The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell

One day 13 year old Heather walks down the stairs of her house clothes dripping wet and a dead step-father in the bath. No one ever asks Heather what happened, her sister, Ismay, and her mother, Beatrix, just tell the police he must have drowned while they were out because he was too weak from flu to save himself and there was no one to help him. Their story isn’t questioned and life goes on. Unfortunately for the whole family, this event casts a shadow on the rest of their lives, for Ismay and her mother believe that Heather must have drown her step-father to halt his untoward advances to Ismay. Ismay believes that her sister Heather loves her so much that she would do anything to protect her. This colours the family’s attitude towards Heather. Beatrix loses her mind and must be cared for by her sister Pamela and Heather is, despite being well loved, always handled carefully as if she is a bomb about to go off.

The story picks up at a point where all four women are living in the house together, but in two separate flats. Enter Andrew, Ismay’s over-bearing, self-centred, demanding boyfriend who refers to Heather as a gorgon and Beatrix as a crazy. Ismay, however, is so in love with him that she would do anything to keep him. So when Andrew takes a dislike to Heather’s new boyfriend, Edmund, life becomes difficult for Ismay who is torn between her love for and fear of Heather and her adoration of Andrew. There’s also the problem of Edmund and the question as to whether or not he should be told the tale of their step-father and if so, which version, the official, or the hidden version. Ismay begins to realize that they’ve past the point where their little family unit could close ranks and hold life together. The past is refusing to stay buried and the time is coming when she must confront the truth.

Although the story centres on Heather’s past and the question of did she, didn’t she, there is a lot more to it than that. Rendell also brings in Edmund’s mother and her friend Marion. The one is an overbearing hypochondriac and the other is nothing short of criminal in her bid to find easy money by making a living off of others. The third-person omniscient narration gives the reader the feeling that he is privy to a microscopic inspection of one family and all the people associated with them. It almost feels voyeuristic. It’s also a little like surfing the internet when you keep finding interesting links to go to, but still return to the main focal point every so often, which prevents you from losing cohesion between the parts. The difference being that you’re surfing through people’s lives and not just through information links.

The story is well written and I’ll add that the narrator, Rosalyn Landor, was brilliant. If this is your sort of book, then you’ll love it. Personally, this isn’t the kind of thing I normally go in for and although I thought well of it, I won’t be looking for more of the same just because it isn’t my thing. Since it is what it is though, I give it a 4 out of 5. After all, you can’t penalize a well written book just because you don’t care for the genre.

A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd

Inspector Rutledge is summoned in the night to attend to a murder scene in rural Somerset. He arrives and is taken to a barn where he finds that the victim obviously posed by his killer after death. Rutledge immediately realizes this killing must be personal because no spur of the moment criminal would take the time or trouble to place his victim as he did. This knowledge unfortunately does little to help Rutledge since to know the victim was to despise him. Now Rutledge has to figure out who would hate this man enough to kill him.

I couldn’t tell you why, but I had a hard time getting into this book. It’s possible that I was just distracted with other matters, but I think it might have been that Todd starts off with events long past which reveal some of the solution to the reader which Rutledge isn’t privy to. That seemed a bit unfair to me and somehow took a bit of the fun out. One way or the other, it took me a while to really focus on the story. Once I got there though, it turned into quite a good tale with a rather interesting solution. It’s certainly not one I foresaw, even having been given inside information from the outset.

Although I wasn’t overwhelmed by the book and this has done nothing to change my opinion that Todd is a good, but not great writer, it’s still a good, cosy murder mystery. One of those you can curl up to on a cold Sunday without overtaxing your brain. I’ll read more of Todd, but he doesn’t quite make it to my favourites list. Rating: 4 out of 5 for being a relaxing read.

A Crowning Mercy by Bernard Cornwell

Dorcas Slythe is a beautiful girl who has been treated miserably by her puritan family all her life. She knows no joy, no fun, no happiness. Her father believes he must beat the sin out of her and her brother, jealous of her wholeness, is a vindictive little swine who’s happy to see her suffer. She has nowhere and no one to run to, so running is out of the question. Then, one day, as a forced marriage looms ahead, she discovers there is a covenant and a seal, which rightfully belong to her. They both bring power and wealth, but all is not well for Dorcas as there are many out there who seek to claim both the money and the power for themselves. In order to reach her goal and be free, these men will have to be defeated, which seems like an impossible dream for Dorcas.

