Daily Mail - 06.09.2019

Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019 Page 55

THE SECRET

COUNTESS

by Eva Ibbotson

(Macmillan £7.99,

368 pp)

AnnA, a young

Russian countess,

flees the revolution with her

family — canny Granny first

having fed her dachshund with a

priceless diamond in a slice of

liver sausage.

now penniless (until the

costive dog performs), they lodge

with an old nanny in a poky

London flat. Anna finds work as a

skivvy at a stately home, cleaning

the dilapidated pile before the

Earl’s marriage to a ruthless,

hard-hearted blonde beauty.

to terms with, the painful truths that lie

behind why her fiance has left.

THE WAYWARD GIRLS

by Amanda Mason

(Zaffre £12.99, 496 pp)

OnE half of this story is set in

1976, when a young mother

moves with her children to a

very remote cottage in search

of a more authentic way of life.

But things are far from idyllic, as the family

is confronted by terrifying and unexplained

incidents in a house which seems to be

controlled by unseen, malign forces.

Fast-forward to now (the chapters are

divided simply between now and Then), and

students interested in the paranormal are

trying to solve the mystery of what went on

in that house, with the co-operation of Lucy,

one of the now grown-up sisters.

It’s an original plot with a number of

terrifying moments, even though a haunted

house is not a novel concept. It’s perhaps

more of a ghost story than a psychological

thriller, and there are some fascinating

insights into sibling relationships.

couple and the secrets they keep from each

other are revealed.

THE NIGHT YOU LEFT

by Emma Curtis

(Black Swan £7.99, 464 pp)

ThERE are a crowd of

characters, two storylines and

an ambitious plot to get to

grips with in this book, so it’s

not one for the beach if you had

that second glass of wine with lunch.

This complex mystery revolves around the

disappearance of Grace’s fiance nick shortly

after he has proposed to her, and the parallel

storyline concerns the hidden traumatic

events of nick’s childhood.

Curtis manages to make both storylines

knit together beautifully and conjures an

atmosphere of quiet menace which she

maintains throughout.

The other numerous characters, including

nick’s family, are well-drawn if not particularly

likeable, and the reader suspects they hold

some of the clues to nick’s mysterious past.

Most convincing is the portrayal of Grace’s

mental torture as she searches for, and comes

BOOKSFICTION

BROKEN GHOST
by Niall Griffiths
(Cape £16.99, 368 pp)
ON A Welsh mountain top in
the hours after a rave,
three strangers experience
a vision. A ghost? A meteorological
phenomenon? A consequence of the
drugs they’ve taken?
For a moment, the trio feel an intense
well-being. But don’t be fooled — things
go downhill quickly, and messily, in the
Wales-based Griffiths’s impressive but
often gruelling ninth novel.
Having blogged about the sighting,
depressive mother-of-one Emma finds
herself overwhelmed as her posts go
viral. Meanwhile, the lives of Adam, a
former alcoholic and junkie, and
labourer Cowley (who could be a cousin
to Irvine Welsh’s Begbie) also descend
into chaos.
This is a book powered along with
ferocious momentum by the raw
nervous energy of its characters,
whose demotic, alternating narratives
seem to muscle bodily off the page.
However, Griffiths is at pains to set the
damaged threesome’s harrowing
travails within the context of Brexit and
austerity, the divisive and corrosive
effects of which he dramatises sympa-
thetically and uncompromisingly.

DOXOLOGY
by Nell Zink
(4th Estate £14.99,
416 pp)
THIS is a typical Zink novel,
in that it’s totally unpre-
dictable. It begins with a
deep and learned dive into the early
1990s New York punk scene, concludes
sometime after the 2016 U.S. election,
and features an interlude in rural
Ethiopia where the central character,
young activist Flora, is studying envi-
ronmental degradation.
The point of view flits around in a way
that would give many old-school
editors a heart attack. British readers
may well find the novel’s latter stages,
in which Flora becomes involved in
campaigning for the American Green
Party, slow-going.
But plot has never been a selling point
with Zink, and, in any case, the random
nature of life is one of Doxology’s themes.
What this book is interested in is how we
engage with that randomness, as well as
with such intractable conundrums as
social justice and climate change.
Fortunately, Zink injects all of this with
her usual deadpan hilarity, while her
cast of inimitable misfits are never in
danger of being overshadowed by her
larger concerns.

WE ARE MADE OF EARTH
by Panos Karnezis
(Myriad £8.99 224 pp)
WRITTEN in simple,
uninflected prose, this
short fifth novel from
Greek-born Karnezis packs
a punch. At its heart are two refugees,
bound together when the dinghy they
are fleeing in sinks.
Mokdad is a proud, heartless doctor
who, in a fit of rage, murders a fellow
passenger by depriving him of his life-
jacket. However, he also saves a young
boy, Jamil, who (misguidedly) decides
that Mokdad is his saviour.
When the two wash up on an island,
they are taken in by a debt-ridden
circus owner and his wife, a couple
whose own relationship has been
poisoned by grief following the tragic
death of their daughter.
Switching efficiently between
perspectives, Karnezis creates a web of
painful ironies, misunderstandings and
moral dilemmas. All the while, he
emphasises the fragility of human
bonds and the persuasive fictions we
spin for ourselves.

LITERARY FICTION

by STEPHANIE CROSS
Stitching together a life after love

Illustration: IFAN BATES

HISTORICAL

ELIZABETH BUCHAN

PSYCHO THRILLERS

CHRISTENA APPLEYARD

RETRO

VAL HENNESSY

A SINGLE THREAD

by Tracy Chevalier

(HarperCollins £14.99,

352 pp)

HAVING lost her fiance to war,

Violet Speedwell is a surplus

woman — one of the thousands

of spinsters left in financial

and emotional limbo after the

slaughter of World War I.

