A River of Bodies by Kevin Doyle

This is in reality a review of two books, A River of Bodies being the second in a projected trilogy, and a sequel to the author’s first novel, To Keep a Bird Singing. When I was invited to review this title by the publisher, they were kind enough to send the first title as well and I read both back to back. 

Ireland is a country with a turbulent recent history and as someone of Irish descent (my father was from the north, my mother from the south) I have a great interest in its affairs. There was The Troubles in the north, which dominated much of the latter half of the last century, and which impacted the Republic in the south as well. The south is an independent country but the north remains a part of the UK and the IRA ran a deadly campaign of independence which only ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1999. Then there is the Republic’s relationship with the Catholic Church. Until recently, the Republic was a deeply conservative country. The Catholic Church was not to be questioned and sin was something to be punished. There were many abuses which have only recently been revealed. For example, unmarried mothers were forced into Magdalene Laundries (as famously exposed in the 2002 film by Peter Mullen, The Magdalene Sisters) which in reality were little better than prisons or asylums, where they were forced to work and where abuse was rife. More recently, the worldwide child abuse scandal to hit the Catholic Church has impacted Ireland, with child abuse found to be rife in some Irish Church institutions. All this tragic history forms the backdrop to Kevin Doyle’s Solidarity Books trilogy. 

Noelie Sullivan is an aged, unemployed ex-punk. he’s something of a community activist, having been involved in many campaigns down the years. In the first book of the trilogy, To Keep a Bird Singing, while perusing a charity shop he happens upon a rare collection of punk records. Its his own, he having lost them in a burglary years before. Amazed by this discovery, he buys the collection and asks the woman serving at the till where they came from. After finding out, he tracks down the seller and confronts him. This is where Noelie’s troubles begin, for hidden in the collection is notes on the identity of a high level informant in Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA), a man who throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s was feeding information to Garda Special Branch. The plot takes off from here and soon the IRA/Sinn Fein angle is tied up intricately with child abuse in the Catholic Church, and even touches on fascism in Spain. Book 1 ends on a cliff-hanger and book 2, A River of Bodies picks up from where it left off and continues on. 

Some books in a series can be read as a standalone and some can’t. This is a trilogy of the latter kind, and A River of Bodies really shouldn’t be read without reading its previous title. The second book is a slightly slower moving instalment, as Noellie and the friends helping him in his investigation (all introduced in the first title, bar one newcomer introduced in the second book) consolidate their findings and press on unearthing the truth. That said, A River of Bodies is still a tense and enthralling read and it sets the stage for what I imagine will be an explosive finale.

One thing that should be said is that the characters are under real threat and one never knows who is likely to survive. Without giving away spoilers, major characters are killed off in both titles and I really liked that about these books. In some novels you know that however much peril a character is under they will be ok in the end, but like the fantasy television series Game of Thrones (which regularly shocked fans and kept them on their toes by killing off a major character) this trilogy does the same. It’s a very effective technique and keeps one guessing.

I really enjoyed both these books. The characters are engaging and have real pluck, they’re ordinary people who dare to take on the might of the state (Garda Special Branch) and the dangerous child abuse ring which has tentacles into the Catholic Church establishment. While the plot is convoluted and labyrinthine, the author handles it well and the reader never gets lost. This is an entertaining and engaging thriller series, but one with real punch and one not afraid to shine a light on real social issues. I’m very much looking forward to the third title in the series and can’t recommend these books enough.

5 out of 5 stars

The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley - Exclusive extract!

Today I host an exclusive extract from The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley, by Ian Thornton and published by Unbound Digital:

The Blurb:

Aleister Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, is one of the most reviled men in history. Satanist, cult leader, debauched novelist and poet, his legacy has been harshly contested for decades.

Crowley supposedly died in 1947, but in Ian Thornton’s new novel, set in the present day, the Great Beast is alive and well and living in Shangri-la. Now over 130 years old, thanks to the magical air of his mystical location, he looks back on his life and decides it is time to set the record straight.

For Crowley was not the evil man he is often portrayed as. This was just a cover to hide his real mission, to save the twentieth century from destroying itself and to set humanity on the road to freedom and liberty.