I bought this book a while ago after having read another blogger’s review (sorry, I’ve forgotten whose it was). I had it for a good bit before starting it and couldn’t remember exactly what it was about when I did finally get to it and was surprised to find myself listening to a book about puritans. It’s a subject I would normally run miles to avoid. I couldn’t believe I’d purchased such a book, but the reader had a pleasant voice and I figured I’d paid for it, I might as well give it a chance.

It didn’t take too long for me to get sucked in. The prose is excellent, the characters believable, the story intriguing. For a long while, I was riveted. Why don’t I sound more enthusiastic you ask? Well, the book started off really well, unfortunately, two things happened, the first was that there was just too much drama for my taste. I think I went off cliff-hangers completely after having watched the first season of 24 with double episodes. I just got tired of all the OMG, more mortal danger!!! of the thing. I’ve found I’ve taken the same attitude towards books now. I find the whole, mortal danger-happiness-mortal danger pendulum tedious and usually just wind up feeling like I want to scream at the author to get on with it already and knock off the whole drama queen thing. The second thing was that I could see where the plot was going. OK, not the precise how, when, why and with whoms, but the rough outline was there in my head and it was pretty accurate. I guessed too much of what was going to happen before it did and couldn’t just sit back and enjoy the book as I would have liked to do.

I should add that Dorcas really made me want to constantly slap her for her helplessness, even though her character was probably more accurate than the strong heroine I would have preferred. I think that I personally would have dealt with the mortal danger pendulum better had she not been so wishy-washy, but then accuracy would have suffered.

Again, this leaves me with a dilemma: how to rate the book. Like I said, it was extremely well written - it reminded my quite a lot of Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth, even though the age and story where completely different – and it really is a good book; my dislikes base more on my personal preferences than on the quality of the book. So, looking at what the book is supposed to be, I’ll give it a 5 out of 5.

Marley and Me by John Grogan

Just in case there’s someone out there who doesn’t know what this book is about, it’s about John Grogan and the World’s Worst Dog. Marley is an overgrown lap dog who knows nothing but happiness and possibly a little angst at thunderstorms, but who doesn’t realize that the whole world does not share his happiness with life or his exuberance, or his fear of thunder. Marley goes through life learning little and destroying lots, which delivers a good, quick read, but makes me glad he wasn’t mine.

The movie, in case you have seen it, has absolutely nothing to do with the book and if I were Grogan, I’d be a bit miffed at their portrayal of him and his wife. He’s probably miffed all the way to the bank, but that’s beside the point. The book is much, much better than the movie.

It took me two tries to get through this. I had a hard time reading the beginning of the story because I could see all the mistakes Grogan was making, which seemed fairly elemental to me. I’m also not fond of people locking their dogs in other rooms at night since a dog is a pack animal and to force a dog to be on his own without the pack is one of the worst things you can do to a dog. I had a hard time with that bit. Once I finally got over it (and Grogan did too), it was a pleasant, amusing read. It only took me a few hours to get through the whole book. The last 50 pages or so called for a lot of Kleenex because you knew what was coming long before it got there and having just gone through the same a few months ago, I found it terribly sad.

Even though a lot of people argue, probably quite rightly, that Grogan was himself to blame for many of the problems, I have to hand it to the man, and his family, for sticking to Marley. Most people would have dumped a dog like Marley in the pound after the first few months, but Grogan kept at it, and although he was never the perfect dog, Marley did get better. What didn’t improve became tolerated and the family kept the dog, and for this alone, Grogan deserves a round of applause. There are so many people out there who don’t know anything about dogs, but go out and get one anyway, spend the first few months effectively ruining the dog by thinking oh we can’t possibly scold this cute little puppy and then dump it on the pound or someone else when the problems start. The “let someone else fix my mistakes” attitude with animals bugs me to death.

I also have to admit having owned a dog who did similar, but on a much smaller scale, things myself. He was that way when I got him at a year and a half and I was never able to cure him of it. No matter how much exercise he got, he still ate jackets, candles, yarn, cleaning fluid and once a bottle of calcium tablets he must have fought to get to (apparently he just chewed and didn’t swallow because he suffered no ill effects) when I was at work. Even once or twice when he somehow forgot I was at home, and after I’d taken him for a 2 hour walk, I caught him sidling up to a candle with that come hither look. He knew he shouldn’t do it, he hid before I ever opened the door because he knew he was going to be in trouble, but he couldn’t stop himself. I loved that dog, but I could have killed him 20 times over. Just when I was about to clear a room of everything but his bed so he couldn’t possibly get at anything while I was at work, he got bone cancer and the end came quickly. So in a way, I can truly sympathize with Grogan, even though a lot of it was probably down to him. Prevention is always better than the cure.

