Books read in September / October

20) A Foreign Country, by Charles Cumming
21) The Return of Captain John Emmett, by Elizabeth Speller
22) A Wanted Man, by Lee Child
23) Cork in Bottle, by Macdonald Hastings
24) The King’s Spy, by Andrew Swanston
25) An Expert in Murder, by Nicola Upson

Anyone pining for "Spooks" could do a lot worse than A Foreign Country, which has pace, tradecraft and credibility. Bonus points for the nationality of the main antagonists, and an extra point for a breathless train chase that includes scenes on very familiar railway platforms in Basingstoke and Reading.  Winner of this year’s CWA Steel Dagger.

Elizabeth Speller’s readable mystery hooked me with its sympathetic hero, Laurence Bartram, who survived the Great War but lost his young wife and son on the home front. The details of the 1920s convalescent home regimen, the survivor guilt of the men who returned from the front, and the secrets kept from them by the women they left behind, are compelling, but solution to the mystery undoes all the good work of the plausibility of what has gone before.

As a committed Reacher addict I’m sorry to report that A Wanted Man is, in places, quite dull. Perhaps next year's series entry will get Jack Reacher back if not to the heights of Persuader then at least to the mid-table respectability of One Shot or Worth Dying For.

No such issues with Cork in Bottle, a 1953 murder mystery written by Max Hastings' father; Montague Cork is a sixty two year old senior insurance claims manager who finds himself mixed up in a murderous plot unfolding in a remote Norfolk village in the dead of winter. Vivid, fast-paced, and embellished with some keenly observed nature writing as our hero is pursued through coverts and tracked through woods when he gets too close to the truth. Would have made an excellent TV or radio vehicle for Timothy West.

Readable but very pedestrian, Andrew Swanston's Civil War novel should have intrigue (cryptography!) excitement (the Battle of Newbury!) diverting colour (a masque for the King and Queen) and bucketloads of fascinating historical detail (Oxford in 1642).  There is a passable 190 page book for twelve year olds buried in its 320 pages.

Nicola Upson re-imagines ‘Josephine Tey’ as a character on the fringes of a murder mystery staged to during the final week’s run of her play, Richard of Bordeaux. An interesting central idea weakened by a couple of things -- a) it does go on and on (Ngaio Marsh would have wrapped up the intrigues in West End theatreland in under 200 pages) and b) plot points I'd already become familiar with (although to be fair in a book written after this) in The Return of Captain John Emmett (and which both owe a debt to Birdsong.) There are pages of explicatory speeches in the last chapter which are less about wrapping up the story,  more about setting up the protagonists for future instalments.