Britain

The Sound of Broken Glass, by Deborah Crombie

/ Daniel Haeusser / Leave a comment
The Sound of Broken Glass,
by Deborah Crombie
Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James Series Book 15
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 0061990647
384 pages, hardcover
Published February 2014
Source: Goodreads First-Reads

Normally I don’t sign up to win books that are in a series because I try to use this to discover authors and works that I otherwise wouldn’t discover or read anytime soon. So if it’s a series, I probably haven’t read any of the others. Even if novels are supposed to be ‘stand-alone’ I’d much rather read them all, in order, or not bother reading any of them. This makes getting into mystery novels hard though. So I must’ve read the description for this and decided my interest was worth giving it a try. I’m glad that I did because it was an enjoyable book, but I’m not sure if it is a series that I’d rush to find more of over the others I have in queue.

The primary strength I see in “The Sound of Broken Glass” is atmosphere. Crombie’s characters each exude particular British regions or classes, and the city itself is used almost as a character in defining the roles of the others, their pasts and how those circumstances now collide in the present. These past events are conveyed through italicized, flashback, passages, rather than in-time. This method seems largely employed to keep the secrets of the mystery hidden to the investigators in the novel until the last possible moment. The reader therefore has a greater, though still very vague sense, of what lies behind the murders than the protagonist does. Yet despite revealing more to the reader, Crombie still keeps the mystery unsolved and identities unclear through red-herrings, convolutions, and reader mis-assumptions.

Thus, it stands an effective mystery. The downside as I saw it, was that the structure of the novel with its flashbacks takes away significantly from any procedural aspects. The case is ultimately unveiled not completely through the investigator’s skill, but rather in large part due to chance coincidences and shared acquaintances, well-crafted connections on the part of the author between her characters that leave the entire events partially artificial in feeling. Crombie also uses the story and its themes to try to wedge in side plots involving the protagonist and her family, all of which seem highly tangential and never actually brought to conclusion. I suspect these aspects of the story relate more to the overall series as opposed to the novel itself, highlighting that a series novel never can really be ‘stand-alone’.

Three Stars out of Five

The Quick, by Lauren Owen

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The Quick, by Lauren Owen
Publisher: Random House
ASIN: B00H4EM4WW
528 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 2014
Source: NetGalley

Lauren Owen’s debut novel is a difficult one to assign a rating. Overall it is an above-average book and will be of interest to many readers. However, the enjoyment of it I think will vary quite substantially from reader to reader, in a not-too-easy to predict fashion. If the plot (including the ‘twist’) is something you find intriguing, you should definitely check this out. It is extremely well-written and Gothic-moody, but its execution and the ultimate direction of its plot may cause some frustrations.

Some have considered discussion of what this book is about to be a spoiler. Given the implications of the title, I don’t take this to be the case. Though not mentioned in the novel’s summary ‘blurb’, I think it unfair to try and rope people into reading a story they may have no interest in. Knowing what the story ultimately about doesn’t spoil much, in fact it probably makes the surprise transition from the first third of the book to the remainder far easier to go along with. So without further ado, if you REALLY REALLY don’t want to know anything more about the novel, you’ll have to stop reading.

Potential Spoilers Follow

“The Quick” starts off as a fabulously engrossing Gothic story about a secret society, and of a sister and brother living in a large empty home in the absence of their parents, under the care of a servant as their father is away. The first third of the novel focuses upon the brother, grown up and at university, as he makes roommates, friends, and eventually romantic ties with a gentleman he meets there. Throughout this portion of the book the story is filled with a literary richness, excellent characterization, continued foreboding Gothic tensions, and drives forward certain expectations on how one suspects the plot may unfold.

These expectations are then shattered when tragedy strikes and the focus of the novel shifts to bring in the identity of this secret society brought up back in the prologue. Vampires. The remainder of the novel is a story about vampires, what the society is about, why they have done what they’ve done, and what the ramifications will be for both the brother and the sister. After a portion of the novel written in the form of diary by a man associated with the vampire society (to explain their characteristics and background history to the reader) the novel continues the ‘action’ of the plot by shifting back to the sister, who now arrives in search of her brother.

The dual focus, split in the book, between the brother and the sister is not a major problem. With the sudden plot twist of bringing in vampires, this split focus is perfectly valid. The shattering of reader expectations based on the first third of the book isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. It’s great to have cliched expectations shattered. The problem becomes when one potential expected plotline is simply replaced with another completely different one that begins to feel even more cliched and predictable. Sadly, I feel this is largely what happens with “The Quick”.

Vampire novels have been done to death. Here it is made somewhat unique by giving it a strong classic literary and Gothic style as opposed to the more recent takes on the subject. The addition of these vampires in an organized society led by one particularly visionary individual gives the vampire plotline even greater potential to take on something new in this novel. This individual does not merely look on the normal “Quick” humanity with ambivalence or disdain. Rather he views them with a sort of pity, claiming a desire to use the society’s powers and influence to not simply survive and feed, but to try and find ways to improve and better humankind. This is a very interesting concept.

