Welcome to the Heady Heights by David F Ross

If I’m not mistaken, Welcome to the Heady Heights is the author’s fourth novel with Orenda Books (I don’t know if he’s written anything else besides that) his previous three titles being the Disco Days trilogy. I have those on my kindle, but confess to not having read them yet, so Heady Heights was my first experience of this writer. 

It’s 1970’s Glasgow and Archie Blunt is an eternal optimist. He’s not exactly the most successful of people, having just lost his job on the busses with the Glasgow Corporation, having no real prospects to speak of, no family or relationships. He has some friends in a similar situation to himself and cares for his father who suffers with dementia. After getting a job as a driver with a local gangster and being given the task of chauffeuring around a leading figure in light entertainment, his dreams of a life in show business are ignited. 

Hank “Heady” Heights hosts a television talent show. Titled Heady Heights, it’s a play on his name, egotistically allowing him to bestow on competitors the glory of soaring to the heights of celebrity. When Archie saves Hank from an irate husband, the impresario is in his debt. Archie leverages it in pursuit of his dreams and gets a shot at the show. He recruits a motley group of young men to form a band so that he can enter them as their manager. Nothing is that simple however and Archie soon finds himself out of his depth and in the midst of a sprawling conspiracy.

Set in the 1970’s this book tackles a number of issues that have since come to prominence, namely organised sexual abuse amongst the great and the good, in politics, business, law and show business. Jimmy Saville is referenced and there are other characters who are thinly veiled portraits of real-life offenders. A supporting cast of characters - WPC Barbara Sherman, a police officer in an age where female officers suffered routine misogyny from their colleagues, and Gail Proctor, a young freelance journalist - are trying to expose these people. But it’s Archie who steals the show. Hapless and naïve, he doesn’t realise what he’s stepped into and how his simple pursuit of his dreams has upset the evildoer’s apple cart.

This is a comedic book full of heart, despite the story’s grim undercurrent. This is not a crime thriller, and it is not an earnest or hard read; that said, neither does it treat the difficult subject matter with flippancy. It is a paean to the Glasgow of the seventies - one can feel the author’s affection for the city and time period - though not rose-tinted and ignorant of the poverty that blighted it. But mostly it’s a rollercoaster of a ride, one man’s attempt to follow his dreams and reach for the sky, ignorant of the fact that all around him is cynicism and criminality. This is a great book, a poignant and funny blast, and I can highly recommend it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Attend by West Camel

Sam is a gay man coming to terms with his sexuality. He’s just moved to London and is new to Deptford, an outsider. In a chance encounter he meets Derek, a local hardman and they fall for each other. Anne is a recovering heroin addict, Deptford born and bred. She is estranged from her family but is trying to make amends and rebuild bridges. These two separately meet Deborah, an old woman and seamstress. While the rest of the city’s denizens seem to not notice Deborah, she seems to be everywhere that Sam and Anne turn. Deborah has a beguiling knack for spinning a flighty yarn and soon has them mesmerised by tales of her youth and how she got to be where she is today, living in a strange tumbledown house amongst the warehouses by a creek on the Thames.

Attend is a beautiful tale that is difficult to categorise. There are elements of many a genre here - touches of crime, romance and magical realism. But at heart this is a literary novel of self-discovery. Both Sam and Anne start the novel unsure of what they want and where they’re going, and through Deborah learn much about life. Another feature of the novel is the interconnectedness, how all the characters’ lives are weaved together like threads on a rich tapestry. 

The novel takes place in Deptford and is rich in local history and folklore. I’m not sure how much of this is true and how much are imagined, whether for example, the earth under these South East London streets is actually riddled with forgotten tunnel systems, but it all makes for a beautifully and beguiling tale.

Attend isn’t my usual type of read, personally I opt for grittier fare, but I knew this was going to be good, published as it is by Orenda, a benchmark in publishing quality. I wasn’t disappointed; this is a thoughtful and haunting tale, one that makes the reader think about the invisible web of connections that run through communities and between people, and consider that perhaps there is more occurring around, and perhaps even beneath, us than we were aware.