The Death and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley is an epic novel that will make you see this notorious figure in a completely new light, as he encounters an impressive cast of real-life characters including Timothy Leary, The Beatles, Princess Margaret, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

The Extract:

One

The Father, The Son & The Ghost Love is the only principle that makes life tolerable. – Aleister Crowley

I sit in an ancient amphitheatre cut into the slopes of the valley, weeping willows below and above, a stone wall of pungent, bloomed white gardenia to our right, a meadow of daisies and horseflies to the left as this man looks out across his adopted and quite beloved homeland. The morning is unreasonably beautiful. It would be a shame to leave this sanc- tuary, especially given that the odds of returning are so slim. 
I breathe in deeply and gratefully, while I observe with immeasurable fondness the humble decency of this, the most unchallenged, the most unchallengeable and surely the finest spot on the planet. Shangri-La. 
On the flanks are sweeping stone terraces dotted with some young children of touching and eviscerating beauty. Behind me on the hillside, higher up, are many more rows, reaching to even more rarefied air. This crucible possesses a soothing tran- quillity and palpable serenity. It is used for their Buddhist ceremonies, for performances and song by young and old. I have many happy memories here. 
The knowledge, smiles and serenity of all of those here lend weight to Buddhism. A logical mind rightfully struggles with reincarnation, but one finds it easy to forgive them. 
Adorned in my sack-cloth simplicity, I look at the skies and tell three young lasses of shaven head, who eye me with rever- ence as they pass, ‘The taking of pleasure in such minutiae might only be achieved by a man who is at peace with his world. Remember, we are the blue-lidded daughters of Sunset; we are the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.’ 
They giggle and shuffle off. 
I digress! Let us speak vastly important nonsense and then let us visit those depraved and vulgar young goats of mine. 

 1.1 Holy 
You have all seen me before. There I am on the cover of Sergeant Pepper, back row, second from the far left between Sri Yukteswar Giri and Mae West. My fine boy John knew precisely who the puppeteer of that frazzled century was. 
There was surely a time when I would have boasted that you are only here because of my intentional nudges on the axis of the twentieth century, as I squeezed and fondled her centre of gravity. Those days of bluster are largely over. I shall instead approach the claim from a more modest position. Without my meddling as part of British Intelligence, some- times intentional, sometimes utterly cack-handed, it is perhaps possible none of us would be here. I only bring this up as, since I may or may not have interfered with history that allowed the very specific conditions for this, our world to be, we might as well get the pronunciation of my name right. Crowley. It rhymes with Holy.
 And it was not always Aleister. As a boy, I was Alick, though when I barrelled into this realm, on October the twelfth 1875, I The Father, The Son & The Ghost 9 was to be baptised, under the Lord’s font water, Alexander Edward Crowley.
 I was born in one of those sturdy town houses in Clarendon Square, number thirty, in the Cotswolds town of Royal Leamington Spa, where the miraculous waters from font, tap or stream, allegedly healed and cured as if one were in the presence of a Christ. That Nazarene and I would have been marvellous chums; I so adored Him as a boy. I wonder whether I would have been dumbstruck, like the sodden auto- graph hunter at the stage door, had we met? Perhaps I might have been, for the minutest of moments, and long before even He would have chance to peer into my eyes of coal black in search of a soul. My father spoke of Him with much reverence and respect, but also with the proximity of a mind- ful and nurturing elder brother, who would shield us from any harm, as the days of pristine youth sparkled and the midges danced at dusk, until the final strides of another ambrosial day tripped over a gnarled, tangerine sun. 
Or at least, that is how I recall them. Though these early years will always suffer from the patchiness of a childhood memory, it is naturally occurring in the atomic structure of the life story. Please bear this in mind as we hone in on the adult days, where I am able to tell you the exact slant of a morning shadow with the precision of a sundial. Some details shall always be meticulous, however. Papa, for example. 
My father was Edward, a tall, handsome, lithe, dark-eyed brute with fine teeth and cheekbones like spanners in a sock. He carried a married tang of light oak from his subtle cologne and a stark, almost medical, soap. He was in his forties when I arrived. He was already retired. He had inherited a vast for- tune from his family’s shares in a London brewery, Crowley’s Alton Ales. The rhythmic and perpetual soaking to the back teeth of pie-eyed and staggering swathes of the population of 10 The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley London in his family’s underwhelming booze allowed my dear father to do the great Lord’s work at his leisure, though Papa chose to do it quite tirelessly. We went from village to village with gusto, as we spread the joy of our Gospel. I was a plump little boy, so father was convinced the exercise and the fresh air were good for me. 
We relished the different accents that the countryside would bring. If Professor Higgins in Shaw’s Pygmalion could locate the birthplace or current street of residence of a chap outside a West End theatre, then Father was equally as capable with the wretches and bumpkins of the Midlands, the Cotswolds and the eastern edges of the West Country. When he dozed after a meagre lunch under Gloucestershire or Warwickshire trees, I read the Bible, Longfellow’s ‘Excelsior’ or Martin Rattler Adventures of a Boy in the Forests of Brazil by R. M. Ballantyne. He taught me, as a school would have, but with- out the harshness of those vicious martinets in charge. 

