“Bournville” by Jonathan Coe

An audio book.

In the Prologue (2020) Lorna (wife of Donny) arrives in Vienna with her double bass at the start of her first jazz tour with Mark. She Skypes her Gran (86; she has a heart condition that could kill her at any moment) who’s had a tablet for 6 years and who’s been a widow for 7. Covid’s starting. Not all the concerts go ahead. She wonders if she might research into a German relative.

Mary grew up in Bournville, a Quaker-influenced pub-free suburb of Birmingham built to house workers at a chocolate factory. We're taken through her life. We’re shown various episodes where the family was gathered around the radio or TV - first VE Day (when a German is attacked), then later the 1966 world, Charles and Diana’s wedding, etc. We’re shown how attitudes to foreigners (especially Germans) change. Mary’s husband - a Classist turned bank manager isn’t happy when son Martin plans to marry a non-white Scot, Bridget. Mary teaches sport at a primary school and does golf and tennis after retirement. Mary and Geoffrey’s sons are Peter, Martin and Jack. When she sees Ken on TV as a political pundit she mentions that they were friends before she married.

James Bond films and people's opinion of them are used assess the UK. And so is chocolate - when the EC challenge whether Cadbury's sweets have too much vegetable oil to be called "chocolate", Martin goes over to negociate. The French are called pretentious while the British think about their childhood and the war (the cause for the addition of vegetable oil). Martin thinks about becoming an MEP. Bridget gets a European job instead.

In childhood David and Peter went on a holiday in Wales, which prepares us for the (unlikely) meeting over 30 years later of David with the Welsh girl. They sleep together. David finds out that his father used to be in MI5.

After a few years of having a wife, Peter, a classical musician, comes out to Mary as gay.

There are echoes down the centuries - Boris Johnson's speech is like Churchill's.

Because of her heart condition she wasn't allowed to drive. She hates the loss of freedom. At 86, during covid, she drives, does 50 on a 30mph road, and feels alive again. She visits her old house. During covid she dies alone. Bridget rants at the family saying that none of them stuck up for her against Geoffrey and Jack though she did her best to be part of the family.

Later, there's an unfamiliar noise - the bell of the local school. Covid's over. Life begins again.

Episodic, with characters (sometimes unexpectedly) appearing in more than one episode. Interlinked stories? Not really. Cosy historical fiction for those who recall the 60s, who remember when TV programs didn't start until the afternoon, who had a Sony Discman? Partly, though the interlacing of Lady Di's televised funeral with gay sex doesn't fit in with that description. And later, the Covid Regulations are interlaced with narrative. Some sections seem very long for what they do. The covid section might be more interesting on a few years time - the details are wasted on me.

Other reviews

• Alex Preston (It’s difficult (but not impossible) to draw a line between the complex energy of Coe’s early work and these gentler, more sedate later novels)
• Marcel Theroux (prizing clarity over verbal fireworks, Coe’s writing draws the reader into the family dramas as they unfold over the decades. He has the great gift of combining plausible and engaging human stories with a deeper structural pattern that gives the book its heft. ... Subtle, considered, but not programmatic, Coe doesn’t stick to any consistent aesthetic principle. He uses omniscient narration for some sections, first-person narration for others. There are bits in the past tense, bits in the present tense, chunks of news reports, extracts from a diary, a long reminiscence by a recurring character from one of his other novels. None of this sophistication makes the book less pleasurable – quite the reverse. It combines a welcoming accessibility with a box of clever narrative tricks.)

"The Calling" by Alison Bruce

An audio book.

2009 - a woman is in a bath. She's cut herself - "each droplet billowed" in the water. A man enters the house, finds her.

2011 - Margaret and Mike Whiting are short of money. Their son Steve is living at home, unemployed. Daughter Michelle is in a sexually-submissive relationship with Karl (a van driver) who prefers Kay. They're about to go on holiday. The other daughter Kay hasn't turned up to the family gathering - the 80th birthday of Margaret's mother. Margaret's 46 year-old brother Andy Burrows bottled out of the meeting. Margaret called the police about Kay's absence.

DC Goodhew, 26, has split with Clare. He asks car mechanic friend Brin if he wants to go on the holiday he's already booked. Brin's sister Shelley is a pretty flirt.

The Flying Pig, a Cambridge pub, is frequented by a lone girl, a regular for 2 years, with scars, pops in at 11.45am as usual for coffee. The girl's seen someone who looks like her, Paulette. She sees a man (Peter Walsh) still with her, going for lunch. She realises that he likes women who are like her, but not her. She cuts Kay's picture from page 1 of the newspaper. She thinks she looks like Kay.

The police get an anonymous call from a woman saying that Kay's still alive and that they should arrest Peter Walsh.

Kay, gagged, has been dumped by a flooded quarry near Ipswich. She dies.

