2020/061: Out of Office -- Gregory Ashe

“Do they cause trouble?”
“They’re a bunch of douchey white guys in a lesbian bar,” Bud said. “That is the trouble.” [loc. 96]

Four short stories and a set of vignettes featuring North and Shaw, the protagonists of the Borealis trilogy, at various points before, during and after the main arc of the books. The stories are mostly lightweight, comic relief, and three out of the four feature cute animals (goats, dogs).

This was a quick read and not wholly satisfactory. At some points Shaw's flakiness felt exaggerated; at another point, North exhibited a level of potentially-violent possessive behaviour that I wasn't entirely comfortable with.

Best story of the bunch was 'Bad Boys at the Radio Girls', about North and Shaw meeting their secretary Pari and helping her deal with a group of privileged white college boys who are causing problems at a local lesbian bar. The characterisation here is closer to that of the main trilogy, and it was fun to meet Pari outside the office.

2020/060: Kingdom of Silence -- Jonathan Grimwood

The lull of that day, not the slaughter either side of it, is what I will remember best. I’m young, very young. The sky is blue and larks sing beneath a broken tree, and the planes are tiny toys above me. That’s enough to make me happy. [loc. 1323]

The story begins on New Year's Eve 1918, when decorated war hero Eddie Sackville tells Lady Hippolyta Merrill -- Polly -- about the Kingdom of Silence, high in the Himalayas, where he grew up. He also tells Lady Bowes-Yates about the No-Mans-Land death of her son Harry, which he witnessed: and she is glad of the truth.

From there, Kingdom of Silence shows us Eddie's war, from the trenches to the Royal Flying Corps, and his subsequent appointment (courtesy of Polly's father) as British Resident to the Kingdom. In parallel is the story of Polly and her daughter Kate, on a desperate quest in British India in 1943 with only a young lieutenant, Johnny Westland, for company and protection. During treks through the night and under the threat of Japanese invasion, Kate recounts her various birthdays to Johnny, revealing a life of miserable privilege.

This is a captivating novel about the monstrousness of war, and the glimpses of beauty and peace that Eddie treasures. Eddie is a marvellously unreliable narrator, who borrows his name from a wine merchant's dray, and doesn't know his birthday but knows he's not old enough to go to war. Polly's daughter Kate, too, is a born storyteller. And Polly is brave, determined and romantic -- though not, as she acknowledges, a very good mother.

I loved this book: the vividness of the settings, the ways in which character is revealed, the uncompromising refusal to sugar-coat the characters' flaws. That said, the novel itself is not flawless. There are a few loose ends (what became of Harriet, Harry Bowes-Yates' sister, who seemed to be shaping up to become a significant secondary character?). I'd have liked more about Eddie's life in the Twenties and Thirties. And I do wish the novel had been better proof-read, especially towards the end. Many typos! I'd be happy to help ...

2020/059: The Uninvited -- Dorothy Macardle

‘I like exploring unrecognised motives,’ I told him; ‘and I am sure the love of power takes queer twists in women – it is so repressed. The modern, complex mind scarcely knows its own motives; there are wheels within wheels – and look at the poisonous jungle psychologists are opening up!’ [loc. 3894]

Another Kindle Unlimited read: this is a ghost story, published in 1942 and set in the late 1930s. There is mention of 'the war in Spain' but nothing of Germany, save 'the backward currents that were setting in all over Europe'. To a modern reader, this felt uneasy, as though the story had no underpinning, no foundation.

Siblings Roderick and Pamela buy their 'dream house', on a Devon clifftop, and busily make it their own. Roderick is a critic and playwright: Pamela ... it's not quite clear if Pamela does much apart from choosing curtains.

The folk in the nearby village mutter darkly of hauntings, suspicious deaths, a menacing atmosphere. Roderick and Pamela are having none of it, being rational modern people, but their cook / servant Lizzie -- whom they both regard as 'superstitious' -- claims there is something odd. And Stella, the granddaughter of the house's previous owner, is drawn to the house, and to Roderick and Pamela: she begins to believe that it is haunted by the mother she scarcely remembers, who died there.

I spent quite a bit of this novel feeling deeply frustrated by the characters' stupidity: it seemed evident to me that Roderick, in particular -- the first-person narrator -- was completely wrong about the haunting. He and Pamela become obsessed with the possibility of a ghostly presence, and the stories they create make it difficult for them to keep open minds. Perhaps the play that Roderick finds himself driven to write would reveal some answers -- but I don't think the 'meat' of that play is ever divulged, though it focusses on a woman who abuses and is destroyed by power.

