2019/11: Any Old Diamonds -- K. J. Charles

He was going to commit a betrayal. Jerry was absolutely right about that. The months of lies were going to reach a culmination in Castle Speight, the trap he'd helped build would be sprung. He'd embarked on this path certain in his soul that it didn't matter what he did so long as his goal was clear, his heart pure. The lie of that had become clear weeks ago. Jerry was right. If he did this, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. It would be unforgivable. [loc. 1981]

Alec Pyne, a penniless illustrator, is in need of the Lilywhite Boys -- a pair of notorious jewel thieves, Jerry Crozier and Templeton Lane. For Alec did not always starve in a garret: he is Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes, the youngest son of the monstrous Duke of Ilvar, and he wants to strike a blow against his father. A blow for his dead sister Cara (who the Duke wouldn't help in her last illness) and his dead mother, who died conveniently just as the Duke was falling in love with the woman he subsequently married. There is a priceless diamond parure, due to be gifted by the Duke to his Duchess on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. Alec tells Jerry that the proceeds will make a nice dowry for his surviving sister, Lady Annabel. And he, Alec, can get the thieves into Castle Speight ('the locals call it Castle Spite') if he pretends to crave reconciliation.

Jerry may only be pretending to be Lord Alexander's new best friend: but the pull he exerts over Alec is magnetic, and Alec -- for the first time in his life -- finds himself in a relationship where he can ask for what he wants, and receive it. Jerry (whose background is not dwelt upon for the majority of the book) is an astute observer and affects a cheerful nonchalance which conceals any emotions he may be experiencing. Alec, it must be said, does not exhibit much talent for subterfuge, though he does manage to treat Jerry as a friend rather than a lover.

And this is where the novel didn't work for me. Only read on if you don't mind spoilers. ... Alec does have a talent for subterfuge: there are important details he hasn't shared with Jerry, such as the involvement of Susan Lazarus (last seen as a snotty pre-teen in An Unnatural Vice, and now a successful female detective in her mid-thirties). Alec, sadly, didn't quite convince me as an unreliable narrator: there wasn't enough doubt or foreshadowing to signal that something was amiss. (Even on a reread, there are only the vaguest hints.) The quotation at the top of this review is about as explicit as it gets. It didn't ruin the book, or anything, but I found myself wrong-footed and wondering what else I had missed -- not just about Alec but about the others. The problem is that KJ Charles has set the bar very high, and this didn't feel as smooth as her usual work.

It is still a delightful book. The gradual cracking of Jerry's facade, Alec's increasing confidence, the appearances of characters from the 'Sins of the Cities' books (Greta! Susan! And, from Susan, a report on the relationship between Justin Lazarus and Nathaniel Roy!), the deftly-drawn family tensions, Alec's true passion for his art ... all drew me in. Not every character has a happy finale -- Band Sinister spoilt me, a bit, with its kindness towards the horrid aunt -- but the overall mood is one of contentment and closure. And possibility.

I'm looking forward to the next in the series. I shall be reading very carefully ...

2019/10: My Sister the Serial Killer -- Oyinkan Braithwaite

Maybe she is reaching out because she has sent another man to his grave prematurely, or maybe she wants to know if I can buy eggs on the way home. Either way, I'm not picking up. [loc. 304]

Korede works as a nurse, whispering her secrets to a coma patient in the hospital. Her little sister Ayoola is a dress designer and Instagram star. Ayoola is also a killer: Korede cleans up after her.

They do not talk about their father, who is dead. But when Ayoola goes on dates, she carries a knife that she 'inherited' from him.

Ayoola's relationships don't last long, and Korede doesn't date at all.

"Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll and I resemble a voodoo figurine," says Korede. She is helplessly jealous of and exasperated by Ayoola -- especially when Ayoola's attentions turn to the handsome doctor whom Korede dreams of marrying -- but also immensely, tragically, dangerously protective.

The action of the novel takes place in Lagos (though Ayoola -- of course Ayoola) does get an off-screen trip to Dubai, with a married man). The city is brought to life in little details: rain that breaks umbrellas, corrupt police, the constant gnat-bite irritation of sexual harrassment, the smells of cooking food. It's nice to read a crime novel where the victims aren't women (unless you count Korede and Ayoola as victims, which in some respects they are). And their sharp spiky relationship, smoothed by Ayoola's manipulations and Korede's pragmatism, has at its core genuine love. Ayoola is immature, may be a bit of a sociopath and is certainly bad at picking suitable men to date: Korede is prone to fantasy, does not stop to examine her own prejudices, and is complicit in her sister's crimes. But they look after one another, and that's an unbreakable bond.