Unfortunately, the concept is never developed. Instead the novel becomes a rather standard (though consisting of great prose) novel of fighting against the vampire society’s plans. The supposed ‘well-meaning’ intentions of the vampire leader turn out to be disingenuous, mainly a victim of power corrupting, turning him into a typical vampire monster and thereby negating any potential exploration of a vampire doing great things while also having to rely on predation.

Those who simply adore well written Gothic novels, fans of vampire fiction, and the like will enjoy this book greatly, even if they don’t love it. Those unsuspecting and disinterested in the vampire plot may feel misled, and those that fell in love with the literary beauty of the first third of the novel may become disappointed by its turn into rather predictable genre fiction, albeit with a continued ‘literary’ style of prose.

Three Stars out of Five

Black Chalk, by Christopher J. Yates

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Black Chalk, by Christopher J. Yates
Publisher: Random House
ASIN: B00CZ7OC28
356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 2014
Source: NetGalley

The summary description of “Black Chalk” enticed me with the novel’s premise, yet it also made me wary with its comparisons to Donna Tartt’s brilliant “The Secret History”. Both of these initial impressions proved well-founded. Yates’ debut novel is built around a terrific idea, the development and consequences of a cruel, high-stakes game developed by a group of college students. This period and setting of life, simultaneously a step forward into ‘adulthood’ and also a regression to child-like social mentalities, is prime both for literary exploration and construction of a wonderful thriller as Donna Tartt proved.

Whether Yates’ work here is directly influenced by Tartt’s novel or just bears chance similarities in plot, it is notable that the similarities between works are superficial, at the level of setting and general themes. In addition to a secretive group of intelligent, though naive, students, “Black Chalk” has the additional element of an enigmatic outside force shaping the start of events. “Game Club” as they are called, make one of the most intriguing aspects of the novel, yet its purpose and secret wind up being rather mundane, leaving this element sadly under-utilized.

Instead, “Black Chalk” focuses on the students, particularly the founding pair of the group, using a narrative structure of first person recounting prior events through third person. As the history is told, it becomes clear both who the narrator is and that he suffers from mental problems and drug side effects, suggesting his related information may be unreliable. Indeed it begins to appear that some of the recorded text may not even be the narrator’s own words, but something another has come in and added to his writings. Unfortunately, very little is done with the potential created by this unreliability. Past events are described still from solely this unreliable point of view, leaving things confusing just how much is ‘true’ and what is imagined or altered.

Initial suspense created by the narrative structure and the general premise of the plot become bogged down in much of the inaction of the novel’s progression. The social disintegration of the student’s friendship is hardly surprising, and the cruel games end up feeling not terribly bad considering the build up for horrors that the mind of the reader may begin to imagine. The suspense of the novel builds the reader up for an eventual showdown and ending to the ‘game’, and while the ultimate solution for achieving victory is well constructed, this showdown also ends up feeling like a let-down, far less disastrous or horrible as expectations may be.

The writing of “Black Chalk” is good, but it doesn’t give the novel the same literary weight as Tartt’s work, covering similar issues, but without the degree of symbolism, allusions, etc. In the end it could still have been a decent thriller, but never managed to be as ‘disturbing’ as I initially expected from the premise. I think Yates has the talent to produce some great works, this debut just had too many issues in terms of characterization, depth, missed opportunities, and the unfortunate invitation for comparison to “The Secret History”.

Two Stars out of Five

A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps, by Chris West

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A History of Britain in Thirty-six Postage Stamps, by Chris West
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250035503
277 pages, hardcover
Published October 2013
Source: Goodreads First-Reads

Each time we’ve gone to a stamp show my wife and I first head to poster presentations to see what people have put together. Philatelists take a theme, or a bit of postage history and develop one to many panels that explore the concept in a mixture of text and stamp presentation. They can vary from very dry postal minutiae to stunning artistic displays, and all between.

West’s work here is basically an expansion of that concept into book form. It doesn’t pretend to be an exhaustive history of Britain, not even of that small portion of Britain’s history that has coincided with stamp production. Instead it simply presents a series of special stamps to show how that stamp reflects a particular portion or key event between the start of Queen Victoria’s reign (and the first use of a stamp) until present day. The history related has both breadth and snippets of depth, covering aspects postal, social, political, and cultural.

Reading this gives you insight into the aesthetics of stamp design – albeit Britain’s is a bit more tame and unadventurous compared to some other nations, and a well-balanced, though again, clearly and proudly British, insight into key events both within Britain and the world as a whole. Well written and captivating for anyone that enjoys history or stamps, I’d recommend it.

Personally I found the book to get better as it went along. Perhaps this is because I was more familiar with recent history than that of mid-late 1800s Britain. It may also be that the style and structure of the book, as little snippets of history, took some getting accustomed to.

Four Stars out of Five