The End Is Always Near by Dan Carlin

Being a writer of fiction that tends to the dark side - crime, horror, dystopia - I’m a big fan of popular science and history books that look at things that reflect such interests. So it was that I came across Dan Carlin’s The End is Always Near, a history book that looks at moments in history of near apocalypse. 

Based on a popular podcast, which I must confess to having never heard, Carlin’s book is split into chapters, each of which focusses on a different event. For example, and to give an idea of the scope of the book, we have a chapter on the Fall of the Roman Empire, another on the plague, and another on the use of nuclear weapons.

I found this book illuminating and a fascinating read. I learnt a lot too and felt that while each subject might be covered in more detail in more specialist books, it gave an entertaining and thought-provoking overview.

This is a book that is both cautionary and optimistic. Time and again we learn of human hubris. While apocalyptic thought has been a feature of human imagination down the centuries - from religious texts such as the Book of Genesis, through literature and film - none of these societies that actually faced it ever really felt that they were on the cusp of a disaster. But equally, it is undeniable that we are better prepared than ever to deal with some of the challenges we face (for example, we know more about epidemiology than ever and thus are more able to staunch epidemics of disease). 

This is a fascinating collection of popular history and I highly recommend it.

5 out of 5 stars

Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver

This is actually the first Will Carver novel I’ve read and it’s a brilliant book. But as other reviewers have observed this is a very hard book to review. It’s literature/crime fiction/dystopian observation all rolled into one. Added to that is the fact that there is no central character as such. Rather, there are a number of recurring characters who are dotted throughout the narrative and who gradually take on greater significance.

A lot of people die in this book, and while the blood and guts are not piled on too high, there are some gruesome descriptions of how they die. Most surprisingly, all these people’s deaths come at their own hands. For this book is about a suicide cult (I should be careful with the C-word, as will be explained) calling themselves the “People of Choice”.

The People of Choice are a seemingly spontaneous cult. Ordinary people, who for reasons known only to themselves, congregate in public places with other members, all of whom have never met until that day, and throw themselves off buildings. Needless to say, this causes widespread public concern, media panic, and the resultant pressure on the police, who have no idea how to stop it.

As mentioned, this book is not written in a conventional way. Another author might have written this as a straightforward narrative, perhaps following a detective trying to solve this spate of suicides. But Nothing Important Happened Today is instead written from the perspective of lots of people. Most chapters are written in the third person and from the perspective of those planning on killing themselves, though these chapters are distant from their subjects and so we never really get an understanding of what they’re thinking. Other chapters are told from the perspective of the uncle of one of the victims, and from that of a police officer, and these are closer to their subjects. Running through the book, and interspersing the character chapters, is text from some kind of manual dictating how to create a cult, what is wrong with that word - the author postulates that it is often the reaction of outsiders, those who label something a cult, that cause tragic results - and serial murder. The significance of this is only realised at the end.

One reason this book is so difficult to review is that to explain why it is so good is to risk spoilers. So I will try to be circumspect with my final thoughts. That said, if you’re a reader who’s really concerned with spoilers, perhaps it’s best to stop reading at this paragraph. If you are reading this review, and do decide to stop reading it here, just take it from me that this is a brilliant book, extremely original and one that will stay with me for a very long time. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Still reading? 

Ok, so what I really liked about this book is how it considered free will, control, compulsion, and influence. I studied Criminology as a masters at the LSE and this stuff is discussed all the time. For example, believe it or not, there are studies that show the smell of fresh bread makes people more peaceable and less prone to violence. There have been discussions of piping the smell of baked bread into city centres, I kid you not (as far as I know it’s never been tried). Furthermore, there’s serious evidence that derelict buildings, broken windows, and graffiti, lead people to have less respect for a neighbourhood and subconsciously take cues that anti-social behaviour is permitted. This has led to numerous initiatives, from city clean-ups, on the one hand, to zero-tolerance policing on the other. 

All this is taken to the extreme in the Darren Brown TV programmes, where the mentalist takes an unwitting volunteer and subjects them to psychological cues to see if they can be made to do something. And this, to me at least, is at heart what Nothing Important Happened Today is all about: how much free will we actually have, can we be compelled to do something catastrophic against our better interests and under what circumstances. 

