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Three Novels

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I recently finished three novels by authors whose other titles I've enjoyed recently.



The Fifth Woman / Henning Mankell
Another installment in the Swedish police detective Kurt Wallander series. Another psycho killer. Who could imagine they’d be so thick on the ground in bucolic southern Sweden? The strength of this series is not just the original crime storylines but the humanity of Kurt himself. Check out the BBC-produced TV series with Kenneth Branagh in the title role.

Incendiary / Chris Cleave
This novel takes the form of an extended letter to Osama bin Laden by a bereaved Eastend woman. She’s writing to him to share her pain in having lost both her husband and her four-year-old boy in an Al Quaeda orchestrated terrorist attack at a football match. Her letter reveals the story of how events unfolded. She is not blameless in the way she leads her life, but her honest narrative and sense of humor and irony put an interesting twist on the story. Things get a little apocalyptic at the end in an almost Orwellian vein.

This book by the author of Little Bee (see below) was coincidentally released on the day of the London underground terrorist attacks in 2005. The movie with Michelle Williams and Ewan MacGregor was only partially faithful to this almost postmodernist novel and really watered it down a bit. Published in German as Lieber Obama, which I think is a better title.

Question of Attraction / David Nicholls
Drunken romps and half-hearted attempts at being academic never really distract Brian from his one true ambition-- appearing on the UK television quiz show University Challenge. (Click here for a website that pays homage to this British cultural totem.)

This is a very funny novel with a great character-driven plot that will especially appeal to Anglophiles. It's an enjoyable journey down memory lane to the mid-80s with upturned collars and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. By the author of One Day (see below). Published in the UK as Starter for Ten.

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