Serotonin - Michel Houellebecq

 For me, Serotonin was an extraordinary introduction to the work of one of France's most controversial contemporary writers.   Not only is Michel Houellebecq contemporary, he is also virtually my contemporary (he is a year younger).   Is that why we seem to have similar mindsets?

Houellebecq's protagonist, Florent, is solitary, reclusive and taking anti-depressants.   Yes, sounds familiar to me.   He is forty-six and undergoing a midlife crisis.   I was forty-seven when I had mine.   He is a successful bureaucrat with the European Agriculture Agency.   I was a successful local bureaucrat.   He hates the free market economy.  Yup.

His lovelife is complex and not very successful.   His Japanese girlfriend is extremely liberated sexually, but Florent hankers after Camille, who he now realises was The One.   Not that he will be much use to her.   His anti-depressant, Captorix, is now the most important thing in his life, and it has rendered him impotent.  (Captorix is fictional, but Houellebecq has done his research on anti-d's.)

Anyway, Florent resolves to quit his job and withdraw from life.   He sells his apartment in Paris, dumps his girlfriend, quits his job and moves into a hotel in a different part of the city.   He goes for a walk every day, eats out, but otherwise stays in his room, watching TV and reflecting on his past.

After a couple of months he decides to explore his past, revisit the key places and, if possible, contact those who matter.   He has a brief affair with one old girlfriend, which doesn't work.   He moves on to Normandy where he meets up with his college friend Aymeric, who lives in the family chateau and tries hard to make a living by farming in the traditional way.   Florent ends up living on the estate, where Aymeric teaches him how to shoot.   While Florent vegetates, Aymeric's life and business collapse.   He becomes involved with the yellow vest movement, with consequences.   Florent witnesses all this, wondering if he should get involved.   In the end he moves on, and tracks down Camille...

Serotonin is a complex and troubling read.   You don't always know where or when you are as you read, which is absolutely intentional.   Houellebecq favours short, punchy passages in short chapters.   I was fascinated, and whilst reading Serotonin, which was written in 2019, the year Houellebecq won his Legion d'Honneur  and seems to be his most recent book to appear in English, I bought and read his first book, a non-fiction study of H P Lovecraft's writing from 1989 - and the style and attitudes are absolutely the same.

His opinions are not necessarily mine.   Some I found offensive (but then I have had years of therapy as well as years of anti-depressants).   Nevertheless I am absolutely hooked on Houellebecq.

Bust - Ken Bruen & Jason Starr

 Ken Bruen, who died in March 2025, was known this side of the Atlantic for his Jack Taylor series, which was dramatised for TV with Iain Glen and not adequately promoted.   Bruen later moved in New York literary circles and as such collaborated with Jason Starr on the Max and Angela trilogy (actually a tetralogy - there is a fourth) for the magnificent Hard Case Crime brand.   The first three are now collected in one volume as Supermax.  Bust is the series opener.

Max Fisher is a selfmade tech millionaire with failing health and a wife he has come to dislike.   He begrudges Dierdre the half of his fortune he would lose in a divorce.   Meanwhile he is very much enjoying the affair he is having with his PA, an Irish-Greek redhead called Angela who makes the most of what nature gave her, plus a little enhancement up front.   If only Dierdre was out of the way, Max would marry Angela in a heartbeat.   Luckily, Angela knows someone who can help with that.

Enter Dillon an expat Irish psycho-killer with a ruined mouth and a yen to become a poet.   Dierdre is duly disposed of.   Then a former US sniper and smash-and-grab merchant called Bobby Rosa, now confined to a wheelchair, looks up his old friend Victor Gianetti, now working as a glorified bellhop in a New York hotel.   Bobby's big idea is to use Victor's pass key to grab photos of couples booking a room for the afternoon and blackmail them.   His first attempt catches Max and Angela hard at it.   Bobby recognises Max from the news.  Bobby's boat has come in big time.

Unfortunately both Bobby and Dillon share Max's entusiasm for Angela (not that either of them would ever contemplate marrying her).   That's inevitably going to lead to complications.

I very much enjoyed Bust.   The collaboration between Bruen and Starr is seamless.   The dialogue is snappy, the characters well-drawn.   A morant humour runs throughout.   I particularly enjoyed the chapter epigraphs, which are quotes from other contemporary crime noir writers (including one from Bruen himself).

