The Bat/The Snowman:  

Jo Nesbo's books have sold somewhere in excess of 50m copies.  Before he became a best-selling author, he was footballer, a rock-star in his native Norway and worked in finance.  His books are dark, nasty, cynical and possibly illegal police procedurals.  My thanks to Katie Ellis-Brown at Harvill Secker for the review copies.  

Our hero is Harry Hole.  The surname is pronounced "holy", but there is nothing sanctified here.  He's a recovering alcoholic, borderline sociopathic cop; but he's also Oslo's finest.  The Bat is his first adventure, as Holy is despatched to the other side of the world to solve the murder of a Norwegian backpacker in Melbourne.  The Snowman is set ten years later, with a serial killer placing the body parts of their victims in the first snowmen of the Oslo Winter.

By this point, Hole has become a celebrity on talk shows.  He's found love, lost it and has a flat full of damp for an encore.  This new case piques Harry's cynical nature, but the fact that the killer references Harry's first case makes things that more complicated.

It's easy to see why Nesbo is such a best-selling author.  The cases will be dark, nasty and gory for hardcore crime fans.  What he has got is the control of a Christie or a Rankin.  Those who think they can predict the killer in the first half of the book will have a hard-time.  Nesbo's killers are generally not whom you think you are, hiding in plain sight. 

And you can definitely see a jump in quality between book one and book seven.  The character of Hole is much more rounded, liveable and believable in The Snowman than he is in The Bat.  He is literally a young buck in the first book.  By Seven, he is literally beaten down by life and by the end of the case he has literally lost a body part in the cause of justice.  He can't find any kind of happiness and a bottle is only a step away.  

Credit should also be given to Don Bartlett, who translates his books from Norwegian.  The flourishes and dark humour of Nesbo's writing is still intact and that is a rare skill.  

So, crime fans.  Are you ready to step into a world of blood, ice and mordant humour?  Tread carefully - The Nesboverse is sixteen novels long - it can be a dangerous place.  

 Small Angels by Lauren Owen:

You're all invited to a wedding. Sam and Chloe are getting married in Small Angels, the church of Sam's childhood village.  His sister Kate is along to help. But something is not happy with the imminent festivities at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods. It's angry, manipulative and eldritch at the same time. 

Small Angels is a patchwork of a book.  Beneath it is a general, creeping, lurking terror of what will happen on the day itself.  Beneath that is the history of the village, it's myths and fables and how Sam and Kate's childhood affects what is going to happen.   And when it does, you'll be genuinely terrified. I say that as someone who doesn't "get" horror.  But be warned, find something to hold on to.   

There is the odd hint of the modern world, and where the unnamed village might actually be. But there is nothing to really tie it to one particular time and space - other than the fact that the hard drive of Sam's laptop keeps wiping and he can't get a mobile signal.  There is also the internal logic that the villagers accept that Mockbeggar is haunted.  Not just by the spirit, but also in the ghosts of angry dogs and a lost goose which plays with the children.

I should also mention that The Gonnes are a family of women, guardians of both the woods and Small Angels.  They are depicted at one point as cooking meals of random ingredients thrown into a pot and you can make of that what you will.  

There's more than enough in Small Angels to make the jaw drop and the flesh creep.  There is that tick and drip of information about what is going to happen.  One, involving Chloe's wedding veil is so horrifying I had to stop reading for a few minutes. She also acquires an unseen voice which narrates her wedding preparations and manipulates her into setting something loose.  

I'm not going to say whether there is a happy ending.  What I will say is it ends of a definite, unsettling minor key.  Things might be normal (or as normal as they can be in a haunted village), but there is great uncertainty with it.  It depicts perfectly the great leap of faith of deciding to give your heart and soul to someone.

I read this book three months ahead of publication and it was enough to give me nightmares then.  Published on August 2nd, it will make your flesh creep as the light seeps out of Summertime.  

 Shape Of a Boy by Kate Wickers: 

Kate Wickers is the truly seasoned travel journalist.  There's nothing you can tell her about how to behave in exotic climes.  And this book is a summary of her and her families' adventures since the Millenium. Her husband Neil and her boys Josh, Ben and Freddie are as much characters in this narrative as she is.  

So, this is not the traditional travel book.  There is no over-arching narrative, or geo-political discussions.  And in a way, you don't really miss those.  This is as much a book about the "joys" of travelling with children; whilst trying to have a decent holiday on your own terms.  Those of us with children will tell you that this is reconciling two entirely disparate/Panglossian notions.