I should observe that My Sister, the Serial Killer is also very funny. Korede's deadpan narration and the intrusion of mundane reality -- if your last boyfriend has vanished, how long should you wait to post on Instagram about a bouquet received from a new beau? -- occasionally made me laugh out loud.

In terms of sisterly complicity, I was oddly reminded of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But here there is no Uncle Julian, no Jonas: the sisters are alone against the world. And they are winning.

2019/09: Jonathan Dark, or the Evidence of Ghosts -- A. K. Benedict

'London is ghost-locked,' Frank says. 'Every corner, alleyway, highway, high-rise, gym, café, canal, library or house is haunted in some way. Every window has a ghost looking out. Part of you sees, and it is this part which is screaming at all times inside... Cities are difficult when you're in denial of ghosts. It is an unconscious stress to the body and mind. London is at once an old city heaving with history's spirits and a powerful, steely centre that attracts the young and driven. Its inhabitants breathe in ghost motes every day. Some thrive ...' [loc. 168]

Maria King is mudlarking when she receives an unpleasant and unwanted proposal of marriage. Due to the nature of the proposal, the police are called, and Maria is informed that she may be the latest victim of a serial stalker who has killed at least one other woman. Her peril is magnified by the fact that she wears a blindfold at all times: blind from birth, she recently had an operation to restore her sight, but is unwilling to be disappointed by the world.

DI Jonathan Dark is assigned to her case. He's still haunted by his failure to prevent the death of the stalker's previous victim (who, uncomfortably, shares my first name and last initial). Dark is in the middle of a messy separation which he doesn't want: meanwhile, he's living in a Spitalfields cottage belonging to his cousin, who's scornful of the builders who say it's haunted.

Meanwhile, Finnegan Finch is in despair. He's worried about the safety of his wife Rosa. Frank McNally, a thoughtful and compassionate undertaker, has to break some bad news to Frank: he last saw Rosa at a funeral, and it was the funeral of ...

The dead and the living walk the streets of London in this crime novel, which is exceptional for its characters and its supernatural elements rather than the humdrum (and all too common) plot of a murderer preying on young women. This murderer has a sentimental streak and surprising creativity in his hunting. And his identity does remain a mystery until the final chapters -- which I applaud.

London -- including some of the parts I know best, Greenwich and London Bridge -- is very present in this novel, and not just in a visual sense. Maria's blindfolded excursion to Borough Market made my skin creep: her sensory experience of the world is vivid, and so's her comfort with it. (Negative reviews of this book tend to dwell on her foolishness for remaining blind in the face of a threat to her life: but I appreciate that, unlike the ex who pressured her to have the operation, nobody here is forcing Maria to do something that she is so strongly against.)

I read and enjoyed Benedict's debut novel, The Beauty of Murder: that, too, was enjoyable because of the characters and the weirdness rather than the plot, though that plot was more firmly rooted in the supernatural than this one. I found Jonathan Dark, or the Evidence of Ghosts a captivating read: the theme of vision, of what is seen and what is overlooked, of watching and of experiencing the world with different senses, is a constant thread. (Perhaps because English -- maybe all spoken language? -- is so sight-oriented: 'I see', 'artistic vision', 'looking after you'.) Of course, where there is something to see there is also the unseen: the world of ghosts which permeates the world of the living; the person behind the camera; the darkness beyond Maria's blindfold; Jonathan Dark's secret. You could say this is a novel about who sees what.

2019/08: Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day -- Seanan McGuire

There's no drug in this world like the feeling of a ghost touching living skin. Dead people provide a clean, natural, intensely addictive high, one that doesn't come with any downsides. We take time from the living. We leave them younger, and there ain't much humanity won't do for eternal youth. [p. 35]

Jenna is dead. She has an apartment in New York (her landlady Delia is also a ghost, though some of the other tenants are alive) and volunteers at a suicide prevention helpline. Jenna, who ran out into a storm after her sister's suicide and met her death in the dark, needs to take time from the living until she makes it to the date she should have died and can move on to whatever comes next: but she won't take time without earning it, so she tries to prevent people from cutting their own lives short. A forty-seven minute call that prevents a suicide equates to forty-seven minutes that the universe owes to Jenna, forty-seven minutes that she can take from a living person -- making them a little younger in the process.

This precarious arithmetic is interrupted by the news that the ghosts of Manhattan are disappearing. Jenna's friend Brenda, a witch, believes that the ghosts have been captured behind glass. Together (though ghosts don't typically trust witches, who are the only entities who can take time from an unwilling ghost) the two women travel back to Jenna's childhood home to confront the peril.

