The Boy in the Snow is the second book in a series featuring Edie Kiglatuk, an Arctic guide. This time she has come south to Alaska to provide backup to a competitor in the Iditarod dog sled race, but her plans are interrupted when she stumbles across a dead child. In the course of her investigation she comes across corrupt local politicians and the Old Believers, a fundamentalist sect who broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church many years ago, and has to find a way through various suspicion and prejudice.

I love stories about private investigators, and although Edie isn't actually a PI or officially employed as an investigator, she fits well into this part of the genre. She is a bit spiky, brave to the point of being foolhardy, fiercely independent, and committed to finding out the truth however inconvenient that might be. She also comes with a lot of personal history and has had alcohol problems in the past. None of this is particularly unusual in the genre. I really enjoyed reading about her in this book though.

I was intrigued by the author's efforts to imagine how Alaska would look to someone from an even colder, wilder, more northern place, somewhere which hasn't been absorbed as another of the United States - although Edie's Arctic home is officially part of Canada, it really is another place and culture.

White Heat, the first book in the series, didn't quite live up to my expectations, but I thought this book was much better.

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Review: House of Exile: War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angeles by Evelyn Juers

House of Exile is a work of creative non-fiction. It is a biography of a group of European intellectuals and those close to them, and of the devastating psychological impact for them of the rise of Nazism, the outbreak of war and enforced exile. Although non fiction, it is written in the style of a novel, and Juers frequently focuses on the thoughts and feelings of her characters. It should be said she is not totally imagining these - as most of the people portrayed here were writers, there are extensive records such as diaries and letters for her to draw on.

The story centres on Heinrich Mann and his lover, later his second wife, Nelly Kroeger, and on his more famous younger brother Thomas Mann. The many other writers whose lives are discussed in the pages include Bertolt Brecht and Virginia Woolf.

For me, Nelly's story is particularly memorable, and it was clearly a central concern of the author. She was 27 years younger than her husband and had spent a lot of her life in Berlin working as a barmaid, and has gone down in history as something of a bimbo. Perhaps it is significant that this portrait of her came from the letters of her brother in law Thomas Mann, who looked down on her.

In fact, she was the daughter of a fisherman, from a much more working class background than Heinrich, and had had the basic education available to a woman of her class. I really enjoyed learning about what this bookworm of nearly 100 years ago liked to read - she had quite a few books and would read in cafes before work, jotting down notes as she read. Intriguingly, her favourite books included Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and Hedda Gabler, all by men about women. Juers describes the first meeting of Heinrich Mann and his future wife - she was reading in a café. This scene and many others in the book could come from a novel, but although Juers avoids interrupting her narrative with the footnotes/endnotes of a conventional biography, most of these story scenes draw on real correspondence and diaries.

Nelly also wrote down her own life story, but unfortunately for us after he read it Heinrich destroyed it and then used a lot of her work as a basis for a novel of his own. Juers is kinder to him about this than I felt reading about it.

The quality of the writing and the stories of how the subjects grew up and of the events in their lives make it all the sadder that most of them never really adjusted to new lives in exile, and many committed suicide in the 1930s and during the war.

This volume lacks some of the features that many biographies now come with. There are no photographs or pictures (most biographies now have at least one section of photographic plates). The author's Note on Sources runs to 11 pages detailing books and archives consulted but the book doesn't contain footnotes/endnotes or an index.

House of Exile is a challenging but memorable read and a fascinating approach to biography, and highly recommended.

My review copy was received through the Amazon Vine programme and this review first appeared there.

Review: Black Lake by Johanna Lane

An ancestral mansion lived in by many generations of the same family, some secrets, a dysfunctional family. Black Lake is a contemporary take on the classic Irish Big House novel. At the beginning of the novel, a girl’s mother takes her to occupy the ballroom in their former home, Dulough.

Black Lake begins with the aftermath of a tragedy. The rest of the story is told from several narrative points of view, that of the girl, Kate, her brother Philip, her father and mother. I really liked being able to read about events from each character’s perspective.

Johanna Lane skilfully evokes the atmosphere of the place and the stories of the family, creating a powerful and moving debut novel.