This is a deeply disturbing novel and the author has clearly done his research. It’s also not for the faint-hearted, for not only does the author tackle difficult subjects (suicide, our fragile free will) but he also doesn’t let wider society off the hook. Throughout he also shows how, while less malign than whatever is causing people to kill themselves, social media and celebrity culture are also working against our psychological well being.

A brilliant and chilling piece of fiction, this is an author who I will be sure to read more of.

5 out of 5 stars

Violet by SJI Holliday

This novel opens with Violet in Beijing. She’s been travelling the world – it’s not clear for how long – and has recently split from her boyfriend, Sam. In Thailand, Sam wanted to stay longer and party while Violet wanted to keep to their agreed itinerary. He stayed, falling in with a bunch of German travellers, drinking and partying, while she continued on alone without him. In Beijing, Violet meets Carrie, another lone woman traveller of about the same age, who has two tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway. Carrie is also travelling alone due to unforeseen disaster, though in her case it was that her travelling companion, her best friend Laura, broke her leg on a drunken night out just days before their departure. Carrie gives Violet her spare ticket and the two embark on their rail journey.

This is a psychological thriller and it soon transpires that both women have their secrets. The bulk of the narrative is told from Violet’s perspective, and she is the person with the most to hide, but it’s never really clear who is playing who. They develop an abnormally intense relationship, though again it’s never clear whether this is all in Violet’s mind and if Carrie feels the same way. Encounters with others become battlegrounds between the two where they assert superiority and try to find out more about each other.

The settings of the Trans-Siberian Railway are vividly brought to life and there are various stops along the way. The train stops in Mongolia, and Irkutsk, both of which are well described. Later, the characters travel to Moscow, and then Berlin, both locations also brought to life. It was no surprise to discover that the author travelled the Trans-Siberian Railway when younger and she clearly knows the locations well. 

At heart this is about how well we can know others, and how strangers we meet have the potential to be anybody. It’s also about friendship and obsession. This novel reminded me very much of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, as just as in that novel, the characters adopt personas to please those they want to impress, with dark and sinister consequences.

If I have one criticism, and it’s very much a personal one, it’s that I was a little disappointed with the denouement. But this wasn’t that it was poorly written, but rather that the character who got their comeuppance I had enjoyed spending time with! As the narrative unfolds, they’re revealed to be deliciously wicked, and in the same way that readers have been drawn into rooting for Tom Ripley or Hannibal Lector, I kinda hoped this character would get away with it and perhaps even return for a future adventure. But who knows, perhaps they still might. There is after all a passing reference to Rosalind House, the commune that features in the author’s previous novel, The Lingering, so it’s always possible that the character concerned might feature in the author’s future work.

I really enjoyed Violet. This is a great novel. I’m not a massive fan of traditional psychological thrillers, the domestic noir that’s so popular these days, but SJI Holliday is crafting psychological suspense that branches away from such territory and the result is very enjoyable books that have kept me eagerly turning the pages.

5 out of 5 stars

The Lingering by SJI Holliday

Jack and Ali are looking for a fresh start and so move to Rosalind House, a commune on the site of an old Victorian asylum deep in the fens on the east coast of England. The asylum itself was built on land that had been used for witch trials and has a troubled history, with inhabitants of the nearby village viewing the place with suspicion. 

Rosalind House was founded by Smeaton Dunsmore, who grew up on a commune himself and then travelled the world honing his religious and philosophical outlook. Upon his return to England he founded his own commune, which while not overtly religious, embraces a new age-like spirituality of self-sufficiency and eschewing the modern world as much as possible. The residents of Rosalind House are all damaged to some extent, or wafs and strays, people who have found the modern world very difficult for one reason or another and thus have chosen to turn their back on it. 

