#47. Self Insert By An Author – Close To Death by Anthony Horowitz (Audible)

I originally stumbled across this series on Audible, and whilst I really enjoyed listening to the first book, I wasn’t sure if it was the story or Rory Kinnear’s narration that got me hooked. I really enjoy listening to Kinnear bring the two main characters, Daniel Hawthorne & ‘Tony’ Horovitz to life, and as long as he remains the narrator, I will continue to listen to the books on Audible. As I finish each book, I know I will be waiting with anticipation for the next instalment. This is the fifth book in the Hawthorne & Horovitz series, and it didn’t disappoint.

 

“Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?”                                                                                       

 

As the series title “Hawthorne & Horowitz” suggests, these books follow the life of the best-selling author of murder mystery fiction Anthony Horowitz. Of course, this is a fictionalised version of himself and in this fifth novel “Close To Death,” he has been told by his literary agent that he needs to have his latest “Hawthorne” novel finished ready for the Christmas market. This puts Horowitz in a dilemma, as there haven’t been any new murders to write about recently, and he hasn’t spoken to Hawthorne for several months.

Horowitz decides he will look at former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne’s cold cases, and finds one in particular strikes a chord with him.  He thinks this case will be a great basis for his new book, and he might be able to uncover a few things about Hawthorne’s private life whilst he’s at it.

#38. Published by Hatchette – The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Audible)

This is the 7^th outing for Cormoran Strike, and as much as this book series infuriates me, I feel I must keep reading them. I’m invested in the characters, but I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’d be that invested if one of my favourite actors, Tom Burke, didn’t play the titular character in the TV adaptations. 

Now I don’t have enough time to sit and read 960 pages when I’m pretty sure 50% of those pages will be utter gibberish. They will be there to make the book look epic, but those additional pages will undoubtedly add nothing to the plot. Help is at hand though in the form of Audible…I tried listening to Robert Glenister reading book 4 and I’ve stuck with him ever since. If you’ve got to spend 34 hours in someone’s company, he’s a good choice, and it means you can tidy the kitchen, or clean the car, whilst finding out if anything exciting is going to happen to Strike and Robin. 

 

“Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .”

 

Retired civil servant Sir Colin Edensor is concerned about his son, Will. Will dropped out of university several years ago to join the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) and now he is refusing to communicate with his family. Sir Colin is worried because the boy is neurodivergent, and he is concerned that his son has been brainwashed in order that the church can make use of his son’s trust fund.

The UHC has many high-profile followers and owns a lot of prime real estate; sounds very much like the Church of Scientology to me. The church is headed up by a charismatic chap by the name of Papa J. His daughter, Daiyu, supposedly drowned in the North Sea when she was seven years old, now reappears to the congregation as an apparition called the “Drowned Prophet.”

To investigate this crime, Robin, who else, decides that she will go undercover and infiltrate the church. She finds a world far removed from the glossy brochures that promise a better way of life. She is taken into a world where everything is back to basics. No mobile phones or internet, not even clocks and calendars are allowed. All senses are removed in a bid to gaslight the followers of the church. Robin finds that they are basically held captive to do daily back breaking chores, and to be coerced into having unprotected sex, neatly wrapped up under the guise of “spirit bonding.” If anyone falls ill, there is no medical assistance, and as all residents are underfed the chances of collapse is high. Robin has placed herself into the centre of a hell hole where she needs to find out as much as possible, get the information to Strike, and hopefully not be found out as the consequences are unthinkable.

#16. An Omniscient Narrator – Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (Audible)

As a child, I used to watch the ITV series “Sherlock Holmes” starring Jeremy Brett and David Burke on the family black and white TV. According to my mother, Brett was the perfect Holmes, and as I grew older and watched other people try to inhabit the character, I had to agree. Brett and Burke were the perfect double act as Holmes and Watson, but what of their creator? I knew very little about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Despite owning a beautiful clothbound version of the complete works of Sherlock Holmes (and a copy on Audible to listen to on the way to work) I’ve never thought about the man behind the pen. I stumbled across this title on Audible, I think it was in one of their 2-4-1 sales; I'd read some other works of Julian Barnes and knew he was a good writer, so I was interested to hear what he had to say about the real lives of George Edalji and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

“As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife—their fates become inextricably connected.”

 

I think the story of George Edalji and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a fascinating one, and it is obvious that Julian Barnes has done an enormous amount of research into the lives of both men, but I think I made a huge mistake in getting this book on Audible. It is hard to write an unbiased review of a book when you're trying to work out if the book is badly written, or if it's due to the poor narrator. In this instance, I think it is safe to say that my main criticism of the book is not Barnes' beautiful prose, but the narration on Audible. My concentration was removed from the story and transferred instead to the poor accents, mispronunciations and general telling of the story, which is a great travesty to Barnes. 

George Edalji was a myopic solicitor, the son of a country vicar, and part Asian. His path only crossed with that of the creator of Sherlock Holmes for several months, but there meeting was most fortunate, as Doyle was instrumental in correcting a serious miscarriage of justice.

Strike Novels by Robert Galbraith (Books 1-3) (Box Clever Challenge - September)

When Agatha Christie wrote her crime novels they weren’t seen as classics at the time, so whilst Robert Galbraith's Strike books are not yet deemed classics, is there the possibilty that they might be in the future? I don't know, so I've read them to see whether they are worth the time and effort.

My heart sank when I heard my favourite actor Tom Burke would be portraying the role of Cormoran Strike in the BBC’s dramatisation of the Robert Galbraith novels. (Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of J K Rowling. I started reading the Harry Potter novels but gave up part way through book four. The first three were OK, but I did not care for her style of writing and none of her characters appealed to me. I had grown up reading Ursula K Le Guin who had alread written books about a boy who went to wizard school, and my opinion did the job much better!)  

The Cuckoo’s Calling

The first novel introduces us to the private detective, Cormoran Strike, a war veteran who lost his leg in Afghanistan. Cormoran not only has the physical wounds of war to deal with, but the psychological issues too.  He has just finished a long and tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend, he has substantial debts that need paying off; he has resorted to living in his office and is now down to his last client. Then John Bristow walks through his door, and Cormoron’s life is about to change.  John’s sister, the beautiful model Lula Landry had fallen to her death from a balcony months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John knows differently.  He wants Strike to investigate the glamorous world of modelling, rock stars and designers, to find out if Lula fell, or if she was pushed.

I was pleasantly surprised reading this novel and how absorbed I was with the two main characters, Cormoran, and his new assistant Robin. It seems an unlikely pairing, however, the two characters bounce off one another and I instantly fell in love with them both; although I didn’t fall in love with Galbraith’s writing.  I enjoy the author giving sufficient detail to transport you to a specific place; she really encapsulates what a traditional London pub is like for instance. I like that she has visualised our modern society, (her comments about fandom especially struck a chord that made me question and think quite deeply about what she had written) but I get exasperated that long meandering narratives that serve no purpose are incorporated.  “ ’Is there any chance,’ asked Strike, as they were momentarily impeded by a tiny hooded, bearded man like an Old Testament prophet, who stopped in front of them and slowly stuck out his tongue, ‘that I could come and have a look inside some time?’”  It was a cleverly written sentence, but it served no purpose, it was as if she had had an idea and was so pleased with the sentence it had to be placed in the novel.