Shadowlands by Matthew Green

 Under Britain's streets, fields and lakes lies another landscape of forgotten villages and towns; places that for natural, economic or military reasons have been abandoned and left to decay. Maybe too many of the populace died of plague for the village to be viable, maybe the sea came crashing through doors too often, maybe authority in the form of city corporations in need of water or the Ministry of Defence needing training grounds decided their need was greater than that of the inhabitants, but all over the country remains can be found of places that for one reason or another people left; sometimes voluntarily, sometimes being evicted.

In Shadowlands, Matthew Green takes us on a tour of eight of these places from Skara Brae on Orkney, hidden for thousands of years under sand dunes, to Winchelsea on the English Channel, where not one, but two, towns have fallen foul of coastal conditions - the first washed away by violent storms, the second decaying slowly as its harbour silted and traders left.

On the way, he takes the reader to Wharram Percy, left a ghost town after the Black Death and a subsequent change in farming practices, 

Trellech on the Welsh Marches near Chepstow - once a bustling place feeding the English settlers need for iron armaments and accoutrements of war

Dunwich where a Medieval city on the Suffolk cliffs has gradually crumbled into the sea.

St Kilda which had to be abandoned by its inhabitants when its population dropped to unsustainable levels as young people sought a life beyond their inhospitable, isolated island home.

The lost villages of Norfolk taken over during WW2 for military training, and never given back.

And, the most poignant perhaps because it's still remembered by people who grew up there, the valley of Capel Celyn in North Wales, lost to Liverpool's growing need for water.

Part history book, part travelogue, this is both an engaging and informative read, bringing these locations back to life, and placing their growth and decline within a wider context of social change around them. Green also digresses into how previous visitors/generations have responded to these places - from touristy explorers of the Enlightenment looking for noble savages on the islands of St Kilda, to the romantic poets mourning the passing of Dunwich or Winchelsea.

I've always had a curiosity about the past, and forgotten places such as this have a mysterious pull about them - trying to imagine the lives of the people who lived and worked there, their sadness (or perhaps delight) at leaving - more so than the ruins you might find lurking under a shopping mall, so this books was definitely MY kind of thing, and I'd greatly recommend it to anyone with even a mild curiosity about the past.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

A holiday is an unusual, if not unheard of, thing for Stevens, the butler at Darlington Hall, but his new American employer is back in the US for a few weeks, and Stevens is off on a trip to the West Country, to see the sights and visit a former colleague. Miss Kenton, now Mrs Benn, was formerly housekeeper at Darlington and Stevens hopes to be able to persuade her to return. His reasons are solid and practical, citing the unavailability of staff in the modern post-war world of the 50s, but hidden away he holds more personal, sentimental ones.

As he travels the quiet roads of 1950s England, Stevens reminiscences about the inter-war glory years, when Lord Darlington was heavily involved in European affairs, and the house filled with people of power and influence, ponders on what makes a 'great' butler and the meaning of dignity, and just occasionally lets his imperturbable butler's mask slip enough to let us glimpse the man behind - the emotions he's bottled away, the life and love he could have had if not for his belief that duty overrides all.

I first read The Remains of the Day sometime in the early 90s shortly after it won the Booker prize; I loved it then, and it was a pleasure to revisit it, though I think my feeling about Stevens have changed. Then I felt his life had been totally wasted, and that it was his own fault - his loyalty given to a man who never deserved it, the love of his life lost through his stubborn pride and 'dignity'. Now I'm inclined to judge Stevens less harshly; even feel sorry for him. Born and bred into the profession of butler, he follows his father's footsteps, and I feel there's little else he could have done. He copies the example set for him - believing that a butler should be ever-present, constantly at his employers beck and call, putting their needs above his own, never breathing a word of his own personal troubles. His aim is to be a perfect cog in a machine - in another life I could imagine him as the perfect Soviet factory worker putting tractor production and state quotas above personal feelings. 

And like that factory worker, Stevens has put total faith in his employer. His sole aim in life was to be the best butler possible. He didn't consider himself informed enough to have an opinion on anything outside this, particularly on the wider poltical issues of the day, but unquestioningly left that to his 'betters', such as Lord Darlington. Such loyalty has turned out to be misplaced (in the light of later events Lord Darlington is labelled as a Nazi sympathiser), and Stevens now finds himself adrift, unsure of how he should have behaved, and uncertain of what life now holds for him.