This is a thought-provoking novella about loss, redemption, mourning and love. It's a natural history of ghosts (I was especially charmed by the tales of dinosaur ghosts, who opted to 'cash in' their remaining years rather than stick around to be classified) and of witches. And it's a novel about female friendship: indeed, all but one of the named characters is female.

SPOILER: I'm not wholly comfortable with Jenna's decision at the end of the story. She leaves behind all the things she has previously cared about -- in particular, the elderly cats (too old to be easily rehomed) that she's taken in -- with barely a backward glance. True, she's earned her time .... I'm not sure, either, that all the strands of the story were tied off neatly. What about the rumour that ghosts were being deliberately made from people killed before they were due to die?

Still, an enjoyable read, with some splendidly-turned phrases.

2019/07: The Prisoner of Limnos -- Lois McMaster Bujold

... even demons mourned, and had a long time to do so. Grief, guilt, regret… not everything they learned how to do from their human riders was a boon. He did not press. [loc. 1775]

Penric (and Desdemona, the ten-souled demon whose host he is) are in Orbas, reluctant to return to Penric's duties in Orbas while the delectable Nikys seems oblivious to Pen's intentions. Then Nikys' mother is abducted, and Penric and Desdemona vow to rescue her.

The alternation of Pen's and Nikys' narratives gives depth to this otherwise slight story: Nikys is concerned that she would be marrying Desdemona as well as Penric, while Penric wishes that hosting the souls of ten dead women would give him some advantage in dealing with a single living female. There is also a delightful relationship between Nikys' brother Adelis' fiancee, Tanar, and her eunuch factotum Bosha. And there are the gods, who in this world are real.

I do like the world of the five gods, and I like Penric and Desdemona, but I'd like a bit more meat in the next story.

2019/06: The Burning Page -- Genevieve Cogman

'I have spent most of my life preferring books to people,' Irene said sharply. 'Just because I like a few specific people doesn't change anything.' [p. 332]

After the events of The Masked City, Irene has been put on probation, which means that she and her apprentice Kai get all the most tedious and / or dangerous jobs. The Library, meanwhile, is under attack: and although Irene fears that she's a priority target (she read a secret in a book, and now she knows too much) her superiors don't agree.

The Burning Page is rather less hectic than The Masked City, but Irene and Kai do get to travel, and chase, and be chased. They visit a version of Imperial Russia, where Irene's book-acquisition is stymied by the fact that the Empress has borrowed the key volume as bedtime reading: 'I do feel a bit guilty about snatching it mid-read from someone's bedside table'.

Meanwhile, Peregrine Vale is suffering the after-effects of events in the previous book, and finding himself strangely drawn to likeable-but-untrustworthy Fae Lord Silver. And someone known to both Vale and Irene may be betraying their secrets to the mastermind behind the Library's troubles.

I enjoyed this more than The Masked City: it's light reading, true, but the prose and dialogue are witty and the characters interesting. I'm looking forward to the fourth and fifth volumes, though trying not to buy more e-books unless they've dropped in price on Amazon. Never say never, though ...

2019/05: The Masked City -- Genevieve Cogman

Could the story have turned against her? Was this the part of the narrative where the heroine in disguise is confronted by her arch-enemies – or possibly where the protagonists find and dispose of the villainous spy, all depending on the reader's viewpoint? [p. 172]

At the end of The Invisible Library, Irene was working for the interdimensional Library in a steampunk-flavoured alternate London. She has become close to detective Peregrine Vale, and still admires the physical beauty of her apprentice Kai, who is a dragon (in human form: dragons, in this universe, are agents of order and stability).

Then Kai is abducted by the Fae (agents of chaos and change) and, pursued by Irene, is taken to a Fae-ruled version of seventeenth-century Venice. Can Irene save her apprentice before the forces of chaos overwhelm him? Can she trust the Fae she meets on the Train? (Train is capitalised because it's a powerful Fae entity in its own right, usually known as the Horse and directed by the Rider.) Can she even stop to breathe? Evidence suggests not: this is a hectic and headlong chase of a book, with obstacles at every turn and allies indistinguishable from enemies.

I would have liked more about the Horse and its Rider; I did enjoy the exploration of Fae culture and etiquette, and some of the new Fae that Irene encounters -- in particular Zayanna, who is holding out for a hero of any gender, and thinks Irene very heroic -- are interesting trope-embodiments as well as entertaining characters.

Was Kai's uncle's name actually a pun? If so, *groan*.

