'Suspicion' by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

14 January 2026

Having enjoyed 'Tokyo Express', Seicho Matsumoto's intriguing Hitchcockian mystery novel set in 1950s Japan (reviewed here in June 2024), I came across another book by Matsumoto, 'Suspicion' (also recently translated by Jesse Kirkwood). This is more a novella than a novel - a short tale told through the eyes of a journalist who talks to the lawyers defending a woman with gang connections who is suspected of murdering her husband. Loosely based on an actual crime from 1974, 'Suspicion' was first published in Japanese in 1982. It's a slight story but is still a satisfying puzzle, beautifully written in that same lovely polite style (feeling more 1950s than 1980). 

'The Fifth Step' by David Ireland

8 January 2026

On Wednesday we were at the Rufus Centre in Flitwick to see a NTLive filmed screening of 'The Fifth Step' by David Ireland from the Soho Place Theatre in London. This two-hander, performed in the round in a production directed by Finn den Hertog, stars Martin Freeman and Jack Lowden as fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Through a series of conversations we see their relationship develop while their personal journeys speed in opposite directions. 'The Fifth Step' is a dark comedy, its very funny script drawing us into some serious and disturbing topics. It's also an odd couple comedy, with the two characters' age, class, experience and background very alien from each other. There is no-one better than Martin Freeman at mugging in astonishment as his face reveals his dawning understanding of what has just been said. And Jack Lowden gives an incredibly physical performance, constantly twitching and pacing with nervous energy. It's a very cleverly written play that takes you to dark places without taking itself too seriously. 

'The Hallmarked Man' by Robert Galbraith

8 January 2026

It was only when I started the latest Cormoran Strike detective novel, 'The Hallmarked Man' by J K Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith), that I realised I had completely missed the previous book in the series, 'The Running Grave'. I don't think it mattered too much. Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott are still spending a tedious amount of time on routine surveillance, while stumbling on an impossibly complicated murder plot and maintaining their will-they-won't-they mutual attraction. Like its predecessors, 'The Hallmarked Man' (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Robert Glenister) is ridiculously long (31 hours of audio) and desperately in need of a good editor. The main story of an unknown man murdered in a silver vault is actually five separate stories, as each of the five potential victims reveal their own elaborate narratives. The unraveling of the puzzle is engaging and entertaining but it could definitely have benefited from some pruning. And it was fun to continue my game of spotting the glaringly incorrect minor details in J K Rowling's very deliberately real-world contemporary London - this time including a character who spends all day riding a tube train round and round the Circle Line, despite the Circle Line not having run continuously in a circle since 2009.
 

'The Forsyte Saga' by John Galsworthy, dramatised by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan

 8 January 2026

Between Christmas and New Year we were at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of John Galsworthy's 'The Forsyte Saga', dramatised in two parts by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan. I was vaguely aware of 'The Forsyte Saga', mainly from hearing a BBC Radio 4 dramatisation some years ago. That adaptation was the work of McJenna and Coghlan who later decided to use it as the basis for a new stage version which premiered in 2024 at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park and has now transferred to the RSC. To strip Galsworthy's nine novels (written across the first three decades of the twentieth century) into two plays, they sensibly decided to focus on two of the main narratives. Part 1 starts in 1886 and tells the story of Irene Forsyte and her troubled relationship with her husband Soames. Part 2 jumps to the 1920s to focus on Fleur Forsyte. Both plays are narrated (from 1926) by Fleur, who is trying to piece together the reasons for the great schism within the Forsyte family. The plays, directed by Josh Roche, use a very bare stage to allow for multiple rapid scenes, with some characters jumping instantly from one setting to another. A strong cast do a great job of bringing the family and the period to life, with Fiona Hampton as Irene, Flora Spencer-Longhurst as Fleur and Joseph Millson as Soames standing out. And the period costumes by Anna Yates are gorgeous.

'Famous Last Words' by Gillian McAllister

8 January 2026

I'm a fan of the incredibly clever, twisty, tense family thrillers written by Gillian McAllister, and I really enjoyed her latest novel, 'Famous Last Words'. Like many of her books, this plot throws an unsuspecting person suddenly into a violent, scary world of crime. Camilla is about to restart work after maternity leave, dropping her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time, only to discover as she reaches the office that her husband is the perpetrator of an armed siege and is holding three people hostage at gunpoint - which is not something she had seen coming. The piecing together of this unbelievable and shocking situation and how it came about takes the reader on Gillian McAllister's usual journey from unfathomable implausibility to ingenious resolution. It's another pacy, scary, gripping contemporary thriller, which grabbed my attention and made me charge through the novel. 

'What Alice Forgot' by Liane Moriarty

7 January 2026

Having read Liane Moriarty's most recent novel 'Here One Moment' (reviewed here in January 2025) it was interesting to discover a much earlier book, 2009's 'What Alice Forgot', and to see that Liane Moriarty's entertaining style of suburban Australian domestic family life was already established then. The premise of 'What Alice Forgot' is that a head injury causes Alice to lose the last 10 years of her memory - waking to discover she is not 29 years old and expecting her first baby but 39 with three children. Her perfect recall of everything up to 10 years ago but nothing since does feel a bit contrived but allows for an enjoyable form of time travel. Encountering her own mother, transformed from how she remembers her, is like an alternative timeline scene from 'Back to the Future'. Liane Moriarty always reminds me of Anne Tyler but this feels like her most Tylerish novel. She constructs a great cast of slightly eccentric family and friends and it's fun for the reader to put the missing years back together with Alice. It's a funny, moving thought-experiment book.

'Playground' by Richard Powers

7 January 2026

I'm grateful to Gareth Coles for recommending Richard Powers' remarkable 2024 novel 'Playground'. This is an interesting and unusual tale about the oceans, climate change and artificial intelligence. Initially the separate narratives - tracing the lives of students in an American university in the 1990s, a young girl's journey to become a diver and oceanographer, starting in the 1940s, and the contemporary story of the inhabitants of a small island in French Polynesia - feel like intriguing short stories without revealing the bigger picture. But gradually the links between these separate stories become clearer and this complex structure becomes quite compelling, moving from feeling worthy but not gripping to a fascinating jigsaw puzzle. But the book shifts to another level with a huge unexpected metatextual twist which suddenly makes sense of everything you've read so far. The scenes on the island with its cast of eccentric inhabitants - a population of 82 about to vote on the future of their home - reminded me of the novels of Louis de Bernières. And the parallel historic backstory to the oceanographer and her dives reminded me of the famous aviator in 'Great Circle' by Maggie Shipstead (reviewed here in July 2022). The writing is beautiful. and the ecological themes are important and clearly articulated. But it was the ingenious narrative structure of the book that finally gripped me.