Tag: Reviews

#BookReview #Ad A Complicated Matter by Anne Youngson

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A Complicated MatterAbout the Book

I used to believe the world had been created for me; every stone and grain of sand. As I grew older, I began to think of myself as something tacked on to the edge.

1939, London: From McPhail’s Passage to Kensington’s Grand Palace Hotel, Rose Dunbar is evacuated from her humble home on the Rock of Gibraltar and dropped into a chaotic city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being ‘flagrantly foreign’ to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

It is only when she is shifted to the countryside to become secretary to the plain-speaking and sightless Major Inchbold that Rose’s dizzying journey to womanhood will become more surreal than ever, as she drinks tea at the vicarage, shields her best friend from abuse and stands up for the lower orders. But Rose’s greatest dilemma is yet to come, as she must decide where her home – and her heart – really lies.

Format: eARC (368 pages)                   Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 23rd March 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I’ve enjoyed both of Anne Youngson’s previous two books – Meet Me at the Museum and Three Women and a Boat (now titled The Narrowboat Summer) – and I was pleased to have the opportunity to exchange a few words with her and have her sign my copy of Meet Me at the Museum at Henley Literary Festival in 2018 when she appeared alongside A. J. Pearce, author of Dear Mrs. Bird.

A Complicated Matter is quite different in style and subject matter from Three Women and a Boat, as well as not being set in the present day but during and after the Second World War. However I did find echoes of Meet Me at the Museum in the parts of the book that explore feelings of isolation and finding yourself living a life different from that you’d imagined.

I admit I knew nothing about the evacuation from Gibraltar during the war of those referred to as ‘useless mouths’, i.e. those not required for the defence of the island. This evacuation – of mostly women and children – is the ‘complicated matter’ of the title. Initially, transported to Morocco, Rose and members of her family find themselves separated from loved ones and experiencing the hostility that refugees often face.  At one point there is even a plan to evacuate them to Jamaica; Rose aptly remarks ‘as if they’re a parcel’.

When they are moved to London they experience the terror of the Blitz alongside other Londoners.  But of course they’re not like other Londoners; they have been placed in an entirely alien environment. Rose’s friend Sonia, working as governess to a family, expresses the feeling of dislocation well when she writes, ‘Isn’t it hard being here instead of at home, speaking English all the time, but never feeling English? Not being able to to see the sea? Being surrounded by greenery instead of by rock. Not knowing what is going to happen to us next?’ Rose struggles to find a useful role for herself, besides caring for her disabled mother, although actually she is more useful than she gives herself credit for.

The book is structured as Rose’s story, written by herself, for the consumption of a person who is not identified until near the end of the book. Slightly confusingly this person is referred to in the third person until such time as their identity becomes clear.  The most absorbing part of the book for me was the final section in which Rose takes up a position as secretary to Major Inchbold. I thought it was clever of the author to make Major Inchbold blind as it means he can’t judge Rose on the basis of what she looks like or what she wears, but only what she says and does, how she interacts with other people. There is a moment when Rose enables Major Inchbold to sense her appearance that I found mildly erotic.  Major Inchbold’s moments of anger, borne out of frustration more than anything else, are also a neat echo of Rose’s mother’s often spiky personality.

I admired the insightful way the author explored Rose’s situation and that of anyone who finds themselves uprooted from the surroundings they have known and I found the ending rather moving.

A Complicated Matter is a gently paced novel about displacement, identity and finding your place in the world.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Doubleday via NetGalley.

In three words: Insightful, tender, absorbing

Anne YoungsonAbout the Author

Anne Youngson is the author of the Costa First Book Award-shortlisted Meet Me at the Museum; BBC Radio Book Club pick, Three Women and a Boat and the story collection, The Six Who Came to Dinner. Anne Youngson’s shrewd, warm-hearted and observational prose has been widely praised. Her new novel, A Complicated Matter explores the human heart through the coming-of-age of a young English refugee during the blitz. Anne’s work is published around the world. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and has three grandchildren. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

#BlogTour #BookReview #Ad The Spy Across the Water by James Naughtie @AriesFiction

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The Spy Across the Water BLOG TOUR BANNER_tsatwWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Spy Across the Water by James Naughtie. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy.

The Spy Across the WaterAbout the Book

We live with our history, but it can kill us.

Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear.

