Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson

 I've decided that from now on, I'll begin with a bit of context as to how I came to read each book. I find that my reaction to a book is very much affected by all sorts of external circumstances - mood, place, time of year, who recommended it etc. Do you find that? Would be interested to know - do put something in the comments!

So I read Shrines of Gaiety whilst staying with my son and his partner, both of whom are voracious readers and tend to have books I haven't come across. They live in Brussels, and I only visit once or twice a year, so there are always new books to dive into and read while they are at work and the grandchildren are at school.

This jumped out at me from the shelf firstly because it was a hardback with a striking blue cover, and second because it was by Kate Atkinson, a writer whose books I've always enjoyed. I particularly like her dry humour - very much in evidence in her Jackson Brodie books: detective stories with a difference.

This sounded as if it was going to be another detective novel, albeit set in the 1920s. It has a DCI, as all self-respecting detective novels do. This one is called John Frobisher. He is well-intentioned, with a moral compass set in the right direction - but he turns out to be rather a lost soul, gloomy and hapless. He has flashes of inspiration, but somehow nothing ever quite works out for him - so he's not a typically charismatic and clever lead character.

The real star of the book is one Nellie Croker. When we first see her, she is being released from Holloway. She's small, dumpy and middle-aged - but she's also a powerful figure in the 1920s London underworld, and is considerably tougher than a pair of old boots. She runs a number of nightclubs - on one occasion a fight breaks out which develops into total mayhem - but when Nellie appears and shouts at them, calm instantly descends. (I've known teachers like that. I once had a very difficult group. It was last lesson on a Thursday afternoon, and all was not calm. Then a certain senior teacher walked in with a message: he didn't have to say anything, he just glanced round, and suddenly, magically, I had a classful of little angels...)

Anyway, back to Nellie. Her empire is under threat from various quarters, and DCI Frobisher is interested. Into the mix comes our second heroine, a cool and capable librarian from Yorkshire called Gwendolen Kelling, who comes to London in search of two missing girls, Freda and Florence. We, the readers, know what these two are up to - and we also know that other young girls have gone missing, and that they are in danger, though we don't know from whom.

Nellie has quite a few children, the eldest of whom, called Niven, is a veteran of the Great War. He's an interesting character. Tough, charismatic, very capable - he's really everything you would kind of expect the lead detective to be. Niven and Frobisher are both drawn to Gwendolen... so you can see that here is a mix of characters with great potential to create interesting story lines.

The glittering, tawdry world of 1920s London is vividly evoked, with its desperately bright young things, its war-weary veterans, its determination to have fun at any cost. The story twists and turns like a thief threading his/her way through the murky alleyways of the great city itself - and it's told with Kate Atkinson's trademark crispness and dry humour. Really, a very good read.

Big Sky and Simon Serailler

When I started this blog, I didn't really mean it to be a series of reviews. I meant it to be a way of keeping track of what I read. A friend, writer Adele Geras, says she keeps a note of everything she reads. When I heard that, I really wished I'd thought of doing it. I read quickly, and I read a lot, and have done ever since I was a child borrowing books from Ilkeston Library; just think, if I'd done that, I'd have books - whole shelves - full of titles by now!

Well, I didn't, and I haven't even managed to keep this blog going. But I've swept the floors and brushed away the cobwebs and I'm going to have a another go. Incidentally, it was very nice to see that I've acquired a few new followers while I've been gone - welcome and thanks to you!

So first, a bit of a catch-up about books I've read and enjoyed in the last month or two. Disclaimer: probably because I read too quickly, I don't generally remember books for all that long. Also, I read quite a few of the following on my Kindle, and it's notoriously difficult to go back and check up on things on a Kindle. So apologies for a possible lack of detail and/or accuracy.

I'm an admirer of Kate Atkinson, and particularly of her Jackson Brodie books. Big Sky is the most recent one - and I got this from the library and have it beside me, so that's a plus.

Brodie is an ex-policeman, now a private investigator. He's not actually very good at his job, though somehow or other, he usually manages to sort things out. As Crystal, the sort-of heroine tells her stepson at one stage: "Claims he's a detective... but he's shit at detecting." Crystal is a great character: the trophy wife of a wealthy businessman with an obsession for keeping things neat, tidy and wholesome - why, you will quite correctly be asking yourself? Her past, and her strength of character, are gradually revealed. She may look like a Barbie doll, but she's a tiger when it comes to defending her young. She's one of a whole array of nuanced, flawed characters: Kate Atkinson gets inside the heads of even the bad ones and, without laying it on with a trowel, lays bare their complexities.

The book is very cleverly constructed: different chapters are related from the point of view of different characters, and it's not at all obvious how they relate to each other or where the story is heading. I can't really say any more because it would spoil it. Just one thing: if anyone has read it/does read it, and understands why it's called Big Sky, would you tell me? I think I must have missed that bit.

Susan Hill is another writer acclaimed for both her 'literary' fiction and for her crime novels - if, indeed there is a distinction, which I don't think there necessarily is. I hadn't read her Simon Serailler novels until recently - thank you, to the friend who recommended them!

Serailler is one of those intelligent, attractive, intuitive police officers who crop up from time to time in crime fiction. He reminds me a bit of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey: like him, Serailler is fatally attractive - fatally, because he is unable to commit himself to anyone, so scatters broken hearts in his wake. He also solves crimes: the small country town where he lives has nearly as many serial killers knocking about as Midsomer. Like Kate Atkinson, Susan Hill is a very good story teller, who likes to get into the heads of all her characters - victims and perpetrators as well as the forces of law and order. She also develops the stories of Simon and his family as the series progresses - particularly his sister, Cat Deerbon, and his very odd father. There did come a point at which I felt there was just too much about the misfortunes of the Serailler family - they really do have a lot of bad luck - and so I've taken a break from the series: in particular there was a storyline involving the father which didn't convince me. But the first few books were very gripping, and I do like the sound of Simon's apartment overlooking the cathedral close. The first in the series is called The Various Haunts of Men.

This really has nothing to do with the books. It's just a big sky, up above Cheddar Gorge.