I do like Irene's mixture of level-headed competence and steely resolve. In this alternate Venice, she finds herself at the mercy of Narrative -- the way the stories go, or are supposed to go -- in a way that reminded me of Seanan McGuire's Indexing. She's also operating as a diplomat way above her pay grade; and her Library bosses won't be happy with some of the deals and alliances she makes.

After reading this episode, which ends on something of a cliffhanger, I went straight on to the next one ...

2019/04: Rosewater -- Tade Thompson

"We have more experience than any Western country in dealing with first contact. What do you think we experienced when your people carved up Africa at the Berlin Conference? You arrived with a different intelligence, a different civilisation, and you raped us. But we're still here." [p. 231]

Kaaro is a sensitive, able to read the thoughts and emotions of those around him. He works for a bank, blocking criminal sensitives from stealing personal information from the thoughts of their victims: protection is achieved by reading classic literature aloud. Well, that's the day job: Kaaro also works for the government, conducting interrogations and finding lost or hidden things. Or people. The mental space in which Kaaro operates is termed the xenosphere, and it is a consequence of the arrival, in 2012, of an alien lifeform known as Wormwood, which landed in Hyde Park, burrowed into the earth's crust and seeded the biosphere with a network of fungi-like filaments that bind to human nerve endings.

Wormwood has not departed. It established itself in Nigeria in the 2050s, creating a biodome around which the town of Rosewater has accreted. Once a year the biodome opens, briefly, and the sick are healed, or changed: the dead resurrect. Kaaro was there when the dome was raised, but his narrative -- shifting between the 2040s, 2050s and 2060s -- only gradually approaches the events within the dome, and the link between Kaaro himself and Wormwood.

Kaaro is not an especially likeable character: he's sexist, immoral, a thief who steals from his own family. But when he hears of the deaths of other sensitives, and begins to investigate the phenomenon, he finds that he is uniquely qualified to unravel the crime.

I liked this novel a lot. The world Thompson has built is quite different, yet recognisably a product of our own: America has taken isolationism to extremes, Nigeria is ascendant because of Wormwood's presence, and humans -- though some of them have been transformed into quantum extrapolators -- are still driven by mundane human urges, lust and love and envy and greed. Kaaro's first-person narration is rich with physical detail and sensory extravagance: when he enters 'thoughtspace', his experiences are hallucinogenic, and he perceives them with every sense.

First of a trilogy, but does stand alone: definitely worth reading.

2019/03: Blackbird in the Reeds -- Sam Burns

"People in this town are afraid of outsiders, but it's not like regular, small-town paranoia. It's like 'you could learn our secret and get us all killed' paranoia." [p. 145]

Devon Murphy is something of a drifter. Like his mother, he has the knack of getting people to do what he wants -- but unlike his mother he isn't comfortable with his gift, so tends to avoid close relationships. When his grandmother summons him to the small coastal town of Rowan Harbor, Devon packs up his life in his father's old Corvette and hits the road.

And then hits a tree, writing off the car and breaking his wrist, as he swerves to avoid a deer. Luckily he's only a few miles from Rowan Harbor. Even more luckily, the huge wolf which emerges from the woods doesn't seem to be a man-eater. And pretty soon, help is at hand.

Devon feels instantly at home in the town, though it's years since he visited. His old friends are delighted to see him, and he makes new friends too -- though one of them has suffered a spate of 'accidents' that seem rather too coincidental. Devon would like to find out more about Maria's problems, and he'd really like to understand why everyone was so pleased when he got a blast of static electricity shaking 'professional bad cop' Wade Hunter's hand. (Doesn't hurt that Wade is gorgeous.)

But there's something strange about the town, and it's not just the low crime rate or the way that Devon seems to have been expected.

This is a sweet, simple, charming M/M romance with supernatural elements. It's the first in a trilogy of trilogies (so one can forgive the 'happy for now' ending and the lack of resolution). There are some nitpicks: the romance happened almost instantaneously, the protagonist seemed a little too unconcerned that not only his gran but his childhood friends had been keeping the truth from him, there was no real obstacle / antagonist. But the characters were all likeable, the dialogue was good, and the setting delightfully cosy.

Does anyone remember the Nightworld series (never completed) by L. J. Smith? This reminded me of those, which I devoured as quickly as I could find them in the late 90s.