From Washington, he’s pitched back into the Troubles in Northern Ireland and an explosive secret hidden deep in the most dangerous but fulfilling friendship he has known.

And while he confronts shadowy adversaries in American streets, and looks for solace at home in the Scottish Highlands, he discovers that his government’s most precious Cold War agent is in mortal danger and needs his help to survive.

In an electric story of courage and betrayal, Flemyng learns the truth that his life has left him a man with many friends, but still alone.

Format: Hardback (416 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 2nd March 2023 Genre: Thriller

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My Review

The Spy Across the Water is the third instalment in James Naughtie’s spy series featuring the three Flemyng brothers – Will, Abel and Mungo.  In fact, we’re down to two brothers now which is not a spoiler because Abel’s funeral is the opening scene in the book. However, the circumstances, if not the place, of Abel’s death are still a mystery, something Will is determined to discover more about. When he does it forms one of the threads of an intricately woven tapestry that is the hallmark of all good spy thrillers.

Set in 1985, the story is fiction (as the author points out in the Foreword) but the historical events which form the background to it are real, namely the tentative and secret discussions between the British and Irish governments aimed at reaching a settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland, the so-called Troubles.  The tensions between those in the Republican movement willing to consider a negotiated settlement and those who are determined to continue the armed struggle are incorporated into the storyline as Will’s past intelligence role and the connections he made during that period come back to haunt him.

I’m not quite sure how I managed to miss the earlier books in the series because this sort of spy thriller is right up my street. The fact I hadn’t read the previous two books didn’t stop me enjoying this one although tantalising references to events in the earlier books – Paris in the summer of 1968, a puzzling death and an affair that destroyed one of Will’s colleagues – made me wish I’d discovered the series at its beginning.

The comparison to the novels of John le Carré is spot on, particularly when it comes to the storyline involving the possibility that the identity of a Soviet agent working for the British, who has been supplying intelligence material that is ‘gold dust’, has been discovered by the Americans, possibly by a mole at the heart of US intelligence.  We’re in real Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy territory here with Will Flemyng’s protege, Patrick Keane, fulfilling the Peter Guillam role in that book.  And if we’re looking for more comparisons there’s James Jesus Angleton (a real life figure), convinced there’s a conspiracy around every corner, who made me think of Control’s feverish search for the identity of the Circus mole in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. As a former comrade of Will’s recalls, ‘He was getting more and more obssessive about penetration – disappearing into his files for weeks on end, the blinds down in his eyrie and no one allowed near.’

I liked how Will, secretive by nature as well as the possessor of secrets, feeds Keane just enough snippets of information so that Keane has to figure things out for himself. Keane also does the legwork and takes the risks that Will no longer can because of his role as Ambassador, although you get the impression he’d quite like to if the chance arose.  The team is completed by Lucy, one of the few people who can read Will’s moods and second guess his next move. If I’m being picky I’d have liked a bigger role for her than preparing papers, organising flights and booking hotel rooms. And I’d love to know more about Will’s relationship with his wife and children who at this point are back in London.

Some of my favourite parts of the book were those set in Altnabuie, the Flemyng family home in Perthshire, Scotland currently occupied by Will’s older brother, Mungo. I loved the descriptions of Mungo’s daily tramps and the local scenery which (sorry, another comparison coming) reminded me of the writing of John Buchan, also a Perthshire man.  ‘The tapestry had light and shade, the dark foliage of the pines and spruce in the wood standing out against the vivid greens and yellows on the hillside. The water on the loch was swept with sun, then blackened again when the lines of light disappeared.’ When Mungo’s peaceful life appears threatened, Will has even more incentive to get to the bottom of things and to find the link between a number of seemingly unconnected events, a link that tantalisingly eludes him for quite a while.

The Spy Across the Water is a terrific spy thriller whose intricate plot will keep you on your toes.  You get the clear sense the author’s experience as a BBC correspondent has helped the story’s feeling of authenticity, especially the detail of Washington political manouverings and rivalries. But it’s also a story of friendship against the odds and the compromises that have to be made between duty and personal relationships.

In three words: Gripping, intricate, suspenseful

Naughtie, JamesAbout the Author

James Naughtie is a special correspondent for BBC News, for which he has reported around the world. He presented Today on BBC Radio 4 for 21 years. On the Road: Adventures from Nixon to Trump is an account of five decades of travel and work in the United States. This is his third novel. He lives in Edinburgh and London.

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