list.co.uk/books Reviews | BOOKS
CRIME THRILLER IAN RANKIN Standing in Another Man’s Grave (Orion) ●●●●●
The surprise comeback that everybody expected has finally arrived with the return of John Rebus, the fictional detective most associated with both Ian Rankin and the city of Edinburgh. Five years on from his retirement in 2007’s Exit Music, Rebus is back on civvy street and helping out – as Rankin has suggested might happen – with a cold case unit at Lothian and Borders Police, a
graveyard for fellow retirees whose caseload of dusty old files is as tired out and going nowhere as they are.
As tenacious as ever, Rebus finds his interest spurred when the mother of a girl who went missing along the route of the A9 many years ago presents to him potential links between her case and other similar disappearances, including one which is the subject of a current investigation. Cue a step back into the milieu of his old life alongside old foil Siobhan Clarke, erstwhile Rebus stand-in Malcolm Fox – more straight- laced, less interesting and second fiddle here as he is in the fans’ affections – and Rebus’ Moriarty, ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty.
The question of whether or not Rankin is a genuinely good
writer is cancelled out in a way that it wasn’t by his enjoyable but somehow unsatisfying non-Rebus books. He’s simply an incredible Rebus writer, and the true tension in this story is between the capable, intelligent sleuth and his barely- concealed self-destructive urges. Rankin’s writing, like Rebus, is most exposed when it’s trying to be too smart or clever, and at its best when it runs on pure instinct. Five more years would be much too long a wait. (David Pollock)
PHOTOGRAPHY SETH CASTEEL Underwater Dogs (Headline) ●●●●● AMERICAN DRAMA TOM WOLFE Back to Blood (Jonathan Cape) ●●●●●
COLLECTED LETTERS BEN THOMPSON (ED) Ban This Filth! Letters from the Mary Whitehouse Archive (Faber) ●●●●● HISTORICAL FICTION BEN ELTON Two Brothers (Bantam Press) ●●●●●
When you see pictures of humans in underwater scenes, they usually have their hair stuck fast to the skull and look as though they are about to implode. It’s a moment when we can look at our most vulnerable and, frankly, weird. In the wet universe of Seth Casteel’s book, the canines of his world are a damn frightening bunch, gnashers bared as they appear to go on the attack for a tennis ball or a camera operator.
This doggy transformation (from a human’s faithful best buddy to a snarling scary creature of the deep) is the inspiration behind Casteel’s collection when he recognised the ability of a dog to tap into their more primitive, wilder side when far away (usually) from prying people-eyes. This should really be a
recommended buy for dog lovers everywhere but the potential for the images within waking you in the middle of the night in a cold sweat is strong. Maybe it’s best purchased if you have a cat in the neighbourhood you want to spook. (Brian Donaldson)
With the exception of Joan Didion's Miami and John Sayles’ Los Gusanos, Tom Wolfe’s fourth novel is the finest book ever written about Florida’s Atlantic-facing coastal metropolis. Wilier than writers half his age, Wolfe knows that great novels can be written about cities in transformation from influx and immigration. New York in the late 19th century, Paris between the wars, London after the arrival of HMS Windrush and Berlin post-wall fall have all proved rich source material for writers.
Back to Blood is a 700-page digression and narrative head rush around the debate on the migration of Cubans, Haitians and Russians into white America’s once most beloved holiday resort and what it means for the dwindling ‘Anglo’ minority voice. As in Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe plays it broad, loud and funny. Authority figures, familial stereotypes, ethical dilemmas and multicultural anxieties are stacked up only to be knocked down by America’s most waggish and compulsive literary trickster. (Paul Dale)
For those who thought Mary Whitehouse was a harmless little old lady with too much time on her hands, it might be worth recalling the infamous spat she had with Dennis Potter. When The Singing Detective livened up our small screens in 1986, the arch matriarch behind the Clean Up TV campaign went ballistic at a sex scene during the semi-autobiographical drama. Falsely concluding that the moment was a reference to his mother’s infidelity, she saw fit to unapologetically suggest that this was the cause of the playwright’s crippling psoriasis.
Ban This Filth! is a largely entertaining collection of correspondence between Whitehouse, her disciples and the TV producers who incurred her wrath. Ben Thompson clearly has a soft spot for ‘Mary’ and credits her with changing the face of public protest forever, boldly suggesting she is the inspiration behind protest strategies by everyone from Mumsnet to feminist anti-porn groups. (Brian Donaldson)
Infamously labelled worse than Osama bin Laden by Stewart Lee for his lack of moral scruples, Ben Elton now tells his most honest and personal tale to date. Two Brothers features Jewish twins growing up in pre-war Berlin, as Nazi tyranny reigns and a family secret forces a life-and-death decision, a story partly rooted in Elton’s own German-Jewish family history.
Otto and Paulus Stengel are raised
unaware that one of them was adopted immediately after his natural twin died in childbirth in 1920. Driven by their shared love for beautiful Jewish heiress Dagmar, they fearlessly struggle to protect kith and kin, even as a dictatorship obsessed with racial purity tries to divide them.
Elton forces hard-to-believe wisdom and nobility on the Stengels, but the sprawling narrative whizzes onwards regardless. Two Brothers’ greatest achievement is in vividly capturing Germany’s infrequently- fictionalised lurch from the happy decadence of the Weimar Republic into the unchecked horrors of National Socialism. (Malcolm Jack)
15 Nov–13 Dec 2012 THE LIST 45