Book 244: Isle of Man (English) – Aunt Bessie Assumes (Diana XARISSA)

Bessie nodded slowly, her brain struggling to keep up with everything that was happening. “I suppose I didn’t really think about it,” she said after a moment. “I mean, I didn’t really think about it being murder. I just assumed he had a heart attack or something.”

Doona patted her hand gently. “Murder is hard to imagine.”

Bessie shook her head. “I might have made lunch for a murderer?”

“You made her lunch?” Doona choked back a laugh when she saw the look on Bessie’s face. “I mean, that was really nice of you, but why?”

“It was lunch time,” Bessie said weakly. “I wasn’t thinking.”

I have to admit I was (and still am) confused by the status of this island in the Irish Sea. Apparently it’s not part of the United Kingdom, nor of Great Britain, nor of England, Scotland or Wales but is a “self-governing British crown dependency”, yet it is under Charles III. It has one of the oldest legislatures in the world. (Unfortunately the Manx language is not looking nearly so healthy, but you will learn a few words from this novel). The UK looks after its foreign and defence affairs. Manxmen can get either a Manx or a UK passport. It was never part of the EU, and yet was included in Brexit negotiations, nor of the Commonwealth of Nations. Go figure… The flag looks like a Mercedes symbol made out of three bodyless legs.

This one is described on the cover as “An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery”. (By the way, inside the book it is spelt “cosy”). Now I have to admit in the past I’ve had a thing with the concept of “cozy mysteries”. For a long time I had a problem with writers making light of murder, which is always an awful thing, for the sake of their protagonist having a bit of fun and mental exercise. I even went through a phase of refusing to read Agatha Christie, though I subsequently repented and read (and loved) every one of her mysteries. Which isn’t to say that I would have written off all “cozy mysteries” – after all, I’ve always loved the wonderful Sherlock Holmes stories, and in many of them there’s no crime (or murder) at all. I got over it. Still, just a little disquiet lingers.

This is one of a long series of Aunt Bessie mysteries by the Manx author Diana Xarissa (entitled Aunt Bessie [+ action verb]). According to the blurb,

“Aunt Bessie assumes that she’ll have the beach all to herself on a cold, wet, and windy March morning just after sunrise, then she stumbles (almost literally) over a dead body. Elizabeth (Bessie) Cubbon, aged somewhere between free bus pass (60) and telegram from the Queen (100), has lived her entire adult life in a small cottage on Laxey beach. For most of those years, she’s been in the habit of taking a brisk morning walk along the beach. Dead men have never been part of the scenery before. Aunt Bessie assumes that the dead man died of natural causes, then the police find the knife in his chest.”

Despite offering (I suppose) traditional hospitality to the victim’s widow, she doesn’t like or trust her very much, and in fact the whole family proves to be very suspicious – no doubt one (or more) of them is the culprit.

Then a second murder takes place (while Bessie is there) at the Laxey Wheel, the strange Industrial Revolution device on the cover, “the largest working waterwheel in the world”. Bessie herself seems likely to be the next victim.

The style is gossipy and some might feel too much time is spent on extraneous everyday details (such as the long discussion about the merits of the new Indian restaurant), although I didn’t. Perhaps there was a bit too much happening right at the end.

There was a lot of “small island laissez-faire”, things not being done totally by the book; would that even be possible in a place where everyone knows everyone (and everyone’s business)? The interactions between the police and the civilians (in the shape of Aunt Bessie) seemed to be a bit too close – considering she discovered the body and could have been a suspect – and she does have an agent in place, in the shape of her friend Doona Moore, who works in the police station. One of the police spends the investigation staying at Bessie’s house. I have to admit I suspected one of the police investigators might have been the culprit. Likewise, the chemist does not always follow the law, and when Bessie ends up in hospital, she manages to get herself discharged from hospital suspiciously early when it threatens to hold up the plot, despite saying “Everything hurts!” both before and afterwards. She is feisty and clear about her priorities:

“You probably should stay until the inspectors get here,” Hugh [policeman] told her. “Sorry, I need to get out of the rain and have a cup of tea,” Bessie said stoutly. “The inspectors can find me there whenever they want to chat.”

I wasn’t expecting much given the “cozy mystery” title and the unknown (to me) author, but it proved to be a very enjoyable story.

 

Xarissa, Diana, Aunt Bessie Assumes: an Isle of Man cozy mystery, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014, ISBN 978-1499366020

Book 243: Mayotte (French) – Tropique de la violence = Tropic of Violence (Nathacha Appanah)

 

I hear a car stop on the gravel in front of the house, I hear the cry “It’s the cops!” and we run, climb up the metal fencing, jump into other gardens and we run on and on, the grass the asphalt the mud the earth the pebbles the cement under my feet, the barking the cries the horns the screeching of brakes the muezzin my own breathing in my ears, I am scratched knocked stunned beaten held pushed aside but I run and I distance myself from the house and I know that I’ll never come back.

 

Where on earth is Mayotte? When the Comoros Islands (between Madagascar and Africa) became independent in 1975, the island of Mayotte decided to stick with France (although it is still claimed by the former). So it is the 101st département of France. Did you know that there’s a part of France where they speak (a dialect of) Swahili? So there’s a little bit of the EU in the Mozambique Channel. It’s a beacon for illegal immigration from the independent Comoros and Madagascar, and increasingly from the African continent – perhaps it will become another Lampedusa since the small population is being rapidly overwhelmed by the influx. I don’t know if this is commonly known in France, but we hear nothing about this at all. Mayotte itself seems to be much poorer than, for example, Réunion, with the vast majority living in poverty. Half the population are under 20 (fr.wikipedia.org). No doubt we’ll hear a lot more from Mayotte in the future.

