Brexit and Julian May

In the 1980s and 1990s, the late Julian May wrote a series of eight books: the four Pliocene Exile books, the standalone vinculum 'Intervention', and the three novels of the Galactic Milieu trilogy.

In them, she describe a world where alien races have come to Earth whilst we were on the brink of nuclear war and offered us the stars. Since then, mankind has moved out from Earth to planets around the Galaxy: the large nations have many worlds, the smaller a few, and the smallest share some. Vast liners travel the ether between worlds, and mankind is flourishing.

Yet there are discontents. Humans - often powerful and influential ones - who rail against the aliens with whom we share control. We once controlled the world, but we are now a small piece of a gigantic Galactic cog. We should be in charge.

So these discontents start a rebellion that destroys worlds and kills billions. It is a pointless rebellion: one where they shake their fists at the very beings who have treated us well.

And it ends with Humanity chastened and still part of the Milieu. Little has changed, for the course was inevitable, and changing it would destroy everything.

And that is now what might happen to Brexit. We in the UK have a history that is littered with glory, and it is easy to sit back and want those glories to return. Britannia ruled the waves, and we ruled the world. But that world has changed: first came America, and then other countries overtook us. We are a small country: proud and brilliant, but small - in a world where size matters.

In such a world, is the EU an inevitability?

So we have a choice: to join up with other small countries (and smaller ones) to form a bloc that has more power together, or to be small and alone. It seems that the former might be inevitable. If so, perhaps the wettest of wet dreams of hardcore Europhiles are correct and, like Humanity after the rebellion, we will eventually become leaders of the group.

If so, then Brexit may be, like the rebellion in the books, a felix culpa - a blessed fall.

Coincidences and contrivances

Coincidences happen all the time. When I was on my walk, I finished a day at a small, remote beach in the northwest of Scotland. Sam parked the motorhome on a firm area, and a while later another motorhome parked nearby. It turned out to contain an ex-colleague of mine, who had no idea I was doing the walk. It was a coincidence.

Whilst coincidences happen, they can make for poor plots. I've recently finished reading Lee Child's first 'Jack Reacher' book, 'Killing Floor'. It will never be called classic literature (although much that is called 'classic literature' is unreadable tosh), but it was a riveting read.

However there was one major thing that niggled at me through the book: coincidences.

(Please note the following contains spoilers. If you have not read the book and think you are likely to, then consider not reading the rest of this post.)

The plot of 'Killing Floor' involves Jack Reacher, once a major in the US Military Police Corp. He left the armed forces six months before the book began, and in the meantime has led an itinerant lifestyle around the US, never staying long in one place, and never leaving roots.

The book starts as Reacher is having breakfast in the little town of Marburg, Georgia. Marburg is a town that has been bypassed by the interstate and is, for the purposes of the book, many miles from anywhere. Some policemen enter the diner, and Reacher is arrested for the murder of an unidentified man the previous night.

He is arrested for what, at first, appears a minor coincidence: Reacher walked past where the man's body was found, and therefore was in roughly the right place to at least be a suspect - although it turns out he could prove he was elsewhere at the time the man was murdered. This is, in my view, an acceptable coincidence; indeed, it is of a type frequently seen in stories to move the plot forwards.

The main plot and subplots continue until, halfway through the book, it is discovered that the unidentified body is that of Joe Reacher, Jack Reacher's elder brother. Joe Reacher was a senior agent in the US Treasury, and had arranged a meeting with someone at the exact spot that his brother would pass a few hours later.

The only link the two men have with the town of Marburg is an old song they both knew, and it is on the basis of this song that Jack Reacher made a carefree decision to get off a Greyhound bus outside the remote town. Neither man had been there before, and they had barely ever mentioned it. Yet they both happened for different reasons to be not just in the town on the same night, but in the same remote spot.

I found this coincidence to be really jarring, and spent the rest of the book awaiting it to be concluded. It made me assume that Jack Reacher was really being an unreliable narrator, and that it was not a coincidence: perhaps his brother had wanted him along for some extra muscle, but Jack Reacher had been delayed. But that did not happen, and it remained a massive coincidence. In fact, it was a rather poor contrivance.

What do I mean? Look at the following list of 'coincidences':

• A man visits a remote town that he has no history with: nothing coincidental - in fact, it happens all the time.
• A man being in a remote town without knowing his brother had recently visited: slightly coincidental.
• A man being in a remote town at the same time as his brother, both going independently and for different reasons, without knowledge the other was going to be there: very coincidental.
• A man  in a remote town at the same time as his brother, both going independently and without knowledge the other was going to be there, and the brother getting murdered that very night: extremely coincidental.
• A man unknowingly walking past his brother's body, in a remote town neither had had any connection with, both having arrived that day, without either knowing the other was going to be there? Immensely coincidental.
• An ex-military policeman with murderous skills unknowingly walking past his brother's body, in a remote town neither had had any connection with, both having arrived that day, without either knowing the other was going to be there? Fantastical.

I found the coincidence so jarring that I simply could not suspend my disbelief. it would be like me bumping into my ex-colleague on that remote Scottish beach on the same day we share the lottery jackpot with identical numbers we chose for different and independent reasons. It just won't happen, and it's a silly hook to hang a plot off.

There is a less serious coincidence later on in the book: Reacher places his trust in Finlay, the town's chief detective, who had only been in the post for six months. Finlay in turn places his trust in an FBI friend from Atlanta, Picard. It turns out that Picard is actually one of the book's chief antagonists, who is intimately involved in the core conspiracy. What are the odds of the one man Finlay trusts being one of the bad guys, despite being from well out of town?

It would have been easy to slightly alter the plot to 'solve' the central coincidence, without altering the general flow. It is a sign of a poorly-designed plot, even if the story itself is told well. A plot should not rely on major coincidences, either in set-up or to get things moving.

There were several other plot problems in the book, and characters acting in slightly (in my view) unrealistic manners. However these were mostly superficial, and none were as glaring as the plot's central coincidence.

I don't want to be too harsh on 'Killing Floor', which was an enjoyable book. It gripped me, and I finished it in three days - which is not a sign of a bad book, especially in this genre. It is easy to see how it won several awards after its first publication.

However this central plot coincidence slightly spoilt it for me.