4 out of 5 stars  

Blog Tour - Falling from the Floating World by Nick Hurst - Blog Tour

Ray is an English teacher working in Japan, having been sacked from his job in London in advertising. Having a degree in Japanese Studies he’s been to the country before, knows it well, speaks the language. While there he meets Tomoe, a woman better than him in so many ways: more beautiful, more charismatic, with a greater zeal for life. He falls for her and he falls hard. But there’s a surprise in stall, when she tells him that something has happened to her father and it has to do with the Yakuza. She asks him to help her with her inquiries, then she goes missing. Ray is now drawn deeper and deeper himself into the underbelly of Japan and it’s a dark place indeed, especially for a gaijin - foreigner - like himself.

Many novels claim a sense of place, and this is especially seen as important by some crime novel readers. Of course, not all novels need to do this and there are many a successful novel, including crime novels and thrillers, that don’t try to conjure up a particular locale. For those that do, some succeed, some don’t, while others still come across as mere travelogue. What marks Falling from the Floating World out as special is that not only does it conjure Japan and Tokyo up beautifully, this sense of place is integral to the entire plot. Indeed, this is not a novel that could have been set anywhere else, so vital is the culture and society of Japan to the story. This is hardly surprising, as the author, Nick Hurst, has spent much time in the Far East, including Japan, and obviously knows the region well. Even so, the research that has gone into this novel, his knowledge of Japanese society, its underworld and the Yakuza, Japanese myths and folklore - all of which is fed into the novel’s narrative - is deeply impressive.

In a world increasingly homogenous, there are arguably few places which have held onto their individual cultural identity as much as Japan, and the author introduces the reader to a rich tapestry. There are the myriad different layers of prostitution; the fact that the Yakuza are semi-legal, indeed, they have their own offices, signposted (albeit discreetly), a situation unthinkable in other countries - imagine if the Sicilian Mafia had offices. These major facets are fascinating, but it’s the smaller things I found most intriguing. One such example is the homeless caused by the Japanese economic downturn. Unlike the homeless in Western nations, these are not the product of broken homes, mental ill-health, alcoholism or drug abuse; rather, these are salaried workers who have lost the job-for-life, people who abandon their families through shame, their carefully constructed shelters on the sidewalk intricately put together and cared for. Another example is the pod hotels, tiny rooms let out for the night. Some cater specifically to those planning illicit liaisons, complete with keys dispensed by vending machine and no staff in sight.

While the plot of Falling from the Floating World is strong and keeps the reader turning the page - I grew to like Ray, a regular guy quickly out of his depth, while Tomoe is beguiling, and one can understand why Ray falls for her - it’s the depth of the world the author creates that makes this novel something special. I really felt like I learnt something about Japan (a country to which I’ve never been), that I understand its society and culture a little better, and that’s a very rare thing in a novel. This is a fascinating novel, and Nick Hurst is a talent to watch, and I certainly look forward to reading whatever he chooses to write next.

5 out of 5 stars 

The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl

Kjell Ola Dahl is a Norwegian writer best known for his contemporary crime novels set in Oslo. The Courier is standalone and is a departure from the author’s usual work. Rather than a contemporary setting, instead we have a historical thriller tackling the thorny issues of the Nazi occupation of Norway and persecution of the Scandinavian nation’s Jewish population.

Ester is a young Jewish woman in Oslo. The year is 1942 and the Nazi’s occupy Norway with the collaboration of Norwegian fascists. She works with the resistance, distributing illegal newspapers. But at the outset of this novel, she witnesses her father being arrested, his shop shuttered for being a Jewish business, then narrowly avoids being arrested, the local Gestapo having been alerted to where she is meeting her contact to distribute the papers. Ester now has no choice but to go on the run. First, she hides at the house of her friends, Gerhard and Åse Falkum, before moving on to the be smuggled out of Norway into Sweden. In Sweden, Ester hears to her horror that just after she left Norway Åse was murdered, her baby in its cot nearby. Gerhard is under suspicion for the murder, though the resistance reckons on the culprit being a Nazi, luxuries being found in the house. Gerhard also flees to Sweden and is forced to leave his daughter, Turid, behind in the care of others. Later Gerhard appears to die in a fire at a meeting with the resistance but years later he reappears, determined to find out once and for all who murdered Åse.

The Courier unfolds along two separate timelines told in interchanging chapters. The first timeline is in the 1940’s and tells of Ester and Gerhard’s interactions in wartime Oslo. The second timeline occurs in the 1960’s when Gerhard reappears seeking what, we are unsure. Does he want to reconnect with Turid? Does he want justice for Åse’s death? Does he want vengeance?  