Marie is a French nurse who marries her colleague Chamsiddin, who is from Mayotte, and they move there, after which their marriage falls apart. She adopts Moïse, son of an illegal immigrant who abandoned him. (Like the Biblical Moses, I guess Moïse is a ‘boat person’). He has different coloured eyes (perhaps a symbol of his two totally different lives?), which leads the locals to believe that he’s a djinn and bad luck. Certainly his life is only unlucky and mis-lead. When Marie dies (he is 15) he goes and hangs out with a slum gang led by alpha male Bruce. (It is a great portrait of a thuggish slum gang leader). The gang life in the slum (Gaza) is all law of the jungle and no more than an animal existence. Bruce tries to kidnap Moïse, but Moïse kills Bruce in the woods. Thereafter the chapters continue with a voice for each character, including the dead ones. Other characters include Olivier who is a flic (cop), Mahmad ‘La Teigne’ who is a clandestine, and Moussa who is a muzungu (‘white person’) and friend of Moise, but who doesn’t want a ‘white’ life.

It’s interesting to see the local language; muzungu is obviously the same as mzungu in standard Swahili, and I was amused to see that Swahili karibu (‘welcome’) comes out as caribou!

The story is depressing and impactful, and a great portrayal of a situation most of us know nothing about. I loved the way the narration speeds up and transitions to stream of consciousness during the thrilling episodes.

The story has been recently made into a film.

 

Appanah, Natacha (1973 – ), Tropique de la violence, Folio (Gallimard), 2018, ISBN 9782072764578

 

Book 242: Turks & Caicos Islands (English) – Deadly Deceit (Jean HARROD)

On the main road into town, it was a normal Grand Turk rush hour. No-one was driving fast, or in a panic. These hurricanes were part of everyday life in this Territory. Most storms veered off course anyway, before they got near the islands. But the few direct hits they’d had loomed large in island folklore.

The salty water slopped up over the sides of the salina, and the rusty weather vanes creaked in the wind. There were no green herons or other birds to be seen now. They knew what was coming, and had already left.

 

Recently I was excited to get my first reader from the Turks & Caicos Islands, so it was time to finally do a reading! (I’m so honoured to have all you readers from most of the places in the world).

The Turks and & Caicos Islands is a Caribbean group off the southern end of the Bahamas archipelago; it used to be part of the Bahamas but opted to remain an overseas territory of the UK when the former became independent in 1973. Relevantly, they have a history of deliberately luring ships onto rocks.

Author Jean Harrod was a British diplomat and lived all over the world, including Australia and China (the scenes of the first and third in her Diplomatic Crime series), and the Turks & Caicos Islands, which is the setting of this second one. They say you should write about what you know, and Harrod obviously does.

The heroine of the stories is diplomat Jessica Turner. She is suddenly called from London to cover for the absent Head of the Governor’s Office. Almost everyone else who could assist her is either away/has been in an accident/suicides/gets killed/can’t get there because of a looming hurricane. Like almost everyone else she knows nothing about the islands, but gets up to speed pretty quickly!

Fortunately, her Queensland policeman friend from the first in this Diplomatic Crime series bumps into her when they are in transit in Miami airport, and decides it might be profitable (from two points of view) to make a side trip to TCI. He is now working on preventing illegal immigration and is studying how the Americans do it, why not how the Brits do it too? (Tiny TCI has a problem with Haitian ‘boat people’ who really intend to make it to the US).

So starts the series of accidents/murders among the ruling class. Clement Pearson hangs himself in his garage. The Governor is seriously injured in a car ‘accident’ with a truck (we subsequently learn that he was going to ‘confess’ something). Mrs Pearson is then murdered at a dinner party in the same garage in the same gruesome manner as her husband.

There is a lot of (non-indigenous) voodoo being practised, not least in the two garage murders, which seems to immediately link to the Haitians, but what is the real connection?

On the whole, it was a very enjoyable read. The characters were well-described and believable. I liked that there were good summaries of the dramatis personae, sometimes it’s easy to forget who is who in a thriller, or any novel.

If I’m being picky, I might question how Jess in the middle of managing hurricane planning still had time and mental space to run around investigating and having adventures. Why would expert diver Tom go diving apparently without an alternate air source? After the hurricane why doesn’t Jess stop to check if people are OK in the flimsy Haitian settlement? I felt the changes of character were very abrupt. The suspicious aspect of the Governor’s car crash is left a bit up in the air. When listing those in a car, the driver is left out. Jess uses a torch on her late-night snoop even though the moon is almost full. Most of all, it’s surprising that on such a small island there is no general knowledge (or at least rumours) of what has been going on. (Wouldn’t someone notice that the kindergarten full of Haitian children was slightly suspicious?)

But I’m nitpicking. Even though I could predict some elements of the plot, including the main scenario, that didn’t detract in the slightest from my enjoyment. It’s a real page-turner, a great discovery and highly recommended! Just as well TCI exists, and needed to be read, otherwise I never would have stumbled across this one.

Harrod, Jean, Deadly Deceit (Diplomatic Crime Series 2), Layerthorpe, York Authors Coffee Shop, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9929971-4-4

Book 239: Falkland Islands (English) – Little Black Lies (Sharon BOLTON)

The islands are transformed by the setting of the sun. As the colours fade to monochrome, as the fine contours of the landscape melt into shadow, so the sounds and scents and textures of the land wake up. People who live in the populated parts of the world talk about the quiet, the stillness, of night. Here, when the sparse population goes to its rest, the opposite happens. Here, night-time means an endless cacophony of noise. The nesting birds that Bee and I ride past chuckle and gossip, in a constant, squabbling carpet of sound. Overhead, avian teenagers carouse in high-pitched revelry, drunk on flight and freedom. Hawks sing, penguins on the nearby shore bray at the howling of the wind, while the clifftop albatross colony might be discussing politics, so varied and intelligent seem their conversations. Beneath it all is the endless grumble and roar of the ocean.

This one is a bit of a placeholder. Sharon Bolton isn’t from the Falkland Islands and I couldn’t find mention anywhere that she had even visited. (Though the descriptions ‘feel’ seem so realistic that that’s hard to believe). But since I was unable to find a single novel written by a Kelper – or by a long-term visitor – this one will have to do until one appears. And, frankly, this thriller is so good that I couldn’t pass it over.