Book review: "Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer", by Nevil hute

Many books immerse you in a bygone world. Sherlock Holmes plunges you into a mid- and late-Victorian London, whilst Philippa Gregory drowns you in Tudor intrigue. "Slide Rule" takes you soaring through the aeronautical world of the 1930s.

Nevil Shute was one of the best-selling authors of the 1950s, with books such as 'On the Beach' or 'A Town like Alice', and he is most famed for his writing.

However Shute was also an engineer, and 'Slide Rule' covers that portion of his life, before the Second World War and literary fame intervened. His early life is mentioned, including a fascinating portion about his time in Dublin during the Easter Rising (his father was head of the Post Office in the city at the time, although he was fortunately outside the building when it was taken over). To get him  away from the troubles, his parents sent him to Oxford.

After Oxford, he went to work for De Havilland at the start of that distinguished company, and learned to fly - a skill he loved, and one that proved very useful in his later work. It was a time of rapid change in the aeronautical industry, and he soon moved on to Vickers for the start of the massive R100 airship project. Much of the book covers his work on this ship, and its rivalry with the ill-fated government-run R101 airship. He became the project's Deputy Chief Engineer by the age of 30 - something that perhaps could only happen in what was a 'young' industry.

One theme of this book is socialism versus capitalism, especially when it comes to engineering. In his view, the excess money (unfairly) thrown at the R101 project hindered it, whilst the fixed-cost contract Vickers had for the R100 forced them to be efficient. I got the impression that he was too involved with the project to be truly impartial, and besides, the costs of such projects are now so great that any lessons are probably irrelevant: even SpaceX relied on government money via NASA to develop their Falcon 9 rocket.

An interesting section of the book details how stress calculations for the R100 were completed. Two men ('calculators') would work for weeks calculating the stresses on the ring of girders forming a section of the ship, finding mistakes or problems and recalculating, until eventually the calculations done by different means agreed. These would just have been a small part of the calculations the ship required, and it highlights how much time and effort was required to do something that nowadays might only take a few seconds on a computer.

The R101 disaster caused the government to turn its back on airships - a move Shute admits was probably for the best given the rapid increase in aeroplane performance throughout the 1930s. Out of a job, he decided to start his own company with a fellow R100 engineer, Alfred Tiltman. They named their company 'Airspeed', and the second half of the book highlights the problems of starting a new company in a rapidly - and  radically - changing industry. Shute is disarmingly honest about some of the financial techniques he used to keep the company afloat and how, if the dice had rolled differently, he could have ended up in jail!

He eventually left Airspeed in 1938, his capabilities as Managing Director being more suited to running a young company than a relatively mature one with a bulging order book. He does not give the impression he minded leaving, nor does he appear to object when, during the war, de Havilland took over Airspeed.

This is very much the autobiography of an engineer, and his personal life is scarcely mentioned. His wife only graces the pages on a few occasions - mostly in how her job allowed him a little financial security. It would have been nice to have heard more about her, and his two children only get a short mention at the end of the book. It would also have been nice to hear more about Shute's work during the Second World War, when he worked on special projects and weapons. Perhaps that was because this book was published in 1953, when the events of the war were still raw and many special projects were still secret. It feels as though the book ends too soon.

I'm slightly surprised I had never read this book before, but I shall be reading it again in the future. Shute may have got fame from his writing, but his other work probably had more of an impact on the world.

4 out of 5.

Book review: Mars, by Ben Bova.

The Red Planet is hotter than ever. With Andy Weir's excellent 'The Martian' being a hit in both book and film forms, NASA's landers and rovers toiling on the surface, and Elon Musk's SpaceX working towards a rocket that may enable Mars colonisation, Earth's neighbour is getting a great deal of deserved attention.

Mars has featured in literature many times over the years. An example of this is Ben Bova's 1992 book 'Mars', about an international mission to Mars. The book is part of his 'Grand Tour' series around the planets.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The book's protagonist, Jamie Waterman, is a Navajo geologist on the ground team. His character felt particularly weak, and the plotline revolving around his ancestry was poorly developed and perhaps even stereotyped. Likewise, many of his compatriots are poorly written in my view - Anthony Reid, the doctor, is a snivelling Englishman with severe daddy issues.

To make things worse, the characters all act unprofessionally - behaving more like bunnies on Viagra than serious scientists in a dangerous environment, and letting international rivalries get in the way of their mission.

All of this made the first half of the book tough going, with a boring plot and very unsympathetic characters. However, the last third of the book has a very different feel - when the mission flirts with disaster, the plot takes off, and most of the characters develop another much-needed dimension. It was worth reading for this part of the book alone.

It is a far inferior book to others about Mars, for instance Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars', or Andy Weir's 'The Martian'. But it is probably still worth a read if you want to see the way a mission to Mars might look like - at least from a 1990s perspective.

2 out of 5.

(An old version of this was accidentally published earlier. Apologies. I shall go and sit in a corner for five minutes and mutter 'don't press the publish button until you're ready'.)

Book review: "The Planet Factory", by Elizabeth Tasker

It is unusual for a popular science book to start by saying that what you are reading will probably be proved wrong in a very short period. Yet that is exactly what astrophysicist Elizabeth Tasker states in this excellent book about how planets and moons form.

There is a good reason for this: twenty-five years ago we did not know of any planets outside our solar system, and some people claimed that our planetary system might be unique. All our models on how planets formed had to be based on what we could see in our own system. Yet by mid-2018 we knew of 3,700 planetary systems, and virtually every one has posed more questions than it has answered. Together, they have caused us to question our assumptions on how all planets - including the Earth - formed.

Ms Tasker details how primordial clouds of dust and gas collapses to form full solar systems with stars and planets, and how much we still have to learn about this most fundamental of processes.

She examines the weird planets that may exist: such as ones that orbit within their star, ones with seas of tar, or ones made of lava or others where it rains diamonds. Truly alien worlds that belong in science fiction - and indeed, science fiction worlds may not be as fictional as we once thought. Want a planet with two suns, such as Star Wars' Tatoooine? They exist. Want an ice world? Take your pick.