Typhoon - Joseph Conrad

 I got interested in Conrad a few years ago.   Heart of Darkness and Nostromo are both reviewed somewhere on this blog.   Then I kind of ran out; I didn't come across any of his work in the library or the pre-loved bookshops I frequent locally or in London.   I remembered Typhoon in connection with a novella/short story I'm currently working on and bought the Penguin Classics edition online and also pre-loved.

I'm glad I did.   It gave me the background information I was looking for but Typhoon itself is a fantastic read.   Of the three other stories in the collection (which, it should be noted, is the collection Conrad personally put together, insisting that the stories complimented one another), two are sea-based, two about seafarers ashore.   The other sea-based story, 'Falk', is a 'reminiscence' in the same form as Heart of Darkness - a bunch of retired seamen chatting in a Thames-side pub.   The twist, when it is revealed, is truly jaw-dropping.   The other stories, 'Amy Foster' and 'To-Morrow', are traditional short stories, character studies rather than twisted tales.   In both cases the main characters have mental shortcomings.   Amy has what we would today call learning difficulties and cannot fully understand the good-looking immigrant the sea has deposited in her village.   She remains enigmatic for us because Conrad uses the distancing device of the local doctor telling her story to his friend.   This works extremely well.  In 'To-Morrow' a retired seaman is convinced the son he drove out of his house and who has been seeking for years will turn up 'to-morrow'.   It has become a mania with Captain Hagberd, so much so that when son Harry does turn up he refuses to believe it is him.   This edition also includes Conrad's dramatisation of 'To-Morrow' (which he had to call One Day More because there was a play called Tomorrow already on tour).   This is interesting as an example of turn-of-the-century art theatre of the sort that attracted Yeats and Shaw, Masefield and Somerset Maugham, but adds little to the story.

The introduction by Paul Kirschner did not capture my attention.   I'm not sure anyone needs the notes, the glossary could, I daresay, be more useful.

A Death in Tokyo - Keigo Higashino

 The best known novelist in Japan, says Abacus Books, the Japanese Srieg Larsson according to The Times.   I can see where they're coming from.   A Death in Tokyo is the third of the Detective Kaga Mysteries.   It is not my first acquaintance with the work of Keigo Higashino.   I read and reviewed The Devotion of Suspect X back in February 2017 but had completely forgotten about it.   Here, the 'mysteries' bit put me off - a tad cosy for my taste - but Higashino soon sucked me in.

A non-descript middleaged businessman is seen reeling through the nighttime streets.   The cop who sees him assumes he is drunk.   The man reaches the Nihonbashi Bridge and collapses below the statue of a mythical kirin.   At this point, the bear cop spots the knife sticking out of the man's chest.   Soon after, and not very far away, a young man dashes out into traffic and is run down by a truck.   Among his scanty possessions are the businessman's wallet and briefcase.   It's an open and shut case, surely.   The young man, Fuyuki Yashimo, killed the businessman, Takeaki Ayoagi.   The motive is obvious: Ayoagi sacked Yashimo after the young agency worker suffered an accident due to poor workplace safety and Yashimo needs money because his girlfriend is pregnant.   Ayoagi is DOA ar the hospital; Yashimo undergoes surgery and is left in a coma.   Confident of a confession if he recovers, happy to close the case if he doesn't, Tokyo police start the necessary inquiries.

Detective Kyochiro Kaga is paired up with his cousin Detective Shuhei Matsumiya.   Kaga is the older of the two but Matsumiya holds superior rank.   He is with Homicide whereas Kaga is a generalist at precinct level.   This creates an interesting dynamic, which Higashino handles beautifully.   The cousins are not rivals but it is Marsumiya who has to deal with superiors whilst Kaga has the freedom to wander off, physically and mentally.   They start off assuming that the employers of Ayoagi and former employers of Yashimo undertook some sort of cover-up over the accident; that Ayoagi felt guilty about it and contacted Yashimo to make peace.   But Kaga disovers that Ayoagi, not known as a religious man, was so far from home because he was undertaking a tour of famous shrines.   Does the mythical kirin on the bridge have significance.   Is that why Ayoagi fought to get there - to leave a last message?

Kaga and Matsumiya primarily deal with those left behind: Ayoagi's wife and teenaged children, and Yashimo's girlfriend Kaori Nakahara, who they support after Fuyuki, her childhood sweetheart, succumbs to his injuries.   The revelation, when it comes, is satisfactory, surprising, and handled with consummate elegance.   Higashino's tone is empathetic throughout.   There are no deep-dyed villains only victims keen to deal with their shortcomings.   Although I'm not going to take up cosy crime I am very much open to more Higashino.   Bearing in mind my previous experience, I shall stick to the Kaga strand for now.

