The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

A few months ago Weidenfeld & Nicolson advertised that they would be giving away a free book to anyone who signed up to their mailing list. Not saying no to a book and having never read a spy thriller the option I decided on was Alan Furst’s The Spies of Warsaw. 

The book was a nice surprise in the post after a few weeks and proved to be a bargain at the small fee of giving out my email address.

Set in 1937 Poland, the thriller follows a deadly game of espionage played out between French and German operatives. Easy to read and thoroughly engaging, I completed it in less than a week and enjoyed being transported to the Europe of pre World War II. 

What was most entertaining about The Spies of Warsaw was Furst’s grasp of the time. In the book he displays a knack for placing a character directly in the political turmoil of the 1930’s and eliminating any evidence that it is in fact a work of fiction. The main protagonist is free to circle the cocktail parties and hotel bars of Berlin, Paris and Warsaw and engage the subtle art of information trafficking. The job is at times a perilous one: as you will see the military attaché enjoying ponczkis at a local café one day and fighting SS men the next.
 

Yet behind all the merriment and excitement a central question preoccupies The Spies of Warsaw, placing it under a cloud of mournful retrospection: “What will become of these people?”  

All characters are set under the glooming dark shadow of the First World War and the apprehension of the next.

The first espionage novel I’ve ever read, I enjoyed Alan Furst’s blend of fact and fiction and the mixture of action and melancholy. What’s more I’ve now got the bug to go and visit Europe again. 

The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf

I first heard about The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones when I was browsing the Vintage Books website and I stumbled upon blog posts written by the author Jack Wolf. In them the writer described the influences behind his debut novel and his choices to combine malignant folk tales of goblin kings and bogeymen. These posts, which continued on to cover the topics of Madness and Sexuality, ran alongside weekly bulletins from the book’s Facebook page supplying titbit facts on madhouses and medicine in the eighteenth century. As a sucker for publicity and anything of the gory historical nature I pre-ordered my own hardback copy before its January release date.

The book arrived, its cover evoking imagery not dissimilar to the Headless Horseman Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but its pages revealed a heavily researched delve into the world of mid-eighteenth century England. A world Jack Wolf lovingly assembles with painstaking detail right down to the whitelead faces of the female characters and ole time language which reveals the tale of the younge protagonist Tristan Hart. 

At first the language presents a difficultly in achieving a flow while reading, but as the pages turn your mind ceases to stumble over the words and the Yeares of Tristan are laid out before your eyes. 

The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones is the account of a young budding anatomical student’s study of pain and his descent into madness. 

The story opens in the pastoral setting of Berkshire, where Tristan grows up as the son of a squire, free to room the slopes of the chalk horse and create mischief in the neighbouring apple orchards. Yet despite his privileged background, and bountiful opportunities to fool around with the local tavern maids, Tristan is unsatisfied, and craves for something more beyond the idle pursuits of pleasure.

What he craves lurks underneath the pale surface of skin, and can only be sought out in candlelit dissecting rooms of London's academia and furthermore whispered of in the darkest rooms of city's illicit brothel dens. 

On the outer surface Tristan Hart is a bright young man who is dutifully studying medicine with the aim of uprooting the causes of humanity’s Ills, but below this visage is a sadistic monster who seeks out scalpels, whips and chains to cure the drumming hallucinations inside his head…

For his debut Jack Wolf has warped an uncomfortable concoction of folk tales with the Scientific Revolution and used the settings of stuffy vivisection laboratories and haunts of sexual depravity. While one can admire the depths which Jack Wolf goes create this twisted fairytale, any hope for a breather fails, and even a flight through the fields of Tristan’s Berkshire homelands cannot avoid disorientating hallucinations of gnomes, fairies and bat children. 

The verdict simply reads: not for the faint of heart. Pumping through the veins of this debut is an antithesis what the scientific thought of the time were trying to achieve. In the vessel of Tristan Hart Jack Wolf delivers an unnerving study of extremity assembled with a gruesome poetic fibre.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This month while the snow was making venturing outside an unpleasant prospect I looked forward to nothing more than cooping up in bed with Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. 

This explosive thriller echoes flavours of Stephen King with its authentic characterisation and brilliantly acute observations on modern life and relationships.