The reason many people are interested in planets is the possibility they may harbour life. In reality this is the only time when the media pays attention to the discovery of a new planet, usually with headlines such as "Most Earth-like planet could harbour life." Ms Tasker dives behind the headlines and looks at why they are often misleading, and how life might occur on planets that might be very different from the Earth. Finally, she examines how in the future we might be able to detect life on a distant planet, if not the form of the life, even from tremendous distances.

Planetary formation can be a very dry subject, and Ms Tasker does a good job in explaining the terminology in a light and accessible manner. Even so, this is not a children's book, and in places will require a little perseverance to understand the concepts, and some thumbing back through the pages to find definitions. But the perseverance certainly pays off.

The biggest issue I found with this book is how the uncertainty of how things happen and the resultant speculation can make things confusing as temporary theories conflict. An enhancement of the glossary at the end of the book for commonly-used terms would also be helpful.

If you have any interest in how the Earth formed, or in whether there is life elsewhere in the universe, then this book in an invaluable primer.

4 out of 5.

Books review: 'The Space Shuttle Decision' and 'Development of the Space Shuttle' by T.A. Heppenheimer

The Space Shuttle Decision 1965-1972, by T.A. Heppenheimer.
Development of the Space Shuttle 1972-1981, by T.A. Heppenheimer.

These books are a two-volume history of the Space Shuttle program, written before the Columbia disaster in 2003. The first volume covers the decision to make the Shuttle; how it turned from being a small part of a comprehensive space program into the only part of a much reduced system. The second volume covers the design and development of the Shuttle, ending at its first launch.

As can be seen from the dates, the first book spans a period from shortly after the start of manned space flight, up to nine years before the shuttle's first flight. Mr Heppenheimer does an excellent job of examining all the precursors to the Shuttle to show how the decision to build the shuttle occurred.

And this is vital information, as the Shuttle program was a glorious failure. It was meant to fly 60 times a year, yet only managed 135 flights in 30 years, with two of those resulting in total losses of vehicle and crew. The Shuttle did not reach its schedule, performance or cost-per-flight projections. Yet despite this, it kept the US in the space race.

So what went wrong? Back in the 1960s, at the height of the Apollo program, NASA wanted a small, cheap shuttle that would service orbiting space stations and a manned mission to Mars that was planned for the 1980s. As politicians refused funding for the Mars landings and the space station, NASA was left with plans for a shuttle that had no mission.

To give it a reason to exist (and to keep NASA in the manned spaceflight business), they allied with the air force, who required a much larger spaceplane with superior glide characteristics. This was more expensive, so they had to take all the payloads launched by the US government to make it cost-effective, along with a large proportion of the civilian satellites. This meant that all the US eggs would be in one launch basket, which proved to be a problem when that basket was grounded for three years after the Challenger disaster.

Because the new system was heavier, the costs were much larger. Under the watchful eyes of a budget organisation, the OMB, NASA changed the Shuttle from a fully-reusable system to a partly-reusable one. A move that was meant to save money during development actually made the system more expensive to operate per flight. It also led to critical design decisions that helped doom both Challenger and Columbia.

Although the first book ends years before the Shuttle first flew, it covers the period where the decisions that shaped and doomed the project were made. As such, it is vital reading for anyone interested in that program.

In the second volume, Mr Heppenheimer does a good job of detailing the tasks and problems facing NASA in developing the Shuttle, from obvious big-ticket items such as the main engines to smaller yet critical ones, such as life support and orbital manoeuvring systems.

The development was beset by problems, and the first flight was two or three years later than scheduled (although some of the delays were caused by budgetary rather than developmental problems). American industry worked hard to deliver a working Shuttle, albeit one that was doomed not to meet its targets due to the decisions outlined in the first volume.

Whilst the first volume might best be targeted at economists, political theorists and project managers, the second goes into much greater depth into the Shuttle's hardware. As such, it is of much more interest to the general space buff. It is far less helpful in discovering what went wrong with the program and why the Shuttle was an expensive failure, even if a glorious one.

These books are crying out for a third volume covering the operations of the Shuttle, and the missions it undertook. But despite this missing third volume, these books are a fascinating insight into the entire program. Mr Heppenheimer turns complex, dry topics into a readable history.

Although I ordered hard copies, the first volume is also available in HTML from the NASA website:

The Space Shuttle Decision 1965-1972

Books read in 2016

Below is a list of books that I read in 2016. A fairly short list due to illness and lack of time but I am fairly happy with the mix between fiction and non-fiction.

01/01/2016: (started in 2015)
Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil, by James Runcie
2/5

09/01/2016
Thomas Telford's Temptation, by Charles Hadfield.
3/5

16/01/2016
A twist of the knife by Peter James
2/5

01/2016
Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
4/5

13/2/2016
Tank Rider, into the Reich with the red army, by Evgeni Bessonov
5/5

18/02/2016
Big Blue, by ??? (Annoyingly, I did not write down the authors of this rather ancient (1980s) book.
4/5

06/03/2016
Rebus: Black Book, by Ian Rankin
3/5

11/03/2016
The White Umbrella, by Brian Sewell
4/5

16/04/2016
The Making of the English Landscape, by W.G. Hoskins.
4/5

23/04/2016
Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy
5/5

30/04/2016
That Close, by Suggs
3/5

15/07/2016
Elon Musk, by Ashlee Vance
4/5

20/08/2016
The Space Shuttle Decision 1965-1972, by T.A. Heppenheimer.
5/5

03/10/2016
Development of the Space Shuttle 1972-1981, by T.A. Heppenheimer.
4/5

16/10/2016
Wild: a journey from Lost to Found, by Cheryl Strayed
4/5

25/10/2016
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson
5/5

27/10/2016
Runaway, by Peter May
4/5

02/11/2016
The awards of the George Cross, 1940-1009 by John Frayn Turner.
4/5

Book review: "Mallard: how the 'Blue Streak' broke the world speed record", by Don Hale

For boys of a certain generation, 'Mallard' conjures up images not of a duck floating on a pond, but of a garter-blue locomotive spitting fire and cinders.

On the 3rd July 1938, driver Joseph Duddington and fireman Thomas Bray drove streamlined LNER locomotive Mallard, along with seven coaches, down Stoke Bank towards Peterborough, setting a world speed record for steam locomotives of 126 MPH. It is a record that stands to this day.