Quite atmospheric in places: but the single-mindedness of the characters, and their arrogant certainty that their version of events is the only possible truth, annoyed me throughout. With hindsight, I'm also uncomfortable about one aspect of the plot, which opposes a 'hot-blooded' Spanish woman with 'warm, impetuous Southern blood' and a cool Englishwoman with a reputation for magnanimity: it feels, seen through Roderick's perceptions, biased and xenophobic.

2020/058: The Serpent Rose -- Kari Sperring

The candle-light is merciless. There’s blood staining the rushes and the hangings of the bed. The coverlet is torn, and hangs mostly onto the floor. The air is heavy with blood and scent. Nothing looks quite real. [loc. 1065]

This novella explores the story, told in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, of Gaheris, who beheaded his mother Morgause after finding her in bed with Sir Lamorak. I didn't recall the original story while reading The Serpent Rose, which let me experience the events with a fresh mind.

Gaheris is an accomplished knight, but his humility and pleasant nature -- and the shadows cast by his illustrious brothers, especially Gawain -- mean he's often overlooked. Except by his protege Lamorak, whose father may have been responsible for the death of Gaheris' father Lot. Gaheris's brothers don't much care for Lamorak, but Gaheris is fond of him, if frequently exasperated by his emotional outbursts. Lamorak looks up to Gaheris, who seems to him to illustrate the knightly virtues: honour, loyalty, civility, kindness.

But then Gaheris' mother takes an interest in Lamorak, and Gaheris is forced to choose between his own honour and Lamorak's life. Loyalty or honour: which will take precedence?

This is beautifully written, full of subtlety (it rewards a second reading, not only for the interactions between Gaheris and Lamorak but for the relationships between Gaheris and his brothers) and sympathy for both first-person narrator Gaheris, not always the most perceptive of men, and Lamorak, who may be a knight but is also a teenager.

I also admired the lightly-sketched world in which these characters live. There are few place-names, and no attempt to anchor this Arthurian tale in historical fact: it's a secondary-world fantasia of chivalry, etiquette, blood-feuds, pavilions by the roadside, knights-errant and powerful queens. The Serpent Rose reminded me that there is beauty and virtue in the Arthurian mythos, though these aspects have been downplayed by many modern retellings. Kari Sperring's Arthuriana is a delight, and I'd like to read more.

2020/057: Big Sky -- Kate Atkinson

He’d been out of the real business of detecting for too long. Entrapping unfaithful boyfriends and husbands wasn’t dealing with criminals, just high-functioning morons. [loc. 2408]

I've enjoyed Atkinson's previous Jackson Brodie novels, though not as much as I've enjoyed her other work (see various reviews here): Big Sky, however, left me cold. Jackson Brodie -- sharing custody of his teenage son with Julia, carrying out run-of-the-mill investigations in Yorkshire, starting to feel as though he may be past his best -- is peripheral to the main stories here, which are definitely in 'lost girls' territory. There is the lingering rumour of a third man involved in a historical paedophile ring; there is the lucrative Exotic Travel, which is more of an import business; there is a child getting into a car, observed by Brodie, whose instincts tell him something is wrong.

There are some splendid women here, notably Crystal, who has remade her life after a shaky start and is now the wife of a successful businessman, raising her daughter to want for nothing. She's tacky and superficial, in some respects: but she has an iron will.

Big Sky redeems itself, in part, by a denouement that involves true justice rather than literal facts: but the theme was so grim, and Jackson's middle-agedness so hopeless, that even a week after reading I am happy to have forgotten most of the details of the plot.

2020/054-56: The Borealis trilogy -- Gregory Ashe

They were honest with each other—honest in ways that only people who have known each other for a long time, loved each other for a long time, can be. But what Shaw wanted to say, what he couldn’t quite put into words, was that the honesty between them was, in its own way, also a kind of lie. He wanted to tell North that their honesty glided across smooth water, but that there was an ocean of things below the surface, things they never said. [Triangulation, p. 39]

I read the first of these three novels (Orientation) free via Kindle Unlimited, and then bought the second and third (Triangulation and Declination) and carried on reading without a break.