Jack is a former police officer who worked in child protection, while Ali is a former psychiatric nurse. Smeaton is normally very particular about who he lets come to live in Rosalind House and there are all manner of vetting and procedures he makes prospective residents go through, but he has made an exception for Jack and Ali as they offered a large amount of money. While the commune is largely self-sufficient, there were expenses that had to be paid, such as for a new boiler, and so this once he had given in. While the other residents are wary of this, they have accepted it. But when Jack and Ali move in they quickly find it hard to gel with the other residents and there’s things about the way they behaviour which raises other resident’s concerns.

In particular Angela’s suspicions are raised. She’s a young woman who has lived in Rosalind House for a while. A believer in the paranormal, she is always trying to investigate the hauntings and supernatural phenomena that many believe afflict the property. She in particular soon develops strong suspicions about the new residents.

The Lingering is a gothic horror/psychological thriller. It’s a good mix and one that works well in this creepy and sinister tale. I started this book expecting the commune itself to be villain, that Smeaton Dunsmore would turn out to be a Jim Jones/David Koresh type figure, but I’m not giving away too much to say this isn’t the case (we learn within the first few chapters that events will surround the new arrivals). 

The characterisation in this novel is very strong, though we really only get to know Jack and Ali, Angela and Smeaton. The rest of the supporting cast are just that, and it will be interesting if see if the author ever returns to Rosalind House or its characters for there’s enough here to give her a rich seam of storytelling. The plotting is deft, and this is a tale that really is very unsettling. A very good read.

5 out of 5 stars

The Silent War by Andreas Norman

I first came across Andreas Norman, the author of this Swedish spy thriller, back in 2014 when I read his debut novel, Into a Raging Blaze. Norman, a former Swedish diplomat, had written a prescient novel at a time when Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass NSA surveillance were rocking the world. In Into a Raging Blaze, his protagonist, Bente Jenson, the head of Swedish Intelligence’s station in Brussels, had to contend with a devious MI6 and the impact of mass surveillance. I gave the book three stars – there was a little too much detail of the workings of the EU for my liking – but thought it strong enough to want to read anything else the author went on to write.

Fast forward to 2019 and finally there’s a sequel, The Silent War. Featuring many of the same characters from the previous title, not least protagonist Bente Jenson and calculatingly sinister antagonist, MI6 man Jonathan Green, this is yet another topical thriller. This time the plot surrounds the torture of terror suspects - ISIS members being tortured in an MI6 safe house just across the border from Syria in Turkey - and how reliable the intelligence gleaned from them can be.

Bente has a war to fight on two fronts in this novel. On the domestic front she has suspicions concerning her husband’s fidelity, while her son is playing up at school and has anger issues. On the professional front she has been passed a USB drive exposing MI6’s involvement in torture in Syria, and when she passes it up the line to her superiors it is unwelcome. Sweden relies on intelligence from MI6 and thus does not want to rock the boat. Jonathan Green, for MI6’s part, wants the information back and is willing to countenance anything to get it.

Whereas the author’s debut, Into a Raging Blaze, was a solid and worthy, albeit plodding affair, The Silent War is a much more assured effort. This is a much better novel than the first in the series; it’s gripping yet cerebral, a page-turner, yet one that maturely grapples with important issues that face the intelligence services and their masters to this day. It’s a cliché when writing a review of a spy thriller to compare the author to John Le Carré, but with his background in diplomacy and security matters which shines through in his research and the narrative of his novel, in this case the comparison seems apt.  

The Silent War is a brilliant novel that really holds its own in the annals of the modern espionage thriller. The author has really come into his own with this novel and it will be interesting to see what he does next. Without divulging spoilers, the novel ends on a note that could see the end of Bente Jenson’s journey (and that of MI6 man Jonathan Green) or might lead to a third outing for the characters. Either way, whether the author writes a third in the series or something new, on the strength of this outstanding novel I’ll be reading it.

5 out of 5 stars 

The Plotters by Un-Su Kim

Reseng is a hitman for hire. Abandoned in a bin outside a nunnery as a baby, he was taken in by Old Racoon, a cantankerous man who owns a library full of dusty tomes which nobody ever borrows. To those not in the know, Old Racoon’s place is just a library; to those that do, it’s a hub organised crime where assassinations can be arranged for the right price. Reseng has been raised to be a killer and he’s one of the best hired guns in the business.

