Stephen Fabes: Signs of Life. To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor. Serpents Tail / Profile Books, 9781788161213, hardback

 

I have found myself strangely (or perhaps understandably) drawn to travel books during these two lockdowns and this is my second book about long distance cycling. I draw my personal line at 8 days of cycling, biked the Route Napoleon over the  Swiss & French Alps to Nice in younger days but cannot fathom doing an around the world trip on a bike as Stephen Fables, a young British doctor did. 

I needed time settling into Stephen Fabes “Signs of Life” but then I was hooked and had to have my daily dose of his writing, an adventure, often an ordeal but always a stark raving nuts undertaking. His profession as a medical doctor must have given him the tough mental attitude one needs to persevere through all types of weather, loneliness, sleeping mostly in tents, some hair raising events,dangerous countries like Afghanistan and former Soviet states or nearly getting his head blown off in the Americas not to talk about suffering through different illnesses.

But there is also the kindness of strangers he encountered so often that makes you hopeful about the nature of mankind. I felt his writing became more engaging and open during the second half of the book but his critical look at the comforts of the richer states, his curiosity about ordinary people and the political situation of the countries he visited and his medical viewpoints were thoroughly captivating to read.

Very much enjoyed his adventurous spirit, him sharing the lessons he learned, including the difficulties on how to adapt once the trip was finished and his view about the situation of refugees.  It is a great adventure read, particularly for cyclist but also for all who love to travel suffering from being grounded these days.  

CJ Box : Dark Sky

 C.J. Box: Dark Sky, 9780525538271, Putnam (Penguin Random House US), hardback

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett always guarantees a great armchair trip into the beautiful Rocky Mountains,courtesy of C.J. Box's writing skills, delivering a clever plot combined with wonderful nature descriptions.  

"Dark Sky" reminded me a lot of a Western, it is one of the more violent books in the series, with a plot that I would consider mostly directed towards a male audience. But then the characters around Joe Pickett such as his friend falconer Nate Romanowski, do not hesitate too long when threatened before making use of their weapons.  When the governor of Wyoming orders Joe to take a spoiled tech billionair Elch hunting, he has little choice but to make the best of the situation.  In true Joe Pickett fashion, it does not take long before the trip turns into a dangerous nightmare requiring all the survival skills at his disposal to make it back to his family in one piece. 

This latest book  wasn't one of my favourite CJ Box novels, too much violence for my taste but still a solid page turning read. 

 

Ajay Chowdhury: The Waiter,  Harvill Secker (Penguin Random House UK), 9781787301832, paperback, pub date May 24, 2021

It was hugely entertaining to read an early proof of “The Waiter” by Ajay Chowdhury, publishing in May 2021.   This refreshing first novel reminded me in style and story line of Abir Mukherjee’s historical crime novels set in pre Independence  India which I love, so little surprise here that I give “The Waiter” a thumbs up.

Kamil Rahman is a former detective of the Kolkata police who ends up working as a waiter in a Brick Lane restaurant owned by his father’s friends Maya and Saibal. Rahman had refused to be corrupted in the murder investigation of a famous Bollywood actor in his home town losing rank and privileges which gave him little choice but to make a fresh start in London. 

When Kahman has to cater a birthday party for his boss’s rich friend Rakesh married to the much younger Neha, the evening takes an unexpected turn. At the end of the party Rakesh is found murdered by his swimming pool and all fingers point to Neha. The police take her into custody much to the gratification of Rakesh's first wife and son.  Saibal, Maya and Anjoli, their daughter, plead with Kamil to investigate on their behalf as Neha was like a second daughter to them und an improbable murderess. The book switches back and forth between the current murder investigation and the old memories of the case that brought Kamil to his knees. 

“The Waiter” is a non-bloody, atmospheric, clever and often funny crime novel, a perfect summer read.

Cara Hunter: The Whole Truth, 9780241985144, April 29, 2021, Penguin, paperback

Cara Hunter can count me as one of her fans by now; this is her fifth book in the series set around the Oxford police team headed by inspector Alex Fawley which gets better with every book.  It happens rarely that I am left so completely in the dark about whodunit and Cara Hunter manages it perfectly. 

Hunter’s mysteries usually have two crimes going, the prose of the plot is interwoven and spiced up with emails, twitter snippets, WhatsApp messages and police investigation reports.  In “The Whole Truth” , out in paperback April 2021, Fawley’s team is called in to look at an unusual accusation: a male student for a change, Caleb Morgan, accuses his female professor Marina Fisher, a leading expert on Artificial Intelligence and rising star of his college, of assaulting him sexually while babysitting her son.  The second crime is a murder which derails the Fawley team completely; I will not reveal more as it would ruin the nail biting part of the novel.  