The Remains of the Day is a quietly moving story of a life spent in serving others, often at the loss of personal happiness, but ultimately I feel it's one of hopefulness as we leave Stevens with his professional brave face on, looking forward to to the future. 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were all students at the rather 'select' Hailsham school. Raised there from early childhood, their lives were free from outside influences and stress; in many ways it was an idyllic time. Now in her early thirties, Kathy reminisces about their years together, at Hailsham and afterwards, and the gradual realisation that their lives, and deaths, have been planned out for them.

This must be the fourth or fifth time I've read Never Let Me Go and it never fails to pull me in, to enfold me in its parallel world; one which seems so normal on the surface but is dark and dystopian underneath. 

At different times, it strikes me in different ways. Sometimes it's a coming of age tale, A fairly normal one of childhood tiffs and squabbles, of 'queen bee' Ruth who must be humoured else she'll make everyone's lives a misery, of the obvious differences of being brought up in an institution, even if it's one as supportive as Hailsham, Sometimes, it's far more sinister - a chilling tale of  human clones being bred to become organ donors. Or it can be nostalgic for the past, in which Hailsham represents a more caring world which no longer exists.

However it strikes me, Kathy's narrative plays out carefully, hinting at, but never outright declaring, the fate which awaits her, Ruth, Tommy and their classmates. Expressions such as 'donations' or 'completion' are bandied about as if both the children and the reader know what they fully entail; then the full enormity is revealed, and it's not quite a surprise, just a dreadful acknowledgement of what we'd suspected, but ignored, all along. That implicit acceptance leads to a far more chilling ending than if Kathy had raged against her circumstances throughout.

In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward

review by Maryom
In January 1978, two girls went missing in Bampton, Derbyshire. One, Rachel Jones, was found later that same day; the other, Sophie Jenkins disappeared for ever.
Over thirty years have passed and Rachel has tried to put the whole incident behind her, but then Sophie's mother is found dead in the local hotel, and everything comes flooding back .......
 What starts out as an open and shut case for the Bampton police, headed by DI Francis Sadler, turns out to be something far more complex involving a web of secrets dating back to the abduction of 1978 and earlier. As the police try from one angle to work out how and why past events have suddenly surfaced again, Rachel realises that, from her point of view, it's time to confront what happened to her that long ago day. Her terror at the time wiped her memory clear, and her mother, thankful to have Rachel home, discouraged all discussion concerning what happened, but now Rachel realises she can't settle without knowing.
You can always spot a good book from your inability to put it down - and this is certainly one! I picked it up fairly late one evening, expecting just to read the opening chapters but midnight and one o'clock passed, and I was still reading ..... Eventually I did have to put it down but was back and hooked again the next day.
Something I particularly liked was that the detectives - Sadler, his sergeant Damian Palmer and constable Connie Childs -  follow the clues that I would have picked up on. Often, when reading whodunnits, I spot a snippet of information that I'd like the detective to pursue, but they don't! This time they did; they followed the leads I spotted, and at times headed off down the same dead-ends I would have. Even so, the denouement came as a surprise - I'd been hunting for the 'villain' in all the wrong places!
In short, In Bitter Chill is an amazingly tense and compelling debut, and I for one will be watching out for further thrillers from Sarah Ward.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre -adult fiction, debut, crime,

The Jump by Doug Johnstone

review by Maryom

Six months ago, Ellie's teenage son committed suicide by jumping off the Forth Road Bridge. While her husband distracts himself by searching down suicide conspiracy theories on the internet, Ellie can only find peace in physical activity. Everyday she walks from her South Queensferry home down to the shore then up to the Bridge, in an endless loop. One day she sees another teenage boy, Sam, standing outside the safety barriers, ready to jump, and instinctively she goes to help. She talks Sam down, takes him home, offers him shelter ...and then discovers the family mess he was running away from....

