Goldfinger - AGAIN!

In search of a quick and light holiday read, I reached for Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming. But it wasn't long before I started to think that the story was incredibly familiar. Initially, I put it down to my having seen the film, but then suddenly realised that I'd actually read it as an ebook back in 2017! However, this time I was indulging in the audio edition, superbly narrated by Hugh Bonneville, and decided I was too far down the road to stop. I thought it would be interesting to look at the blogpost I did at the time and see if I felt the same way about it as I did then ... and I have to tell you, dear reader, not quite! In this, the seventh outing for the spy with incredible longevity, the action starts with James Bond being a little disgruntled. He is finding it increasingly difficult to live up to his 007 billing and is wondering about his future - does he really want to continue killing people? While on an enforced stopover in the USA, he is asked to help someone who is convinced that the man he has been playing cards with is cheating. Bond takes on the challenge and proves this to be the case, running off with the beautiful girl who had been an unwilling accomplice to the fraud. Back in London, Bond is called in to investigate the smuggling of gold out of the country by none other than Auric Goldfinger - the card cheat himself! This sets Bond on a collision course with one of the richest men in the world, with death and destruction coming along for the ride. The action sweeps across Europe and then to the USA, where Bond is forced to help plan, and execute, the biggest heist in history - with the gold reserves at Fort Knox being the target. Goldfinger and his henchman, Oddjob, are completely despicable, and for once, Bond's attempts at romance are, for the most part, thwarted by the inclusion of lesbian characters ... although, sadly, the author didn't seem to have the balls (no pun intended) to carry this through to the end. And this is where I felt distinctly uncomfortable with the language used regarding the female characters in this book, the attitudes expressed towards women and the ridiculous ending where Pussy Galore (oh my, what can I say about this name!) succumbs to Bond's charms. This grated on me somewhat and definitely dates this book. Despite this, there are some superb passages, where the author demonstrates his usual eye for detail with the joyful descriptions of food, cars and people. And like last time, my favourite scenes feature the tense and thrilling round of golf between Bond and Goldfinger ... in fact, I would go as far as saying that it's worth reading the book just for this! (Indeed, maybe, just read that bit!!!)

My STAR rating: THREE (one less than last time).

Length: 320 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, unabridged audio CD, ebook.

Home Fires Burning - nostalgic but totally relevant

Home Fires Burning, by Robert Inman is the story of a small southern town in America whose tight knit community is in danger of being unravelled by the impact of World War II. The narrative centres on Jake Tibbetts, who, like his grandfather and father before him, is the editor of the local newspaper. Jake is a forthright man, who takes it upon himself to be the conscience of his community - he believes in honour, duty and responsibility, and always seems to be angry about something. He takes his wife for granted and is disappointed by his alcoholic son, Henry, whose child he is now raising as Henry is no longer on the scene. With the young men of the community fighting overseas, there is a feeling that things are changing, and Jake isn't ready for it. When Henry is reported dead, and his heavily pregnant wife turns up on the doorstep - a wife nobody knew anything about - Jake starts spinning out of control and sinks into a bottle. As his behaviour becomes more erratic, he is in danger of turning all his friends and family against him as he tries to comes to terms with the ever increasing upheavals in this once quiet town. Let me put it out there ... this is a great book. Full of trauma, confusion and angst, but told with heart and humour. Jake is a difficult man to like, but you can't help it. The supporting cast of characters are believable, and the way the story is woven together, with snippets about Jake's forefathers and Henry's escapades, is incredibly smart. This type of small town community may have already vanished, so this may be more of a nostalgic look at how things used to be ... but the sentiments featured, the difficult relationships exposed and the need to adapt to a scary future are very current. Home Fires Burning is a fairly old book so you may have trouble finding it ... but if you spot it in a second hand shop, then snap it up!

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 392 print pages.

Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.

Formats available: print; ebook.

Dead Beat - Derring Do ... Wizard Style!

Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher, is the seventh in his Dresden Files series, which follows the escapades of Harry Dresden, Chicago's first and only Wizard Private Investigator. Usually, Harry works closely with his friend, Karrin Murphy, who heads up the Special Investigations Department of the Chicago PD, but in this outing, Karrin goes away on holiday. Despite her being away, however, Karrin is always on his mind as Marva, a vampire he thought they'd vanquished 12 months previously, catches up with him in a cemetery (where else!) and threatens to destroy Karrin's career unless Harry procures The Word of Kemmler for her. Harry agrees, but is determined to find out what The Word actually is ... and is horrified to discover that it is the ultimate "How to ..." book for necromancers ... basically, with this book, you could become a minor god and wreak whatever kind of havoc floats your boat over the world. Determined to find out who is after this kind of power and how to stop them, Harry rescues Butters, a medical examiner under attack by a necromancer, who then goes on to assist Harry. He also meets the mysterious Sheila, who is not what she seems, but appears to be exceptionally helpful as well as beautiful. Harry must focus on the task at hand and not be a) seduced by Sheila which would lead him down a demonic path; b) work out how to stop the six battling necromancers from wielding the power of The Book; and c) save his fellow wizards from complete destruction. Oh, and it's Halloween! I don't know if it is because I hadn't read one of these books in a while, but I found this to be such an enjoyable ride - thrills, spills, spells, and total fantasy with a bucket load of humour. The new characters were great, the dialogue sparky and the action non-stop. I also felt that there were some seeds sown in the plot (like the presence of Sheila) that will be seen again in future works. If nothing else, having the image of a zombie dinosaur roaming the streets of Chicago planted forever in my mind makes this book worth every single penny. Fantastically narrated by James Marsters once again, this is a great read for those who love a bit of fantasy/crime/humour. Roll on book number eight!

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 464 print pages.

Price I paid: £5.96

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; audio CD; ebook.

Mayflies - Talk About a Rollercoaster!

Mayflies, by Andrew O'Hagan, is the story of a friendship pushed to the limit. The action opens when Tully Dawson and his friend Jimmy (nicknamed Noodles), are in the prime of their youth and head off on a trip to Manchester to see THE bands of the day in one almighty bender of a weekend with their small circle of friends. It's as intense as the friendships between the lads, but none more so than between Tully and Jimmy, with Tully being the heart and soul, as well as the instigator, of pretty much all their adventures. And yet, there is already a fragility to Tully in that he doesn't want to become his very down to earth father ... Tully wants to be in a band. Fast forward 30 years and Tully, now 51, a teacher, and still living in his native Scotland, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He asks Jimmy (now based in London) to help him get to Dignitas in Switzerland - which he agrees to, reluctantly. This, inevitably causes friction with Tully's long term partner who has been kept in the dark about his decision to chose his own way of leaving this world, and everyone must now deal with the fallout of that decision. I'm not sure that the word enjoy can be used in this context. I can admire this book for raising difficult topics, but found it hard to like Tully who, I felt was little on the selfish side and extremely inconsiderate of his partner's feelings in the whole matter. It felt that, through life and now his death, everything had to be done Tully's way. Tully must have had a huge amount of charisma, though that didn't come across to me - maybe because I'm not a "lad". The intensity of friendship forged during troubled times when growing up, however, was evident and was the core of the book for me. This is an exploration of how those friendships can last, even when distance and time separates people, and, most especially, that when it comes to the crunch, those friends will always be there for you ... which is something we probably all hope for! Yes, there is humour, but there is also a lot of darkness, given the subject matter, and it is heartbreaking at times. Despite my misgivings, this book is definitely well worth the read.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length:288 print pages.

Price I paid: £3.49.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Dark Dawn Over Steep House - grimly entertaining!

Dark Dawn Over Steep House, by M.R.C. Kasasian is the 5th (and I think last) book in the Gower Street Detective series. We are back in Victorian London with Sidney Grice - a personal detective - and his ward, March Middleton, who is also the narrator of the piece. They are asked to investigate the case of a missing daughter, but, as always, there is much more to this case than meets the eye. It leads to the uncovering of a serial offender who attacks women (of course), and a lot of red herrings to chase down - during which, March gets in way over her head and risks it all to solve the case. At the same time, an unsolved mystery from some time ago rears its head again ... that of Steep House ... and as both cases begin to dovetail into each other, they bring Sidney and March to the brink. Full of humour and lots of action and plot twists, this is highly entertaining, though the crimes described can be very gruesome at times. Sidney is as rude and pedantic as ever, and March brings her own highly developed funny bones, which are sprinkled with liberal doses of sarcasm, to the party. These two characters really spark off each other which is always a delight. For me, I was happy to see less of Molly, their ridiculously incompetent servant, as her continual malapropisms can become a tad wearisome when overused. I was, however, delighted to see George Pound back on the scene ... hurrah and huzzah, love is in the air again for March! There was a bit of a shock at the end, which left me reeling - but I won't say any more than that for fear of spoilers. I read the audio edition, which is narrated by Emma Gregory, who has all of these familiar characters down to a T. If this is the last in the series, it was a great one to end on, one of the best in my opinion, and I'm really going to miss these characters!

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Price I paid: £2.98.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.

Human Traces - Traumatic Epic (another one!)

Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks, follows the lives of two men and those they love and lose along the way. It's another huge book, both in terms of length and also breadth of the topic - the nature of humanity! It starts in the 1870s with Jacques Rebiere, son of a peasant who lives in Brittany, and Thomas Midwinter, a Lincolnshire merchant's son. Jacques, who is taken under the wing of a local priest who sees the potential in his scientific mind, wants to find a cure for his beloved brother Olivier who is kept in the stable because he hears voices. Thomas, meanwhile, is unwillingly forced into medicine by his father. Both meet by chance in Deauville, forming an instant respect and admiration, and they determine that when they qualify as doctors, they will work together to further the study and cure of people like Olivier. They toil through many years and in trying circumstances, until they finally get their chance to create a new kind of clinic in Austria. By this time, Jacques is married to Thomas's sister, Sonia, and Thomas finally finds love with an ex-patient. However, the strong bond they once had begins to loosen as their thoughts and theories on how to treat the people in their care starts to take different paths. Tragedy is never far away, and, into the mix, the First World War also features. There aren't many laughs in this epic story of two men driven to the point of their own madness by their desire to understand and cure those whose mental health has deserted them. Both Jacques and Thomas are used as cyphers to show how the medical profession at the time dealt with such patients and the new ideas that were coming out about the nature of man, his origins and the reasons behind such conditions as schizophrenia and dementia. Whilst some of this is interesting, the immensity of the details given - which included full transcripts of lectures or papers the characters were delivering - left me a little cold. I didn't quite believe some of the actions of the characters either, including a strange affair by one of the men, which made me lose sympathy and interest in them - I think because it kind of came from nowhere and didn't really go anywhere. I can admire the level of research and the epic nature of the work, but sometimes the work felt more like a lesson than a story and my attention began to wander. There was also, for me, a bit of an imbalance in that so much time and space was given to the early years of both Thomas and Jacques, and the beginning of their time in their clinic, but then the ending felt raced through. It was almost as if the writer had said all they wanted to say and so decided to end the book without a satisfactory conclusion for my part. But then, life often isn't all wrapped up in a neat little bow .. but somehow, I'd like my fiction to do so ... unfair I suppose, but there it is! Hard going at times, but with passages full of feeling and heart, this was a curate's egg of a book for me, but I know others will feel very differently. 

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 615 print pages.

Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband.

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook. 

Into the Silence - A True Epic

Into the Silence by Wade Davis is a monumental work in terms of depth, detail and length! At the heart, it is the story of the three attempts to climb Mount Everest by British-led expeditions in 1921, 1922 and 1924. However, the backdrop to this is World War I and the effect it had on the men who took part. They had seen so much death, and many of them were still suffering both mentally and physically from that time. Conquering Everest was also driven by the influence of "Empire" ... despite all the evidence to the contrary, there was still a certain belief amongst the upper class that somehow, the British could still achieve anything they set their mind to - whether they had any experience of it or not. The teams of mountaineers were made up of a hotchpotch of experience and skilled climbers (like George Leigh Mallory) and total beginners, not necessarily in the best of health but who had the "gumpf" to have a go. Much of the first expedition was to try and map out the area and find a potential way to the summit. The next involved specific attempts to reach the top which failed miserably - primarily due to the belief that using oxygen was somehow ungentlemanly and "cheating". On this expedition, George Finch, an excellent climber, who had done the research and built devices to deliver oxygen at altitude and was pushing for its use, was pretty much ignored because he had not gone to the right school or university ... yes, the class system was very much alive (and still is to this day)! This attitude cost lives, just like the idiocy of the generals in the first world war who wasted so many sons, brothers, husbands and fathers through their incompetence and pig headedness. However, the experience of this trip led Mallory to also believe that without oxygen, the climb to the top of Everest would be impossible. In 1924, despite his misgivings, Mallory returned to Everest and on June 6th, he and Sandy Irvine - a 22-year-old Oxford scholar with little experience - set out from their camp at 23,000 feet to make an attempt to conquer the mighty mountain. They never returned. Mystery still surrounds the fact as to whether they made it to the top and met their end on the way back down, or whether they never reached their goal at all. There is so much in this book that it is hard to take all of it in. I found the first expedition particularly hard going as it detailed where everybody went pretty much every day, and I got lost amongst the place names (and indeed, all the people). However, as the book reached the last expedition, it was definitely more gripping. I felt anger, curiosity, excitement and sadness. Yes, there were heroics on show, but also stupidity and ignorance, and the disregard for the local population from many of those involved, without whom nobody would ever have succeeded, was shocking. It has left me understanding a bit of history I was only vaguely aware of, and for anyone interested in Mount Everest, this would be a must read, despite the heavy going at times ... but then, maybe that's in keeping with the challenge it is describing! 

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 672 print pages.

Price I paid: £3.00

Formats available: print; unabridged audio download, ebook.