Father had been born into the Quakers. As a young man he left them over a minor difference of opinion in the Scriptures. He became a Plymouth Brethren until he then splintered from the main corps of that lot as well. The differences become minute at this stage, and barely worth considering, but for the record, 2 Corinthians was the bone of contention. His interpretation was at the core of his disagreement with the Plymouths. The issue was with whom one was permitted to eat. Father believed we should be allowed to dine with the poor, the uneducated, the unfortunates and the lepers; the Plymouths did not. We were now to be known as the Exclusive Brethren. 

I would mimic such strops and such splintering with my own religious pursuits many decades later. Our lengthy and daily exertion of saving souls, from hamlet to village to town, aided the maintenance of Father’s fine The Father, The Son & The Ghost 11 physique, but only seemed to aggravate my fat ankles and force my chubby toad neck to sweat like a squeezed teabag. When we were not marching in search of the next door upon which to rap or seeking some poor soul trimming his lawn or awaiting his tennis partner in the park, he would be preaching and I would be stood erect by his side, not permitted to slouch or shuffle from foot to foot. I listened to the word of God. In my heavy black suit cut of the same cloth as his, and with the same heavy application of starch on my upright collar, I believed myself to be the happiest and freest boy in England. I did not see the inside of a school until I was eight years old.

 I was a hard-boiled and applied lad, fascinated by the truth of evidence and proof, though this was still submerged by the wonder I saw in my old man and in the Scriptures. Once as we traipsed through a field to the next village, my father advised I circumnavigate a clump of over-green and erect nettles. I pushed him on why I ought to be so concerned.

 ‘Will you learn by experience or will you take my word for it?’ 

‘Learn by experience, of course, Father,’ I said before I dived in.

In Truth, Madness by Imran Khan

As a former journalist myself, I have always had a bit of a soft spot for novels that feature the Third Estate. I wasn’t a foreign correspondent like the author and the protagonist of his novel, but rather a current affairs and political journalist, but I traveled to my fair share of dangerous places (albeit not as dangerous as Iraq or Afghanistan) and have nothing but respect for those who do so.  So it was that I came to In Truth, Madness by Imran Khan, a journalist who most recently has been a foreign correspondent for al-Jazeera English and who has reported from amongst other places as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, and Libya.

In Truth, Madness is published by Unbound, the crowd-funding publisher, rather than a traditional publishing house. I’ve read a number of Unbound titles and they’ve all been extremely good, but they’ve all been a little quirky too, which might explain why they’ve been crowdfunded rather than found a home with a traditional publishing house. This goes for this title also. For while it could have been a story about a jaded journalist reporting in a war zone (and would have been perfectly good as such, a number of journalists have written very good novels along these lines) Khan does a little bit more. 

The protagonist of In Truth, Madness is Malik Khalil, an experienced and brilliant journalist. He's been the world over, reporting on wars and natural disasters, witnessing more than his fair share of strife and misery. But unsurprisingly, it's taken its toll and all that trauma is catching up with him. As the story unfolds and he starts to unravel, he begins to argue with a God that he doesn't believe in.