It’s now 1932, and Violet

knows her prospects for

fulfilment are few and her

options limited. Summoning

her intelligence and courage,

she escapes the torment of

living with her mother to take

lodgings in Winchester, and a

job. But it isn’t easy, and there

is never enough to eat.

Her life takes an unexpected

turn when she joins the

Winchester Cathedral

Broderers, a group of women

creating glorious embroideries

on kneelers provided for the

comfort of worshippers.

Writing with quiet but

devastating empathy, Tracy

Chevalier pinpoints Violet’s

predicament as a single

woman, her unexpected

emotional crisis and her

struggle to give her life depth

and meaning. I loved it.

TO CALAIS, IN

ORDINARY TIME

by James Meek

(Canongate £18.99, 400 pp)

IN 1348 a mixed group of

travellers, including a bunch of

ribald archers, leave Outen

Green in Gloucestershire and

make for France.

Bernadine, daughter of Sir

Guy, is fleeing from an arranged

marriage and trying to join her

lover, Laurence Haket. Will

Quate, a sturdy archer, plans to

enlist in the army in France.

Scots proctor Thomas Pitkerro

has been instructed by the

Abbot of Malmesbury to travel

with the archers and take their

confessions if they find

themselves in extremis and far

from a priest.

Unknown to them, these

disparate pilgrims are

travelling towards the Black

Death which rages in France.

Will they survive? Each

character speaks in their own

language: Bernadine borrows

from French romances,

Thomas has a Latinate

intonation, and Will talks in

ripe vernacular.

From this, a bold, exciting,

original novel unfolds which

makes connections between

past and present cataclysms. A

worthy successor to Meek’s

prize-winning The People’s Act

Of Love.

BONE CHINA

by Laura Purcell

(Raven £12.99, 448 pp)

FORTY years after Dr Pinecroft

and his daughter Louise settled

in Cornwall to try out

experimental cures for

tuberculosis, Hester Why

arrives to look after Louise,

now partially paralysed and

almost entirely mute. What

has happened to the family?

And what mystery surrounds

Miss Rosewyn, Louise’s ward?

Hester soon discovers that

Morvoren House is filled with

secrets and staffed by servants

who believe in ‘the little

people’. But she, too, has

things to hide: a laudanum

addiction and an overwhelming

need to be loved.

Laura Purcell’s bestseller

The Silent Companions

demonstrated her eye for the

intriguingly gothic. Here, she

summons the genre’s familiar

tropes, such as the imprisoned

woman, and meshes together

several plot strands with

atmospheric prose.

LIES LIES LIES

by Adele Parks

(HQ £7.99, 448 pp)

ThE latest Adele Parks is

written with the same brisk

authority that has earned her

such a devoted following.

Daisy Barnes, the sort of

bragging parent you dread sitting near at a

dinner party, is the over-invested mother of

six-year-old Millie, conceived by IVF.

The concealed strain of infertility, and

Daisy’s obsession with Millie’s precocious

dancing talents, are at the centre of this

clever domestic noir, and Daisy’s struggle

with her husband Simon’s drink problem is

very well-observed.

Part of Parks’s skill is that, despite all the

drama, the tension is firmly rooted in the

everyday. But the storytelling is at its most

powerful when we see through the eyes of

Simon, as the dramatic consequences for the

Anna, exhausted after days of

polishing bannisters and waxing

floors, cools off in the moat

wearing nothing but her long hair,

unaware the moody Earl is lurking

in the moonlight. no guessing!

Sheer bliss from start to finish.

A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING

by Anthony Powell

(Arrow £8.99, 272 pp)

Oh nO, not another toff take on

prep school tribulations! This

was my first reaction to Powell’s

first instalment of his 12-volume

portrait of 20th-century society,

opening in the 1920s.

however, I was soon gripped by

his exquisite grammar, fluency,

punctuation, vocabulary and

obscure classical references, and

I warmed to narrator Jenkins’s

amusing reportage and ponder-

ings. Of course, there’s the

ubiquitous school pong of car-

bolic, gravy and feet; the sneering

and snobbery; ragging home

visits to parents with butlers,

servants and house-guests called

Buster and Tuffy; and toffs in

peals of laughter at cruel japes

involving chamber pots — all

mercilessly mocked by a scalpel-

like pen.

In fact, I’m bowled over, hooked

and, hurrah, there are 11 more

volumes to go as Jenkins grows

up. Terrific.

THE SANDCASTLE

by Iris Murdoch

(Vintage £9.99, 368 pp)

BEwARE the addictive

adrenaline buzz of illicit affairs!

Murdoch skilfully evokes the

agonies and the ecstacies of a

disastrous fling occuring at a

boys’ private school in a ‘God-

forsaken backwater’.

henpecked by his bossy wife,

conventional schoolmaster Mor

meets a bewitching young artist,

Rain, and ping go the strings of

his middle-aged heart.

Lust abundant! Furtive

woodland love trysts go wrong,

misunderstandings abound, the

loyal wife heads towards

breakdown, and lives are

permanently ruptured by the

ripple effects of betrayal, decep-

tion and shattered trust.

But is Rain as childlike and

innocent as she appears? will

the star-crossed lovers ever

consummate their steamy pas-

sion? Ah, there’s the rub...

An absolutely scintillating,

slightly bizarre, page-turner.