In a sense, you watch the three boys grow up, within the narrative frame of annual holidays.  Her children are millennials, in every sense of the word.  But over the course of twenty years, the author has had some fabulous trips to places like Egypt, Mallorca, Borneo and Japan.  

Whilst there though, the author's adventures/misadventures have included retrieving a "little message" left in a hotel pool by one of her sons, being interrogated by Israeli police, trying to enjoy a yoga lesson with grumpy teenage children and possibly, best of all: giving the complimentary rum from a Cuban hotel room, to the cleaners to supplement their wages.

The writing is light and frothy, but slightly arch at the same time.  The author is constantly looking for relaxation, berated by her own kids for being a "Helicopter Mum"… but each chapter of their travels is used as lesson learnt; in bringing up well-adjusted, empathetic, decent human beings. Who also sell those rare Pokémon cards for £90 on eBay when they get older.

Plus, there is also the regret that her children are now (possibly) too old for family holidays.  Plus, the fact that Covid brought the idea of those to a temporary halt.   

It's not a long book, but the kind which is perfect for your own - hopefully less fraught - holidays.  Let your mind drift, whilst you congratulate yourself on being a good parent and asking the koan: What would Kate Wickers do?

 The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: 

Alan Moore tells us he has now retired from writing comics.  After a career spanning almost fifty years, he deserves credit for that alone.  He's reinvented the superhero genre on at least three occasions and spanned a counter-cultural movement with one of those.  I would also postulate that he is a key figure in English Literature. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman celebrates British culture: but criticises it equally. It also moulds that and places it against an apocalyptic background.   

Our story begins in 1898, with the head of The British Secret Service Campion Bond forming a team to beat Moriarty. Our heroes include Alan Quartermain, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo, Dr Hyde and Hawley Griffin. By now, you will have noticed that this universe is one where fictional characters are real. Over twenty years of publication and a century of story; our heroes face The Martians, an alternative WW2, the fascist Britain from 1984, Nemo's great granddaughter and a massacre at Hogwarts by Voldemort.  

I mean, basically that should be enough to get you running to your friendly neighbourhood bookstore. But there is more to all six books that the superficial thrill of pop culture being used as a narrative. And if you’re really sharp, you can spot the references to the Prime Minister's spokesman Malcolm Tucker, the immigrant Treen population or the concentration camp for spies in North Wales.  

But I would also say the series is a thought experiment in what it means to be human. Both Murray and Quartermain are eternal for different reasons and struggle with the mere fact of it. Whereas Virginia Woolf's Orlando actually enjoys the fact he/she will never die. In that sense, we can also see it as a meditation on gender and sexuality. That we can survive the worst angels of our nature and find happiness in the merest fact of being alive.  

As skilled a writer as Moore is, I should also praise Kevin O'Neill. As much as veteran of the comics scene as he is and just as retired; his work creating a rich, fictional world is an achievement in itself. But the parts where the supernatural roots of The League are explored are mind blowing. You'll need 3D glasses and those volumes provide them. Your head, however may never be the same.  

A book of philosophy with wit, style and characters you care about. It's also a summary of every book, TV show, film and comic you've ever read. It's a world where the most famous James Bond is a misogynistic sociopath and the least well-known is an obsessed luvvie. You can be a complete trainspotter and try to spot the page where Thunderbird 2 is flies past the Patrick Troughton Doctor Who. There are enough websites for that.  

But it's a rich nourishing series, infuriatingly published across two publishers and a variety of formats. However, I assure you it'll be one of the most vibrant, nourishing expressions of a country and a culture as you'll ever read.   

 

 

  

 The Manager by AK Wilson: 

The Manager looks and feels like the kind of novel you'd read to pass the time in the recycled air of departure lounges; or in latent heat by the pool.  It's a sleek, sexy book and like a swimming pool, deeper than it looks.   

Katy is left jobless after her sexist pig of a boss gets a new post.  She finds employment at Byrsa, which offers cloud computing to the world's most powerful companies and as a result:  wields a tangible, existential power. And as PA to Byrsa's CEO Riley, she's drawn into a dangerous game.  

