Dog & Lamp-post. Guardian book reviews by Laura Wilson

August 2010

James Forrester

Sacred Treason

Headline

£12.99

Fans of mysteries set in Tudor times will be familiar with the device of the heretical, forbidden text. This pseudonymous debut novel from historian Dr Ian Mortimer, set in the violent and Orwellian society (faith crime instead of thought crime) that was Elizabethan England, takes this one step further, embedding a puzzle within an apparently innocuous journal. Catholic protagonist Clarenceux, former soldier and herald-turned-action hero in a grimy doublet, is tasked by his old friend Henry Machyn with protecting his manuscript from Walsingham, the real, and ultra paranoid, chief of what was, effectively, Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Machyn is captured and put to death, and Clarenceux and Machyn’s wife are forced to go on the run, desperate to solve the clues contained in the book before Walsingham’s forces catch up with them. Vivid and dramatic, with some nail-biting set pieces involving the sacking of houses and a headlong pursuit through a maze of secret passages, Sacred Treason wears its considerable research lightly, but to great effect.

Ruth Rendell

Tigerlily's Orchids

Hutchinson

£18.99

A refreshing change from the conventional polarity of investigator vs criminal set up, Rendell’s latest novel revolves around the lives of a disparate group of people who inhabit a block of flats in a quiet London suburb. Behind the casual interactions and tentative friendships of the denizens of Lichfield House, there are plenty of secrets and obsessions of the sort Rendell excels in detailing. Handsome, naïve Stuart Font is conducting an unsatisfactory relationship with married Claudia but is increasingly preoccupied by Tigerlily, the mysterious beauty who lives in the permanently darkened house across the way; Wally the caretaker hangs about the playground of the local school and downloads kiddie porn; sixty-year old Olwen is doggedly drinking herself to death; Molly the impecunious student is obsessed with Stuart and steals Olwen’s money on the pretext of providing her with booze… There is a murder, and there is a solution, but what this thoughtful, slow-paced and immensely readable novel is really about is the effect that crimes, both small and large, have on the community.

L.C. Tyler

The Herring in the Library

Macmillan

£16.99

The third book in this delightful series featuring unsuccessful writer of Medieval mysteries Ethelred Tressider and his robust and forthright agent, Elsie Thirkettle, is, like the first two, very much set in ‘Golden Age’ territory. This time, references to the ‘Cleudo’ board game abound as the ill-matched pair accept an invitation to posh country house Muntham Court, home of Tressider’s old friend banker Sir Robert Muntham, who is duly found dead in his locked study after dinner. Several of the staff, as well as the guests, have good reason to wish him ill, and Tressider, egged on both by Elsie and his discovery of apparently forgotten secret passage, starts to investigate. Written with relish and a light heart, The Herring in the Library makes great play with the conventions of the traditional crime story. No gore and nothing to frighten the horses – but plenty of nifty plot-twists, jokes all the way, and a great deal of fun.

Shuichi Yoshida, Translated by Philip Gabriel

Villain

Harvill Secker

£12.99

The first novel by this award-winning Japanese author to be translated into English is a complex and powerful exploration of the lives of a victim, a killer and their families and friends. Insurance salesgirl Yoshino is murdered by withdrawn young construction worker Yuichi after a botched date. As he and his new lover, shop assistant Mitsuyo, flee from the police, we learn of the events that led up to the murder and its aftermath. Set in the sterile world of online dating sites and love hotels, Villain is a subtle, moving and disturbing novel about loneliness, lies, the alienation between the generations, and the gap between expectation and reality. Highly recommended.

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August 2010