North McKinney and Kingsley Shaw Wilder Aldrich (North and Shaw) have been friends since college, despite very different backgrounds and personalities. North's family is working-class; Shaw's is monied. North is taciturn, macho, comes to work with bruises from boxing: Shaw is flamboyant, loves to 'process' everything, writes fanfic, and does yoga. (In both characterisations there's an unexpected flipside.) Both North and Shaw are gay: North is married to another of their college friends, Tucker, while Shaw occasionally dates but doesn't have relationships. Their friendship is powered by snark, banter and a profound loyalty. And they are -- as quickly becomes apparent, partly due to dual narratives -- desperately in love with one another, but believe (with some justification) that it's hopeless and unrequited.

North and Shaw run Borealis, a detective agency in St Louis, which I learnt is one of the most dangerous cities in North America. Orientation opens with the arrival of a new client, the young and attractive Matty Fennmore, who tells them he is being blackmailed. Investigations reveal a complex web of extortion, corruption and deceit -- and put pressure on North and Shaw's friendship, relationship and business.

In Triangulation, Borealis' secretary Pari asks for help: her girlfriend's boss, a former 'gay conversion' worker now running an LGBTQ+ support centre, has gone missing. North and Shaw -- whose relationship has changed considerably since the beginning of Orientation -- discover links to a cold case: the attack that left Shaw mentally and physically scarred, seven years before, and killed his first boyfriend. And there are some unpleasant revelations to come.

Declination is where it all comes apart, or possibly together. The various cases and rumours coalesce; the relationship between North and Shaw enters its endgame; the stakes are higher than before, and so are the potential gains.

I immersed myself in these three novels over the course of a lockdown weekend. North and Shaw are vividly characterised: I liked them both, and found the sexual and emotional tension between them very convincing. Their investigations are twisty enough to keep the attention, without overshadowing the emotional developments (between the two, and between each man and secondary characters: partners, North's family, contacts in the police department). I enjoyed the social complexities of the LGBTQ+ community as depicted here, brunches and theatre and drag contests and a brief interlude in a BDSM club. There's plenty of sharp social observation and witty (if occasionally close to the bone) dialogue, and even minor characters are, in the main, given depth.

(Warning: there's some pronoun confusion in the third book, on the part of the characters and possibly the narrative, when a secondary character declares themself to be non-binary. "Ze glanced at them and shook his dark curls." (Declination, p. 15) It doesn't feel like deliberate misgendering, though.)

Not traditional romance, perhaps: both North and Shaw have relationships with other people over the course of the three books; they are not great at communicating; and there are scenes where one is verbally or emotionally cruel to the other. But the gradual development of their relationship was delightful, and I especially liked North's profound and seldom-spoken appreciation of Shaw's 'quirky' personality.

While gleaning links for this review, I note there is a book of short stories too: which I have just purchased!

2020/053: Slippery Creatures -- KJ Charles

Ought he apologise for coming in his mouth? Would this be a good moment to restart the conversation about where Kim had learned to use a knife? Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?” [p.72]

Will Darling is a veteran of the First World War, down on his luck and without prospects -- until his friend Maisie suggests that he contact his elderly uncle, who promptly expires, bequeathing Will his disorderly bookshop. Which would seem to be remarkably good fortune, except that Will is pestered by various unsavoury parties who believe he has information that they want. Perhaps his mild-mannered bookselling uncle was involved in a more dangerous business ...

Enter Kim Secretan, jaded aristo and (as Will quickly discovers) a good man to have at your back in a fight. Easy on the eye, too. But can Will trust him for more than ten pages? The answer is almost certainly 'no'. Except that Kim keeps revealing layers of himself, unexpected skills, and -- dash it -- a charming fiancee, Phoebe, who wants what's best for Kim, her best friend.

It's a fast-moving plot, full of reversals and abrupt wrong-footings, redolent of pulp thrillers in the Buchan mould: secret societies with handy identifying tattoos, a traitor in the War Office, several elaborate schemes for conveying secret messages, and moderate violence. Being a novel by K J Charles, it also features anti-Establishment sentiments, rage at the Government (how very like the home life of this reader, et cetera) and competent people falling reluctantly in love (or something like it). Will is stubborn, loyal and not afraid of violence: Kim is slippery and untrustworthy but sound at heart.

I didn't warm to this quite as much as some of Charles' other pulp-inspired works. Perhaps it was the lack of a supernatural element, as in Spectred Isle: perhaps the repeated reversals (and Will's justifiable refusal to give Kim the benefit of the doubt) felt a little too emotionally bleak: perhaps Will's cynicism was just a little too familiar from the inside of my own head, in these dark days. But I did enjoy the novel, and I'm looking forward to the next in the planned trilogy.