The Falklands would appear in reality to be one of those island countries where everybody knows everybody (although there is a visiting cruise ship in this story to throw in a wild card); crime doesn’t happen and in fact nothing normally happens (apart from the little matter of the Argentine invasion and its legacies, such as PTSD and minefields). (“Margaret Thatcher, who’s practically become the patron saint of the islands after her handling of the invasion, talks about society being redundant, of the individual being king. If she truly knew and understood this place, she’d never spout such a load of old bollocks”). Indeed there’s no privacy even for the police – I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them!

When suddenly one child after another goes missing, even suspects have to get involved in the search. Three of the chief suspects are the prickly, troubled Catrin (who had already lost her own children), Rachel (the best friend from her childhood) and ex-soldier Callum, Catrin’s former lover – all of them flawed, are stalking each other, and all of them get to tell a third of the story from their point of view in turn. Whose version can you trust, if any of them? All of them have suffered losses, are damaged and suspicious, have darkness in their souls, and have secrets to be revealed. You can’t help wondering, if something like this happened to you, whether fate might tear you asunder from even your best friend as well.

The main characters are brilliantly drawn and believable (or should I say plausible), the setting is very atmospheric (a major character in itself), and the plot is not unbelievable but is fast and intricate and keeps you guessing right till the end.

For me the most devastating part was the pilot whale stranding, failed rescue and subsequent killing carried out by Catrin – even if in a good humanitarian cause, it showed that she was capable of killing!

The references to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to represent the unbearable burden that must be borne by Rachel for past actions that are sewn into the text were brilliant.

The ending is very clever and unexpected, although perhaps the author should have provided more information so that it would be possible to spot the miscreant ourselves (I was brought up on the Agatha Christie fair play rules!) Sour grapes since I didn’t guess the correct culprit, right? It also seemed a bit strange that Catrin and Callum hadn’t discussed the long-ago fate of their children Ned and Kit until the point in the story when they do. The pacing of the story was masterful. I totally recommend this one for thriller lovers, or anyone who’d like a quick trip to the Falklands.

Bolton, Sharon (1960 – ), Little Black Lies, London, Corgi, 2015, ISBN 978-0-552-16639-3

Book 237: Pitcairn (English) – Remembering Love (Nadine CHRISTIAN)

She’d closed the door on Jack’s heartbroken face early that morning, heart shattering into a trillion pieces. Sliding down against the door, she sat on the cold, hard floor and let her own tears and pain loose, crumpling in a boneless mess on the floor. She’d lain there until she was sure a puddle had formed from her tears, and there were no more left to fall. Dragging herself down the hall, she collapsed into her bed and stared into the dark, eyes dry, mind void. She thought she’d never sleep. She hoped when she did, she’d never wake. Her life felt so broken. Holly had no idea where to turn next.  _______________________________________________________________  

I have to admit romance isn’t one of the genres I usually read, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for this one, especially since Pitcairn is one of the world’s smallest political entities (population: 47) and Nadine Christian was the only Pitcairner (with that famous surname!) I could find who has written a novel. (Incidentally, also the only one who had given birth there for a very long time). But this book wasn’t bad at all. The story of the Mutiny on the Bounty and the settlement of Pitcairn Island must be one of the best-known (and most enthralling, dare I say romantic?) in human history – Fletcher Christian’s mutiny against his supposedly evil Captain Bligh, Bligh’s incredible non-stop voyage to Timor from mid-Pacific, the mutineers’ voyage in the Bounty to find an island to hide on and their incredible discovery of Pitcairn which had been misplaced on the map, its settlement by the mutineers (all but one of whom ended up being killed) and their Tahitian wives. Even though I’ve never been, and am sadly never likely to go, to Pitcairn I felt I was already familiar with some of the places in this story. Nadine herself knows Pitcairn too well, so more description of the island might be nice for those who haven’t been there (which is almost everyone). Still, I learned a lot about what it’s like to live on this super-isolated rock with its intriguing place names. (I always wondered who Ted was – none of the Bounty mutineers had that name – but thanks to this book found out that Tedside comes from ‘The Other Side’.) Pitcairn’s language is a fascinating mix of 18th century English (much of it nautical) and Tahitian. As someone who loves islands (and dreamed of owning one!), I think there must be a happy medium between having an island to oneself (and one’s girlfriend/partner/wife) and having a reasonable population number so that you have some privacy and autonomy. Tiny islands like this seem to be gossip factories, in fact the chief gossiper in this story is a real ogre! Obviously the population must also be very inbred? Like the heroine Holly, I rolled my eyes at myself for choosing a romance, but frankly there was little if any choice from this tiny island. (Holly seems to be always rolling her eyes at something – she should see a doctor about it). Speaking of her eyes, like Elton John, I was confused by their colour, which is earlier on described as green, later as blue. It’s self-published and has some of the usual self-published foibles (bad punctuation) but it wasn’t too bad in this respect. Some examples: “The tree’s thinned out” “the old biddy’s getting their knickers in a twist” “Holly laid her head on Jacks shoulder” “Tattoo’s radiated from under his singlet” “he light’s my fire” “Saturday’s were his day” “It’s hard to know who’s they are” “”a diary that not only had opened her eyes to her mother’s secrets, but obviously held some of his fathers” (presumably a very big diary!) At least at the beginning, there is a thicket of too many adjectives, which would be anathema to Stephen King! But overall it was much better written than I expected. Like the author, Holly is a writer and has lived in New Zealand. She was actually born on Pitcairn but had left it as a young girl. As the story unfolds, she learns the tragic story of her parents and why she ended up in NZ. The tale is about memory, and forgetting. As soon as she arrives she gets back together with her childhood friend, Jack, this time in a romance. Jack’s father has Alzheimer’s and is regularly helped by another of the locals, who is openly hostile to Holly, because of her supposed past. The story keeps clipping along, and on the whole it wasn’t a chore to read as I expected.

 

Christian, Nadine (1971 – ), Remembering Love, Santa Rosa, CA, Eternal Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1-61572-855-8

Book 231: Greenland (English) – Seven Graves One Winter (Christoffer PETERSEN)

 

[He] clicked the motorboat into gear and pointed the nose out of the harbour towards the open sea. The pink glow of the sun was fusing with the blue sky above the gargantuan bergs of the fjord, but [he] was far too focused on the thoughts of what he had hidden in the cabin of his boat to worry about the start of a beautiful Arctic day in Greenland. The long winter dark might be another month or two away, but for some people, the darkness had already descended, and the world had turned black as death.