Review: Soul Circus by George Pelecanos

“The chains binding Granville Oliver’s wrists scraped the scarred surface of the table before him. Manacles also bound his ankles.” 


Private investigator Derek Strange is visiting a client in prison in the opening scene of this book. He previously helped to put Granville Oliver there. He hates what his client represents and the crimes he has committed. Oliver was previously a successful gangster, and Strange loathes the drugs and guns culture that threatens to destroy the community they both come from, the black community of the US capital, Washington DC. Yet, for several reasons, some depicted throughout the narrative, and one he keeps secret, he has agreed to work gathering evidence for Oliver’s defence lawyers.

His client faces the death penalty if found guilty by a “death-qualified” jury who have been selected specifically for not opposing execution. Strange disagrees with the death penalty and the discriminatory way that it is used.

Back at the office, he and business partner Terry Quinn agree to take on another case, and look for a young woman who has disappeared. Quinn soon gets a result, but he feels that he has compromised his principles and done something wrong, and a piece of tragic news confirms his worst fears.

The rest of the novel is taken up with the development of these two plot strands and a third storyline of a war between two rival gangs for control over the drug market in their area, a conflict which has connections to the PI duo’s work that they have yet to learn about. There are a lot of scenes showing various other characters whose actions will affect the drama being played out – gun dealers, drug dealers, gangsters, and those linked to them. Many of the events in the novel seem to have an awful inevitability to them.

This is the third book about this PI duo, both ex-cops. I think it could be enjoyed independently of the first two, Right as Rain and Hell to Pay, and I think it is the best in the series, but it is worth reading the earlier books to find out about how they came to work together. There are also a number of other recurring characters.

Strange is a black man in his 50s, who left the police some time ago by choice to set up a successful PI business. He met Quinn while investigating a case which involved this white man in his early 30s, and Quinn now divides his time between working with Strange in the PI business and another part time job in a suburban secondhand bookshop.

This is the 11th of George P Pelecanos’ 12 novels, all set in and around his city, Washington DC, and it is the 6th book by him I have read. I love Pelecanos’ work for its strong, memorable writing and its vivid portrayal of a city and characters in crisis. There are no simple resolutions to the social problems and crime that are the other side of the US capital, nor to the dilemmas which concern his characters, including Strange and Quinn. I love this kind of hardboiled, gritty crime fiction, very different from the neat wrap-ups of the traditional whodunit. For me, only crime writing seems to explore the social and political problems in such a compelling way.

These books are very violent, but in this series and in Soul Circus in particular, George Pelecanos deals with guns rather differently from many hardboiled crime writers. Derek Strange refuses to use one even though he frequently confronts those who are. There is a very clear message from the story – picking up a gun is no way to confront the problems of the city and of society. Further, the worst villains of the story are those who live out in the suburbs supplying the guns that kill those in the “Section 8s” (low income housing in the city). I found the way he did this a totally convincing and absorbing read. However, if you don’t like books which explore social and political issues, you might not enjoy this one. There is a lot of comment here, almost a sustained rant, but it worked for me.

The most negative point that I would make about this novel is the lack of really interesting female characters. The best ones to have featured in this series are Janine, Strange’s secretary and for some years his girlfriend, and now his wife, and Quinn’s girlfriend Tracey, whom he met on a previous case. Pelecanos still tells us they are strong women, but instead of showing evidence of that as he did to some extent at least in the previous books, he relegates them to roles of just supporting their men. The other women in Soul Circus are victims of the male criminal culture portrayed in the novel, and not that fully drawn.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the reappearance of the main protagonist from Pelecanos' first 3 books, Greek-American PI Nick Stefanos, a few years older and wiser.

To conclude, this is a powerful and memorable novel by one of my favourite crime writers. I would recommend it and the author's other work very highly, but not to everyone.

