it’s the Retired Children’s Librarian’s birthday, and she’s the one who got me started on the path to crime. Happy 77th!

The price of an author

For light relief I read a Swedish house magazine once a month. In a recent copy there was an advertisement for a chain of department stores called Åhléns, showing a photo of a room full of lovely things they sell and that you might want for your home. I have to admit I shop with them when I’m there. They are reasonably cheap and do have great stuff.

However I sat and puzzled for a long time over one item in the photo, before the penny dropped. They have the thriller writer Jan Guillou (he with the sexist ideas of too many female sleuths) sitting on top of a bookcase, and he is priced at 169 kronor. That’s about £14, and felt fairly cheap for a human being, even if it’s Jan Guillou. I know, I know; most of you have already cottoned on to the fact that the thing they sell is the book. His book. That’s why he sits on the bookcase.

Don’t know why I’m so slow.

Jan also turned up on the recent BBC4 programme on Kurt Wallander, inciting hatred against the Danes.