 

It looks as if the Scandinavian noir crime wave has extended into Iceland and Greenland, and here I am in the latter, a long time after reading my last Greenlandic crime story, Miss Smilla’s Sense of (or Feeling for) Snow. A confession to start with – although I often enjoy reading crime novels, I haven’t read enough to be an expert in judging the best plots. Perhaps Seven Graves One Winter doesn’t have the most intriguing/intricate/surprising/clever plot, if that was ever the intention. We come to realise who the miscreant is fairly early on. But for me, especially when the story is set somewhere exotic like the world’s largest island, it is the local colour that I most enjoy. And for that reason I really enjoyed this one.

The story begins with the digging of the graves mentioned in the spooky title, referring to a local custom of digging seven graves (for various types of deaths) before the ground freezes too hard for digging.

Greenland, ‘the largest small place in the world’ as the author calls it, is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and I learnt a lot about local politics and issues from this novel (assuming there is some basis in reality). Because it centres on the power struggle, with an upcoming election, between the leaders of the two largest parties, their families and their political advisors. Several of them end up needing those graves. The issue of achieving still greater independence from Denmark is a live one, and the main touchstone is the language issue – should people (especially politicians and their families) still be able to speak Danish, or should they only speak Greenlandic? As in other parts of the world, the language issue can be used for political purposes by ultra-nationalists in dog whistling, ‘more-Greenlandic-than-thou’ attacks against those who are maybe more cosmopolitan or tolerant. What are those who are half Danish (for example) supposed to do to prove that they are loyal Greenlanders?

This is the first in a series of novels that Petersen wrote featuring Constable David Maratse, who is here recovering from a crippling attack in which he was tortured by a Chinese – we aren’t told this back story, maybe it’s revealed later in the series, or in one of the author’s other series. Apart from his debilitating mobility problems, he is supposed to have retired, but can’t keep away from this case and is hired as a private investigator (and his colleagues won’t let him stay away anyway, although he does step on some local toes in his intended retirement retreat in the made-up town of Inussak).

I would have loved to have learned more local language – Greenlandic (a variety of Inuit) seems to be fascinating and beautiful, with its sentence-length words. There is a mini-vocabulary, considering of just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in the Eastern and Western dialects, and ‘thank you’ (the same in both). I think they were the only Greenlandic words which came up in the text. Maratse (who is from the east) is always saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in his dialect, rather gratuitously I thought (rather like Poirot’s somewhat ridiculous use of French – common words that he would certainly know in English, rather than less common words and expressions that he might not be familiar with).

On the whole I really enjoyed this one. Despite being less thrilling than it could have been, the trip to Greenland was great.

Petersen spent seven years living and teaching in Qaanaaq at the top of Greenland.

 

Petersen, Christoffer, Seven Graves One Winter (Greenland Crime series #1), Aarluuk Press, 2018, ISBN 978-87-93680-00-5

 

Book 228: British Virgin Islands (English) – Sun, Sand, Murder (John KEYSE-WALKER)

In the past, I never devoted much thought to what it took to be a good policeman. Now I understood that, just as an unused machine rusts until it binds and becomes a useless mass of metal, a policeman in a place that lacks crime stops thinking like a policeman. The rituals of police work become a kind of Kabuki theater, elaborate and stylized, but devoid of content. The uniform is worn, but without pride. The patrols are completed, but without vigilance. The policeman appears to be there but in actuality has ceased to be a policeman.

On the small, crime-less island of Anegada, it would seem to be very easy to seduce the entire police force. After all, it consists of a single policeman (cum customs officer) – who is becoming estranged from his wife. Whether because of the lack of crime or not, Special Constable Teddy Creque is rather amateurish (not to mention distrusted and despised by the main island police, and under-resourced). He is apparently quite out of his depth when a regular visitor, biologist Paul Kelliher, who says he is studying endangered iguanas, is found shot in the head on the island’s remotest beach, surrounded by strange excavations. Another murder attempt soon follows.

Of course, nothing is as it seems.

The arrogant main island police, not trusting him with anything else, give him the apparently harmless drudge task of notifying the dead man’s next-of-kin – which leads to his discovery that ‘Paul Kelliher’ never actually existed. Later, there is a rather terrifying (but also funny in its over-the-topness) drug raid by the DEA (a bit like Monty Python’s Inquisition). There is also a lot of ‘woman trouble’, especially for Teddy! It’s also funny how he seems to spill the beans to all the likely suspects. How do you keep anything secret on a small island anyway? Nevertheless, he gets there in the end.

This being a Caribbean novel, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that there is buried treasure, the left-over of some past piratical behaviour, along with a rather sketchy map with X’s (as is rightly pointed out, why on earth would a pirate make a map pointing to ‘his’ treasure?) and some decoding fun.

I thought that Creque’s flaws, faux pas and difficulties made him and the story seem much more real and easy to identify with.

I wasn’t expecting much from this one, given the banal title, but it was actually very enjoyable and even thought-provoking. I loved the self-deprecating, cynical and honest voice of Creque. It gave me what I felt like was an authentic feel for policing in a place with (normally) nothing to police and nothing to police it with – and no help from the locals, or other law enforcement. The ending was a big surprise for me. Absolutely perfect beach reading, especially if you’re lucky enough to make it to the BVI!

Coming up: the US Virgin Islands, but we’re not quite done with Anegada yet!

Book 224: Nauru (German) – Nauru: ein Krimi vom Ende der Welt = Nauru: a thriller from the ends of the earth (Thomas FUHLBRÜGGE)

 

 

But I became quieter and quieter. Everything was happening far too fast for me. Right now I would have loved to have dragged the neat Minister out of his shitty press conference, which was still going on in the background on the TV, and thrown him into our deepest hole. It would be best to drive up with the blue light and siren on, and in front of all the cameras clap the gun to his head and play the recording to the microphones. Then to chuck the guy into the back of the police car and lock him away. Finally I would have dropped the key into the Pacific.