2019/02: The Alehouse at the End of the World -- Stevan Allred

"Can you not tell me what I must do?"
"Perhaps I can look it up," said the cormorant. He produced a book from under his wing, Mortimer’s Compleat Atlas of the Afterlife ... [loc. 891]

A fisherman (never named) has been living on a desert island, shipwrecked. He receives a letter from his beloved (never named: hardly anyone has names: the fisherman calls her Cariña, but that is just his pet name for her), with a covering note informing him of her death. He has not seen her for years: but, determined to find her again, he sets out in an unseaworthy craft -- convinced that he'll die in a storm -- to seek her on the Isle of the Dead.

Then he is swallowed by a whale, and deposited on the shore of the Isle of the Dead, which is currently governed by a scornful and narcissistic crow. This crow, together with his companions (a pitying pelican and a curious cormorant), turns out to be a shapeshifter, and possibly a demigod. The crow is wholly unhelpful, but the fisherman does finally understand that the dead arrive nightly, by canoe, on this island -- which has been swallowed, whole, by the fearsome Kiamah beast after the death of the Old Gods -- and have their souls harvested by the crow and their bodies burnt. The souls become clams, and return to the material world to be reborn. But the fisherman can't imagine how he can locate the soul of his beloved. And the birds -- including the most likeable character here, a six-foot-tall frigate bird (no name) with a spyglass and a pistola -- anticipate a fearsome cosmological event.

There is also a fertility goddess, Dewi Sri, and some ethereal beings known as the Turropsi, the weavers of fate. There are invented words, and words that are deliciously obscure. There are love triangles, disguises, and indulgence in pleasures licit and otherwise. This is a world that reminds me of Pacific Northwest mythology, with overtones of late medieval travellers' tales and a surreal ambience that's sometimes humorous, and sometimes bleak.

It's taken me months to read.

It also felt far, far longer than it actually is. That may just be an artefact of reading so slowly. I'm still not sure why it didn't engage me. Perhaps it's the lack of names? Perhaps the misogyny of some of the characters? (A man is unfaithful. A woman is unfaithful. Guess who dies at the end?) A imaginative, vivid fantasy that, for me, fell flat.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for this honest review.

2019/01: Confessions of the Fox -- Jordy Rosenberg

... his confinement became the door inside him between his waking life and something still unwoken, something lying close-packed like a bomb at his core, poised to shiver into a coruscated, glinting shower of—of—of what, he knew not. But there was Something just beyond the door inside him. Some difference within that he did not yet want to know. [loc. 589]

Dr R. Voth ('a guy by design, not birth') acquires a manuscript purporting to be the confessions of the infamous 18th-century criminal Jack Sheppard. Confessions of the Fox is a transcription of the 'mashed and mildewed pile of papers', interspersed with Dr Voth's footnotes. Some of those footnotes are rambling, discursive, personal -- Dr Voth's university is an increasingly intrusive and coldly commercial employer; his neighbour Ursula is fascinated by queer theory -- and others expound upon and explicate the Confessions. In which the canonical persons of 'Jack Sheppard, Thief' and his lover 'Edgworth Bess, Sex Worker' are revealed as something other. Jack's mother, abandoning him to a cruel apprenticeship, tells him to be a good girl: yes, Jack is assigned female at birth. Bess's father, heading for the Fens after being stranded in London, is a Lascar sailor: yes, Bess is a woman of colour. “Between [Bess's] characterization and that of Jack’s assigned sex, what we have here is either the most or the least authentic Sheppard document in existence,” notes Voth. [loc. 542]

Such a reframing could in other hands have been a solemn and poignant exploration of the marginalised Other in eighteenth-century London, but here is an exuberant riot of transgression, transformation, romance and rebellion. Not to mention the marvellous Elixir, formulated by mutineers who've escaped the East India Company, and stolen by Jack from the Thief-Taker General, Jonathan Wild: this Elixir seems an early form of hormone therapy, and does Jack a world of good. But commerce rears its head, of course: like everything -- even Jack, even Bess -- it is a commodity to be bought and sold, a way for others to profit from the labour of the underclass.

I was tremendously entertained by this novel, though suspect that others will appreciate more the academic references and in-jokes (my understanding of queer theory is patchy). That didn't hinder my admiration for the twining of Jack's great adventure with Voth's own narrative -- including his escape from an increasingly draconian University which requisitions his 'improperly utilised leisure hours' (he plays Phone Scrabble) and insists on a transcript, with illustrations, of Sheppard's MS. ("...when I said that I had sent him the missing page of the manuscript, containing an illustration of Jack’s genitalia, what I actually did was Google “waterlogged slug” ... [loc 4661]).

This is a beautifully constructed, vastly enjoyable and splendidly written novel that made me think a lot: I started rereading whilst checking a quotation for this review, and am already seeing more layers. Highly recommended.