Review: 'Smoke and Whispers' by Mick Herron

‘Smoke and Whispers’ is fourth in a series focussing on the character of Sarah Tucker (it’s called the Zoe Boehm series but Sarah is the narrator) who manages to get herself in range of fairly unbelievable investigative situations. This instalment is mediocre but, then, so were the others in the series.

It should not be beyond a decent writer’s skill to don a persona with a different gender, but Mick Herron doesn’t manage it convincingly. The protagonist, Sarah, isn’t really likeable and so the fallibility of her character merely comes across as fecklessness. In essence the character is written using too many female stereotypes for her rendering to be either plausible or admirable, neither do her many hang ups garner sympathy. She’s just a character who comes across as dithery and too much a victim to be an effective solver of crimes. It may surprise Mr Herron to know that we women don’t all obsess about our weight, cathartically shop or expect the nearest man to rid the vicinity of spiders.

The plot is pacy enough to be engaging, despite some fairly unbelievable developments, and there are some interesting secondary and tertiary storylines. This novel doesn’t have much in the way of mood changes or humour and less so because, actually, it’s just so sexist - Herron even uses the expression, ‘male-thinking’ at one point, really? It’s lazy thinking and I find those tired old cliches annoying. All of which possibly suggest that Herron was cutting his literary teeth on this book before producing the much more involving ‘Slow Horses’ series. I’m just glad I found those first!

Review: 'Strange Practice' by Vivian Shaw

When I got to the end of this book I was incredible torn. I actually didn’t want to include anything positive in this review and yet that would have been quite unfair - there is merit in this book.

I am a sucker for characterisation and the characters crafted by Shaw are, actually, winsome: fallible and yet charming. It’s possible, of course, that because most of the characters are not human the reader is able to forgive their mistakes and inconsistencies (and occasionally a stumble on the writer’s part) more easily.

What I found REALLY clumsy was the dialogue. The novel is set in London and the characters are English (or have lived in Britain for long enough to adopt the lingo) and yet their speech is peppered with Americanisms. I haven’t been to London for a while but I’m sure they have not adopted the use of ‘Goddam’ as their standby expression of annoyance or frustration - fairly sure it’s still ‘bloody’. The dialogue also had lots of pop-culture expressions and quips which were incredibly irritating and, cynically, I think it’s to generate an easy sell to generation Y. For those with a more finely tuned ear, it doesn’t ring true for characters who are from the upper middle classes, one of whom is supposed to have a ‘cut-glass’ accent. As a fantasy novel no-one is looking for absolute realism but some level of plausibility has to be achieved to lift it out of the children’s section and, in the end, the dialogue became teeth-gnashingly annoying.

The plot is acceptable with it’s general sense of adventure, although it’s bit of a Cinderella story. It’s so disappointing to still see female characters, however worthy of it, getting dragged out of a sooty hearth by a dashing nobleman. But then, gender stereotypes are pretty much adhered to in this book: the men do the action and the woman does the caring. The characters, however, are saved from a decline into a total conventionality by being beautifully outré.

There are some notions and ideas that I admired -it’s inclusive and quite jolly. However, there is an amoral aspect to certain conclusions or rendered in certain characters that I find fairly cowardly or, more generously, naive. The text isn’t weighty enough to subjugate historical tropes well enough to be convincing. Generally, it’s these inconsistencies in continuity that ultimately undermined the credibility of the writer’s craft.

Birthday

They only comes once a year and so I aught to commemorate it in some way.   I have a child's mind.  I see things in very black and white ways.  I react to things with extremes of pleasure or of pain.  I have adored the prospect of my birthday and intensely as Christmas every year of my existence and the enthusiasm I had for them never waned with the passing of years. Now my birthday has started to mean less to me. 

I think it began when my sister's behaviour when drunk became a source of pain for everyone and then my stance on it alienated me slightly from the rest of my family.  I refuse to attend family events if she was there, as this meant that it risked seeing her drunk and the rest of us retreating into the deepest of shadows that ours mind's possessed.  Then, when she sobered, and lacked any kind of condition, I refused to attend at all.  I do not seek sympathy or blame that is just the way things are, now.

Celebrations become a source of concern even when the prospect of them are mentioned.  Because whether she is there or not we all feel the sorrow of her absence, the real her.