That's the basic line of the narrative and you would be forgiven that it's glossy, superficial nonsense.  But it's not.  Firstly, Riley and Katy are incredibly well-drawn as characters.  They are both engaging and intriguing at the same time.  There's also a "will they-won't they" romance between them.  Add to that, the background colour of the natural world, with Brysa setting up a data farm in a forest.  Until then their servers are guarded by the kind of piranhas that normally swim through the pages of Ian Fleming novels.  

Hidden in the middle of that though, is three examples of Chekov's gun.  Unlike most of those, these get fired and my jaw dropped and my ears popped when they did.  And yes, if you're shrewd enough like me, you can probably suss them.  But that doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the novel.  Once they happen, the book becomes pacy with a car chase, a hostage and an embittered sociopath who uses guns as a form of interior design.   

Even then though, the focus is still on Riley and Katy.  By this point, you will have realised that both of them are neither really who they say they are.  And the novel makes the point lightly, but in depth: how does your online presence really represent who you are?  And also: how much do women change their behaviour to compete with men... and why should they do that?  Plus, as well the misogynistic idiocy that when women have to act like men to compete with them... and if they do, they are perceived as aggressive.   

So, the proverbial pleasant surprise.  Something well-crafted, nourishing and thought provoking.  I've already mentally cast Jodie Comer as Katy and Maxine Peake as Riley.  However, I reckon I've given you enough reasons to pack a copy before everyone starts talking about it.  Take up the offer and be ahead of the game for a proper page-tuner. 

 Seasider:

The train pulls into the station, I am generally the only one on it and in these tarnished days of death, stupidity and corruption I am the only one wearing a mask.  I unplug the EarPods, my middle-aged brain, humming from the human warmth of Shaun Keavney's podcast.  

I slide along the edge of the platform, into the street. Make the necessary purchases in a shop I haven't physically been in for nearly two years.  A Pandemic tends to do that, to both re-wire and replace your habits.  

It's a high street chain, but this seaside town is generally populated by shops selling tat or greasy food.  Some of whom are shut for the Winter.  I gaze at the pensioner's menu in the chippy and wonder if I am old enough for it (£5.95 cod and chips and cup of tea, 55p extra for gravy or curry sauce). 

I walk along the coastal road, away from the holidaymakers and the Christmas shoppers.  The road is getting quieter and it is only the clacking of my roller suitcase's wheels that keeps me company. I am approaching three days of rest and writing, in a room that (once I have mastered the heating) will be womb-like.  I set up a desk, with a laptop next to a kettle.  I decorate it the next day with two ornaments of gnomes I have bought as a present for my wife. 

It's hardly Woolfian, but it suits me and my personality fine.  I'm more familiar with that quote than her work. My literary heroes are Iain Banks, William Gibson, Marian Keyes, David Mitchell... I think of writing as a liquid, evolving universe that as you swim in; you discover another layer. I chat to writers a lot on Twitter, the vast majority are pleasant, polite and friendly.  

And so, I hit on a schedule, the following morning.  Write, in roughly 500wds chunks. Break for a cuppa, break for Popmaster (the finest quiz on the radio, I am still honoured to have appeared on it just over a year ago).  Repeat four times, go for a very long walk.

The route is up the coast, into the town centre.  Past the railway station, sometimes waiting patiently at the level crossing.  This almost seems a leveller of people's character.  There are those of us (I am in this category) who wait patiently, some are too busy for all that kind of nonsense and go over the bridge.  

There is a tattoo parlour at the level crossing.  Painted on the wall outside, in elegant, flowing script and various typefaces is the legend:  

"Blessed are the weird people.  The poets and misfits, the artists and the writers and music makers, the dreamers and the outsiders - for they force us to see the world differently."   

This, cheers me every time I see it. It makes me feel a member of an elite club, an unsung group of superheroes who, in their small, significant heroism make the world slightly more palatable. Writing is a lonely occupation at the best of times.  Not well paid and involving long periods of being alone and wondering if it all actually means anything.  

Having been a writer since I was ten years old, I am considering it far too late to back out now. I am determined, in my own, small, obstinate way to carry on till I am somewhere else.

The seaside town itself, is one of fading Victorian grandeur.  It still has elegance and grace and history, but the theatre where Pirates of Penzance premiered in now a branch of Poundland. Like most places in Devon, it is represented by a Tory MP.  And myself, a lifelong socialist is mystified by this.  

It exists with a much more genteel, cultured, pale blue town up the road.  Here, there is a drug abuse, homelessness, teenage pregnancy.  Up there is a theatre which has seen shows ranging from Puppetry of the Penis to An Evening with Nigel Farage.  Perhaps, there is little difference between the two.      