For sheer entertainment and perseverance on the part of the Grogans, I rate this one 5 out of

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

I’ve been a bit remiss on reviewing my books this past week or so. I just couldn’t get into the mindset for reviews. The reason why came to me this weekend: I’ve hit on a patch of decidedly Meh books. How are you supposed to get excited about writing a review when the books you’ve been reading really aren’t that good?

OK, good is a relative term in the book world. My gem is someone else’s reading nightmare and vice versa. Good is in the ear of the reader really, so I’ll just say that they weren’t much to my taste.

The first review I need to write in for Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, which is apparently one of Kipling’s finest books. The story is that of a young English boy whose parents die while in India, leaving him alone in the world. Having spent all of his young life in India, Kim decides he prefers the ways of the natives to the ways of the sahib (white men) and runs away from the orphanage to the streets of Lahore where he lives very happily by begging and running errands. He is a smart boy and loves secrets, which he later turns to profit in rather clever means which keep him from being branded a snitch. His potential is recognized my one of his employers but he is still too young to be of real use.

One day, Kim meets a Tibeten Lama who is searching for a river which will wash away his sin. Kim joins him in his search and becomes his chela (disciple). The two wander down the grand trunk road where they meet many people and Kim is able to help some of his old friends out by passing along messages. Kim, too, is on a pilgrimage, although he does not know it yet. It has been prophesied that he will meet a red bull on a green field which will take him to his destiny. What Kim finds out is that his destiny takes him closer to the sahibs than he really wants to go.

The story itself is a good one and I’m fairly surprised Disney hasn’t adapted it yet, because that could be done – OK, a substantial loss of the story would be the result, but when doesn’t Disney cause a substantial loss of story? Anyhoo, once I finally figured out what was going on, the story was good. My main qualm with the book lay in the language. I’m sure it’s a masterpiece of Anglo/Indian literature and a good record that particular culture, but if you haven’t grown up with that influence, the pigeon English is a bugger to understand. I had to read and re-read passages several time to understand how we got from point A to point B. It also occasionally required stretching your imagination to understand what they meant with the words used in the novel, i.e. the words themselves made no sense unless you looked at them in context and used your imagination. It’s like referring to a three legged man (get your minds out of the gutter!) and meaning a man with a cane, only for someone who grew up with no knowledge of that culture, it could be pretty difficult to draw those conclusions.

In the end I’m unsure how I should rate this book. It’s not one I’ll read again, although if I did I’m sure it would be easier to get through. Tough to read, but a good story. I guess if you’re partial to India and Anglo-Indian culture, than you would like this book. If not, I’d say give it a miss. There are better reads out there

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of 13 stories, the first of which tells the story of how Holmes, contrary to popular belief, survived his fall over the Reichenbach Falls and remained hidden for three years in order to protect himself and further foil the evil plans of Moriarty’s remaining gang. Holmes returns to reside with Watson, who has taken it upon himself to draft their exploits for publication in the future.

I quite liked this collection. The stories are short and sweet and less likely to lose you than the novels are. I’m tempted to dub it a children’s version of Sherlock Holmes since you don’t have to have a terribly long attention span to be able to enjoy them. Personally, I often found the novels long and complicated and often got lost in the twistings and turnings, which is actually the point I suppose. Sherlock was supposed to be the genius, not the reader, so you had to get lost to make him look good. However, with these, I was often able to keep up and see where he was going with his research before he got there and even guessed at what happened a couple of times. The only thing I didn’t like about these was that Watson was depicted as especially stupid. Obviously this was supposed to make Holmes look all the cleverer, but it really just made me think Watson was a complete idiot. It kind of made the two look like a Pinky and The Brain combo. I’m not sure that’s exactly what Doyle intended.

5 out of 5. If you like mysteries and Holmes, you should like these.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

After having read and loved Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, I decided I’d read more of du Maurier. Thus, My Cousin Rachel. Once again, du Maurier managed to suck me into a story, despite having intimated the ending at the very beginning of the book. It felt a bit like it did when I was a child and had to know the end, so I started with the last 10 pages of the book and then went back and read the rest. However, instead of actually knowing more than I had before, I actually knew nothing at all about the book as the subsequent pages made clear.