 

[my translation]

 

Only three nations to go but another great read! (The third smallest by population, and also by area (21 km2), and the world’s smallest republic as well). It was really hard to find a novel for Nauru though, and I couldn’t find one in English, but finally found this one in German which hasn’t been translated.

One other record Nauru has lost (some would say squandered) is that it used to be the richest country in the world. It was built on phosphate. For example, Air Nauru used to fly its hard-working 737 all around the Pacific and to rim countries, pretty cheaply (if not always reliably – the whole plane risked being bumped if the President wanted to go somewhere). I’m sure it wasn’t commercially viable. I could kick myself for not having explored Micronesia too at the time of my big trip around the South Pacific. Now there are only few, and very expensive, flights to Micronesia in general and Nauru in particular. Sadly, the island’s interior was mined out (the standard description for what remains is a ‘moonscape’), and most of the phosphate was gone before independence to make the fields of Australia and New Zealand fertile. Enough resources remained to keep the Nauruans very rich if it was invested wisely – but the cargo cult mentality prevailed and it was wasted very quickly, leaving Nauru as a shell. It is a shameful story for Australia, the UK – and Nauru. Now Nauru earns money by hosting a sad camp for seafaring asylum seekers to prevent them coming to Australia.

So, for lack of a novel by an indigenous Nauruan (as far as I can find), we have this pretty good thriller by German writer Thomas Fuhlbrügge. And again, as far as I can tell, he knows the island very well, its history and politics, and seems to cram most of it into his novel! It would be perfect travel reading, if you were going there.

Fuhlbrügge relates the story of the discovery of phosphate – that a rock from Nauru being used as a doorstop in the office of the nearly bankrupt Pacific Islands Trading Co saved it and made its fortune when Albert Ellis got it tested and found that it was almost pure phosphate. (Though Arthur Grimble, in his wonderful book A Pattern of Islands, says the rock was from the other phosphate island, Banaba/Ocean Island in Kiribati).

Nauruan policeman Stephen Hix is looking forward to a stint representing the whole Pacific region with Interpol in France, when he is called to investigate the murder of an ex-President (not suicide, as he is convinced), – and then of another one – then of his own father, when it gets personal – and personally very dangerous. In a wild ride, among other heroics he helps put down a revolt in an asylum seeker detention centre (with the help of a bulldozer) and arrests his boss, the police minister, at the airport (then loses him due to too much police celebration). At the same time there is a hostage situation at the parliament.

As with so many thrillers, the author uses a limited milieu (this time, the whole little country) as a brilliant setting. For such a tiny island (which takes 16 minutes to ride around, without needing to use the siren and flashing blue light), there is a fantastic use of locations –  the cantilever which was used to load the phosphate ships, the airport (the main/only road around the island has to be blocked when a plane needs to land), the ponds, the parliament, and the Australian asylum camp. It was great how he brings danger to familiar surroundings (it all ends in his own bedroom).

I couldn’t help smiling at the characters who were named after famous spies from history – Somerset Maugham, Francis Walsingham, Guy Burgess, and Gary Powers. ‘Ivan Grom’ is obviously modelled on the Australian ‘Backpacker Murderer’ Ivan Milat. I also loved the wry humour about Nauru, e.g. when Hix is not worried about parking in one of the three disabled spots at the airport, since Nauru had only three wheelchair uses, one of whom is his stepmother who certainly wouldn’t be flying that day…

The book is full of fun facts about Nauru, including a map and lots of colour photos (which are actually rather boring but relate to locations mentioned). The writing itself is exciting and fluent (the slaughterhouse description sounded great in German!) Typos are few and far between (Goulburn in Australia got an extra ‘e’).

I really enjoyed this thriller, and I hope it gets some translations!

 

Fuhlbrügge, Thomas (1974 – ), Nauru: ein Krimi vom Ende der Welt, Norderstedt, Books on Demand, 2nd. edn. 2018, ISBN 9783744890304

Book 221: Liechtenstein (German) – Die dunkle Muse = The Dark Muse (Armin ÖHRI)

The Professor looked at her innocently, almost as if asking for pardon, as he showed the blood-smeared knife and said: “Forgive me for disturbing you, my dear madam. But would you be so kind as to notify the police? I have just murdered your neighbour.”

[my translation]

Here is a historical thriller set in Berlin 1865 (when it was in Prussia) with a scary professor of philosophy as the prime suspect from the beginning (so the quote is not a spoiler). Well, we saw him commit the murder (of prostitute Lene Kulm), case closed, right? Not so fast! But the kernel of the story is the court case. It might seem like an open-and-shut case, but bit by bit all the evidence falls apart. And is there such a thing as the perfect crime? Will the Prof be convicted in the end?

I thought that Kriminalkommissar Gideon Horlitz, was going to be the chief protagonist/solver, but it turned out to be the law student and police artist Julius Bentheim – an intriguing choice. We also find out about his private life, including his relationship with his girlfriend and her difficult, conservative pastor father. (Bentheim has starred in three later books in the series so far: Der Bund der Okkulisten, Die Dame im Schatten and Das schwarze Herz).

I loved the historical ambience (which I hope was accurate) and the story was intriguing and well-paced. It was fascinating to see how crime investigations proceeded in that epoch with the scanty tools that they had (even photography, which his friend Albrecht Krosick has to handle, was in its infancy and problematic), and how the legal system functioned. Yet another fantastic book nearly at the end of reading through the world’s nations!  Öhri won the EU Prize for Literature with this one.

ÖHRI, Armin (1978 – ), Die dunkle Muse, Meßkirch, Gmeiner, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8392-1295-0

Book 208: Kiribati (English) – Food of Ghosts (Marianne WHEELAGHAN)

Louisa approached the main prison entrance. A padlock the size of a small shoebox held the heavy metal gate closed. She rang a little old fashioned bell, which was attached to a stiff wire dangling down from the side of the gate-frame, and waited. It was common knowledge at HQ that the gate only appeared to be locked. In fact, the padlock had seized up years ago. It never occurred to the inmates who knew the secret to escape – where could they go? They were inside as much for their own sake as for the safety of the public: the fence and gate kept victims’ avenging relatives out and the prisoners in. Louisa was not about to give the secret away by lifting the bolt and walking in. She rang the bell again and waited.

