"Birnam Wood" by Eleanor Catton

An audio book.

Mira Bunting, 29, is an environmental activist living in New Zealand. Her group's called "Birnam Wood". The group use spare land to grow crops that they give to the poor. They sometimes steal seeds and tools, or trespass. Some members are ideological, some do the work. Her admiring friend and group-member Shelley (who she shares a flat with) has a divorced mother who was a Green candidate.

Mira has looked up Sir Owen Darvish (his wife is Jill), who's in the business of pest control (rabbits) and hopes to use drones to preserve endangered species. He has land in Thorndike that Mira might use. They don't live there.

Shelley's come to dislike her side-kick role, and would like to leave the group but doesn't want ideological arguments. Tony, an ex-member, suddenly turns up to the flat after 4 years away in Mexico. His siblings are priests and med students. He's still in love with Mira who isn't there. He doesn't remember Shelley, who decides that if she sleeps with him she'd be able to leave the group more easily.

Checking Darvish's land, Mira meets billionaire Robert Lemoine, who breaks into her mobile. He has secretly set up a rare-earth mining project, and plans to create a survivalist bunker. He's a drone expert and flies a plane.

Tony upsets the others at a meeting - polyamory and intersectionalism are discussed [convincingly - way over my head]. Then Mira arrives late, telling them that Robert has already given her $10k and is happy to give them $100k. The ethics of accepting this is discussed. Tony's furious. He does some investigating and writes a blog.

The description of the Darvish's relationship seems too long. They've been happy together - rich with 3 happy kids. They live far from Thorndike. Reading Tony's blog has unsettled him - are strange things going on there? His wife has noticed that he's uncomfortable around Lemoine - sometimes fawning, sometimes competitive. He decides to give his Thorndike residence a visit.

Lemoine doesn't like Darvish. Mira would sleep with Lemoine if he asked. Tony visits the Lemoine site again. The ex-army security guards are less friendly this time.

Lemoine introduces Shelley to LSD while they're in Darvish's Thorndyke residence. They see Darvish's body in the drive. Lemoine works out a way to deal with the body without attracting attention to his activities - he fakes a crash far from the residence.

Lemoine decides to play the 2 woman against each other. Tony escapes from the armed security guards at the expense of a broken wrist etc. He thinks there's a government cover-up - the National Park borders the Darvish land. He meets Mira. He tells her that he saw Darvish at the gate. Lemoine sleeps with Shelley. He decides that the tidiest thing to do is to make it look like Tony returned and killed the Birnam Wood group. Lady Birnam turns up as Lemoine is carrying out his plan. Tony is still alive.

Other reviews

• Kevin Power (elaborately plotted, richly conceived, enormously readable ... But it’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed that such a beautifully built novel just tells us the same old, same old: billionaires bad! Leftwing radicals good, if sometimes misguided and hapless! ... But our culture is already rife with calls for moral simplicity. Isn’t it the duty of the literary novel to go deeper?)
• Alex Preston (For nine-tenths of its 400 pages, Birnam Wood comes across as a Kiwi Jonathan Franzen – a smart, satirical novel about the clash between a gardening collective and a scheming tech billionaire ... Its ending, though, propels it from a merely very good book into a truly great one.)