I'll refrain from giving away more of the plot, for this is an excellent novel that needs to be read. It's a story that tells of what it is like to work as a war correspondent and the plot addresses the situation in the middle east. But In Truth, Madness also covers myth and religion, history, and much, much more. Another reviewer drew comparisons with the novel Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, another novel that I’ve read and reviewed, and with its touch of magical realism, I have to agree that In Truth, Madness does indeed share many similarities with that work. There’s an increasing number of novels coming out of the Middle East and being translated into English, and while I’ve only read a few, magical realism is a way these authors try to make sense of the violent maelstrom that all too often wracks the region. While the author Imran Khan is British, his novel In Truth, Madness is very much in the tradition of these Middle Eastern novelists, and its narrative is a rich and compelling examination of a multitude of subjects.

In Truth, Madness is a beautifully written novel and has much to say about the troubles that plague the region, the reality of journalism, and humanity’s place in the world. This is a novel that addresses both earthly matters and the metaphysical such as belief in God. A thoughtful, compelling and original piece of literature, this is a fine read.

4 out of 5 stars 

Gone by Leona Deakin

People are disappearing after receiving a birthday card daring them to play a game. Inside the card is stuck a URL which leads them to a website on the dark web, through which they access the game. They leave the card, minus the slip with the URL written on it, to be found by friends or relatives. One of those who go missing, Lana, is the mother of a teenage girl, Jane. Lana and Jane are family friends of an ex-MI6 officer, Marcus Jameson. He’s a business partner of Dr Augusta Bloom, a psychologist, and expert in psychopathy. Together they run a consultancy that helps the police, defence and prosecution lawyers, and victims of crime. 

Jameson and Bloom quickly discover that quite a few people have disappeared after receiving these cards. They also ascertain that this is the tip of an iceberg, that a large number of people have been drawn in. They all have characteristics in common and Bloom concludes that they are all psychopaths. In effect, somebody, or some organisation is recruiting psychopaths. But for what purpose? I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but as the story unfolds there are hints that there is a powerful hand behind it all. The police investigation which Bloom and Jameson are collaborating with is hampered, allegations of misconduct from one of Bloom’s earlier cases are manufactured, and Jameson is knocked over in the street, all of which indicates that someone who has connections is trying to get in their way.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will give it four stars, but there were three minor issues that galled me. Of course, it might be just my own background as a journalist that caused me to notice them and most readers probably won’t, but every book review is subjective, so I’ll mention them. But before I do, and because I enjoyed this book so much, I want to state the good. There are many novels that feature psychopaths and serial killers. Most of them just touch on the subject in a rather shallow way. I thought that this novel might do the same (see one of the issues I had with the narrative, below) but to be fair to the author it does much more than that. This novel really engages with what it means to be a psychopath. Within the trappings of a thriller, this novel expands much more on the general understanding of psychopathy that has filtered into the public consciousness and examines the various gradients of the condition: high-functioning vs low-functioning,  how some are more impulsive than others, how some excel at business and politics and might not commit crimes at all (though they will still manipulate and be cruel), while others can’t help but commit crimes. This is really thoughtful stuff and the author is to be applauded for weaving it through her narrative in an entertaining and fascinating way. It never becomes dry and boring but rather creates a very intelligent thriller and one that kept me turning the pages.

That all said, I need to address the things I didn’t like. In the first few chapters, Bloom and others regularly refer to the Blue Whale game. This is the alleged game that targeted vulnerable youngsters and groomed them to commit suicide. The reason for the continued mentions of this in the novel is so that readers will draw a parallel with the game targeting psychopaths. So, whereas the Blue Whale game persuaded vulnerable children to harm themselves, this game persuades psychopaths to commit harm to others. But the Blue Whale game has been proven to be an urban myth. While I understand one or two mentions of it to draw the parallel, when Bloom is meant to be a leading authority on the subject, I found her continued referral to it troublesome. 