And yet, I feel more comfortable here than I would there. I am from Scouse, working-class stock, Irish on both sides. Even here.  I am not English - if English means ignorance, an acceptance of poverty, misery and stupidity, then count me out.  

Along the level crossing is a Nepalese restaurant I recognise from the local news.  It suffers anti-social behaviour from teenagers.  It co-exists with a hipster coffee shop, offering Beef and Boursin toasties at a fiver each.    

And there, in brick and food is the great contradiction of this country.  We want to appear cultured, sophisticated and hungry... but at the same time, a lie has been both carelessly and callously cultivated that anyone who isn't white are the problem.  Plus, the factor that it is been compressed and curled into the DNA of another generation makes me want to emigrate.

There's a lot of Panglossian talk about the next generation being better.  I'm personally not convinced.  There is this great, hopeful myth that we're raising children that are going to solve the problems of global warming, sexism and fascism.  

I walk through the park facing the beach.  A wall is being installed to stop the town flooding due to global warming.  People are protesting against it, complaining at the lack of consultation. The plans from the council have counter-protest posters stuck all over it.

And as we're still in the midst of an endless pandemic, even that is sending people to the furthest edges of their sanity.  A sticker, alongside the Covid restrictions for the park says, in a strident, macho, tinfoil-hatted voice: "My freedom does not end where your fear begins."

It's all about time.  And I realise then, it's a fluid, liquid energy.  It can be measured, but not stopped.  It can be marked, but not frozen.  Things remind me of things - places, emotions, times.  Sitting in a Subway shop on a late Winter afternoon, with a Tiger Pig Sub reminds me of so many things.  And I am comfortable with that.  

And then, a few days later a young girl will be stabbed to death in my native Liverpool, whilst Christmas shopping.  It's an echo of so many events: Hillsborough, Jamie Bulger, Rhys Jones... not named, but always remembered: the death of a young lad I played out with as a child.  He died in an accident (an accident, of all things) in the First Gulf War.  

I am immensely proud of my Scouse roots.  I will defend the city to the hilt, with the last drop of my red blood. Those who condemn Liverpool have generally never been there.  The jokes about stolen cars and foodbanks can be told as easily elsewhere.  The writers of comedy panel shows and part-time fans of football clubs, funded by bank notes, stained with blood or oil should turn their snark or ire in the right direction.  

Back in the hotel, in a writing break I watch Boris Johnson give a live speech.  He loses his place halfway through and begins waxing lyrical about Peppa Pig.  He does this on a day, where the future of care in this country is being voted on.  It's too easy to dismiss this as a dead cat.  This, is a public act of prime stupidity.  Not eccentricity, or maverick genius. But pure, unadulterated idiocy.  

Johnson's whole life has been defined by what he can get in the next five minutes.  And, now the whole country has to suffer for that.  Britain is irrevocably broken, not just because of him - there are far too many reasons for that - but he sits on the wreckage of eleven years, gradually and systematically making things worse.  He is the village idiot who turns up as your house catches alight with a nice, big can of petrol. 

We need a revolution in this country.  Not necessarily one with guns and show trials. Not angry Frenchmen in HiVis vests.  Not even the funky one triggered by Valentine Strasser in Sierra Leone, with Ain't No Stopping Us Now by McFadden and Whitehead as the anthem.  

I'm talking about a revolution of the soul.  True acceptance of anyone who is different to us, coupled with compassion for people who need our help.  A few tins for the food bank, a donation to charity, a kind word or a clap isn't enough anymore. The things that send people over the edge - a black family in advert - shouldn't.   To paraphrase Victoria Wood, "There wouldn't be a revolution in this country unless they banned car boot sales."

I come home a few days later.  Pleased with my productivity (5,000wds a day) and breaking out of the habits of alternating writing with walking.  Back into my old habits of caring for my wife and trying to relate to my teenage stepson.  

The train is relativity empty to start off with, it fills to about halfway as we get nearer to the big city. Most people aren't wearing masks and a few days later, a new variant of Covid; given a name like a 1970's Doctor Who villain is the new anti-Santa.

I am back at the beginning, a masked man listening to a podcast.  I am loved in this life, but at the same time: wary, angry, hungry.  Fighting for attention from my brothers, pushing myself to the front of a queue of writers.  At my desk with a pen in my hand, or a laptop in front of me.  Walking an endless beach.