Philip Ashley is the devoted cousin and heir of Ambrose Ashley. When Ambrose goes off to Italy for his health, Philip stays behind to hold the fort. While Ambrose is travelling, he meets, falls in love with and marries another cousin of theirs, Rachel. All seems well for a while, until Philip begins to receive strange letters from Ambrose, which lead him to believe that something is wrong, but are so vague as to make their meaning unclear. Shortly after these letters arrive, Ambrose dies and Philip inherits the estate. All seems over until one day, Rachel arrives in England.

Du Maurier weaves a web of intrigue and suspicion in this book. Is Rachel the kind, loving wife she would like everyone to believe or did she have more to do with Ambrose’s early demise than she’s admitting. Is Philip risking all by allowing her to stay? It’s all very cleverly written. By putting Ambrose’s sanity towards the end of his life in question, she leads the reader down a rocky path of suspicion, all the while dangling face value and innocent until proven guilty in the air. I probably changed my mind about 4 times while reading the book. Just as I was about to make my final decision, she threw something new in and I had to rethink everything. It’s very skilfully done. The woman is a master.

Having said that, I have to rant a bit about two things: The first are her stupid men who throw caution to the wind and chuck everything away regardless of the work generations before have put into what they now own and the second is that the ending of this book is maddening. Absolutely maddening. I don’t know whether to applaud her genius, or feel cheated. I suppose both really. It is genius, but it was terribly unexpected and didn’t give me what I want. After having put up with Philip for the whole novel, I felt like I was owed, but du Maurier obviously didn’t feel obligated to pay up. Bloody geniuses! Sheesh!

Good mystery and style, this one earns 4 out of 5. It missed out on 5 because I liked Rebecca better.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watkins

Google the title of this book and you’re hard pressed to come up with any results but the film from 2008 staring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. There was, however, a book before the film and although I haven’t actually seen the film (but will asap), I’m willing to bet the book is better.

What a fun book. Seriously, I don’t know why it isn’t more widely read. You can find it on Amazon (but nothing else by Winifred Watkins) and I’m sure there are libraries which carry it, but I’ve never run across it before. It should be taught in schools to give younger children a way into literature, because it’s really just fun.

Miss Pettigrew is a vicar’s daughter who grew up prim, proper and prudish. Now, at 40, she has no qualifications to speak of and no one to take care of her. Hitherto, she has supported herself as a governess of questionable abilities, but is finding it more and more difficult to obtain a post as she ages. She has one last chance to gain employment before she is kicked out of her rooms and lands on the streets of London. Scared to death of the future, she knocks on the door of the only suitable position available and finds herself transported into a completely unknown world. By combining her upbringing with her ability to imitate her former employers, she manages to find her way in this new setting with amazing, and sometimes unintentional, alacrity. The situation challenges Miss Pettigrew to throw off her strict, Victorian upbringing and enjoy life for a day before the opportunity is revoked forever. The results are laugh out loud funny. It’s the ultimate underdog story in which you can’t help but root and be thrilled for the unlikely heroine while laughing at her exploits.

Why, oh why couldn’t we have skipped something else (The Great Gatsby springs to mind) and read this in school? Why didn’t they let Winifred write more like it? It’s brilliant. Loved it. Would have loved it as a teenager too. There are enough themes to discuss for a good few classes, so it’s not entirely frivolous, although it feels like it. It’s a book that makes you want to read more of the same. If you’re looking for a book to get you motivated to read classics, this is it. It’s a comedy, a drama and a love story all rolled into one. 5 out of 5 for this one.

Search the Dark by Charles Todd

Inspector Rutledge of Scotland Yard is sent to a small town in Dorset to investigate the supposed murder of a mother and the subsequent disappearance of her two children, but there’s a catch. This particular mother and her children reportedly died, and were buried, during the war. The man being blamed for their death/disappearance is the father. So was he so desperate to see his family that he mistook someone else for them or were they really alive? Where are the children? Is the woman, whose face has been beaten so badly that she is unrecognizable, really the wife of the man blamed for her death? The local detective Hildebrandt says yes, but Rutledge is not so sure. Now he has to not only figure out what’s what on this case, but he has to fight the local constabulary to do so.