It is an oft-told story, and a well-known one. In fact, it is so well known that yet another tome about the record attempt seems scarcely necessary. Thankfully, the author seems to have recognised this, and the attempt is only covered in the last fifth of the book. The remainder mostly concerns the people involved, including the Mallard's designer, Sir Nigel Gresley.

Mallard's record-breaking run really marked the end of the glory years of railway travel. War was approaching, and in fact the run had a lot to do with national and international rivalry. The LNER's great rival, the LMS, had the current British record, set the previous year when Sir William Stanier's streamlined Coronation class locomotive reached 114 MPH.

The international rivalry came from Germany, whose O5 locomotive had reached 124.5 MPH two years earlier. To this day some claim that Germany still holds the record, but those later attempts were not independently verified.

Despite being familiar with the story, I learnt some new things: for instance the famous luxury car maker Bugatti was a friend of Gresley's, and was involved with the design of the streamlining. In fact, Bugatti himself designed streamlined petrol and diesel locomotives for high-speed running. Many enthusiasts paint Gresley and Stanier as great rivals; that may be the case, but they were also firm friends. In fact, Stanier's son introduced Gresley's daughter to her future husband.

Some items are not adequately covered: Stanier's Coronation class were the most powerful British steam locomotives ever made, and many believe a member of the class could have beaten Mallard's record. But unlike the LNER, the LMS did not have a stretch of track suitable for setting the record. Who knows what speed a Coronation could have reached on its way down to Grantham?

But they are minor quibbles. The author has managed to get some relatively fresh and unbiased angles on a famous story, without going into too much technical detail. This thin book was both fascinating and enlightening.

McLevy: an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes?

We recently went for an amble around Wimpole Hall, a stately pile situated just down the road from us in Cambridgeshire. At the end of the walk Şencan dragged me towards the little bookshop situated in a corner of the rather ostentatious stables.

Whilst browsing, I found a hardback book called "The Casebook of a Victorian Detective", published in 1975. This is a selection of stories from a couple of books written by a real-life Edinburgh detective, James McLevy. McLevy served in Edinburgh for thirty years from 1830, and became the city's first detective. He published his books after he retired in the 1860s, and they look back over a career that saw thousands of crimes successfully solved.

As I am interested about writing about Edinburgh in the 1830s, I thought it would be a good book for research purposes So I parted with £3.50 and took it home.

The book contains a series of cases from McLevy's long and illustrious career, and depict an Edinburgh that is very different from today's city. He even has a website at http://jamesmclevy.com. This website features research that shows that some stories are between 80 and 100% accurate - not bad considering he was writing about events that in some cases occurred decades before. But what struck me most were the links between the real-life detective McLevy and his most famous fictional counterpart, Sherlock Holmes.

So what are the links between McLevy and Sherlock Holmes?

• McLevy published his books in the 1860s, whilst Arthur Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes book "A study in scarlet" in 1887. Therefore McLevy's stories precede Doyle's.
• Arthur Conan Doyle studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School from 1877, which McLevy had consulted for pathological evidence in some of his cases. McLevy would therefore have been known to people who knew Doyle. It is perfectly possible, indeed likely to my mind, that Doyle was aware of McLevy's work.
• A (criminal) character in one of McLey's stories is called 'Holmes'.
• McLevy sometimes uses deduction in a similar manner to Holmes.
• McLevy is also adept at using disguises to catch his man, as is Holmes.
• The cases are presented as a series of short stories, as are most of the Holmes canon.

What is more, some of the story titles have a certain Holmesian lilt: "The White Coffin" or "The Dead Child's Leg".

I am hardly the first person to discover this connection (indeed, some are mentioned in the book's preface). Whilst Sherlock Holmes is entirely Doyle's brilliant creation, I find it hard to believe that McLevy would not have been a minor influence. After all, how could he not have known about stories written by someone who was connected with the department he was studying in just fifteen years before?

Professor Joseph Bell taught Doyle at the school, and Bell was himself a student at the school when McLevy was still serving. Given Bell's acute deductive skills are famed as being Doyle's inspiration for Holmes, could Bell himself have learnt some of these from the detective?

That is to take nothing away from Doyle's adept skill. His stories are rich and utterly readable, whilst McLevy's style tends to be rather heavy and proselytising in places. Whilst McLevy's social views were undoubtedly ahead of his time - he believed that only early education could stop criminals, not punishment, and was in favour of the Ragged Schools - he is rather overfond of promoting those beliefs and the nature of crime.

So, was McLevy an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes? We can never know for sure, but given the above links, I would say it is probable.

As an aside, only when I started reading did I realise that I knew the McLevy name - BBC Radio 4 has done a series of adventures loosely based on McLevy's stories. Also, if buying the stories, be aware that new stories have been written using McLevy's character. Whilst these may be excellent, the real voice lies in the original stories from the man himself.

Book review: "The map that changed the world", by Simon Winchester.

William Smith is today widely acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of geology. Smith is rightly acknowledged as a massively important figure in the formative science of geology, although he is not as famous as James Hutton, whose unconformity at Siccar on the Berwickshire coast gave dramatic clues to Earth's history.

He came up with the concept that seemingly-identical bands of rocks could be differentiated by the types of fossils found within, and that any band of rock containing the same fossils had to have been laid down at the same time, wherever it was found in the country. He also noticed that many fossils appeared to get more complex as rocks get younger, a concept that aided Darwin's later work. In addition, he worked out that layers of rock are mostly found in the same order; if a certain sandstone lies above a certain coal measure in one area, you can assume that if you find the same sandstone in a different area, coal will probably lie underneath.

The importance of these theories for industry are all too obvious; indeed, Smith could achieve the seemingly miraculous feat of predicting what rocks could be found. If a landowner wanted to know if there was coal under his land, then Smith could tell him without any costly digging. The importance of the theory on the Christian church are harder to understand from the modern perspective, but these problems are outlined well in this book.

From humble beginnings, Smith became an engineer and drainer, responsible for water management and canals in a similar manner to one of my heroes, William Jessop (who is actually mentioned in the piece). These jobs gave him the opportunity to travel and to compare rocks, whilst his work on the Somerset Coal Canal gave him the chance to examine a transect of a geologically interesting part of the country.