Goodhew's colleague Kinkaid, unhappily married, is jealous of Goodhew because their boss Marks gives Goodhew slack and Goodhew somehow has his own house in Cambridge. He convinced that the criminal's within the family. Goodhew's colleague Sue Gully shyly fancies him.

On the day of her disappearance Kay was in Woodbridge and got a card for a Mother's birthday. Andy was in Woodbridge that day, and Kay had been in his car. He's arrested. He says that on the drive back she got out because she thought he was drunk.

The grandmother dies. Pete goes out with his colleague Donna. Goodhew meets on holiday then returns after a day because he thinks that the girl he's seen at The Flying Pig was the anonymous caller. She's seen him and has fantasised about him.

Another girl's body is found. Same MO.

We learn that the woman watching from the pub is Marlow. She misses Pete, and he still thinks about her. Pete dumps Juliette, the latest victim.

Goodhew lists Pete's 5 girlfriends and the victims. They're all similar. Pete's brougoes through her expeght in for questioning just before he had a date with Fiona. Marlow is pulled from the same lake as Kay's body had been in. Was she the killer? Goodhew goes through her extensive logs and realises that he kills one girlfriend when he finds a new one. Marlow promises that she can make Pete lead them to the latest victim, Lisa, who might still be alive. She ties up Julie, his current girlfriend, so that she can't be contacted. Goodhew releases Pete, who takes Marlow to where Lisa is to dump them together, but they're being tracked by police helicopter and Goodhew in a car.

"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead

Prologue – By a now closed reform school in Florida an archaeology student, looking for a mobile signal, stumbles upon an unofficial graveyard. The official one had 43 white crosses which the students (using DNA, dental records, etc) competed to identify.

It’s 1962. Elwood, black, has been raised by his grandmother since he was 6. He gets straight As at school and is trusted by whites. Mr Marconi employs him in a shop. Marconi doesn’t want him to stop kids stealing sweets – he sees it as an investment. But Elwood tells off his friends and gets beaten up on the way home.

He’s caught driving a car that isn’t his and is sent to a reform school. He’s beaten so badly there that he passes out and is hospitalised for days, just because he tried to stop a bully. He’s advised to play the game more cunningly.

There's a yearly boxing event, the best white boy against the best black one. Boxing is "a modern convenience that makes live easier". The townsfolk come to watch and bet.

Elwood learns some life skills by watching street hustlers.

It's 1968. New York. Elwood is with Denise. He's starting a removals company.

Boys have attempted escape, some famously so. In 1988, when he's married to Milly, he meets a schoolmate and is disappointed that his own escape story hasn't become legend.

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr, Elwood had tried to tell the press about the rape and abuse in the school. Turner smuggled out a letter for him. Elwood was punished for it. Turner heard that Elwood was going to be killed so he suggested that the two of them escape. Elwood's shot. Turner gets to New York and assumes Elwood's identity.

Epilogue - When Turner reads about the graveyard investigations he realises the Elwood's body might be identified. He tells his wife the truth and returns to Florida after 43 years to tell people what really happened back then.

The time slips back and forwards. Some significant scenes aren't described, only mentioned - I liked that once I was used to it. It's a page turner.

Other reviews

• Aminatta Forna (For the most part this restraint adds to the book’s impact, underlining the detachment with which the violence was enacted. There are other times, though, when Whitehead slides over key moments that would seem to beg for more detail)
• Art Edwards

"Kala" by Colin Walsh

An audio book. Set in Ireland.

In summer 2003 Kala Lannan (15 y.o. girl brought up by her wheelchairs grandmother) disappears. In 2018, Mosh helps look after his mother's cafe. He has a scar. The 15 y.o. twins Donna and Marie, who he used to babysit, come in asking for a loan to move into a flat. Their mother Patricia is remarrying on Monday. He says no. Their father Jer Lyons is a piss-head. Their brothers are Teabag and (deceased) Aidee.

Human remains have been found nearby.

Joe Brennen, now a rockstar living in LA, was Kala's boyfriend and top of his class. His dad Dudley is a policeman. Joe's back for a few weeks to open a venue he's bought. He was friends with Mosh, but they've not met on this visit. Mosh had gone out with Kala too, and resented Joe's self-centredness. Helen (daughter of the groom - she was Kala's friend) is returning from Canada for the wedding. She's a journalist/writer. Her sister Teresa is hippyish. There's a hen party coming up.

Chapters are from Mosh's (3rd person), Helen's (3rd person) and Joe's (1st person) PoV. There are 2 timelines: one leading up to Kala's disappearance, the other leading up to the wedding. Mosh was the last to see Kala. She didn't want to go home that night. Earlier they'd seen a dog-fighting event in a barn owned by Teabag's family.

