An author recommends 3 books to read this summer
An author recommends 3 books to read this summer
Crime fiction writer Julie Anderson looks at three epic summer reads
As holiday time approaches, here are three first-rate thrillers, out this year, to take with you, on your e-reader or in physical form.
First, The Pinnacle, (Vintage, hardcover and Kindle only) by Abir Mukherjee. Set in Mumbai, this is the story of the ‘superior’ residents in the eponymous seventy-floor apartment blocks. Insulated from the dirt and the heat of everyday Mumbai and with the most stringent security ensuring their privacy, these pampered mega-rich remain apart even when one of them is murdered. The occupants of the Pinnacle, literally as well as metaphorically, look down on the city and its people.
Our protagonists are George Abercrombie, over-the-hill American movie star with an alcohol addiction and a younger wife, doyen of Bollywood, Sweety Sahota. Plus, Sweety’s PA, Gemma Cairns, tortured by guilt at having an affair with a married man, with a running commentary in her head from her Baptist mother. And George’s put-upon, but not-above-a-little-thievery, general dogsbody, Amit Kamblé. Friends, lovers, acquaintances and other residents of Mumbai’s most desirable address, as well as some from distinctly less desirable places, flesh out the cast list, together with the long-suffering police Inspector Gill.
The depiction of Mumbai is terrific and seems, to this reader, very authentic. Did you know that Mumbai has a snow and ice themed indoor playpark (Ice Town in the novel, Snow World in reality)? No, me neither. Yet it’s the characters who stay in the memory, none of them superficially sympathetic, but all of them drawn with humanity and affection. After all, this is a Mumbai-set modern morality tale. George, privileged and vain, discovers that he loves his wife now that she’s dead and, while he gets no less vain, he becomes more humane and does the right thing. Gemma is threatened and betrayed but finds herself a slice of the good life. Amit, the ducker and diver who isn’t very good at ducking and diving, manages to build himself a future.
The Pinnacle is exciting and pacey, with lots of unexpected twists and it is also very funny. Mukherjee enjoys depicting the dissolute lifestyle and execrable taste of the apartment block’s inhabitants. Of one gold-bedecked penthouse ‘It was as if King Midas had come to Mumbai, got hammered with Louis XIV and then both of them decided to enter the interior design business.’ Or, of the flat’s owner, ‘her lips were full, painted glittering pink like a couple of caterpillars off to the disco.’ He’s also good on the day-to-day corruption of India, the police, the security guards, the bribes and backhanders. It’s difficult to see where depiction of reality ends and the satire begins.
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Second, Octagon, by C.J. Merritt (Michael Joseph, £9.99) an international spy/conspiracy thriller, with action ranging across Europe. This high-stakes tale has western liberal values and democracies under direct and immediate threat unless our heroes can stop the villains.
Said heroes are Stella McCrae, former MI6 agent runner now running her own business, Tommy Kane, former SAS hard man with a touch of PTSD and Hossein ‘Hoss’ Al-Naji, a secret services wannabee who loves his mother’s cooking almost as much as he loves the idea of being ‘in the field’ but is much more useful at his computer. McCrae and Kane have history and it is to him that she turns when she needs help and protection.
A former colleague contacts McCrae telling her that a lot of people are going to die unless she does something to prevent it. When his body is discovered, his life taken, supposedly, by his own hand, McCrae feels duty bound to investigate. The trail, a fraught and dangerous one, leads McCrae and Kane across Europe, taking in ritual murders, human sculptures with animal parts attached, occult runes, a cage fighting event and many a high-octane chase. We encounter murderous Russians, vicious mercenaries, a sinister, blind and apparently prescient figure called The Master and the far right, quasi-fascists he commands.
The story barrels along at pace, with suspense a-plenty and it’s hard to put the book down. In its quieter moments the relationship between McCrae and Kane comes into focus. Octagon is a fast-paced spy/conspiracy tale, set in a convincingly drawn intelligence services world with sympathetic and, sometimes, amusing characters. Perfect for that holiday break in the sun.
Third, an unusual variation on the conspiracy thriller, The Burning Library by Gilly MacMillan (Baskerville, £10.99). This is Dan Brown ancient-truths-and-secret-societies territory, but it’s much more fun than the adventures of Brown’s somewhat po-faced symbologist. Its feminist tongue is firmly in its cheek, though that doesn’t prevent the tension and the thrills mounting.
Protagonist Dr Anya Brown is a star Oxford PhD student, who translates formerly indecipherable texts. She is offered a perfect job at the Institute of Manuscript Studies at St Andrews. Unknown to her she is being suborned by a secret society, the Fellowship of the Larks, the exclusively female members of which seek to advance the rights and power of women. The Larks want to use Anya’s skills to decipher ancient manuscripts, which will lead to the Book of Wonders, a tome which will bestow great power. Naturally, the Larks are not the only secret society searching for the Book. Their deadly rivals are members of the Order of St Katherine who take a ‘power behind the throne’ approach, being traditional wives and mothers who work through their, often unknowing, menfolk to exercise covert power. Macmillan creates a faultline between the two approaches to female power and sets them in opposition to each other. Both societies are appropriately ruthless and vicious.
The narrative shifts between different points of view, from Anya and DC Clio Spicer, of Scotland Yard’s Art & Antiques Squad, to members of the Larks and Kats, as they are styled. Bodies mount up as Anya realises that her dream job is a poisoned chalice. (Though, rest assured, there is no mention of the Holy Grail.)
As someone whose latest books reference the evolving role of women, post-WWII, it was refreshing and fun to read a female-focused contemporary adventure-thriller like this one. It’s not Anya’s eidetic memory that is the supreme skill involved, although that comes in handy on more than one occasion, rather it is… sewing. Pieces of beautiful fifteenth century embroidery form the first clue, its pattern a code. A poem stitched into a curtain is the second. A piece of underwear and a hotel’s mini-sewing kit the third.
The Burning Library is good fun, full of puzzles, riddles and hidden messages. That said, as the trail leads our heroes to the mediaeval city of Verona, assassins from both Larks and Kats on their tail, the tension ramps up and we move towards a perilous and gripping climax worthy of any male dominated thriller.
Julie Anderson is the author of the Clapham trilogy, historical crime novels set in south London, the latest being Festival Days (Hobeck Books, £10.99)
