The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again - M John Harrison

 Now this was a discovery for me.   I admit, I'd not heard of Harrison, notwithstanding he was a pillar of British sci fi fantasy in the Sixties and Seventies, despite the fact he was associated with Michael Moorcock, that China Mieville is a fan, and that he qualifies (sort of, originally) as a local author.   But I know him now.   And I was blown away by this, his novel from 2020.

It's a contemporary tale of two peripheral people: Shaw, whose first name never becomes clear (it's probably Alex), and Victoria Norman.   They drift into one another's orbit in London, then drift apart again.   Victoria inherits her mother's house in Shrewsbury and Shaw gets a gig economy job, working for, in wh Tim, who keeps an office on a barge in Brent and who might possibly live next door to Shaw in the subdivided HMO in Wharf Street.   Tim has self-published a book and keeps a blog about ancient DNA.   Shaw meanwhile seeks a sort of therapy from a medium called Annie Swann, who seems to be Tim's sister.  Tim gets Shaw to record his sessions with Annie to use as material for his blog.

In Shrewsbury, Victoria gets local tradesmen in to do up the house.   They are very local - they might live next door - and are very tribal.   One of them, the roofer, is incredibly keen on The Water Babies, even keener that Victoria should read it.   Victoria makes a new friend in Pearl, who runs a cafe and turns out to be the daughter of Chris (who prefers to be called Ossie) and is the one who apparently lives next door to Victoria.   The building containing Pearl's cafe is another HMO, in which some very strange people dwell, including all the tradesmen Ossie coralled into working on Victoria's house.   Pearl disappears - Victoria sees her do it, and it is very strange.

The novel is very strange and compelling.   Harrison plays on the littoral nature of his settings and luxuriates in their psychogeography.   Despite being hopeless failures in life - because they fail to engage with life - Shaw and Victoria are characters we get to like and trust.   The secondary characters like Shaw's mum in the care home and her colourful marital backstory, Pearl and Tim and especially, all have their charm which is coupled with threat.  The fantasy element is crucial, yet downplayed.   It doesn't need to be explained, it just needs to be there.

I would have probably passed had it not been for the eyecatching cover image by Micaela Alcaino, which was right up my street, so I picked up the book, which was absolutely 100% what I'd been looking for.   An object lesson, there, in the importance of cover art.

The Second Murderer - Denise Mina

 The Second Murderer is a Philip Marlowe novel.   Yes, that Philip Marlowe, the Raymond Chandler one, continued by the fabulous Denise Mina.   It is, unsurprisingly, fabulous.   Mina does not put a foot wrong in recreating the mean streets of LA, the Forties repartee, the tone of the original.   Tone is the key, because Chandler was a lot more cutting in his moral judgments than most people remember.

I've read at least one other Marlowe continuation, the one where he comes out of retirement, but Mina is wise to stick to the Forties.  This is because she is so damn good at establishing period.  I thought her Rizzio was superb and am looking to pick up her Savanarola take, Three Fires.   It doesn't have to be half a millennium ago for Mina, her Peter Manuel novel, The Long Drop, was equally convincing.

Here, Marlowe is summoned by an evil millionaire to track down his errant daughter and sole heiress.   Marlowe finds her dabbling on the art scene - acting as guide for an Abstract Expressionist exhibition for a gallerist who is a brilliant amalgam of Peggy Guggenheim and Big Edie Bouvier in Grey Gardens (and she's just a walk-on character).   From there Marlowe is drawn to the Lesbian scene.   He is in conflict and unofficial partnership with female detective Anne Riordan whose advances, professional and personal, he has previously spurned, and butts heads with Moochie Ruud, rising star of the LAPD thanks to marrying the boss's unappealling daughter.

Key to the book's success is Mina's ability to pull off Chandler's trick - the murder and who did it is only the device that brings the characters together.   It doesn't matter who dies or who did it.   I only finished reading yesterday morning and I have already forgotten who did it.   Interestingly I do remember who the titular second murderer was, but never guessed whilst reading.   Brilliant, I do hope Mina writes more Marlowe.

Baron Bagge - Alexander Lernet-Holenia

 Lernet-Holenia is a key figure in Twentieth Century Austrian literature, badly underpublished in English translation.   I looked on the British Library catalogue and only came up with four of his works in English.   I cannot understand this.   I jumped at the chance when I saw Count Luna was newly added to Penguin Modern Classics and that Baron Blagge had been republished to keep it company.   Waterstones only had Blagge but I was fine with that.

Blagge is a short novella or long short story.   The similarities with the stories of Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen are everywhere.   Upper class characters who find themselves overwhelmed by a vaguely supernatural situation.   Blagge is a junior officer in Count Gondola Dragoons.   In 1915 they find themselves in pursuit of the Russians in the Carpathian mountains.   There is a battle on a bridge.   The dragoons found themselves in the village of Nagy-Mihaly where Bagge is greeted by the beautiful Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, daughter of the best friend of Bagge's mother.   The mothers have long conspired to marry their children, but they have never met.   Yet Charlotte somehow knew that Bagge was coming today.   It's very odd.

And the oddness is the beauty of the book.   It is beautifully written and exactly the right length to do the story justice.  The characters are wonderfully realised, especially the supporting cast - Bagge's touchy superior Semler, and Charlotte's father with his damp handlebar moustache.  I absolutely adored it.   Exactly the sort of book I am constantly on the lookout for.   I must have more.

The Good Liar - Nicholas Searle

 The Good Liar was Searle's debut back in 2016.   He took a tremendous risk, starting his novel with a deeply mundane online date between two pensioners of eighty or so.   A thriller writer risks losing a lot of genre fans right there.   I stuck with it, thankfully, and can report there is nothing mundane about The Good Liar.   The twists keep coming and you genuinely cannot put the book down.   Searle increases the complexity with seemingly random flashbacks, mainly for Roy Courtnay, our devious octogenarian.   You think you have got a step ahead of the story - only to find that Searle confirms your suspicions on the next page - you've been expertly led to your deduction.   I began to wonder if Searle was being slightly less thorough with Betty, Roy's target and antagonist, but oh no, that's another twist.

My only criticism is that, as so often happens with contemporary novels, The Good Liar is two short chapters too long.   It's the last two chapters, so no real damage done.   I just thought they were misjudgments.

I read one of Searle's other, more recent novels, A Fatal Game, earlier this year [see review below] and was hugely impressed.   Must track down the other, A Traitor in the Family.