Kiribati was one of the hardest coconuts to crack for this project! My apologies to my friend Anita (the world’s nicest security guard) who is from Tarawa, for continuously harassing her to find a novel for me or to write one herself!

Author Marianne Wheelaghan was a teacher in Kiribati. Her heroine Louisa, who had left the main island of Tarawa at eight to live in Scotland, returns for a visit as a mere detective sergeant, and unexpectedly finds herself leading a messy murder investigation for the Kiribati Police Service. She grabs at her lucky break, but how’s this for a catalogue of difficulties for a newbie (or any) detective?

– She is inexperienced and this is her first job;

– There is no forensics in the country;

– EVERYONE is lying to her;

– The police face poor working conditions and resources;

– Just getting around the small island is a logistical difficulty (she has to take a bus to the place of the first murder);

– The crime scene has been contaminated;

– The evidence has been tampered with;

– The murder scene has been trampled;

– The witness has been ‘hijacked’;

– And the sexist Sergeant Tebano is continuously undermining her.

(Murder investigations under less than ideal conditions are fast becoming a theme for my Pacific novels!) Louisa has to deal with local customs and superstitions, but she has her own strange customs (such as her superstitious ‘rule of 4’)

She finds that people are continuously hijacking her agenda. She is dogged by bad luck, and can be irritable and short tempered but is very believable and sympathetic!

The title comes from the ancient custom of offering an enemy’s severed head for ghostly spirits to eat, of which their favourite bit was the eyes. And the first victim’s eyes have been gouged out. Two more victims follow and Louisa seems to be caught in a rip. When she tracks down a suspect to Maiana island for the thrilling climax and wants to nab them straight away, she is held up by a ceremonial welcome.

Despite the gory death, the story is often quite funny, including the mixed-up sayings (e.g. ‘the gritties and the nitties’)!

With its intriguing mystery, endless amusing difficulties to overcome, and local colour, I loved Food of Ghosts and can’t wait to read more of Louisa’s adventures!

Wheelaghan, Marianne, Food of Ghosts, Edinburgh, Pilrig, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9566144-3-8

Book 204: French Guiana (French) – Papillon (Henri CHARRIÈRE)

We didn’t heave [the warders] into the ward: we went straight off with the three rifles. Clousiot first, then the kid, then me: down the stairs, half-lit by a lantern. Clousiot had dropped his iron; I still had mine in my left hand, and in my right the rifle. At the bottom of the stairs, nothing. Ink-black night all round us. We had to look hard to make out the wall over on the river side. We hurried towards it. Once we were there, I bent down. Clousiot climbed up, straddled the top, hauled Maturette up and then me. We let ourselves drop into the darkness on the far side. Clousiot fell badly into a hole, twisting his foot. Maturette and I landed properly. We two got up: we had left the rifles before we went over. Clousiot tried to get to his feet but couldn’t: he said his leg was broken. I left Maturette with Clousiot and ran towards the corner of the wall, feeling it all the way with my hand. It was so dark that when I got to the end of the wall I didn’t know it, and with my hand reaching out into emptiness I fell flat on my face. Over on the river side I heard a voice saying, ‘Is that you?’  

From one country where a small island (Príncipe) was used as a cruel prison to another…

Sadly, French Guiana is one of the few countries in South America that I haven’t visited. From Porsche’s take on Cayenne, I assume that the capital has very bad roads on which the locals drive very fast…

I’m sure that Papillon (Charrière) would have loved to have a Porsche Cayenne. It would have helped him on his escape attempts, of which there were so many that I lost count!

In reading all the independent nations of the world, I stuck to novels. Although I’ll still try to preference novels when reading the non-independent ones, I might occasionally be a bit more liberal. In Papillon, Charrière claims to be telling the true story of his life. Though it is substantially true, it subsequently turned out that he had fictionalised it somewhat (or quite a lot), which is why I’ve included it here – apart from the fact that it’s one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. (Wikipedia describes it as an ‘autobiographical novel’ and discusses its authenticity). Papillon spent a total of 13 years in prison (between 1931 and 1945), in Colombia and Venezuela as well as in France and French Guiana (including on Devil’s Island), and they all seem to have been brutally inhumane. What kept him going (when so many others died), apart from the help of his friends, was his burning desire for revenge, and yet, once free, he gives that up and is determined to prove his goodness by living as a model citizen.

If we can believe what he tells of himself, Papillon comes across as an honest and honourable man, towards his fellow prisoners, the outsiders, and even his jailers. He passes over his life before his sentencing, but he admits (at the end) that he was part of the Paris underworld and a criminal, though he always insisted that he was innocent of the murder for which he was convicted and transported to French Guiana.

When I read Papillon, it was a bit of a jolt to realise that France was still transporting convicts to its colony until 1945 (Britain sent its last convicts to Australia in 1868), and that the European Space Agency spaceport in Kourou was then one of the prison camps – the description of it here was fascinating.

I did feel that some of the reported conversations were slightly unbelievable (sometimes a bit too moralising). But they must surely be reconstructed rather than remembered verbatim.

Papillon comes across as a man almost addicted to escaping. Even when there is nothing to escape from, he has to get away – most stupidly, to my mind, from the paradisaical sojourn with the Guajiro American Indians in Colombia with two lovers (sisters), one of whom is pregnant with his children (did he ever meet them?) Again, we don’t know whether life among them is truly as idyllic as he portrays – it feels like part of the long French tradition of admiring the ‘noble savages’ and contrasting them with the corruption of Western society, which goes back to Rousseau. But I have no reason to doubt it. In any case, he abandons them with barely a thought, as he does later to his equally lovely (Asian) Indian wife – not to mention the wife he already had in France. Still escaping.