The Girl with the Golden Eyes - Honore de Balzac

 The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third of three novellas which Balzac grouped together as History of the Thirteen (1835).   Being part of the 'Scenes of Parisian Life' series, rather than the Comedie Humaine, there is a lot more descriptive material, part-opinionated, part-ironical.   I suspect a lot of modern readers skip that and plunge straight into the narrative.   I certainly did on first reading; on a more leisurely second reading, though, I rather enjoyed the discussion of the strata of Parisian life, in itself an ironical take on Dante's Inferno.

On to the story...   Henri de Marsay is a rich young philanderer, one of many illegitimate offspring of the English Lord Dudley.   Like all his fellows he is much taken with the mysterious and beautiful Paquita Valdes, the girl with the titular eyes.   Like his father, Henri is incredibly good-looking and completely devoid of moral scruples.   So he absolutely must add Paquita to his tally of conquests.   There is no question of love or marriage; this, after all, is the aristocratic upper teir of Parisian life.

The Thirteen is a secret society of self-serving adventurers, a cracking idea which Balzac utterly fails to deliver.   It runs through all three of the History novellas but is only central to the first.   Henri is obviously a member and his colleagues help him breach the defenses of the Maison Valdes.   He seduces Paquita, he deflowers her.   Then comes the breathtaking twist.   It's a corker.   Here, Balzac absolutely delivers.

I bought this New York Review of Books single novella version before I knew about The Thirteen.   Having read the very useful introduction by Robert Alter, I had to get the History.   Carol Cosman's translation seems fresher than Herbert J Hunt's for Penguin Classics.   So it should, it's twenty-five years younger.

The Shame Archive - Oliver Harris

 I've read and reviewed quite a few of Oliver Harris's bang-up-to-date spy thrillers.   The Shame Archive is another quality addition to the brand.   Elliot Kane, now out of MI6 and in the private sector, is called in when two of his Russian sources are brutally murdered.   Meanwhile someone calling themselves Eclipse is trying to blackmail MP's wife Rebecca Sinclair.   This is tricky because Rebecca is a former escort and her husband is a potential PM.   It all dates back to New Year's Eve 2008 when Rebecca was one of many girls hired to entertain guests of Opula, a Russian concierge business.   She doesn't remember much about the night but knows she was raped and found wandering the streets covered in blood and claiming to have murdered someone.   Nothing came of it, which she doesn't really understand, other than a man called Elliot Kane was involved and gave her his private phone number in case she needed him.

She needs him now, obviously, but that phone number is long out of date.   Meanwhile Elliot also becomes a target of Eclipse, as do many people far more important.   The thing is, Eclipse seems to have got his hands on a large trove of MI6's kompromat materials and is threatening to release it bit by bit. 

Elliot and Rebecca pursue their separate inquiries for most of the book.   I have to admit - my one reservation about The Shame Archive - Harris took the alternate chapter too far for my liking.   That said, when Rebecca and Elliot finally come together the sparks really fly.   The ending was a complete, thrill=packed stunner.   I guessed right about Eclipse but had absolutely no idea how it all tied in with Elliot.   Highly recommended, and I look forward to Harris's next.

The Old Enemy - Henry Porter

 This being my first encounter with the world of Henry Porter, I had not read previous Paul Samson thrillers.   It didn't matter: Porter soon caught my attention and brought me up to speed.   A lot has gone on in the past, clearly, but now is apparently the time to settle old scores.   A former spy legend, Robert Harland, is murdered on a Baltic beach.   International billionaire Denis Hisami is handed papers soaked with poisonous chemicals on his way to give evidence to a congressional committee in Washington DC.   And in London Paul Samson, ex-MI6, protege of Harland, friend of Hisami and lover of Hisami's wife Anastasia, is attacked by a knife-wielding beggar whilst doing some private sector work surveilling a young woman called Zoe Freemantle who is involved with a dubious not-for-profit eco-agency called Greenmantle.

From there, it's a matter of unravelling a complicated intrigue dating back to pre-1989 East Berlin and stretching all the way to the White House and Number 10 Downing Street.   In other words it's today's dystopia: Russian interference and its billionaire backers, especially the tech bros.   Porter does it really well.   He has the international aspect just right.   His characters are complex and compelling.   The final set-piece in the reconvened congressional hearing is absolutely masterful.   For once we actually need the post-climax epilogue to fully understand what just happened.   I was very impressed.   Henry Porter goes on my list of must-reads.