Being a fan of crime and mystery novels, I was fairly certain I would like this one and I did. I’m not going to rank him with writers like Agatha Christie, P.D. James or Elizabeth George, however, especially as I’ve only read this one novel by Todd, but he tells a good tale. The characters are likeable, or not as the case may be, and the plot is clever and not at all transparent. My only real qualm is that Rutledge, an otherwise entirely sane man, if rather beaten up from the war, hosts the conscious of his old friend Hamish in his mind. Hamish seems to be a separate entity from Rutledge with his own thoughts and consciousness instead of functioning as Rutledge’s inner voice. It seems a little cheesy to me, but maybe I’ll get used to it when I’ve read more by Todd. It might do, however I personally think this is what’s keeping me from classifying him as a serious crime writer. It’s like he’s built Hamish in so he can keep himself from being compared to the major names in crime. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know, but for me, he’s a good writer, but not great.

Having said that, I don’t really believe that all writers need to be great. It’s wonderful to read a great book, but sometimes it’s just as nice to sit down and read a good, comfortable story. I don’t need to be riveted to every book I pick up. Being able to put it down, then looking forward to going back to at an appropriate time is a pleasure unto itself. Just knowing that you have something pleasant to return to is wonderful. So, even if I don’t class all the books I read as brilliant, or give them a 5 out of 5, I don’t see it as reflecting negatively on the writer. After all, it’s better to be consistently good than to be great just once in your life. In that sense, Todd’s 15 min. aren’t over.

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

I broke a promise to myself with this book. I had sworn I wouldn’t read any more Hardy because he’s depressing and has a fairly narrow-minded view of life. Granted, he lived during the latter half of the 18th century when people were more religious so he probably didn’t really fall out of the ranks, but I got a little tired of being preached at by him. So, why, you ask did I read this one? Well, it was all down to the narrator, Alan Rickman. I could listen to the man read me the phone book.

Do I regret it? No, for two reasons. The first is that I got to listen to Alan Rickman speak into my ear for something like 14 hours, always a plus, the second is that the story was quite good and a lot less of a moral diatribe than his others have been. OK, the characters are still hung up on what would seem right and proper, but it felt more like a story told in the set time than a Bildungsroman. The characters who suffered did so through their own stupidity and not because they were being punished for being amoral.

The book revolves around 4 young people. Clym Yeobright, his cousin Thomasin, Eustacia Vye and Damon Wildeve. Thomasin Yeobright is “jilted” at the alter by Damon Wildeve because of a technical problem with the licence. Damon, who is actually in love with Eustacia, with whom he had a love affair the year before, isn’t overly keen on marrying Thomasin and leaves her in a state of limbo for several weeks while he tries to persuade Eustacia to run away to America with him. Thomasin, in the meantime, realizes that her relationship with Wildeve was a mistake, but that she has no honourable way of reneging on the marriage without besmirching her name and sanguinely maintains she must now go through with it and make the best of the situation. Enter Clym who returns from Paris where he had a successful business, which he has given up in preference for a scheme to educate the heath folk’s children. His arrival on the Heath changes everything for all parties as decisions are made which affect the whole community.

According to Wiki, Hardy shocked Victorian England with his more or less open references to illicit sex. He also bowed to the public by adding on a happier ending than he originally intended to. Personally, had he stuck to his usual doom and gloom, I think this novel would never have become as popular as it did.

Hardy had actually wanted to become a poet and not a writer, but his prose was better than his poetry and the man had to make a living, ergo his novels. There were love scenes in this book which made it abundantly clear, or at least strongly hint at, why he never really succeeded as a poet. If his poetry was anything like his novels, the love scenes were sickly sweet to the point of being an emetic (even with, or perhaps because of, Alan Rickman reading them), but then tempered with a good dose of morality. It felt a bit like saying Love is Sweet and Wonderful, but only if conducted in a properly monitored setting with appropriate chaperones and in full light of day.

Finally, having said that I don’t like Hardy’s preachy style, you could actually look at his books, not as a lesson in morals, but as a lesson in not fixating on the acceptable. The morals of the time dictated that Thomasin must marry Wildeve to save face, but had she bucked the trend, a lot of trouble and heartache would have been saved. So in a sense, his books could be looked on as a plea for common sense mingled with morals, even if that’s not what he intended.

All in all, I liked this one and would read it, or listen to it again. If you’re looking for an introduction to Hardy, try this one. It is the best I’ve read by him by far. For the record, Tess of the D’Urbervilles was good, but terribly depressing.