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HISTORICAL TALE ANDREW SEAN GREER

The Story of a Marriage

(Faber) 0000

Can you ever, really, truly know someone? Andrew Sean Greer begs this question with his third. remarkable piece of fiction. a compelling and beautifully-penned tale of love. long-kept secrets and motherly sacrifice set against a backdrop of race issues, repression and war in 19508 America. Written from the perspective of Pearlie Cook. The Story of a Marriage is an honest account of an often romanticised era as this quietly courageous housewife, her ex- soldier husband Holland. and son Walter's seemingly serene lives are rocked by the appearance of an old acquaintance.

The novel will have you gripped from the start as the drama unfolds. with the only hints at the sudden plot

CRIME DRAMA IRVINE WELSH Crime

(Jonathan Cape) O...

Irvine Welsh has never shied away from the seamy side of life, and for his ninth novel he crosses the Atlantic to the balmy climes of Florida, only to uncover a cesspit of evil that would put some of his previous local malcontents in the shade. Welsh has also gotten under the skin of the rozzers before in Filth, but this one is more about the man behind the badge and how he deals with the detritus thrown at him in the line of duty, off duty. Crime isn’t a conventional detective novel by any stretch but it is, by Welsh’s standards, a relatively conventional thriller.

A holiday away with his fiancee turns into a complicated game of chase for Ray Lennox, with the Edinburgh policeman attempting to ensure the safety of a young girl with a troubled past. But more than this, Crime is an exploration of the demons inside a man who is barely hanging on to the frayed ends of his

sanity.

The rather pompous title alludes to a grander concept about the fundamental nature of wrongdoing that is never really explored, but this is a minor gripe in a ferocious and tense story. Welsh digs into the pent-up fury within Lennox’s troubled psyche while never losing the propulsive momentum of the narrative, concluding that revenge is rarely sweet and justice is meted out way too irregularly. Yet there is hope with the notion that any possibility of redemption comes from within. (Mark Robertson)

twists coming from a sense of foreboding and tension pervading Greer's elegant prose. The San Francisco- based author had a bestseller on his hands with The Confessions of Max Tivo/i and there is no reason why this

cleverly constructed and ; j genuinely moving work

shouldn't do the same. (Camilla Pia)

FAMILY DRAMA

i The Good Plain Cook

(Serpent's Tail) 0.

In the mid-30$. the American heiress and philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim set up house in the Sussex countryside with her daughter. her poet lover, his daughter, and a young local girl to cook for them. Bethan Roberts has taken this Bohemian idyll as the inspiration for her second novel. but her selfish, vapid Ellen Steinberg is no Guggenheim. and there's a sense of missed opportunity

"I I.

lllt‘

Lilitlkl

plain (00k

about the too-light story she tells here.

Ellen's daughter Geenie 3

steals the whole novel, her chapters written in the Technicolor intensity of pre-pubescence. as the petty unresolved tensions between the adults. which are meant to drive the plot, fade to nothingness by contrast. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this fairly good. plain book it would make an easy enough ‘summer read' and Roberts evokes the period and the sun-dappled langour of the countryside convincingly, but there's also absolutely nothing in here to challenge the reader. (Kirstin Innes)

COMIC NOVEL ANTONY MOORE The Swap

(Harvill Secker) O

Cartoonists have for years been creating humorous/nostalgic stories about the obsessive pastime of comic book collecting: see Joe Matt's confessional memoir The Poor Bastard and the eccentric whimsy of Seth's Wimbledon Green. Financial sector suit-turned-NHS psychologist Antony Moore has a go with this comic novel about a collector that draws on the author's years as a member of that tribe. Moore no longer hoards comics. though he apparently owns a dog (named after one of the X-Men). and one

wonders how dedicated an aggregator he was. given his rudimentary grasp of comics culture. The subject of the titular exchange that plagues the book's protagonist throughout his life is one of the world's most valuable comics. Superman One. Any comics fan knows this should be Action Comicstfl . which featured Superman. And. in addition to being ill-informed. Moore has pilfered wholesale Nick Hornby‘s geek-lad narratives to knock out a lazy novel that 's in far from mint condition. (Miles Fielder)

SCOTTISH HISTORY STEPHEN MCGINTY

Fire in the Night: The Piper Alpha Disaster (Macmillan) «u

The Scotsman journalist Stephen McGinty‘s Fire in the Night is a moment-by-hideous- moment account of the Piper Alpha oil platform disaster in which 167 men died. and published to coincide

by which time it is

with the 20th . anniversary of the event.

on 6 July. Stitched together from survivor statements. taken mostly from Lord Cullen's public inquiry

i into the disaster.

McGinty has created. as he puts it. an anatomy of an inferno. imposing

order and ; understanding on terrifying chaos.

THE PIPER ALPH *‘. DISASTER

Transcripts of Cullen

ran to over six million . words. and one senses

that McGinty felt oven/vhelmed by the amount of information; his narrative, at times. feels cluttered and slowed by detail. Yet.

. overall, this is an

important book. executed masterfully. which should serve as an accessible record of a historical tragedy. Impressive. too. is his

careful use of spare

language. saving the sentiment and heightened prose for a flourish right at the end.

earned. appropriate and

heart-wrenchineg

effective. (Dennis Wade)

ALSO PUBLISHED

l

l 5 DEBUT NOVELS Shana McLean

; The Redemption of

I Alexander Seaton

Historical crime set

I in 16206 Banff in

which a disgraced

minister seeks to

clear his name when

I a body is found in

' his house. Quercus.

Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East The first of a series of adventures featuring Ballista. the A0255 warrior of Rome. Michael Joseph. James Miller Lost Boys Dubbed a “contemporary Lord of the Flies’. this one has a young lad being bullied at

( school who

withdraws into his own fantasy world. Little. Brown.

Alex Dryden Red to Black Set in

; Putin's Russia and

I written by an insider. I this one includes a deadly triangle of

; KGB. the mafia and the oligarchs. Headline.

; Laura Benny

i Pollard The tale of a woman on the

; margins of society

as we follow bag

. lady Anne who ran

{ away at the age of

l 15 and is now living in the woods.

I Chatto.

3—1 7 Jul 2008 THE LIST 37