Ghost of an Idea - William Burns

 

Hauntology, Folk Horror and the spectre of nostalgia - that's the subtitle of this fascinating book by the culture commentator William Burns.   He rightly sees contemporary culture as dominated by considerations of the past - rightly so, given that the western world is currently threatened by an autocratic Nazi revival.   Hauntology is a difficult concept which is still evolving; it's all about the effect of a given locale through time.   Folk Horror is a phenomenon which regularly recurs through modern culture.   Both Burns and I are old enough to remember the revival of the occult in the last quarter of the last century, but there was a similar spate of interest in twenties, around the end of the 19th century, and before that the craft revival and the weird Pre-Raphaelite interest in medievalism.   Nostalgia Burns identifies as the negative force in all this.   Bringing back the best of the past is one thing as is recognising the effect the past has on our shared mindset.   Nostalgia, however, is the belief that the past was somehow better, which it never was.   In commercial terms - and Burns is discussing culture here - the negative is embodied in mindless remakes of classics which could otherwise be restored and enjoyed in their original form, and draining the last drop of value in franchises (see Disney and George Lucas).

I didn't always agree with Burns but his arguments never ceased to interest me.   I enjoyed many of the interviews with which he illustrates his main text, especially the ones about musicians who operate outside the mainstream.   Thanks to these, I have now signed up to and am actively exploring Bandcamp.   Ghost of an Idea is an essential text for those of us who have an interest in any or all the spheres it discusses.   I am on the lookout for Burns's earlier work, The Thrill of Replusion:Excursions into Horror Culture (2016).

Satori - Don Winslow

 Back in 1979 Rodney William Whitaker (1935-2005) wrote Shibumi, a spy novel, under his best-known pseudonym Trevanian.   In 2011 Don Winslow, author of The Cartel, wrote Satori, which is a prequel to Shibumi.   I am a die-hard fan of Winslow and am fascinated by Trevanian (see my review on this blog of his spoof spy novel The Loo Sanction).   I had to read Satori.

Trevanian's hero, Nicholai Hel, is a retired assassin.   Winslow's story, set more than a quarter century earlier, is why he retired.   Hel is the son of an exiled Russian aristocrat, born in Shanghai in 1925 who masters the game of Go under a Japanese master, who also happens to be a general in the Japanese army that invaded China in the Thirties.   After the Japanese surrender in 1945 Kishikawa is tried for war crimes.   Nicholai, who has also become a master of the Naked Kill, visits him in prison and, at the general's own request, murders him, for which he too is imprisoned and tortured.   Ultimately he is freed and recruited by the US Intelligence Service. in October 1951.

They embroil him in a complex plot to smuggle rocket launchers to the communist insurgents in Vietnam in the hope of preventing American involvement in the coming war.   In return Nicholai gets a new life plus the names of those who tortured him.   An added bonus is that the Rushian spy chief he gets to hoodwink and ultimately kill, is the man who seduced his mother and stole the family fortune.

It's all great fun, very cleverly plotted and of course beautifully written.   I love the way Winslow has a voice for each strand of his fiction whilst never losing the narrative force of simplicity.   I got lost in the later sections of the book, knowing absolutely nothing about the geography of south Asia, but I was always entertained and the concluding battle was highly sarisfactory.

The Weight of the Dead - Brian Hodge

 A novelette, a work of fiction longer than a short story, shorter than a novella, typically between seven and seventeen thousand words: that is what Brian Hodge has written here.   It turns out to be the perfect length.   Less would have been inadequate, more would have been padding.   It is a form I really must experiment with myself.

The Weight of the Dead is not post-apocalyptic, it is post-frazzle.   Within living memory the Day the Sun Roared caused a power surge which burned out all electrics, instantly turning the Technological World into what survivors called the World Ago.   Without tech or transport humankind reverted to nomadic lifestyles.   A generation later they began to settle into fortified villages, like the one Melody Banks lives in.   Melody is fourteen; the male of the species is being to notice her.   One such, Ted Harkin, became inappropriate, causing Melody's father Grady to beat his brains out.   Now Grady must pay the price.

The villagers are not barbarians.   They do not have the death penalty.   Instead, Grady Banks must bear the weight of his crime - literally.   Harkin's corpse is fastened to him and he is banished into the woods outside the defences until such time as his burden is lifted, either by death or putrefaction.  Obviously Melody can go out and visit, take her father food and necessary supplies, but she cannot take anything that might free him of Ted's corpse.

The woods are not entirely safe.   Myths and rumours have already evolved about the people who wander out there and what they might have become...

A really skilful, beautifully written and controlled, example of short weird fiction.