If you are in the mood for a very clever British crime novel set in Oxford with plenty of twist and turns that will keep you guessing how on the earth the author is going to  resolve this one, ”The Whole Truth” is a very good pick. Hats off to Cara Hunter for creating such a terrific, tense crime story.  A tiny piece of critique: I like my crime novel endings very tidy and this one felt a bit too lose for my taste but perhaps just right for others.   

 

Jedidiah Jenkins: Like Streams to the Ocean, Convergent (Penguin Random House US), 9780593137239, hardback, available also by Penguin UK, Ebury

During the first lockdown in March 2020, I read Jedidiah Jenkins wonderful travel memoir “To Shake the Sleeping Self” which allowed me to travel with him in spirit through the Americas from Oregon to Patagonia on bicycle. I loved his honesty, reflectiveness and adventurous spirit paired with his struggle on this trip to come to terms with his evangelical upbringing and being gay. 

My eyes lit up when I heard that a new book was in the works, “Like Streams to the Ocean”, a very different book, essays with the under title “Notes on Ego, Love and the Things That Make Us Who We Are”.  Jedidiah examines what made him the person he had become at age 38, “talks” warmly with his readers  about ego, work, death, love, being gay, denying himself sex for a very long time due to his Christian upbringing, the meaning of family, friendships and the importance of chosen family. The book is written in snippets, an ongoing conversation one would have with a friend.  

I am probably not the target age group as a reader, could be his mother age wise really, which made some of his musings less relevant to me than it would to a younger person  but most essays are definitely universal, authentic and thought provoking. “Like Streams to the Ocean” did not mean as much to me as his travel memoir but then it is such a different book. His philosophical, kind and open thoughts made me reflect upon things in my own life during these grey days of a long lockdown winter.

 

Ruth Ware: One by one, Harvill Secker, (Penguin Random House UK) trade paperback, 9781787300422

 

Ruth Ware’s latest crime novel “One by One” is my first book by the author who already has a few books published, in Germany her publisher is DTV.  The setting of the novel in a posh French Alpine ski resort during a fierce snow storm suited my mood perfectly as the snow kept falling outside in real life and everyone currently knows what it feels like to be restricted in their movements.

As I started reading I was surprised how quickly the book drew me in and kept me hooked,  reading at a quick pace.  Having read so many thrillers in my professional life, I have to confess that after 70 % of the book I figured out which way the plot could go which was correct but that still left several possibilities for the book to end open which kept me guessing.  “One by One” is a cleverly constructed thriller set around some smartass young employees and their shareholding owners of a hot music app who come together for skiing fun and brain storming retreating to a high class ski chalet in France with cook and full service.  As the company’s group dynamics begin to unfold, an avalanche cuts off the chalet when the group returns from skiing and they realize that Eva, one of the shareholders, has gone missing.  Liz, a young shareholder and the odd one in the group and Erin, the chalet manager, narrate the chilling events as another employee is found dead in his room.  The idea of a group of people caught in a house by some unforeseen event with a murderer on the lose is not a new one, but Ruth Ware has crafted a solid thriller with a special dot com edge which I had great fun reading during monotonous winter days.

 

Yaa Gyasi: Transcendent Kingdom, Knopf (Penguin Random House USA), 9781524711771, C format paperback

Yaa Gyasi’s follow up novel to her exceptional debut “Homegoing” which I absolutely loved is made up of very different material.   “Transcendent Kingdom” deals with loss, depression, addiction, grief, science, religious faith and unmanageable hurt that tore at my heart and moved me very much,  sometimes I had to put it down.  One of the reasons I hesitated to pick up this novel was that I too had a mother suffering with severe depression and the experience of this will always be raw.  But Gyasi is such a fine, brilliant writer, her prose so vivid and exquisite – it was worth it to have read this heart wrenching story.  

The novel centers around Gifty who is a PhD candidate in neuroscience studying reward seeking behavior associated with addictions hoping to find answers in science real life is refusing her. Her mother, an evangelical Christian, immigrated to the US from Ghana to create a better life for her children only to have her husband, the Chin Chin man, return to Ghana leaving her to raise their children Nana and Gifty by herself.  The downward spiral for her family begins, when Gifty’s brother Nana, a promising teenage basketball player insures his ankle and is put on OxyContin, setting him up for years of addiction and finally,  after the families desperate struggle to save him, ending in an overdose death.  The loss of her son sends her mother into severe depression from which she never recovers creating a double loss for Gifty of the two people she loved. 

Gyasi describes Gifty’s feelings of watching beloved family members drifting off into addiction and depression and the feeling of helplessness with such sensitivity and so vividly, it feels like she is familiar with losing someone close under similar circumstances.  For me it was an emotionally hard book to read sometimes but written so beautifully and sensitively it will be one of these books whose characters will resonate with me for a quite some time .