Set in a small town in Missouri, Gone Girl is the story Amy and Nick Dunne, a couple who are suffering marital problems. Both writers, the pair originally lived in New York, but after losing their jobs during the recession cutbacks choose to relocate to Nick’s hometown. 

The novel opens on their fifth wedding anniversary, when Nick receives a phone call from his neighbour to say that his front door is wide open. 

Nick returns to the house to find that there is evidence of a struggle and that Amy is gone.

The novel is fractured into two accounts, Nick’s bewilderment during the ongoing police investigation, and Amy’s diary, written before her disappearance. 

Little can be said of the plot without revealing crucial details, but much can be said about Gillian Flynn’s talent as a writer. In Gone Girl she demonstrates a sharp understanding of the human condition and the novel pierces you at times with its frighteningly accurate portrayal of failing relationship. Listed amongst Flynn’s repertoire is also her extraordinary power to manipulate the angles of language and distort the distinction between trust and alibi. These two skills combined mean that in between chapters you will find your alliance drastically switching from Nick to Amy, so get your TEAM AMY or TEAM NICK t-shirts at the ready! Yet amongst this well-played out gender battle the book also pauses with poetics passages contemplating the recycled clichés and derivatives of modern living.

Her third novel in a line of other interesting creations with dynamic female characters (which I am now on the quest to devour), Gone Girl definitely possesses the power the shock. You may find yourself wanting to throw the book in anger after some excellently well-timed revelations by Flynn, but undoubtedly you will be gripping it with white knuckles until the very end.

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Prisoner of Heaven is a treasure to be savoured, much like a discovery of a second-hand bookstore, perhaps stumbled upon during a wander of the wintry streets of Barcelona.

In the next instalment of the four-book cycle, that has included The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon returns to the Sempere & Sons bookshop. Trade is suffering during the Christmas period of 1957 and Daniel Sempere is keeping a watchful eye on the shelves of untouched books. While frost laces the outside of the shop window, the quiet is broken by the appearance of a mysterious customer in the doorway.

The unknown figure limps towards Daniel and demands to buy a rare copy of The Count of Monte Cristo - which happens to be the most expensive book in the shop. This, the strange character says, will be made out as a gift to Daniel’s friend, Fermin Romero de Torres, including an ominous note.

After the man’s exit what follows is an intrinsic delve into Spain’s forgotten secrets. While visiting dank and dark prison cells and scenes of murder Carlos Ruiz Zafon weaves a thrilling pattern of intrigue, cleverly interlocking with the previous books of the series.

Yet out of the bleak and sinister void of imprisonment shines the colourful spark provided by Fermin. In him, the Spanish novelist has created a lovable fighter, who squirms, scratches and kicks at the officials of Franco’s dictatorship with a wonderfully funny and eloquent rhetoric. 

The Prisoner of Heaven is an entertaining read that delightfully combines the historical, mystery and romance conventions, and is a welcome addition to any book collection.

All I want to read for Christmas is... The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern begins with a whisper of magic. In the quiet chill of the night you find yourself standing by a set of twisted iron gates, waiting for the opening hour to strike. The dark grounds of the circus inside look lifeless and the hushed crowd are starting to get restless.

Suddenly the silence is broken by the popping of flickering white lights. A startling sparkle teasingly dots out the characters of a hidden sign. A young lady appears smiling in the brightened ticket booth and the crowd wriggles into an orderly queue. 

Soon it is your turn. You clutch your ticket, and enter a star-filled tunnel where you are greeted by the faint smell of caramel. At the end of the tunnel you step into a well lit courtyard, and look up, dazed, at the towering black- and-white striped tents.

Erin Morgenstern invites you to wander the dreamlike world of a circus. A circus which arrives unexpectedly and unannounced, pitching at the many corners of the world; only opening at night-time and leaving in the light of dawn, with little sign it was ever there.

As you tentatively pull open each red laced page you reveal the tents of illusionists and trapeze artists, you indulge in the tastes of secret midnight dinners, delve into the mysteries of tarot card readers, while watching a romance enfold under the stars. 

The Night Circus moves in anticipation of what next scene will be revealed, yet the one that follows proves to be just as satisfying as the last, each character swirling in an exquisitely sumptuous costume, the details meticulously planned, yet made to look effortless by the author.  

