Book 55 - Mick Herron "The Drop"

Mick Herron "The Drop" (John Murray)





Solomon Dortmund knows his business; he’s been doing this for so many decades that nothing can surprise him anymore. But observing a classic drop in a café is something that rarely ever happens these days. He is sure about what he has seen and reports it back to Regent’s Park. There, this is not a total surprise since the woman involved is a double agent whom the Germans believe to be their mole with the British. But Hannah Weiss has her agenda and she knows whom she is working for. When service analyst Lech Wicinski is doing a favour for an old acquaintance, he sets in motion a chain of events that will make him one of the tragic victims.

Mick Herron’s The Slough House series has won several awards and was shortlisted for many more, among them the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, the British Book Award and the Gold Dagger. “The Drop” – a rather short novella only slightly liked to the series – is the latest instalment of it. Yet, it is much more a classic spy novel than the rest of the series since it has in my humble view a much more traditional setting with double and triple agents and members of the service operating in the field.

There is not much to say about the plot, it is quite straightforward without any sidelines or too much detail about the characters. As a reader, you dispose of information from both sides, i.e. the English as well as the Germans, and thus can observe both services operating. It is common in those kinds of operations that innocent bystanders become necessary victims and thus, also in “The Drop” we see people fall without having made the slightest mistake. The novella mainly serves as a backstory for the latest member of the Slough House team and I liked the quick read a lot for its atmosphere of old-times spy novels.

Book 56 - Arthur Bryant "Set In A Silver Sea"

Arthur Bryant "Set In A Silver Sea" (Granada Books)




With a new, additional preface by Reba N Soffer, this first volume of Sir Arthur Bryant's wonderfully readable History of Britain and the British People starts with the islands' geographical formation and ends with the close of the fifteenth century. The Atlantic flood cut Britain off from mainland Europe and made it an island. Colonisation in the form of a succession of sea-born invaders took place over thousands of years. There were nomadic peoples from Asia, Africa, Romans, Vikings, evangelists with their message of Christianity and Normans. Upon this foundation, civilization was built. Bryant examines aspects of medieval life and finishes with the building of the last great medieval churches at the end of the fifteenth century.

Sir Arthur Bryant was born in a house on the Royal Sandringham estate and served in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. He wrote hugely popular history books, reviving the neglected art of writing history as literature. His first historical biography, Charles II, was published in 1931, followed by Macaulay. Another popular work was his history of the Napoleonic Wars in three volumes. Bryant was knighted in 1954, made a Companion of Honour in 1967 and died in 1985.

Maybe in these more enlightened days this is slightly anachronistic, and probably conservative as well as being less accurate, but as a good read it is very entertaining and that is its strength.

Book 57 - Tim Shipman "Fall Out"

Tim Shipman "Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem" (William Collins)




Tim Shipman’s previous book, All Out War, gave an engaging and detailed account of the lead-up to the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union, and the immediate aftermath, covering the resignation of David Cameron and the subsequent internecine strife within the Conservative Party that led to Theresa May becoming Prime Minister. Fall Out picks up the story, and covers the year that followed her ascension to Downing Street, culminating shortly after the unexpectedly inconclusive general election of June 2017.

I seem to have read a lot of volumes of political history over the last few years. I had always been interested in politics, anyway, and that preoccupation has been piqued through working in several different ministers’ private offices across a couple of government departments. This was, however, the first time that I had read such an impartial account published quite so soon after the events that it relates. Much of Shipman’s mastery lies in the immediacy of his account.

I don’t know where his political preferences lie. I remember most of the events that he recounts very clearly and feel that he has maintained an impartial perspective throughout. While never reluctant to convey disdain for certain politicians’ obtuseness, he scatters his scorn even-handedly. I was particularly impressed by the range of politicians and senior officials with whom he seems to have spoken, also right across the political divide.

One of the most illuminating aspects of the book is his account of the reign of terror conducted by Theresa May’s senior political advisers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. Their scorn was distributed fairly even-handedly, too, and they were just as happy bullying and ridiculing ministers of state as they were to terrorise mere officials. Disappointingly, Theresa May seems, at best, to have turned a blind eye to their disgraceful behaviour, although the insinuation that she approved of, even if never specifically commissioning, their activities is difficult to challenge.

Regardless of the political complexion of the government, I have always believed that it is in everyone’s interest that we have a strong opposition. Shipman makes clear that, following the as-yet unhealed internal divisions within the Conservatives following their post-Referendum leadership contest, the Government seemed holed below the waterline, and offered an easy target for Her Majesty’s Opposition. Only there was no Opposition. While the Conservatives tore themselves apart following David Cameron’s resignation, they did at least manage to appoint a new leader within a matter of a few weeks. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, having gone through one painful leadership contest that resulted in apparent rank outsider Jeremy Corbyn emerging as runaway winner, chose to plunge itself into a second contest, rendering the same result but with an even bigger margin, although it took several months to do so. All of which makes the Labour resurgence in the 2017 general election such a surprise.

The clear lesson from Shipman’s book is the enduring peril of political hubris. Labour centrists refused to believe that the party could appoint a genuinely socialist leader, while Theresa May failed to acknowledge the possibility that she would not be returned to Downing Street with a Thatcheresque landslide majority. As in a Greek tragedy, in which the oracle has offered its occluded prophesy, both those conceits would be punctured most brutally. Unfortunately, amusing though such outcomes and fractured vanities might appear in the abstract, the consequent uncertainly currently remains unresolved. I am intrigued to know what Mr Shipman’s next book might be, but suspect that I might find the ending rather frightening.

Book 58 - Ben Fountain "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk"

Ben Fountain "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" (Canongate)




A squad of soldiers from Iraq is hailed on a victory tour of the US after a heroic battle is caught on camera by an embedded Fox News reporter. The victory tour ends with the Bravo squad attending the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day football game where they are glad-handed by rich and patriotic Texans, forced to perform drills on stage at the half-time show with Beyoncé, and jerked around by handlers pedalling the Bravo's momentary fame for all their worth. Billy Lynn is a 19 yo blue-collar grunt who is beginning to realize the horrible machismo of American culture including his ambiguous role in said culture - greed, sex, violence, and money wrapped in a fantasy of good versus evil. What is fantasy and what is reality?

The best concept from this book is the idea that the power brokers of the military-industrial-fantasy complex - including all sides of the political spectrum, even liberal Hollywood is part of the game - make a reality. According to the author, Karl Rove said something to the effect of - "We don't need to bother with the truth, because we are in control of reality." It is quite awful and sad to think that our moral compass is controlled by people who stand to gain more money and power by its manipulation. You want there to be 'WMD" in Iraq so we can stage a war and make the military-industrial complex some money and distract the country from their terrorism fears - get them to feel good again, travel, spend money - get the stock market to rise - then by divine providence - there are 'WMDs' sigh. powerful.

Anyway, the book itself is empirically well-written though repetitive given the limited period it covers. Billy's introspection and the concepts he brooded upon mentioned above in addition to Buddhist thought, existentialism, etc. seemed incongruent to who he was and this bothered me a bit. It was not realistic that a barely educated teenager who admittedly didn't pay attention in school would think such thoughts, even if an educated sergeant once loaned him some books. But besides those qualms, I did enjoy this novel. Artistically, I liked the way it ended. Seems depressing but I think it would have been more powerful if it had more strongly intimated that Billy would not survive his next deployment.

This was well done and affecting; though perhaps a bit overlong.