August 2008 Archives
The last novel of the holiday, and another 'healthy' dose of Inspector Rebus. The Hanging Garden features drugs, prostitution and people trafficking from Eastern Europe, Nazi war crimes, an escalating gangland war between the criminal kingpins of Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh - and then it turns out that the Japanese Yakusa are somehow involved too. John Rebus on the other hand is trying to keep himself off the booze and saturated fats, but then a hit-and-run and botched police sting bring him face to face with the deaths of two people who mean the most to him....
Amazon.co.uk: The Hanging Garden - Ian Rankin
More Rebus in an attempt to crack the chronology, Let It Bleed precedes Black & Blue and starts with an epic car chase through snowy Edinburgh and onto the Forth Road Bridge.
When the two young crims choose commit suicide rather than answer questions as to their kidnapping of the Lord Provost's daughter, and a recently released con chooses to blow his head off at a local councillor's constituency meeting, Rebus finds himself drawn into the murky worlds of politics - both high establishment clay pigeon shoots and gangland council estates.
Amazon.co.uk: Let It Bleed - Ian Rankin
I loved Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace, and The Hungry Tide serves up a similar helping of east Asian life, this time bringing together marine biologist Piya, a middle class second generation Indian American, and Kanai, a successful New Delhi entrepreneur and man of the world.
After an initial meeting on the train from Kolkata to Port Canning, the novel's setting settles in the Sunderbans, the little known tidal waterworld of the Ganges river delta, with the plot shifting between the generations just as the politics, people and rivers shift endlessly around in the delta.
A beautiful and thought-provoking read.
Amazon.co.uk: The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
Lilian Singer's life stretches from an Edwardian middle class childhood in semi-rural suburbia to being a bag lady in central Sydney. En route, Kate Grenville describes the transition from awkward debutante teen to mental breakdown and institutionalisation, first in a mental asylum and, in later years, prison. Lilian is not an immediately appealing character and her story is not an obviously happy one, but by the end of the book I was in tears, but half-happy ones.
Amazon.co.uk: Lilian's Story - Kate Grenville
Another book by a Western chap recounting experiences and encounters from his time living in a muslim country - this time Christopher de Bellaigue in Iran. It's a less engaging read than On the Road to Kandahar, but Christopher de Bellaigue still provides interesting insights into the day to day lives of a range of Iranians he has met.
Published in 2004, the book felt a little bit dated now. That said, it would have been good to read before my trip to Iran last year as the book provides easily digestible background on key figures such as Imam Husain, and 20th century events, ranging from the Russian and British influence, to the Islamic Revolution, to the Iran-Iraq war.
Amazon.co.uk: In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran - Christopher de Bellaigue
Another encounter with Harry Bosch, this time with a new partner and investigating the roadside shooting of a hospital doctor high up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the mansions of the rich and famous. Although his maverick investigative style seems to be semi-sanctioned by the LAPD, the discovery that the murder related to the victim's access to radioactive cesium soon brings the involvement of the FBI and some elaborate twists and turns of the plot. A cracking crime read.
Amazon.co.uk: The Overlook - Michael Connelly
A fascinating read - part travelogue, part education on the politics, beliefs and myths surrounding Al-Qaeda. It's not dry academic analysis in the slightest - in fact On the Road to Kandahar is an engaging, informed and personal view of the Islamic world, and one that is very easy to read.
Amazon.co.uk: On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World - Jason Burke
Hurrah! A new crime author whose works keep me turning the pages into the wee small hours. John Rebus replaces the somewhat lost Kay Scarpetta and moves alongside the much missed Aurelio Zen to keep company with Commisario Brunetti on my bookshelves.
Ian Rankin/Inspector Rebus have both been on my radar for yonks, but for some reason I'd thought they might not be to my taste. In fact, Rebus is as melancholic and much of a loner as Aurelio Zen, as tenacious as Guido Brunetti and as happy to work around the rules as both Venetians.
A Scottish setting can only carry bonus marks in my book, and it's just struck me that Scotland's position at the top of the British Isles, and it's past independence and glory, has many parallel with the Most Serene Republic of Venice - birthplace of Zen and Brunetti.
Amazon.co.uk link: Black & Blue - Ian Rankin
A fascinating account of the life of Kawaguchi Ekai, a Japanese zen monk who travelled to Tibet at the turn of the last century, at a time when the country was closed to foreigners and little known. His travels took him to British India, and to the remote mountain kingdoms of Nepal and Ladakh, Lo and Sikkim, and en route he learned Tibetan to supplement his disguise as a Chinese monk. He also studied Sanskrit to allow him to translate the Buddhist scriptures that were the reason for his journey.
Kawaguchi's adventures took him over the high Himalaya passes on foot, across the tough Tibetan plateau where cold, altitude and the locals can kill, wading through snow-fed rivers to follow unmapped and little used routes between Buddhist shrines and small settlements; his route would be a difficult one today, but in the opening years of the 20th century, living off a meagre vegetarian diet and always needing to mask his true identity it was a miracle he survived to tell his tale. Not only that, but to return to Tibet once its seclusion was shattered by the British and then the Chinese, in the closing years of the Great Game.
Amazon.co.uk link: A Stranger in Tibet: The Adventures of a Zen Monk - Scott Berry