Not much else can be said about Erin Morgenstern’s debut without diminishing the magic of this enchanting creation, except that this author possesses the power to envelop you in world that is a rush to senses.

However if you dare to look away from the page the world will escape you, fading in the brightness of your bedside light, and leaving only a lingering smell of caramel.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

David Mitchell’s excellent characterisation and imaginative writing captivates in this exploration of six lives interlocking over the globe and history...
 

Cloud Atlas is a colossal epic which opens in the 19^th century and rises towards a post-apocalyptic adventure. 

Each chapter richly delves into the lives of six brilliantly realised characters, beginning with the journal of Adam Ewing, a young lawyer who is documenting his travels across New Zealand during the 19^th century. 

From the first few pages it is impossible not to fall in love with the deliciously archaic language.  Words like ‘simulacrums’ and ‘schrimshandered’ pepper the text, while histories of island tribes and stowaways unfold alongside the beautiful imagery of ships sailing the aquatic blue pacific. It is also here that David Mitchell introduces the violent themes of race and power which run a current throughout the rest of the novel. All these elements are blended with such a gorgeous vibrancy that when the chapter abruptly cuts short midsentence, the only conclusion to draw at first is that there has been a misprint.

The next chapter consists of letters dated in the 1930’s written by Robert Frobisher, an upper class musician suffering from a self-induced “financial embarrassment”.  Driven by an impulsive and careless sense of life direction, Robert embarks on a journey which begins with him jumping out of his apartment window, arriving in Belgium by ferry, and ending in the mansion of Vyvyan Ayrs, a frail once greatly revered composer. Robert manages to procure the job of amanuensis to Ayras, and in his letters he relates his time negotiating family politics and Ayras’s tempestuous mood swings.

The letters are delivered with an eloquent dry humour and at times Frobisher snobbery can verge on the unlikable, yet it is in this voice David Mitchell delivers a line that serves as a mandate for narrative structure of Cloud Atlas; “A half finished book is a half finished love affair”; written after Frobisher discovers the published journal of Adam Ewing urges his devoted friend Sixsmith to track it down.

Cloud Atlas then drifts from the dark and dreary Ayras mansion in Belgium to Buenas Yerbas in 1975. This fictional city in California is the home of Luisa Rey, a gossip columnist who is looking for her first hard news scoop. Half-Lives – The First Luisa Rey Mystery is written as crime-thriller. David Mitchell hooks you in with the pulp-thriller tone as the young journalist investigates the corrupt Seaboard Corporation provoking contract hit-man and murder attempts. Yet once again Mitchell leaves you hanging in anticipation of Luisa’s fate when the action reaches a climatic point.

David Mitchell then moves on to modern day England to the self-depreciating voice of Timothy Cavendish, an elderly editor and head of his own publishing house. The energetic writing of Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish cleverly depicts an old rogue who still has more sparkle than society realises. The memoirs hilariously recount dangerous runs in with gangsters and a frustrating battle with the matron of an old people home who could give Nurse Ratched a run for her money. My favourite scene being when Timothy is being chased about the grounds of the home by an orderly yelling “Solyent Green is people!” at the dazed zombie residents on-looking.

A futuristic world with an Aldous Huxley-feel is created in the next chapter, set in what used be to Korea. The life of the clone, Sonmi-451, reveals a society in which humans have been overtaken by consumerism and brand names such as nike, sony, ford, and starbucks are the unified signer for objects. 

Halfway through the Cloud Atlas slight connections are apparent between the characters but the overall question of what the novel is reaching to is yet unrealised. However the journey of reading and intriguing characterisation pulls you across the pages at an alarming pace. It is only when one finishes reading camp-fire retelling of a post-apocalyptic civilization set in Hawaii that the beauty of David Mitchell’s project is fully realised.

Cloud Atlas is a living breathing text interlocking over time and history to bring you a set of brilliantly captivating characters. David Mitchell explores the term intertextuality with characters living inside of each chapter. The epic rises with a story within a story, each half-life only complete once the second chapter has been read.  The half finished love-affair is at times melancholic and bittersweet but flashes with comical antics of Timothy Cavendish and next gripping instalment of Luisa Rey. David Mitchell proves he can master genre with homage to crime and sci-fi fiction, but brings his final trump on narrative by creating a novel which sails across many skies to detail lives that are but a drop in a large ocean.