Time up.
Inspiration: The reality of my birthday, today.

Time

There is simply not enough time.  Where exactly does time go? 

Some weeks I can see that my leg hair has reached neanderthal proportions and that there is simply no time to wrench myself into the twenty first century.  Above the temples, silver sprouting of the most obnoxious kind can see seen after some weeks of neglect.  Left long enough they will turn into what is, euphemistically, know as mallen streaks but which are just, frankly, grey.  A perfect arch of my eyebrow can become as blurred as a bow after the arrow's flight.  I have time to rectify none of it.

You may ask how I could let things get to this pass.  Just blame Time, or the absence of it.  There are far too many pressing things to do.  Work, more work, shopping, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog...I could go on.  I don't even have the added responsibility of children, thank the Lord.  Children would have no place within the frenetic pace of my world.  I am too busy working hard to impress people that only care for themselves.  After all their opinion of me matters - doesn't it?



Time Up.
 Inspiration:  It's Friday and I'm just reflecting on the nature of work.

Hands

Put your hand in mine.
Then, wrap your arms around me
So that I feel I am yours
And that we are two in one,
even for a moment.

You may have to leave,
Rip yourself away from me,
Without any sense of the pain that
I feel each time we part.

But for now, feel my hands touch
Yours and yours mine.
Let our skin feel the warmth
that we share together,
However the heat arrives.

So that when you are gone,
I will press my hand to my face
Imagining it still holds your essence
Here, with me, so that you never truely
Leave.



Time up.
Inspiration:  I haven't written a poem in a while.  so it thought I'd have a go.

Still Life

It had not put up much of a fight before it died, but then, it was so tiny.  It wasn't a wren; it was a trifle bigger and the tail wasn't the stubby exclamation that is the wren's trademark but it had the same colouring. 

It was almost over before I'd had a chance to intervene.  My little Jack Russle had starled it from a patch of mottled undergrowth and it must have been too shocked to have got enough momentum to burst into flight.  She pawed at it and then, like a cat, toyed with it for some moments before I'd even realised what it was.  I shouted and ran towards them both.  The dog stood back to let me approach.  The bird cowered by a clump of grass.  I could see its chest rising and falling very lightly and slowly.  As I bent towards it, the chest stopped half way before rising fully and the tiny pointed beak slowly opened, as did the eyes, taking it's last look at the world before darkness fell.

I picked up the creature and, although it was all in the run of the wild, I felt choaked and angry that this timy life was taken so suddenly and violently.  It made me think about the arbitrary nature of all life and I felt the awfulness of the injustice that I mean very little in the scheme of things not better than the buddle of feathers in my hand. 

Looking back at my dog, she was ashamed.  I left her to feel the weight of what she had done.  I put the bird back very gently on the grass and pushed a tuft of the sweet green fronds over the dun feathers.


Time up.
Inspration:  I thought of an incident about a year ago. It happenend exactly as above and it has stuck in my mind and will do for some time.

Spontaneous

'Let's have some fun,' she said.
'O.K. what would you like to do?' he replied.
'I dunno. Let's just be spontaneous and do anything we fancy.'
'I'm not exactly sure what you mean.  What d'you wanna do?'
'Well, I'm not sure, but let's just do the first thing that comes into our minds.'
The first thing that came into his mind was a nap on the sofa but he didn't say that out loud.
'Alright,' he said.  'You go first.'
'Um, right, now.  Let's think. Hang on. Why do I have to go first?  Why don't you suggest something?' it came out a little more acerbic than she was expecting but she stood her ground.
'Because it wasn't my idea, that's why.'  he replied, rather piqued at her tone.
'Well, it's always me that thinks of the ideas and things to do.  It's about time you thought for us instead of me.'
He thought of all the times he'd tried to please her by organising or suggesting places only to see a look of boredom if he was lucky and down-right disgust if he was not.
'I'm happy to do anything,' he mumbled, tiredly.
'Oh for God's sake.  It's like talking to a brick wall.  I'm going into the bedroom to read.
He was relieved.  A nap on the sofa was beconing with open arms.

Time up
Inspiration: I missed two days due to work commitments so I'm catching up with whatever pops into my head.