This is an intriguing read and the characterisation is told deftly. It drills down into a murky period of history in which there are tragedies and mysteries, not a few people would rather remain hidden. Recently I was listening to a BBC World true-crime/mystery podcast about the Isdal woman - a woman who’s indentity remains unknown whos charred corpse was found in the Isdalen valley in Norway in 1970. Many theories surround her - was she a spy?, was her death linked to Norway’s wartime past? 

While fictional, the plot of The Courier deals with similar themes, for there were and are events which remain unexplained from the war and the decades after. Indeed, as Gerhard tries to uncover the truth his very presence in Norway is unwelcome to many of the other characters and this keeps the reader guessing as what they have to hide. The author handles the plot deftly and both timelines work well with each other making this a very satisfying historical mystery.

5 out of 5 stars

Cherry by Nico Walker

I first heard about this book when it was talked about by Brian Van Reet, a former US Army tank crewman who served in Iraq, who then went on to write a very good novel set in the Iraq War, Spoils (which I reviewed here: https://bit.ly/2GWyscN). Brian’s review of Cherry was agnostic; he was initially concerned that the novel had been picked up in the first place, and then hyped, specifically because it’s story was so sensational, and while he then went on to say it was well written and that it was an important contribution, as a former serviceman he still has some reservations as to why it has received such attention. You can read Brian’s review here, it’s well worth a read: https://bit.ly/2SGelkz

Since then I have heard a lot about this book, for it has made a splash, rightly or wrongly. The reason for this notoriety is that Cherry’s author, Nico Walker, is serving a long stretch for armed robbery. An army medic, he served in Iraq and came back with PTSD. He then got hooked on heroin and ended up robbing banks to fund his fix. Nico Walker is at pains to stress that his novel, written in prison on an old-fashioned typewriter, is fiction. That said, it is clearly inspired by his own experiences, the protagonist an Iraq war veteran, an Army medic, returning from theatre with PTSD, only to end up addicted to heroin and then finally, robbing banks.

Cherry takes us through the narrator’s journey, from his aimless and rather rootless life prior to joining the army, through his decision to do so, then training, deployment to Iraq, and aftermath. The character hasn’t had a hard upbringing as such, at least the author doesn’t paint this as being the case, but he is the product of the post-industrial wasteland that is much of middle America (indeed, much of the Western world). Jobs are hard to come by, at least a career is; gone are the days of full employment, a job for life, a pension awaiting you at the end. He and his friends get high and drunk. They have sex. They try to fill their days and experience an all-too-familiar-to-many ennui. Indeed, when the narrator decides to join the army, this is with no real commitment, this is no lightbulb moment of revelation. Rather it is almost with a shrug: a friend has joined the Marine Corp, so why not? After all, he has nothing better to do. This feeling of listless apathy follows through to basic training. The narrator’s generation have grown up on a diet of Hollywood movies and video games; they’ve all seen Full Metal Jacket and the like; the drill sergeant is something familiar to them. Indeed, even those employed as drill sergeants seem not to have their heart in it, and the two sides, trainer and trainee, go through the motions.

As might be predicted, it is Iraq that punctures this sense of complacency. Neither the narrator, not any of his fellow soldiers, are prepared for what they face. It isn’t long before as a medic he is accompanying more than his fair share of patrols and witnessing sights no one should. It is here in Cherry that some of the most vivid and horrific scenes occur. In particular, there is one chapter that will stay with me. An IED has hit a patrol and they are trying to pull the bodies free from the vehicles. The victims have been torn asunder, quite literally. They’ve just pulled one dead soldier from the wreckage when a sergeant taps the narrator on the arm and tells him that there is still some of him in the truck. The narrator looks and sees “a string of fat running along what’s left of the driver’s seat, the frame of it.” So, he runs his glove encased fingers along, collecting the fat, rolls a ball of it and tosses it in an irrigation channel.