The remains are confirmed as Kala's. Joe is told by his father that in her detached skull there was a photo of her and her friends (including Mosh, Joe, Helen). The hen-night and Joe's opening gig aren't cancelled. The twins have disappeared. Mosh receives a txt from their phone saying "No police".

I like the descriptions of first kisses and first love - how a boy might feel when a girl holds his hand in front of others; how, sober, he might apologise for his friends saying that they're ok really, just drunk. I like how the kids had unspoken suspicions, how they boasted about their knowledge and activities, fearing they'd be discovered.

They all seem to have struggled after Kala's disappearance. Aiden helped at the dog fighting. Maybe it’s that what unhinged him. Joe's song's seem stuck in that era. He wants a confident but can't find one.

Helen’s messaged by an Art Teacher, who tells her that Kala’s mother was a pupil who left when she was 14. Kala had researched into it prior to disappearing.

A man called Blinky's being held in Jer's barn. He's been assaulted by Jar and Teabag. Helen and Mosh sneak in. He says that the Lyons ripped him off, that he was told to bury Kala, that he knew who her father was, that Kala's grandmother knew things. They go to Kala's grandmother and find the twins there - tied up, left for dead. They return to the barn, planning to save Blinky. But Joe's dad is in the barn.

Teabag visits Joe, asking why Joe's family was rich well before Joe's fame. We learn that Jer is part of an organisation that organises dog fights, owns Mosh's mum's cafe, and much else besides. Jer was ripping off Blinky who had kidnapped the twins for a ransom. And Kala's father was her mother's father.

Just before Kala's disappearance Teabag punched Joe. Joe's father hit Teabag. The Lyons took revenge on Kala (not Joe because Dudley was already bent?). Mosh, trying to save her, got acid in his face. Ah - the scars.

Dudley asks to meet Helen, who's been trying to tie the pieces together. He takes her to an abandoned house to kill her. Joe and Teresa follow. Joe attacks his father to save her. The press are excited by the bent policeman angle, moreso when they find that the famous Joe Brennen is involved. The marriage is cancelled. Blinky's dead. Everyone else survives.

There's some lively language -

• "floating into a beer buzz like a kite cutting its own string"
• "He had a face on him like a toolbox"
• "sculpted curls"
• "you give her the smile you use for selfies"
• "the light hovering in the whisky on the table"
• "The heat's gone heavy like the sky's doing push-ups on me"

Other reviews

• Lucy Popescu
• goodreads
• Ruth Gilligan (After a slightly slow start, the momentum builds via a series of dramatic turns, culminating in a genuinely shocking twist. And yet, as with the novels of fellow Irish author Tana French, there is much to savour beyond the thrilling plot. The characterisation is particularly strong, each psychological portrait richly drawn; the prose is beautifully atmospheric throughout. Kala is both a genuine page-turner and a profound meditation on memory and how it shapes our lives – how our past selves forever haunt the people we become.)

"What I Have Written" by John Scott

An audio book.

The narrator and his wife aren’t getting on. They’re in Paris for a while, from Australia. They aren’t sleeping together. They act as a couple in public. He meets Katherine, who invites him to be physical. Instead, they start sending letters to each other, increasingly erotic. She tells him how a young lover makes her try bondage and threesomes.

We get Sorell the wife’s PoV. The narrator’s had a stroke and is in a coma. She reads the manuscript (i.e. the first section). She wonders how much is true. She recognises some of the details, but she also notices errors. She meets Jeremy, his editor. She learns that Katherine's letters were sent to him. He wanted the narrator to leave his wife – Jeremy’s fancied the wife for years. She contacts Kate, asking how much was true.

We get Jeremy’s PoV. The narrator dies - he had the stroke 6 days after starting to sleep with his wife again. He misses the confessional meetings with the narrator, Chris. He sees a resemblance between Katherine and da Vinci’s virgin with child. He’s edited the draft to change the relationship between the husband and wife.

"The Lie Maker" by Linwood Barclay

An audio book.

A husband (with wife Rose and a child) is collected from his house by an agent. He tells his son he killed people.

Jack has published two well reviewed (but poorly selling) novels (the first about a wife and son being abandoned) under a false name. He tries to get back into journalism but the internet and covid has reduced its viability. He's contacted by the witness protection agency who want him to invent backstories. Jack and investigative journalist Lana are friends. Jack's car catches fire. His father Earl (who he doesn't see much) asks him for money.

Willard, an ex-judge, goes missing. He's found dead - senile? A doctor, Marie, goes missing and is found dead - suicide?

In a new storyline we find that Kyle (married to Cecilia) and Valerie's father had been killed, and that 2 months before the book's present, Valerie had died after problems with drugs/alcohol.

Jack asks to meet the guy he's writing the life of, so he can do a good job. Gwen, his witness protection contact, didn't know that Jack's father was involved with witness protection. He wonders if someone wrote a fake backstory for his father, leaving Jack out.