Papillon’s lauding of his adopted homeland Venezuela seems a bit at odds with what he witnessed there (and was it really so much better than Colombia, for example?) I couldn’t help feeling that he was trying to ingratiate himself with his new countrymen. I would have thought that he would have learnt good Spanish while living in Venezuela, but there are still lots of mistakes in his reported Spanish conversations from the escape attempts.

I won’t spoil the tale by repeating any more of what happens, you have to read the story for yourself if you haven’t already. (By the way, the plots of the two movies are quite different from what Papillon relates). Charrière is a great writer and story-teller, and unlike most prisoner memoirs his book counts as great literature too. It is enthralling. (I’m now reading the sequel, Banco).

Charrière, Henri (1906 – 1973), Papillon, Paris, Pocket, 2002, ISBN 9782266118354

(originally published 1969)

English translation:

Papillon, translated from French by Patrick O’Brian, London, Panther, 1970

Book 202: American Samoa (English) – Pago Pago Tango (John ENRIGHT)

Apelu was sitting in his pickup truck up at the abandoned tramway station on Solo Hill above Goat Island Point. There were seldom any other vehicles or people there. There were none today… The old tramway station was like an archaeological shrine to the idea of American-style progress on the island. From the top of a totally rusted-out and vine-covered iron tower still filled with the oxidized remains of its huge engine and giant wheels and pulleys, a single steel cable swooped upward toward a vanishing point atop Mt. Alava six thousand feet across and sixteen hundred feet above Pago Pago Bay. As a schoolboy Apelu had been told that this was the longest single cable car span in the world. He didn’t know if that was true or not. On the ground beside the tower was the cable car itself, overcome by weeds, its windows shattered, its rooftrop trolley carriage frozen with rust, reaching up like empty arms toward the sky. Along the road that ended at the station’s parking lot – now a place of broken beer bottles and infringing weed trees – lay miles of braided cable that had once hauled the cable car back and forth. The cable ran in and out of the weeds like some endless black and orange anaconda.

Any of you who have discovered the joys of video education during the covid epidemic might like to spare a thought for the American Samoans, who were your guinea pigs. At a time when television was a rarity in the Pacific, the Americans decided to try the experiment of educating the territory’s embarrassedly neglected children by TV. It wasn’t a great success (one of the many fascinating local asides explored in this novel), but it left the legacy of the TV tower on Mt. Alava, and the cableway high across the spectacular fjord-like bay of the main island Tutuila which was used in its construction and subsequently served for what must have been one of the most amazing cable car trips in the world. When I visited in 1980 on my trip around most of the South Pacific, and inspired by the picture of it in the Pacific Islands article of World Book, I was looking forward so much to taking that trip. Unfortunately, I just missed the boat (or rather, cable car). Earlier in the year, a US navy plane flew into the cable and then crashed into the island’s only hotel, the Rainmaker, leaving several dead. That was also the sad end of the cableway. (It’s hard to understand why such a fantastic tourist attraction wasn’t restored).

Apart from the amazingly beautiful bay, my main memories were of the non-stop rain – it was the rainiest place I’ve ever been (apart from Sydney this year!), and I read Somerset Maugham’s wonderful short story Rain, set here, while holed up in Pago Pago. The other memory is the horribly smelly fish cannery, the major industry, which is still there, on the so-called ‘dark side’ of the bay. It is another major character in the story and I learnt a lot about it too.

Like my Lao novel, The Coroner’s Lunch, this one gives enormous insights into the difficulties faced by an investigator working in less than ideal conditions and having to adjust policing methods to the local culture. The police here are very under-resourced compared with their American colleagues, and have to use a lot of diplomacy and judgement in a place where so many people know, or are related to, each other. Detective Sergeant Apelu has worked in San Francisco so knows how it’s supposed to work, but he is above all a realist. He tries to make the law work to the extent that is possible… but he is flexible (and he is happy to smoke pot with his friend…)

As in Leaves of the Banyan Tree, the Samoan love of oratory and singing (how is it possible that an entire race, the Polynesians, can sing so beautifully and inately?) is obvious here.

One of the things they never tell you about the paradisiacal isles of the Pacific is the dogs. I was attacked by one in (Western) Samoa. In French Polynesia every second house seems to have the sign ‘Tabu, chien méchant’ (ferocious dog). Apelu is wary but knows how to deal with them.

Again, as in (Western) Samoa, there is the importance of keeping up appearances. The local morgue is overflowing because the relatives of the deceased are saving up for exorbitant funerals to bury them.

As for the story – as usual with mysteries, I find it hard to say anything about the plot without giving something away and spoiling it. I’ll just say that while it may not be extremely thrilling, I enjoyed it very much. It starts with a break-in in a ‘white’ family’s home which turns out to signify much more than it seemed at first sight. It has a great title, although it doesn’t really rhyme (the ‘g’ in Pago is pronounced like ‘ng’ in ‘sing’, while the Spanish ‘ng’ in ‘tango’ is pronounced like the one in ‘finger’.)

Samoa, like Korea, is one of the world’s last divided countries as a result of the evils of imperial spheres of influence. The US, Germany and Britain had all sent warships to try to intimidate the others – all but one were destroyed by a 1889 hurricane, which cleared a few minds. In the washup, the US and Germany divided Samoa between themselves (the UK took concessions elsewhere), and New Zealand ended up with the German western half until it granted independence in 1962. American Samoa is still a US territory.

Enright, John (1945 – ), Pago Pago Tango, Las Vegas, Thomas & Mercer, 2012, ISBN 978612185002

Book 178: Cyprus (English) – The Spice Box Letters (Eve MAKIS)

I looked out into the airy distance, trying to summon good memories but only stabbing thoughts would come: Mariam’s body turned to bone, scattered fragments of meta-carpals and phalanges buried like fallen twigs beneath a pelt of earth. I tried to conjure a living version of my sister, a beautiful ghost with glowing olive skin. The sea was a blue canvas in flux. I stared hard at the evolving shapes and by sheer force of will, Mariam rose like salt spray in a dress of white foam, her dark hair fanning out as she leapt up and twirled, before melting into the ocean. She came at my bidding and left of her own volition, as fleetingly as many other ghosts that lurked on the periphery of my consciousness.