I read somewhere that director Ron Howard likes to make movies about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations - think of Jim Lovell and crew in Apollo Thirteen, or James Hunt and Niki Lauda in Rush. Now, to my mind there's an echo of this in much of Doug Johnstone's writing - a normal, ordinary person, one you might pass a million times on the street and never remark on, takes a step outside their everyday routine - and gets caught up in something way above their head! Whether it's a whisky-sampling holiday on Islay going pear-shaped in Smokeheads or a car accident that brings down the wrath of local gangsters in Hit and Run there always seems to be violence and mayhem lurking just under the beneath the surface of everyday life and waiting to burst out. What I love about Johnstone's novels is that you almost believe it could happen to you!
Ellie is a character that I feel will stick in my mind for a long while. Feeling she has little left to live for after the death of her son, she's willing to risk everything for another unknown youngster; both her overwhelming grief and dogged determination are convincing and believable.
The setting is, as in so many of Johnstone's novels, important and well-captured. South Queensferry isn't a place I know well (I visited once for an afternoon) but I really felt I was there, in a village of old fishermen's cottages and newer seaside builds, dominated by the massive bridge above, a brooding, threatening presence in Ellie's life.
I sometimes feel Doug Johnstone isn't very well known outside Scotland but he certainly deserves to be! If you haven't discovered him yet, why not?

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - adult thriller

The Girl In The Red Coat by Kate Hamer

review by Maryom

8 year old Carmel and her divorced mother Beth form a tiny insular family; contact with Carmel's father is infrequent and erratic, and her mother and grandparents quarrelled long ago so Carmel never sees them. Being only the two of them makes Beth more watchful and careful than other mothers might be but Carmel is getting a little tired of this; she thinks she's old enough to be able to do things on her own with no need to constantly be holding her mum's hand like a small child. So in the crowds at a children's story-telling festival she takes the opportunity to slip away and hide under a table......  Engrossed in books and her imagination, Carmel loses track of time and when she eventually crawls back out her mum is nowhere to be seen. Then she's approached by an elderly man who claims to be her grandfather, come with the awful news that her mum has had an accident and been taken to hospital, and that for now Carmel should could home with him. Carmel is confused and upset, but something in the man's appearance makes her trust him, so she goes along without any fuss.....
 Meanwhile Beth is beside herself with worry. People are leaving, the festival grounds emptying and there is still no sign of Carmel. Panic rising, the organisers call in the police and Beth has to admit the dreadful fact that despite all her best efforts, Carmel has disappeared.

The Girl In The Red Coat taps into every parent's nightmare that one day their child will go missing. Unusually it doesn't follow the police investigation, with either the following up of a tenuous thread of clues that lead to a happy resolution, or the more chilling story-line that ends tragically in the hands of a serial-killer. Instead, the reader follows Carmel and Beth as in very different circumstances they try to adapt to their new lives. Told as it is in the first person from their alternating perspectives, the reader is there sharing the emotions of Beth and Carmel - the guilt and frantic searching of one, the bewilderment of the other.
Carmel of course is unaware that she's been abducted - she firmly believes that this man is her grandfather and that what she's been told about her mother's accident is true. So Carmel tries to adjust, to fit in with her new family and their plans for her. It was hinted at earlier but it now becomes apparent that Carmel is believed to have a special gift, and this is why she was taken. Her 'grandfather' has great plans for her, mainly of the sort that will involve his financial gain, and Carmel is bullied and manipulated into going along with them.
Meanwhile back home in Norfolk, her mum Beth tries to put her life back together. Never losing track of the number of days since Carmel went missing, never giving up hope, she searches frantically anywhere and everywhere, but gradually as the years pass, she makes peace with herself and starts to move on.

Although a crime has been committed this isn't so much the story of that crime but more one of how those involved cope afterwards, rather in the way that Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You or Carys Bray's A Song for Issy Bradley show families coping with tragedy. Here though there's still the hope that somehow, maybe, just maybe, Carmel and Beth can be re-united - and it's that flicker of hope that pulled me in, desperately wanting to know that all would turn out right in the end. Does it? well, read it and find out.



Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre -adult fiction, debut, crime,

Gone Again by Doug Johnstone

review by Maryom

Mark and Lauren have a happy marriage, a 6 year old son, Nathan, and are now expecting another child. When Mark is phoned to pick up his son from school, he just thinks Lauren has forgotten that it's 'her' day for this. But when she doesn't appear by Nathan's bedtime, Mark knows something is definitely wrong. Lauren has done this before, just after Nathan was born, and Mark fears that her pregnancy may have sparked a similar reaction. Then, in the first of several well-timed reveals, the reader discovers that Mark has a history of violence ...and we begin to wonder what exactly happened and can we believe what Mark says....

