The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling

I've read it, am considering my response and will write something when all the hoo-hah has subsided.  As a starting point though, I must say that I think the cover is a splendid bit of work.

Jack Higgins - Confessional & Touch The Devil

I know that you are supposed to name-check someone like Proust or even Murukami when you are asked who your favourite author is, I have to admit I find all that a little pretentious.  One of the marvelous things about books is the variety on offer and that there is always something to fit any occasion.  So, I have to admit that some days when asked that question the answer might be, for example, Dick Francis. This leads me neatly to Jack Higgins, who I would say was far from fashionable these days.

Considering my favourite book, well, that chops and changes frequently too, but on many days my answer might be 'The Eagle Has Landed'.  I love the plotting, the pacing and the characterisation.  It has that 'Day of the Jackal' quality about it too; you know they aren't going to kill Churchill, we're not in 'Fatherland' territory, but the buildup is spectacular. I've read and appreciated (but wouldn't rave about) the sequel 'The Eagle Has Flown' and hadn't realised that Higgins had continued with Liam Devlin in a couple of novels set in the 80s.

I always believe in considering a book for what it is, rather than what it isn't.  These are a couple of page-turner thrillers, contemporary to the time they were published.  Compared to the vast tomes we are saddled with today, these are almost short stories and I whipped through them in a matter of days.

Liam Devlin has grown old and is an academic in Dublin.  So far, so unlikely, but that was Devlin's character for you.  'Touch The Devil' has shades of 'Papillon' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo', but begins during the Vietnam War, so lots of bases covered here.  'Confessional' hangs around two events that I had forgotten were so closely linked, the Falklands War and the Papal visit to the UK and Ireland.

In these very different times, it is easy to forget the shadow that the Cold War cast over popular fiction.  We are in completely different territory to Le Carre here though. While sometimes the pace in the Smiley trilogy is glacial (and that is no bad thing), here the action zings along at a cracking pace.  In 'Confession', there is even a brief trip to Jersey, almost like a forgotten episode of Bergerac.

One thing that Higgins does to add authenticity to his work is to bring real people in, so it is a shock to find Martin McGuinness (no 'Chuckle Brother' then) in a major supporting role.  There are some moments of genuine nastiness in both books, but they seem nowhere near as gratuitous as in some more recent examples of this genre.

A couple of easy reads then, but ones that remind us of a very different world that was not so long ago.  To identify a dangerous criminal on the run at one stage, various people are brandishing copies of a newspaper. Mobile phones are nowhere to be seen and the internet would have seemed like a far-fetched fantasy.

Jack Higgins is still going strong, he has a new book out this month.  I might buy it.  Now where did I put those Sid Halley books again . . ?

Patrick Hennessey - The Junior Officers' Reading Club

I remember reading about this when it was first published and being intrigued, but not quite intrigued enough to go out and buy it.  I subsequently happened upon a copy though and - not least I have to admit because there was a quote from William Boyd on the front cover - couldn't resist.

From the outset I have to say that 'war books' are not really a genre that does much for me.  I'm as likely to read 'Bravo Two Zero' at any time in the near future as I am 'Black Hawk Down'.  To clarify, that is never, even if I was locked in a cell with no possibility of release and they were the only reading matter available, that is how vehemently I despise gung-ho military potboilers.

I was surprised by how quickly I was gripped by this then, I was even more surprised at how well written it was, not least given the relative youth of the author.  It was much, much better than it had any right to be and is a testament to the importance that email has today in replacing the hastily penned missive, even at the heart of the battlefield.

What Hennessey has done so expertly is to distill some of the reasons that young men still want to join the armed forces by explaining the excitement, the camaraderie and the epic highs that can be achieved.  However, he juxtaposes this with a very knowing analysis of the futility, stupidity and banality of armed conflict.  

For me, what this book did was something that a thousand newspaper and television reports have not done. I felt that I had some understanding of the reality of life as a front line combatant in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I knew that the idea behind the western forces in Afghanistan was to 'support' the ANA and attempt to train them to their own exacting standards.  This book chronicles the huge difference between these two fighting forces.

Hennessey doesn't over analyse, he puts out the facts as they are, or as he believes them to be and allows us to come to our own conclusions.  You can feel that these experiences have made him a different person. Whether being placed in such extreme conditions makes you 'stronger' as traditional wisdom has it, or has a totally different effect on your psychology, it is difficult to tell.  

I felt that the light touch that the book has, along with the literary and gaming activities that connected grim conditions in Afghanistan, took you on a fascinating journey.  This was no heavy-handed Tolkienesque 'there and back again' saga though, it was about very real people in.

This is a great piece of work, and I hope that Hennessey doesn't give up on literary endeavours in whatever future path him on. Highly recommended.