From one divided island country loved by tourists to another, in a much more tragic and currently insoluble situation. The independent country is ruled by the Greek community, the north by the Turks (as a result of the 1974 Turkish invasion, to forestall a feared union with Greece). But it is the beautiful island where Aphrodite landed in a spume of foam.

Katerina inherits a beautiful spice box from her grandmother Mariam, holding a diary and letters. From them, she learns about the Armenian genocide of 1915 and what Mariam went through. While some Turks (and Kurds) were cruel, others were kind – some Turks rescued Mariam’s brother Gabriel from a pile (he becomes very prickly). When the Turkish Cypriot militia takes over his suburb, Gabriel becomes a refugee for the second time.

Chasing up the story takes Katerina across Cyprus and to the US. Cyprus has a large Armenian community, and author Makis too comes from an Armenian family.

Tragically, intermarriage, which should be wonderful, is considered by some Armenians as ‘white genocide’ because it causes the loss of their culture (a real possibility when such a huge proportion of the Armenian community is in exile). Parents are faced with a dilemma – should they be be liberal with their children, or preserve their culture and language?

This novel has lovely descriptions of people and places and some beautiful writing. Despite the serious topic, there is some delicious humour – I especially loved Gabriel’s encounter with the snake! I suspect, too, that the author loves cooking!

Makis, Eve, The Spice Box Letters, Dingwall, Scotland, Sandstone Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-910124-08-6

Book 161: Latvia (English) – High Tide = Paisums (Inga ĀBELE)

She keeps the bike down in the courtyard, locked up with an iron chain to a maple tree. Dragging it up and down the stairs would be suicide. The bike opens up an entirely different Riga to her; it glides easily and lightly, relaxing the hectic streets, smoothing the nervous lines in the city’s face. The bike reminds her of an old coal iron or the first pair of skis in the world – broad, substantial things that would let life could [sic] coast along without change. The stores, cafés, people, even the sky and the trees, even the river is wide open – all because Ieva herself is open. Her thumb poised, ready to ring the bell. Her lips ready to smile, her heart ready to answer.

In the beginning of the story, God appears to Ieva (’Eve’) in a dream, and tells her that if she agrees to live her life backwards, she’ll be able to restore her lover to life. As she travels back towards childhood and he travels forward towards old age, they will meet for twenty minutes.

So the tale is told mostly in reverse order, over three decades from the time of the Soviet Union into independent Latvia, and all is revealed towards the end. Actually Ieva and the other characters lead mostly boring lives and none of them seemed very sympathetic to me, but the story became intriguing (if not always easy to follow) because of the reverse order.

Ieva meets the prisoner Andrejs (working outside the jail) and falls in love with him. (The regime seems very liberal for the USSR – she is also able to spend the night with him in prison). This is despite the fact (as we learn later) that the man he had killed was her former lover, Aksels.

Ābele’s writing is extremely lyrical, especially when describing nature; you can tell that she is a poet.

I read a review panning Kaija Straumanis’ translation. I can’t read Latvian so am in no position to judge, but it mostly read very nicely to me.

When I finished, I was torn between a need to re-read it (now that I knew what was going on) and a need not to, yet, as it was just too depressing. Maybe when Ieva also reaches her beginning again, she can make wiser life choices next time.

ĀBELE, Inga (1972 – ), High Tide, translated from Latvian by Kaija Straumanis, NY, Open Letter, 2013, ISBN 978-1-934824-80-1 (first published in Latvian 2008)

Book 160: Slovenia (English) – Alamut (Vladimir BARTOL)

            “I come from al-Ghazali, Your Excellency, with this letter.”

            He held the letter out toward the old man, while calmly drawing the sharpened writing instrument out of it. He did this so naturally that none of those present was aware of the action.

            The vizier unsealed the envelope and unfolded the letter.

            ”What is my learned friend up to in Baghdad?” he asked.

            Ibn Tahir suddenly leaned forward and shoved the dagger into his throat beneath the chin. The vizier was so startled that for the first few moments he didn’t feel any pain. He just opened his eyes up wide. Then he scanned the only line of the letter one more time and grasped everything.

My Slovenian novel, which has apparently been a bestseller in many languages (seemingly not in English, though it should be) really has as little as is imaginable to do with Slovenia (which is by the way my favourite country in Europe at the moment). It is totally removed in both time and place, like my preceding Macedonian novel. It is derived from one of the more fascinating tales from Marco Polo’s generally prosaic Travels, that of the Old Man of the Mountain, but the Ismaili stronghold in modern Iran actually existed.

Bartol takes three young friends, sworn to friendship, who each choose different paths in life. One becomes a vizier, one (Omar Khayyam) a poet, and the third, the subject of the story, Hasan, becomes what we would now see as the head of a terrorist organisation. Hasan becomes so cynical that he can not believe in anything at all – his ultimate motto is “Nothing is true, everything is permitted;” he reveals it only to his most trusted confidantes, and basically applies it to no one but himself. Everyone else is treated more or less as a child, as his tool. Hasan (known to his followers as Sayyiduna ‘Our Lord’), sets out to deceive and exploit them, by creating a fairy tale and making it seem real to them. He reproduces in reality at his castle (Alamut) the Muslim paradise, and rewards his most trustworthy followers with a single night there (after drugging them with opium), so that they can be used as assassins (a word which derives from hashishim ‘opium-eaters’) against his enemies. Despite some close calls, as far as we learn from the novel his plan is successful. Yet its eternal vulnerability is obvious, throughout symbolised by the lift he uses, which his trusted eunuchs could easily use to kill him. (As generally with terrorist organisations, the success at murdering enemies was matched by abject failure at conquering them – and Alamut was to fall to the Mongols in 1256). Bartol wrote a long time before the age of Al-Qaida, but his sophisticated insight into the mindset of a terrorist warlord and what are now suicide bombers is more relevant now than ever before. Alamut can be read merely as a popular novel, but there is so much food for thought that its worth is far deeper than that.

Vladimir BARTOL (1903 – 1967), Alamut, translated from Slovenian by Michael Biggins, Berkeley, CA, North Atlantic Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-55643-681-9