Despite those humble beginnings, Smith's ideas and concepts developed a worthy following. His first geological map was of the are around Bath in 1799, and by 1815 he had produced the first complete (if much delayed) geological map of England and Wales.

It is here that this book becomes more of a paean than a scholarly work. Mr Winchester comes across as a little too fond of his subject. Either that, or a misplaced need to impose drama, causes what was a complex grey situation to be painted as black and white. Anybody who opposes Smith becomes an unsympathetic character in the book; even a friend who slightly wrongs him is treated as if he were a little child who eventually learns the errors of his ways.

In 1819 Smith was thrown into a debtor's prison in London. This book puts this mainly down to a competition with a plagarised copy of his map released by the recently-formed Geological Society of London. However whilst reading the book it is obvious that Smith was the architect of his own misfortune, with several failed business ventures unconnected to mapping, his delays in creating maps and books, and his rather ostentatious habit of buying houses that were rather too grand for his income. The book admits that his friends and admirers tried to help and gave him money, but that his debts were too great.

I also wanted to know more abut Smith the man. He married a younger woman, Mary Ann, who the book claims was mentally ill with something akin to nymphomania and ended her days in a mental institution. Whilst it seems that the parts of Smith's diaries containing references to Mary Ann was later expunged, and his nephew and biographer did not mention her much, I wanted to know more, even if it was mainly supposition. Smith appears to have stood by his wife, and her to him, throughout their travails; I wanted to know if that was really the case, and why that may have been.

Likewise, Smith took in his orphaned nephew, John Phillips, who himself became a famous and well-respected geologist. I wanted to know a little more about their relationship, and Phillips' view of his uncle.

By the time of Smith's death, the leadership of the Geological Society had changed and Smith's key work in the formative science was acknowledged. he was awarded plaudits, praise and even a pension of £100 a year from King William IV.

It is also made clear that others were working on how the Earth was formed at roughly the same time, most notably the aforementioned James Hutton. It would have been nice for the author to mention how Smith's work and theories fitted in around those of the other geological titans. For instance, did Hutton influence Smith's work? If so, then it is hardly to the detriment of Smith's theories or his maps.

All the valedictory words in this book could be replaced by just two pictures: Smith's 1815 geological map is reproduced within the inside cover, and an equivalent modern map within the back cover. Flicking between these two, and the similarities between them, shows better than any words Smith's achievement. For this reason, it would have been nice if they had been available as larger fold-outs, so they could more easily be compared.

I would give this book four out of five stars: geology can be a very dry subject, and Mr Winchester explains the terminology well and without assuming too much background knowledge. However it could have done with more focus on Smith the man, and less blaming others for Smith's own misfortune.

Book review: "Moon over Soho" by Ben Aaronovitch

When jazz musicians start dying of natural causes shortly after completing their sets, DC Peter Grant tries to find connections between the men. Can he find the answer before his own famous jazz-playing father becomes a victim?

I've read (and reviewed) the first book in this series, "Rivers of London", and thought it was a brilliant read. In it, a probationer constable with the Metropolitan Police, Peter Grant, discovers that there is a magical side to life in the capital. He becomes an apprentice to Nightingale, the last magician in the force, and moves to live in the Folly, a grand house in Central London.

This second book is slightly less inventive than the first (the narrative world has already been created), and the plot is slightly less manic and easier to follow. We learn more about the central characters: from Nightingale's activities in the Second World War, to Molly, the servant who refuses to leave the Folly. This adds a depth that was missing in the first book, especially as a villain is created that could last through several more books.

There are a couple of places that an editor could have done a better job - for instance the explanation of  a 'nominal' in the HOLMES2 police computer is repeated, and there are a couple of other repetitions. Aside from these, the prose is fresh and the descriptions vivid. DC Grant's voice is brilliantly compelling and I found myself bathing in it: he is a truly great character, and the first-person voice is lively and realistic.

I really don't like jazz, but I found the jazz side of the plot was cleverly more about the personalities than the music - especially the band that hang around DC Grant because of his father's fame. It was well handled, and to my surprise I found it appealing. It takes skill to write a plot that revolves around the world of jazz, without annoying someone who has no love for the music.

The first book in the series was laugh-aloud funny, and that it continues in this sequel with lines such as: "Nobody kills a suspect in a police station and gets away with it - at least nobody without a warrant card."

I would give this book four out of five stars, and I look forward to reading the next in the series: "Whispers Underground".

Book Review: "Natural Causes" by James Oswald

When a young girl's disembowelled and mummified body is found nailed to the floor of an old house in Edinburgh, Detective Inspector McLean is assigned the case. It soon becomes clear that the girl died sixty years before. But if that is true, then why are similar murders occurring?

I bought this book on an impulse; it was on a display stand whilst I was queuing to buy another couple of books. The front cover proclaimed it to be a Richard & Judy Book club winner, and that it was by "The new Ian Rankin"

I see the latter as high praise indeed, so I bought it and started reading. And yes, the book could almost have been written by Rankin. It is set in contemporary Edinburgh, and features a newly-promoted Detective Inspector, Anthony McLean.

Sadly, Mr Oswald does not manage to get the same 'feel' of Edinburgh that Rankin does. Rankin treats the city as if it was a living creature, and manages to perfectly capture the soul of the city he loves. In comparison, this book seems to present a more one-dimensional view of the city and its people. Despite this, it was a very good effort.

As usual with such central detectives, he has a tragic history which is slowly unveiled: his parents died when he was four, and his fiancée was tragically murdered before their marriage. Also like many detectives, he argues with his superior officers, is unattached and not particularly interested in a partner. And as is also common, he has a partner (or at least sex) before the end.

The book also features lots of crimes. There are at least a dozen deaths, all singular, many of which are disembowlings. Add in a kidnapping and a hit-and-run, and you probably have more murders than occur in Edinburgh in a year. And yet the investigating officers (excepting the hero) do not link the deaths.

Interestingly, the author's text at the end of the book, and reader's comments, imply that the first chapter in this paperback edition is not the same as in earlier hardback editions - he has significantly altered it. The original is now reproduced at the back. If this is correct, then it is an interesting course to take: which one is the real story? This matters, as the original first chapter was a much darker beast - it put many people off reading the book, which is why he changed it.