Review: A God In Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

In a year when there are many historical novels about World War I and its repercussions, Kamila Shamsie’s latest book stands out for several reasons. One is the high quality of Shamsie’s writing. Another is that the focus is very different – not just the fighting in Western Europe or the home front, but the impact of the war, and its aftermath, way beyond Europe, specifically in the area of British-ruled India around Peshawar (some years before Partition and the creation of Pakistan as a separate country). Shamsie is from Pakistan but has lived in Britain for the last few years, and so this isn’t just a historical novel written by a Westerner and set somewhere exotic – I do enjoy some of those but it’s interesting to read something with more substance.

On a trip to an ancient archaeological site in Turkey in summer 1914, Vivian begins to look at a family friend in a new light. Her friendship with Tahsin Bey seems to be developing into an unspoken romantic understanding. Then the travellers receive news of the war in Europe, and Vivian has a telegram from her father – she must find a way to travel home immediately, with just a whispered promise from Tahsin Bey: “When the war ends, Vivian Rose”. Back in London she works as a VAD (volunteer nurse) for a few months, before setting off to Peshawar to see an ancient archaeological treasure, and hoping to meet Tahsin Bey.

There is plenty to explore there, but there is also simmering conflict between Indian nationalist aspirations and the repressive society of the British in India – the British take a dim view of a young woman wanting to lead archaeological expeditions with the local Pathan people. She returns to London but not before forming a lasting friendship.

Qaayum Gul is one of many Indian men who fought in Europe, and this novel is as much his story as Viv’s. They meet on the train to Peshawar in 1915, and then again in 1930 when Vivian returns.

World War I was a war which affected the whole world, in an era when so much of Asia and Africa was divided up between European powers and precarious empires. There is so much new to me historical background here that it gave me a whole list of things – places, events etc – I needed to look up. Shamsie doesn't lay everything out as chunks of fact that can really interfere with some historical novels, but her book is clearly informed by historical research and perspectives.

A fascinating and thought provoking story – this is the first Kamila Shamsie book I’ve read but I really must get to all her previous books very very soon.

Review: The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

It is 1922. Two women take a train journey. Louise Brooks is a beautiful 15 year old from Wichita, Kansas, taking up the chance of a lifetime to study dancing in New York City. Her companion, Cora, is a 36 year old housewife, and seems respectable to the point of being dull. This summer will change the lives of both women.

Louise Brooks was a real person - she had a brief career as a start of silent movies, but is still remembered, with her trademark glossy dark bobbed hair, as the epitome of 1920s glamour. I learned quite a lot that was new and interesting to me about her life, and what happened to her after her period of fame. However, this is a novel, and the real story, as the title suggests, is that of the chaperone, Cora Carlisle, a fictitious character. I found it a fascinating and enjoyable story.


The narrative is from Cora's point of view, and Moriarty includes some biographical detail of Louise Brooks. She has little apparently in common with her charge, who turns out to be a brat with shocking behaviour, getting drunk with strange men. Cora tries to curb and protect her behaviour without much success. At the same time, Louise is very bright, with highbrow reading tastes. I had believed a popular myth that Brooks' career was brought to an end by the introduction of "talkies", that her speaking voice was terrible. In fact, she refused to go along with studio system expectations, was perhaps too clever and argumentative, as well as badly behaved. She lived into her 70s and after various failures found some success and respect as a film critic. She published a book, part memoir, part film criticism, called Lulu in Hollywood, which I would love to read at some point.

Cora turns out to have a motive for taking on the chaperone's role - it is an opportunity to escape from a stifling home life, but more importantly, to try and find out more about her origins - she was adopted as a child from an orphanage in New York City. This summer will turn out to be just a start to her on a voyage of discovery.

I enjoyed the various shifts in the relationship between Cora and Louise, both over the summer and in occasional encounters later in their lives, when Louise has grown up. They have very different outlooks on life and will never be best friends exactly, but they make each other think.

I wasn't sure that all the story of Cora's later life, told in the last third of the book, was believable - though it was a great story and I wanted to think it could have all turned out that way. Still, I loved the way Moriarty develops her as a character who remains outwardly respectable but is inspired to pursue her own way forward to a much more satisfying life. I also enjoyed the look at social history in the US through Cora as a character.


I thought this was a terrific and memorable read.