The rest of the novel details the narrator’s return home, his gradual decline into heroin dependency, and eventually, inept bank robbery to feed his addiction. In the acknowledgements at the back of the book, the author Nico Walker states that the main character is an asshole but kind of likeable, and this is true of sorts. On the one hand he sleeps around, lives a feckless existence, introduces others to heroin and through his own egotism prevents his girlfriend, Emily, from kicking her habit. On the other, he’s strangely guileless, adhering to a philosophy that there’s no point avenging wrongs, that when one is harmed the damage is already done and therefore seeking revenge is pointless. So even when dealers rip him off, he accepts this as his lot in life. Heroin in this novel is far from glamourised; this is a grubby addiction that robs those ensnared in its clutches of choices and dignity. When the narrator begins robbing banks it feels inevitable, the final destination of a sordid journey.

So, in final analysis, controversy and/or hype aside, was this book any good? Well yes, to an extent. There’s definitely a raw feel to the writing of Cherry. I’ve seen praise of this novel comparing it to Reservoir Dogs, or what would have happened had Holden Caulfield gone to war; while the story has been likened to Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. There’s an edginess to the text that is immediate and in the readers face.  That said, I can see why some might see its success, the praise it received, as problematic. As veterans like Brian Van Reet might point out, most of those who’ve served in Iraq or Afghanistan didn’t turn to mainlining heroin, didn’t rob banks, and there’s a certain salaciousness to the media’s embracing of Cherry. That said, this novel brings home the dreadful toll that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have had on swathes of working-class young men. In the United States and its allied nations (for let’s not kid ourselves that this is just an American issue) scores of young people with little or no prospects who’ve signed up to the military on the promise of skills, training, or education, have been left with life changing injuries, physical or mental. So, while Cherry is far from perfect as a novel, and perhaps even less so as an insight into the veteran experience, it is still a valuable addition to the Iraq War canon.

4 out of 5 stars

American Heroin by Melissa Scrivner Love

This is a sequel to the author’s debut, Lola and picks up pretty much where that novel ended (just a few years have passed). Lola Vasquez has now been outed as leader of the Crenshaw Six street gang, and the gang itself has grown in size substantially (the six referring to the core members) and dominates the Los Angeles drug scene to a greater extent than before. With the gang’s expansion has come money, and lots of it, which Lola launders through a legal pot dispensary amongst other methods and uses to send her adopted daughter to a posh private school.

But with success has come risk, one such being that one might sell heroin to the wrong person and that this might have serious consequences. Lola has issued her gang with the directive not to sell to well-to-do white people. This isn’t because she holds them in any great esteem, but rather that should they overdose the police reaction tends to be severe. She’s well aware that the same cannot be said for when a non-white dies, but she is nothing if not practical. At the outset of American Heroin an SUV of young, wealthy, white college students arrive in Lola’s hood and one of her gang sell them heroin. I won’t divulge spoilers, but needless to say one of their number is the son of somebody very powerful indeed; when he overdoses, Lola’s predictions of dire consequences come to pass.

Lola has a soft spot for abused women and kids. One day a pregnant woman comes to see her to say that her husband is about to be released from prison. He used to beat her, and she fears he will now beat her child. By good fortune, Lola’s brother, Hector, is detained in the same prison as the husband (for a murder Lola in fact was responsible for, events which occurred in the previous title) and she contacts him now to order the hit. But Lola soon discovers that she’s been lied to, that the woman is not married to the man she has asked Lola to kill, is not even pregnant but had strapped padding to her stomach. Lola tries to call off the hit but too late. When she learns that the man her brother killed was in fact a founding member of a very dangerous Mexican cartel, one which now is set on revenge, she knows her troubles have only just begun.

The subplot of Lola’s attempts to bring up her adopted daughter and create a “normal” family life for her continues in this book from the last. Lola always had a keen awareness of racial disparity and this is sharpened in this title as she finds her attracted to the wealthy white father of one of her daughter’s schoolmates. All this adds to the nuance of the tale and fleshes out Lola Vasquez as a character.

If I have one criticism of this book, it is that the cartels Lola and the Crenshaw Six have come up against in both the first book and this sequel appear both relatively small (Lola only has to despatch a few key members to see them off) and tame to the real-life version. One only has to google the Mexican drug cartels to read tales of barbarity that are truly horrific. Decapitates corpses hanging from bridges, mass burials and corpses dissolved in acid are the norm for these people. I would like to see the author notch the danger up for book 3 (I presume there will be third title) to truly existential levels. Have the Crenshaw Six come up against something like the Los Zetas. 

That minor observation aside, American Heroin is a worthy sequel to the author’s debut and continues Lola Vasquez’s story nicely.

4 out 5 stars