In terms of prose, this book is better than Rankin's worst Rebus books, but worse than Rankin at his best. Although that might sound backhanded, it is meant as a compliment

However:

**** Spoiler ***

Despite the above, this book was a real disappointment. Everything about the cover screams moody, dark crime novel, with heinous deeds waiting to be solved by an intrepid detective, preferably along with a gullible sidekick. And that's exactly the way "Natural Causes" starts. Unfortunately the supernatural starts to creep in, until eventually the culprit turns out to be a demon.

Such genre shifts are tricky to pull off. The reader has had turkey for the Christmas dinner, and instead of a nice fruit-filled Christmas pudding for dessert, he gets an ice-cream sundae. Some will enjoy it, but others will feel let down.

In my case, I felt let down. I have read other detective stories where, midway through the tome, the plot points towards a supernatural cause, only for a very rational explanation to come through in the end. They can be tremendous fun as you try and work out how a seemingly inexplicable crime has been committed. As I was reading this book I was considering all the possible drugs, mental illnesses or threats that could explain the crimes. In the end, as the blurb says, it is the most irrational answer.

It would be better if it had been left open to either a natural or supernatural cause, and a quick check on Amazon shows that some people think it has. But I cannot see how the events could have unfolded as described, unless the protagonist is insane or an exceptionally unreliable narrator. Using the supernatural entity as the criminal is also a lazy way to write - you can get away with anything. It is one of the most intrusive deus ex machina I have read for some time.

It is not that I am against supernatural crime thrillers: I loved the wit and inventiveness of Ben Aaronovitch's 'Rivers of London'. It is just that the genre shift proved much too sharp for me.

For prose, I would give this book four out of five. As a detective story, one out of five.

Book review: "Rivers of London", by Ben Aaronovitch

It is unusual to come across a book that defies classification, but "Rivers of London" is such a book. At its heart is Peter Grant, a probationary constable working for the Met. He is partnered to an attractive fellow probationer, Lesley, whom he is utterly failing to have a relationship with.

When Lesley and Peter are called to the scene of a grisly murder in Covent Garden, Peter is surprised to find a ghost hanging around. Not just because he does not believe in ghosts, but also because the ghost tells him vital information about the murder.

Soon, Peter is inducted into The Folly, the Met's mysterious-crimes-and-magic division. What follows is a chase across London, featuring River Gods and Godesses, childrens' entertainment, nasty murders and rioting patrons of the Royal Opera House, all topped off with a trip into London's prehistory.

If that sounds a mess, then it is not doing the book justice, because Aaronovitch winds and merges these disparate ideas into a genuinely compelling story.

What matters in this book is the details, and the details are both imaginative and unintrusive. The police work is well researched (so much so I wonder if Aaronovitch has been in the force), and the details are described in such a way that they enhance, and do not interfere, with the flow.

In addition, the use of language is excellent, including a few laugh-out-loud moments. It is well-written, entertaining, and macabre in one package.

I would award this book four and a half out of five stars. It's sequel is sitting on my reading pile ...

Blurbs

A few years ago I was reading some book blurbs; the text written to entice a potential reader. It can either be a short description of the book, or a note about something else by the same author, such as: "For all those who loved Chocolat ... Vianne is back"

For instance, here is a brilliant short one from James Herbert's book "Fluke"

"The story of a dog who thinks he's a man ... or a man who thinks he's a dog"

This works; it describes the central theme of the book well, and introduces a mystery that might appeal to readers.

Not all are good. One, for an American romance-slash-action thriller, had the following:

"He was fire. She was ice. Together they made steam."

It may work for some audiences, but for me this seemed an absolutely horrible piece of text. It told us nothing about the book, and as a hook it was meaningless. It's fun inventing alternatives, though:

"He was fire. She was ice. Together they made a puddle."

"He was fire. She was ice. She extinguished him."

Book review: "Kind of Cruel", by Sophie Hannah

A locked room, four people going missing on Christmas Day, and murder are linked together in this psychological thriller by Sophie Hannah.

Amber Hewerdine has not been able to sleep since the death of her best friend. She and her husband have taken in her friend's two young daughters, who they are trying to adopt. Driven to the end of her tether by sleeplessness, she visits a hypnotherapist, who inadvertently uncovers a link with a recent murder case that has police baffled.

Now a police suspect, Amber has to discover how a vital piece of evidence became buried deep in her subconscious before the killer strikes again.

I am not ordinarily a fan of psychological thrillers. This is particularly the case for densely-written psychological thrillers - this book weighs in at nearly 500 pages. At times the prose felt a little like wading through mud - every character's thought and emotions are dissected, often in too much detail. This may appeal to some readers, but I would have preferred it if the plot moved on at a faster pace.

It is one of these stories where virtually every major character - and every adult character - has a psychological issue that drives the plot along. One person is sexually repressed; another finds it hard to forgive her sister for a past transgression. All the characters are individuals - but it would be hard for them not to be when they are written about in such depth. Sometimes a page or two pass without anything actually happening, as the text is descriptions or interior monologue.

Despite this, the linked neuroses and issues work. The key to the story  - and the main villain - was fairly easy to detect, but I was left reading to work out the why the crime was committed - as could be expected, it was a very psychological motive.

I found my credulity stretched towards the middle of the book: for instance, how could these characters afford to live their rich lifestyles? Fortunately that credulity was not stretched to breaking point, and the questions - all relevant to the plot - are neatly answered by the final page. The plot is fairly complex, but the author plays the clever trick of simplifying the complexities as you near the end.

One downside: there is a moment of drama towards the end of the book that puts some characters in peril, that is fixed by a rather startling coincidence. It isn't a major problem, but the author could easily have found a better way of saving them.

I give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Book review: "The yard", by Alex Grecian

The Yard is set in the immediate (and literal) aftermath of the Jack the Ripper murders in 1889, in a still-formative detective service that is utterly demoralised by their failure to catch Jack.

When a detective's body is found in a steamer trunk at Euston, with the corpse's mouth and eyes stitched shut, it falls upon newly-promoted Detective Day to find the killer.

The characters are very well, if lightly drawn; the detectives all have set characters, and you can almost read the plot from those characters: you can tell the heroes and villains a long time before they are unveiled.