Lana writes the stories about the missing judge. She also tries to find out who Jack is now employed by to write. Someone hints to her that Jack has a colourful past.

Earl (Jack's step-father) had sold Jack's mother's house and kept the money (really?) Someone bribes Earl to find out from Jack where his biological father lives. Earl gets into Jack's flat (Jack had given him a key!) and leaves a bug.

From Michael's (Jack's father's) PoV we learn that he used to work for Gaelen, a hotel chain boss. Gaelan had wanting him to kill a troublemaker. He hadn't wanted to do so (despite his boss, he had planned to bribe the troublemaker by getting his kids into Ivy League colleges), but ended up doing killing in self defence. We learn that the troublemaker was Kyle and Valerie's father.

Jack wants to meet his father. Witness Protection have lost track of him. Gwen asks Jack to recount all the times that he and his father had met. On one of those occasions Jack's father saved Jack's life from a roadrager.

Lana get Jack to reveal his secret. She's also discovered that the dead judge presided over the Gaelen case. Witness protection want to find Jack's father, but maybe they want to do so thinking that he's become a criminal again. Lana offers to help Jack find him. She thinks that Kyle may be seeking revenge.

With Lana's help Jack gets his father's possible address. He finds the roadrager there. His father too. They've become friends. Jack phones Lana and gets through to Gwen, who's holding Lana captive. Gwen is Gaelen's daughter. Gaelen died in prison from covid. The dead doctor had been with him.

Gwen had nothing to do with victim support. it was all a trick so the Gwen could get Jack's father.

Jack's dad regrets telling Korden (the guy who gave him a bribe) about Lana. Jack and his dad drive to where they think Lana's being held. Jack want to give his life up to save Lana. He does so, even though he needn't have - Lana escapes.

Jack's father and step-father die. He and Lana start living together.

I like the plot and much of the writing.

Other reviews

• lindasbookbag (Even the most conventionally negative or unbalanced individual is depicted with redeeming features)
• goodreads
• Kirkus reviews (A big reveal badly stretches credulity)

"The Other Half" by Charlotte Vassell

An audio version of a Faber and Faber book.

Rich Rupert (soon to be a Baron) has hired a North London MacDonalds for his 30th birthday. He intends to break up with Clem (an influencer and photographer, who works in a gallery) but she doesn’t turn up. His ex, Nell, comes with Alex. They were all friends at Oxford. Nell leaves early to sleep with Alex (who she last slept with a decade before).

DI Caius, who’s breaking up with Eloise, is into self-improvement (mental and physical). He and Rupert have the same surname, Beauchamp, which causes confusion during the investigation (though they pronounce their names differently). He finds a corpse. Clem. She choked on vomit after being poisoned, then her throat was cut. She’d recently had sex, and was 6 weeks pregnant.

Nell, Clem and and Rupert fell out during a Greek holiday. Clem copied Nell - the books she read, etc.

There are collection boxes for a sham charity in some places Clem frequented. In her gym, her locker has money, a phone, and a EuroRail ticket. She was having an affair with the married gallery boss Ned, who later confesses, knowing the details of the crime, and saying he did it because she was about to expose him. But his wife Fay says she knew about it - they had an open marriage.

Nell (double first) works for a small press (mostly poetry). Rupert had tried to publish a book with them. Her boss is Jonathan, 36. She tells the police that Clem wasn't clever, that she wanted to marry Rupert because of his status. She give Caius "Persuasion" to read.

We learn that the sham charity is a front for upper class recreational drug distribution and have been known about by MI5 for a while.

A male body is found in a flat, dead a week. Strangled, half-heartedly made to look like an accident. A head is in the flat.

A video on Clem's phone shows Rupert raping Nell while clem does nothing. The police ask if Nell wants to press charges.

Rupert's sending Nell presents. She accepts his invitation to a meal. He tells her how he got rid of his girlfriends and her boyfriends by paying them off.

Fay's a classicist. She's Rupert's godmother. She curated a show in athens when the others were in Greece. She's Minty's godmother too. Minty wants to marry Rupert (they sometimes have sex) and she's friends with Nell.

Rupert's always loved Nell. He couldn't get rid of Clem because she knew about his drugs dealings and art smuggling. Ned probably confessed because he thought he was responsible for Clem's death - he'd got her pregnant.

Rupert's covering for Minty?

We're taken back to Rupert's 25th birthday party. Minty was humiliated by being thrown naked into a pond.

There's a showdown. Nell disappears. Minty is found with a blooded knife. She stabs herself and dies. Nell is found in an escape tunnel.

Minty had kidnapped 2 people. Caius blames Rupert for the deaths. At the end Eloise turns up unannounced at Caius's door.