The second issue was when Bloom lectured members of the police investigative team on the characteristics of a psychopath. She ran through the familiar litany of symptoms which has long filtered through to the lay public. This is a scene that is in innumerable books and movies, where the forensic psychologist or profiler tells the assorted cops how a psychopath feels no empathy, suffers no guilt, etc. The officers in the scene have all never heard this before and ask questions, expressing shock that such people exist. Really? In this day and age when there are so many books, films and tv series featuring psychopaths? Not to mention all the training they receive. When even the lay public is familiar with this stuff, it beggars belief that the police wouldn’t be. Again, I understand the reasons behind this scene. The author can't know for certain that her readers know this stuff (though as I say, the psychopath is such a familiar trope that I'd be really surprised if they don't) and so she needs to get this information across before delving deeper into the subject (which, as I mention, she does and with excellent results). But personally, I feel that she should have done it in a more nuanced way. If she is going to have her psychologist, Bloom, explain it all, at least have her not explain it to police officers who almost certainly would already know such information. 

Finally, there’s the ending where there’s the obligatory confession scene. This is a scene that plagues many a crime thriller, and to be fair to the author, it’s often difficult to not include it. In this novel, the main baddie has the heroes tied up and they ask their questions, after all, they might die anyway and they just have to know the answers, and the baddie outlines their ingenious scheme. As I say it’s a version of a scene that exists in a lot of novels and films and more often than not it feels false. Do people really confess like this? I don't know how to get around this scene other than to do it in a way that doesn't have the reader noticing it. I'm afraid I did notice it, the scene screamed "confession scene" to me, but then perhaps I've just read too many crime thrillers? 

Some readers of this review will react to my first two objections and say well this is only a novel, and that I’m taking it all too seriously. To that, I’d answer the following. This novel’s strength (as I mentioned above) is predicated on its believability and the research the author has conducted. She’s a psychologist herself, has worked with the police, and specifically states that she's consulted a forensic psychologist and expert in psychopathy. And again, as mentioned above, she's done this to huge success. Putting aside my second objection about lecturing the police, when the plot delves into psychopathy to a deeper extent, the narrative quickly becomes fascinating and original. But the problem with aiming for authenticity is that even the slightest flaws are magnified. At least that’s how it is for me. If I’m reading a book that doesn’t wear its authenticity on its sleeve them I’m a lot more forgiving. But when a work aims for authenticity I find even the slightest divergence rips me from the narrative flow.

That all said, I want to return to the good, because I really did enjoy this book. I’ll be careful about spoilers here, but I want to say something about the baddie’s motivation. I mentioned how powerful forces appear to be at work scuppering the heroes' investigation. This led me to believe that there was going to be a grand conspiracy behind the plot. But then towards the denouement, it seemed that actually, the plot was more humble. I was quite disappointed thinking that the author had built up my expectations. But then when the novel ends its clear that the book has been left open for a sequel and some strands of the plot have been purposely left to be tied up in the next book. Personally, I’m a massive fan of this type of writing. There’s a lot of pressure on authors these days to wrap up each novel in a neat bundle. But the novels of the greats in crime fiction - James Elroy, Don Winslow, and others - often span a series and not everything is neatly tied together in the first or even the second novel in a series. Rather the plot is left to breathe and the reader gets a much greater experience as a result. The story that the author of this novel has spun has real potential and could easily span two or three books and so I think that actually, it ends quite perfectly. 

In conclusion, there’s a lot to like in this novel. There’s something of Fight-Club-meets-Silence-of-the-Lambs about this debut. Its also very reminiscent of The Following, the Fox television series starring Kevin Bacon, which told the story of an FBI officer trying to capture a serial killer who had inspired a cult of followers who killed in his name. With it’s tackling of our fears in the social media age, it’s also similar to Adrian McKinty’s The Chain. Whereas The Chain dealt with the chain emails of old (still sent to people via social media) this novel deals with the scares surrounding real or imagined social media games such as The Blue Whale. 

This is a gripping novel that kept me turning the pages. It was educational as well on psychopathy, once it moved beyond a list of symptoms as discussed in many other novels and films. It also has real potential for a sequel.

4 out of 5 stars