Gone Again is another great read from Doug Johnstone - a story about a perfectly normal family that get dragged into something sinister and find life spiralling out of control. In a way, it's a book of two halves, certainly of two moods. Things start a little slowly, exploring Mark's relationships with his wife, his son and his mother-in-law, and I wondered if this was going to be a different style novel to Doug Johnstone's usual fare; more of a psychological thriller with less action. But, as the reveals keep coming and Mark takes matters in hand in a d-i-y vigilante way, things really kick off. Many of us would just leave things in the hands of the police - not want to take on the world single-handedly as Mark does -  and this is where the slow build-up pays off. It seems logical with the earlier insights into Mark's character, and his grudging admittance to his violent streak, that this is how he would react.

It's a book that I raced through, each twist and turn making me want to read faster to reach the all-revealing conclusion. 

Like Hit And Run it's set in Edinburgh but in a different part of the city - the beach area of Portobello with its views out over the Firth of Forth.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - Adult crime thriller

 

Buy Gone Again from Amazon

Hit and Run by Doug Johnstone

Crime and Punishment?
review by Maryom

Billy Blackmore has been out for the night with his girlfriend Zoe and brother Charlie. Drunk and drugged up, he still decides to drive home but on the way the unthinkable happens and he hits and kills someone. Zoe and Charlie persuade him that reporting the accident won't help the man, so they hide the body and drive off.

Billy soon finds that it isn't that easy to walk away from the incident or his nagging conscience. When the body is discovered next day, he's expected, as a crime reporter, to investigate - especially when the dead man turns out to be a local crime lord with a family ready to track down the culprits and mete out their own brand of justice, and to have a grieving widow in need of consolation.

I 'discovered' Doug Johnstone last year through a Waterstones review copy of Smokeheads, a sort of Scottish island based Deliverance, and wondered what he'd come up with to follow it.

Smokeheads was a sort of action/comedy/thriller - great fun but not likely to happen . Hit and Run is different. While still fast-moving, and at times violent, it's ultimately more thought provoking and, most importantly, more believable. Billy is a good guy at heart - though I'm not too sure about his brother or girlfriend - caught in a situation that, without too big a stretch of imagination, readers can relate too. Any of us could be Billy, trying to avoid responsibility but finding that our conscience is not as malleable as we might imagine.

As in Smokeheads, there's a strong evocation of place - this time capital city, Edinburgh, and the brooding presence of Salisbury Crags, overlooking most of the action and serving as a constant reminder of what Billy has done.

Hit and Run is an unputdownable, action packed read but with plenty for those looking for something deeper to get their teeth into. If you haven't discovered Doug Johnstone, then it's time you did! I'm definitely looking forward to more from him.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - adult action thriller

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Smokeheads by Doug Johnstone

Deliverance with a Scottish Twist
review by Maryom

"Four friends. One Weekend. Gallons of whisky. What could go wrong?" - well, just about everything it seems.

4 late-thirties, ex-university friends with a serious passion for malt whisky set off to Islay for a weekend of sampling the products from the island's many distilleries. Within minutes of leaving the ferry terminal they, or more specifically the loud-mouthed Roddy, get on the wrong side of the local police and from there everything goes downhill - rapidly! Instead of the jolly weekend they'd planned, arguments lead to an accident, the accident leads to them falling into the sort of nightmare scenario usually reserved for Hollywood movies - think of Deliverance with a Scottish twist. Will anyone survive to tell the tale?

Not everyone is going to take to these four whisky nerds or sympathise much when they land in trouble, but it's a fast paced, action-packed, roller-coaster-ride thriller which I found to be quite enjoyable, though you might be forgiven for thinking it's a "man's" book. There's not a lot of deep characterisation unless the characters are talking about the subtleties of malt whisky and then they could go on for ever! It's VERY violent and full of strong language, drug and alcohol abuse but bizarrely I find myself thinking of it as a lighthearted, enjoyable little book - perhaps I'm perverse.

I'd just like to add that I've been to Islay - and it was nothing like this!

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Faber and Faber
Genre - action thriller

Buy Smokeheads from Amazon

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