The book is lightly-written, but in this case that is a positive. At nearly 600 pages it is not a short book, and the plot is fairly complex, if linear. The lightness and fast pace means it is a fast read, although without massive depth.

It follows a familiar and well-trodden pattern: there is a lead detective, with a junior policeman as a foil, and a police doctor who helps them look for evidence. But the fact the story is set a a time when police procedures were in their infancy gives it a freshness.

The author is American, and sadly this shows in some of the dialogue. The names of some characters (for instance Hammersmith) may have grated with some, but I actually found they enhanced the book.

The atmospheric touches are also simple (for instance, a man sweeping up the horse dung from the streets), and I learnt nothing I did not already know about mid-Victorian London. Instead of giving you a mirror-sharp image of the times, what you get is a fuzzy, early Kodak box camera-style picture.

However I found these slight problems did not matter, as they were overwhelmed by some great characterisation and a fast-moving plot. By the end, the various plot threads were neatly delivered tied up with a ribbon. I managed to read the book in a fairly intensive day-long reading session and found myself yearning for more.

It is a flawed book, but if you look beyond them there is some real heart. It will not be to everyone's tastes, but it was to mine.

I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Book review: "The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry", by Rachel Joyce

I picked up this book in Waterstones based just on the title, blurb, and a picture of a pair of yachting shoes on the cover. I like books about walking, and it seemed to be about an elderly man's journey across England.

It turned out to be a good choice.

Firstly the book is well written, with a deft use of language and a perfectly judged pace. Secondly, what appears to be the main topic - a journey - is really a hook on which hangs a brilliant character study.

Harold Fry is an utterly ordinary man, recently retired after a lifetime in one job in South Devon. His marriage to Maureen is unhappy as they have slowly drifted apart over the 47 years of marriage. One day he receives a letter from an old colleague, Queenie, stating that she is dying of cancer, and saying goodbye. He had not spoken to her - or even given her much thought - for over twenty years.

Yet a chance meeting on the way to post a letter to Queenie sets him off on a totally different course. Without going home or telling Maureen, he sets off to visit Queenie in Berwick-on-Tweed, with a certainty - almost a faith - that she will live long enough to see him. If he walks, she will live.

As he heads north through Britain he slowly drops the trappings of his previous life, deconstructing himself as he comes to terms with key events in his past. One, the day his son nearly drowned in the sea, proves a pivotal moment in the lives of his family and in his relationship with his wife and child.

Harold's simple journey and story affects many of the people he meets - at first he is naive, and whilst some people spur him on, others laugh at his mission. But as his journey progresses and he meets more people, so his simple faith touches more lives.

But Maureen also goes on a journey without leaving her home. As the days pass her annoyance with Harold is replaced by other emotions and she is forced to examine their relationship anew.

No-one understands why he is undertaking the pilgrimage, and most assume that Harold once had - or even still has - had a sexual relationship with Queenie. Yet the truth when it emerges strikes much more to the core of Harold's being.

This is not a religious tome; whilst Harold is perfect happy with other people's faith, he himself is not religious. Instead, his faith grows during the course of the book; it is not a faith in God, but a faith that an ordinary man can do the extraordinary.

Some pages make you laugh; others are filled with pathos and grief. But these are both deftly handled and force the reader on. The basic question first posed in the book: will Harold reach Queenie before she dies? is replaced with others, all of which are compelling and beautifully resolved by the last page.

I would award this book five out of five stars. It is a truly excellent book that thoroughly deserved to get on the Man Booker longlist last year. Indeed I would go further: this book started off as a play on Radio 4; it should become a film.

Book review: "The Whole World", by Emily Winslow

"The Whole World", by Emily Winslow

"The Whole World" is Ms Winslow's first book. The book is firmly based in Cambridge, with the recent building of the massive Grand Arcade development taking centre stage.

The book is written from five viewpoints, each in the first-person. The first is narrated by Polly, a young woman with a dark past who has fled the US to attend Peterhouse College. She is keen on Nick, a graduate student, but her reaction when he attempts to kiss her kicks off a chain of events that leads to his disappearance.

I have read such multiple-viewpoint books before, where each view adds a different perspective onto events. I tend to find them boring, as it is hard to create unique voices or new angles on events. Ms Winslow avoids this by having each narrator progress the story, so they not only give a fresh perspective on known events, but also add extra layers of events. This means that Nick's disappearance is a catalyst for the story rather than the main crime. The becomes obvious when the author skilfully makes him the second narrator, giving the story of his disappearance from his perspective.

Ms Winslow captures Cambridge well in her writing; she has the view of an outsider who has come to love her adopted home. In this way her writing is a little like Ian Rankin's, although Cambridge is a quiescent place that lacks Edinburgh's natural buzz. Despite this, she captures the city's atmosphere well.

The characters are also well-drawn and were, for me at least, believable, if somewhat eccentric in some cases. The story revolves around a love triangle involving Nick, his embryonic relationship with Amy, and her best friend Liv, another American student. Add in Morris, the detective investigating Nick's disappearance, and Gretchen, a blind university professor who is trying to decipher her past, and you have an interesting collection of misfits.

I would award this book three out of five stars; it is certainly a good attempt at a first novel. It would have been at least four stars, except for an issue which I describe below. Warning: this is a slight plot spoiler.

*** Plot spoiler ***
There was one area in which this book failed spectacularly for me. After Nick and Polly argue, a series of events unfold. These end with him walking to visit an old friend who lives in a ramshackle old farmhouse. She is not in, and when he lets himself in using a key, he falls down the cellar stairs, twisting or breaking his ankle and trapping him in the farm.

He manages to stay there for nearly two weeks, whilst his disappearance triggers a series of other events. Eventually his friend returns from a foreign trip and finds him. This is where suspension of disbelief flies out the window like a prize canary.

The friend makes him comfortable, but because there is no mobile phone signal in the house, nor a land line due to the renovations, they decide to drive him to hospital. However, instead of her driving, or making him comfortable at her home whilst she goes, she thinks he should drive. Despite the fact that it is night, he is weakened after two weeks in the house, has a badly-injured ankle that prevented him from escaping, and he does not know how to drive.

