'That Night' by Gillian McAllister
27 June 2024
I discovered the thriller writer Gillian McAllister in 2022 and really enjoyed her novels ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ (reviewed here July 2022) and ‘How to Disappear’ (reviewed here in January 2023). I have just finished reading her 2021 book ‘That Night’ which is another clever, twisty, tense, family thriller. This time Gillian McAllister challenges us to ponder how we would respond if a beloved sibling needed our help to cover up a crime. Like Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ this is one of those stories where one mistake mushrooms, as each small act to try to rectify the situation makes it exponentially worse. And each lie told requires more lies to back it up, to the point that it is hard to remember what is real. ‘That Night’ is a cleverly constructed novel that plays tricks with the reader as it recounts events through the point of view of different family members, alternating timelines between ‘then’ (the initial crime and its aftermath) and ‘now’. There are some bold twists, carefully disguised. And Gillian McAllister is brilliant at making you both scared to keep reading but unable to put the book down.
Labels: Books
Rothesay Classic Birmingham Tennis
27 June 2024
On Saturday we were back at the Priory Club in Edgbaston, Birmingham, for the first time since our 2017 visit (reviewed here in June 2017) to see the semi-finals of the Rothesay Classic Birmingham Tennis Tournament. Compared to Queen’s Club in London (where we were the previous week), Edgbaston has a more intimate atmosphere and we were much closer to the action. It was a lovely sunny day and, although all four matches we saw were decided in straight sets, they were all more competitive than this suggests. The two ladies singles semi-finals saw Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan defeat the Italian Eilsabetta Cocciaretto, and Ajla Tomljanović of Australia beat Anastasia Potapova in a close-fought tussle. The ladies doubles semi-finals were both very entertaining. Eventual champions Belgian Elise Mertens and Su-Wei Hsieh from Taiwan trounced Asia Muhammed and Aldila Sutjiadi. The best match of the day was Miyu Kato and Shuai Zhang narrowly beating the third seeds Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo. We also saw Shuai Zhang win her doubles semi-final last time we were at the Edgbaston tournament in 2017.
Labels: Sport
cinch Championships Tennis Tournament 2024 at Queen's Club, London
21 June 2024
After enjoying our first trip to the Queen’s Club in London in 2019 (reviewed here in June 2019), our plans to return were hampered by Covid but this Monday we made our second visit on the opening day of the cinch Championships Tennis Tournament 2024. It was a gloriously sunny day and we watched more than 8 hours of tennis on Centre Court. The best match was an upset win for the Australian player Jordan Thompson over the number 7 seed Holger Rune from Denmark in 3 sets. The match between Britain’s Cameron Norrie and Milos Raonic of Canada also went the distance with Raonic winning an epic final set tie break. This provided a thrilling finish to what was otherwise a strangely dull match with a fairly flat atmosphere. That might have been because we saw Raonic serve 47 aces, breaking the ATP Tour world record, but this made for a lot of very short points. The first match we saw was a fairly routine straight sets win for the Bulgarian number 3 seed Grigor Dimitrov over Adrian Mannarino of France. Sadly the last match of the day - a really entertaining encounter between Alejandro Tabilo of Chile and the Spanish player Alejandro Davidovich Fokina - was suspended because the courts were becoming too slippery as the evening wore on. Nevertheless we had a great day at Queen’s.
Labels: Sport
‘Tokyo Express’ by Seichō Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
14 June 2024
I am grateful to Jess for recommending ‘Tokyo Express’ - a Japanese detective novel by Seichō Matsumoto, first published in 1958, and translated by Jesse Kirkwood in 2022. It’s an intriguing Hitchcockian mystery set in 1950s Japan which revolves almost entirely around the careful reading of railway timetables. The puzzle faced by the police is gripping and the tale is beautifully told, with a gentle Japanese politeness. The detectives are sympathetically drawn characters and you really feel you are working with them to unpick a seemingly impossible chain of events. I did get a little confused by the Japanese place names: I should have referred more to the map of Japan while reading the book. But it’s a lovely novel.
Labels: Books
'Joe Country', 'Slough House' and 'Bad Actors' by Mick Herron
6 June 2024
Having really enjoyed the first five of Mick Herron’s Slough House series of spy novels (all reviewed here between November 2023 and May 2024) I've now finished the final three books in the series. 'Joe Country' is a dark, violent tale that takes the slow horses to snowy Pembrokeshire (which, as everyone keeps pedantically pointing out, is in Wales). 'Slough House' is a brilliantly plotted story with a devastating sting in the tail that completely surprised me, but with hindsight was hinted at throughout the book. The final novel 'Bad Actors' is the most ambitious, with an initially confusing jump forward in time from the previous book very satisfyingly resolved by a hilarious farcical flashback set-piece. And Mick Herron is both bold enough to leave many of the key characters out of the climax to the series and indulgent enough to add a postscript chapter to bring the gang back together.
Labels: Books
'Run' by Ann Patchett
6 June 2024
The novels of Ann Patchett have been one of my best recent discoveries. I loved 'Bel Canto' (reviewed here in December 2023) and 'State of Wonder' (reviewed here in January 2024). I've now finished reading her 2007 novel 'Run'. This is a family story about adopted children, social status and race, which reminded me of the great contemporary American novelist Anne Tyler. I've written here many times about Anne Tyler's understated masterpieces - which never stray far from Baltimore and focus almost exclusively on domestic family life but still manage to say so much about the world. Ann Patchett's 'Run' is set in Boston, Massachusetts, and the story is provoked by a traumatic accident which made me read the rest of the novel nervously awaiting further tragedy to strike. But this is mostly a gentle, thoughtful exploration of family relationships in which all the characters are lovely - often flawed but gentle, sympathetic and understanding. 'Run' is less of a thriller than the other Ann Patchett novels I have read but it's equally well written and a very heartwarming tale.
Labels: Books
