Novels No. 54 (LL372)

 

Mick Herron. Dolphin Junction. USA: Soho Crime, 2021.

Some of us just can't get enough Herron of the Slough House novels. This collection of short stories (published between 2006 and 2019) highlights his mastery of language, style, and environmental setting. His stories or plots are fuelled by the dry humour we love; his characters naturally slide in and out of all manner of suspicious circumstances. All but one story were new to me; "The Last Dead Letter" has also been published in Standing By the Wall—and for the novice or uninitiated reader, that is a story best read late in the day, so to speak. Otherwise, find out what a Flusfelder Isotron is.

If you're already addicted to the Slow Horses team* you may be aware of Herron's previous Oxford series. A few of these stories will reacquaint you with Zoë Boehm and her cynical private eye world. Crooks masquerade as innocents; spies might be lurking. Rather than try to describe any of the offerings, a few quotes may serve as teasers.

* The Brits have made them even more accessible in a sleeper-hit series, streaming on AppleTV. Many superlative actors, but two words suffice: Gary Oldman! Four seasons and counting.

Here and There

▪ The information superhighway—wasn't that what people were saying? Joe had no complaints about the new technology, but was well aware of his own place in it: by the side of the road, his thumb in the air. (6)

▪ "That woman could talk for England. They should record her phone calls for training purposes."(35)

▪ Nigel Reeve-Holkham had stared at him as if he'd sprung a leak. (70)

▪ "It's the kind of thing old people do." (155)

▪ "Not to mention she seriously messed me about, wiped my computer. I like things ordered, Joe." (165)

▪ ... the weather had turned overnight, and in place of yesterday's big blues and deep greens was a series of overlapping greys with a chilly edge. (175)

▪ You read about this sort of thing; about inbred hooligans who lived miles from anywhere because they hated people; hated them so much they'd sooner chop them into pieces and scatter them for the birds than offer them the use of their telephones ... (190-1)

▪ If politics was the art of banging your head against a wall, in Berlin it had found its apotheosis. (238)

Entrepreneurship

He had a genius for knowing what the Great American Public wanted, an ethical blind spot regarding the means of acquiring the patents thereto, and a talent for packaging it in such a way that it seemed the fruit of his own labours. On a small enough scale, this is termed theft. When done on an industrial level it is business, and accorded the respect it deserves. (146)

Scarlett Thomas. The Sleepwalkers. USA: Simon & Schuster, 2024.

Evelyn writes a rambling letter to husband Richard that seems to drive the main narrative; they are on a Greek island, honeymooning at the small Villa Rosa hotel. The couple continue the tiresome bickering typical of their long-term relationship. In effect, her letter is a goodbye to him, merely hinting at the reason for her decision. Playwright Evelyn sees the whole Greek experience as negative, especially the sad hotel and creepy little moments unnoticed by others. Hotel owner Isabella is clearly insolent toward Evelyn but warmly charming to Richard. Why was this place so highly recommended by guests before them? What are the mysterious bundles of paper that Isabella collects? A recurring story among locals is about two previous guests, a couple who drowned off the beach during a storm.

Marcus and Debbie arrive, as the only other guests; he is a film producer interested in developing Isabella's version of the drowning story. No one knows the truth of what happened, but Marcus wants Richard and Evelyn to act out a potential scene: the doomed couple conversing in bed as the storm builds. They comply—half-heartedly. But Evelyn's letter relating this stops in the middle of a sentence and next comes one from Richard, addressed to her the following day. He has not seen her letter. What then follow are haphazard pieces of communication to advance our story: comments in the hotel log by children of the dead couple; part of the drowned wife's diary entry; audio from Evelyn's clandestine phone recording; an outline of Evelyn's next play; and more—some are torn or partially illegible. Isabella, positioned perhaps as a game-changer, seems little more than a cardboard figure.

Deliberately disjointed in the telling, the effect is seemingly random, confusing, about strange events and character development, with just enough thread to hang on. Who actually wrote what, or how reliable bits of it are, may reveal how the drownings really happened. This is a very, very cleverly constructed mystery, albeit disorderly. The jury's out, IMO.

Evelyn

▪ It was as if some spell had taken hold of you the very moment you saw her. Maybe it was our wedding curse. (22)

▪ I went from housekeeper with an MA in Theatre Studies and a script for a one-woman show to fringe-sensation with my own TV series to washed-up failure in a period of just over six years. (39)

▪ I've been banging on trying to get attention for ages. The door's locked. What the fuck's going on? (170)

▪ The tui somehow barks out what I feel, all my absurd confusion and muted rage—but also my joy at being released from your awful, awful family. (217)

▪ By some miracle no one noticed I still had my passport strapped to me. I'd let Richard's phone fall on the floor of the storeroom as a distraction—it must have worked. (227)

Richard

▪ You've never understood how someone could be secretive. You've always let your own insides spill out, like feathers in a pillow fight. (113)

▪ When something is as tainted and tragic as our relationship, eventually it will die. (121)

▪ Why do you always have to weigh in on everything? You can't ever shut up or not have an opinion. (125)

▪ Well are you rescued where did you go why didn't you leave a note why are you locked in? (170)

▪ Your maid was deliberately flirty, and the show portrayed her grinding down the male employer, behaving, I now realize, just as you believed Isabella was acting with me. (142)

Villa Rosa

▪ We stayed here in the worst possible circumstances, after losing our parents in the great storm last week. Isabella could not have been kinder, nor [ ... blank] (199)

▪ But late that night Richard and Evelyn began to quarrel—just a minor lovers' tiff, I thought. But Evelyn ran out into the storm, and, although I tried to stop him, Richard followed her. (211-12)