Set in modern day South Korea, the novel’s premise is that after the fall of the country’s dictatorship and embracing of democracy, the government could no longer just kill with impunity. Assassinations needed to be disguised as accidents, or the bodies disappear. And it’s not just the government. As the economy boomed, corporate entities also got in on the assassination game, taking out business rivals and others. The assassinations themselves are ordered and paid for by the “Plotters”, shadowy and powerful characters who act as brokers for those paying for an assassination and commissioning the assassins to carry it out.

If readers have seen a Korean thriller or crime movie, such as Oldboy, then they’ll know the country’s film industry has a tendency towards the surreal, the disturbing, and rather farfetched, albeit entertaining plots. The Plotters fits very much into this mould, but while entertaining in movie format, it becomes a little draining in narrative fiction. I found the plot of this novel just a little too inconsistent and stretching of credulity and towards the book was losing my interest.

To be fair, the characterisation in this novel is effective in that the reader warms to the main character, Reseng, despite the fact that he’s a hitman. To be sure the violence isn’t graphic, and he doesn’t kill gratuitously, but the author also fleshes him out as a person. So, I was invested in the character and wanting to know how his story panned out, which kept me turning the pages. 

This was just as well as there were just too many plot holes and I have to admit having struggled to stick with it around the 50% mark. I nearly gave up on this book. Luckily the last third picked up the tension enough to see me through to the denouement, which was satisfying in its way, though the central questions raised in the narrative were never fully answered.

All in all, I found The Plotters to be a disappointing read with an interesting premise which never fully met its potential. This is a novel that might well make an entertaining popcorn movie in which the fast-paced action sequences can paper over the flaws in the plot, but as narrative fiction it left a lot to be desired.

2 put of 5 stars    

The Club by Takis Würger

This is a surprisingly timely novel in the context of the UK’s 2019 General Election. With former Prime Minister, David Cameron, and current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, alumni of the notorious Oxford University drinking fraternity, The Bullingdon Club, the activities of such elitist societies are now in the news.

Hans Stichler is a young German boy who lives a rather idyllic life in the country. He’s a loner who when bullied takes up boxing and is quite good at it. This doesn’t make the other children like him but ensures he’s left in peace. After his parents die in twin tragedies, he is sent to boarding school where once again he’s ostracised by the other children. He continues his boxing and dreams of being back in the country.

Hans has an aloof aunt, Alex, a professor at Cambridge University. One day, as he’s nearing the end of his time at boarding school, she asks him whether he will go undercover at the university. She will guarantee his entrance under a false surname and in return he gets to study there. She tells him cryptically that there is a crime she wishes him to investigate. Hans eventually agrees and it soon transpires that Alex wishes him to join an exclusive drinking society, the Pitt Club. Hans obtains membership, his boxing skills aiding him, as the most prominent members of the club box for the university.

Over the course of the novel Hans gets more involved in the life of the university, the life of the fraternity, and the University’s boxing club. He meets Charlotte, a female student who is helping Alex to expose the crime and falls in love with her. I won’t give anything further away about the plot other than to say that it’s no surprise that the crime involves excess, alcohol and drugs, and sexual violence. 

The book is relatively well-written, though I did find it’s constant shifting of perspective from character to character (including sections from some minor character’s perspectives) a little confusing. That said, I did take to it after a while and it did keep me turning the pages.

The Pitt Club is a real Cambridge University drinking fraternity and interestingly the author has real experience of it.  Takis Würger is a German journalist who writes for Der Spiegel, but when a young man he enrolled at Cambridge University and joined the Adonians, the Hawk’s Club and the Pitt Club, before dropping out of the university. Whiles these clubs aren’t as notorious as Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, they are drinking societies that are riotous and are exclusive.

This is a novel about wealth, power, and the impunity that comes with it. At a time when two Prime Ministers come from such backgrounds, and at university were members of a club that revelled in smashing up restaurants and general antisocial behaviour; when Prince Andrew is accused of consorting with a convicted sex offender and faces little in the sense of concrete consequences, this is a vital novel that addresses important issues.

4 out of 5 stars