It was such an improbably stupid decision to make. Worse, the author than has Nick getting lost and running over another major character by accident. If his ankle was bad enough to stop him escaping the farm, it would hardly allow him to learn to drive, especially at night.

Sadly, this spoiled a large section of the book for me.

Book review: "Saints of the Shadow Bible", by Ian Rankin

After two off-beat tomes, Ian Rankin has dragged his famous anti-hero, John Rebus, out of retirement and back into CID. Demoted from Detective-Inspector to Detective-Sergeant, his old colleague and foil Siobhan is now his boss.

The two friends are called out to the site of a late-night car crash near Edinburgh airport. No-one died, and the female driver is soon released from hospital. But Rebus thinks the woman was a passenger. So how did she get into the driver's seat, and who was the driver? When it turns out she is the girlfriend of the son of Scotland's Justice Minister, a train of events starts that might cost Rebus more than his job.

For Rebus has a past. Thirty years earlier, whilst a Detective Constable in a long-closed police station, he had joined a group of detectives who called themselves Saints of the Shadow Bible. Times were different then, corners cut, and past sins soon start impinging on the present.

This is really a return to form for Rankin. Fox, the main character in two non-Rebus books, is facing a shift in career back into CID and comes across as a much more sympathetic and well-drawn character. The Scottish Referendum debate gets more than a passing mention, with the major suspects coming from both sides of the debate. The book is of its place and of its time, fully embedded within the Edinburgh Rankin loves.

The plot is fast paced and, as ever from Rankin, the characters are well drawn. Best of all, he has kept musical references down to a minimum.

I would give this book four out of five stars.

Book review: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

(Note: I have tried not to have too many spoilers in this review, but it is hard to discuss such an interesting book without giving away a few points. If you are afraid of spoiling your enjoyment of the book then please just take my eight word review: well written, interesting concepts poorly implemented, unsatisfying ending).

This is a crime brook with a difference: instead of the usual routine single or multiple murders, it details the disappearance of Nick Dunne's wife Amy on their fifth anniversary, and the way suspicion slowly falls on him as the investigation progresses. Indeed, the evidence against him seems almost too perfect.

The story is initially told from two perspectives: Amy's historic diary entries and narration that slowly unveils the minutiae of their relationship, and Nick's current narration as the police investigation gathers pace. Both are unreliable narrators; sadly, in Nick's case it is all too obvious to the reader that he is unreliable. Indeed, one of the many 'twists' in the plot is so well signposted that it would have been a twist if it had not occurred.

A big problem with this book are the characters' occupations. Both Nick and Amy are writers - or more accurately were, as both have lost their jobs by the start of the book. Whilst writing is a perfectly good and worthy occupation, I am bored about reading about writers. It shows a distinct lack of imagination by the author: Nick could just have easily been an engineer, a shopkeeper, anything: the fact he was a writer is absolutely incidental and not vital to the plot.

In a similar vein, although they are both poor at the beginning of the book (part of the cause of the stress on their relationship), Amy has been rich in the past via a trust fund set up by her parents. She also has a ludicrously rich associate, of the six-room remote lakeside chalet type. Frankly, it feels unrealistic.

At the heart of this book is the story of a psychopath. Sadly the psychopath is neither particularly interesting or realistic. If you read about psychopaths then they should at least be interesting; that is not the case here. That might be forgiveable aside from the fact the other main characters are also fairly uninteresting.

The exception is Nick's twin sister, Go. Indeed, Go is about the only sympathetic major character in the entire piece, and her descent from trusting her twin completely to doubting his story is well written and believable.

The book is overlong and overwritten: the detail may contain good prose, but much of it does not progress the plot. There are also repeated details; not just from the two narrators (which if showing the same event from different perspectives is fine), but multiple times from the same character. The author's hunger for us to understand these points is like being repeatedly hit over the head with a wooden Punch and Judy character.

Indeed, it is a book of two halves. The first half is far too long and needs some heavy trimming, especially of repeated information. It is rather heavy, and much of the information given superfluous. The second half is much better, with twist and turns designed to keep the reader guessing; I read two-thirds of it in an afternoon, which is unusual for me.

One entertaining part of this book is the way that subsidiary characters react to the growing evidence against Nick. At first he has sympathy and the town rallies to find Amy. But the sympathy becomes a widespread impression that he is guilty as the evidence against him is revealed. A sympathetic interview changes that and makes the locals believe he is innocent, but only until the next piece of evidence comes along. The whole trial-by-media subplot is well handled, but is really worthy of its own book.

There is also a segment about the way we play roles in society: Amy admits to playing roles that allow her to fit in amongst different strands of society (the so-called 'Cool Girl' personae), but this interesting concept is relatively underdeveloped.

Which brings me to the crunch: whilst this book is well-written and has an unusual and enticing storyline, it sucks. It sucks big time. Why? Without creating too many plot spoilers, it breaks one of the golden rules of crime thrillers. Justice is not done.

As a reader, you want the story to come to a conclusion with some form of justice done. Sherlock Holmes is an interesting example; in several of his stories he lets a criminal get away with their crime because of the circumstances. In the case of the murder of blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton, he decides that Milverton was a far worse person than the murderer who had been a victim of his blackmail. The reader sees that, although the murderer escaped, justice has been done. Revenge can be justice.

However in this story the criminal gets everything he or she wants, and makes everyone's life a living misery. This was not the ending I wanted from the book, and it was deeply dissatisfying. Justice was not done, and it left me feeling cheated as a reader. It also makes absolutely no sense: the criminal's story is utterly unbelievable, yet is swallowed by the police, family and friends. A disappearance is investigated by a large police team, whilst a murder is ignored.

Some reviews state that the end if ambiguous: it is not. There is no ambiguity, no nuance. It is an ending, but an empty and unfulfilling one. If the author's intention is for there to be a sequel then I fear she will be out of luck: the story has progressed as far as it can and the characters are not likeable enough to carry another book. Indeed, there are two or three concepts within that could carry a book each, but they are merged and squashed into 'Gone Girl' and they remain substantially unexplored.

This book is a classic example of an excellent writer who seems to have no idea either of plotting, or of what her readers will want from the book. I give it a deeply disappointing 2 out of 5 stars