Babylon Berlin - Volker Kutscher

This is the original book (2007) of the TV series (2017). You'd be hard pressed to recognise it. The characters are different - Detective Inspector Gereon Rath is addicted to morphine in the series but only dabbles in cocaine in the book; Charlotte Ritter is a prostitute who wants to be a detective in the series but is a well brought up clerk in the book. Some characters are renamed for the series, others wholly invented for. For example, the Countess is a key figure in the series, a cross dressing singer in the central nightclub; in the book she makes a fleeting appearance towards the end, never sings, and the club which is the whole point of the series barely figures. Perversely, the only really interesting character in the book, other than Rath - gangland supremo Doktor Marlow aka Doktor Mabuse - doesn't make it to the series where he is replaced by the fairly anodyne 'Armenian'.


In short, the book is nowhere near as good as the TV series and I simply cannot understand why the companies involved bothered to buy the rights when they could (and largely did) make up an original period piece without being stuck with the rubbishy main storyline (tedious hogwash about smuggled Tsarist gold). Nothing about the book smacks of 'international best seller'. It starts well but rapidly loses pace and ends up about 40% longer than the storyline warrants. I've no idea whether the translation, by Niall Sellar, accurately conveys the original, but there is a horrific blooper towards the end - 'pedalled' rather than 'peddled' - which should see whoever did the proof reading summarily dismissed.


As you might surmise, I was hugely disappointed. I did like the cover art, though.

White Maa's Saga - Eric Linklater

White-Maa's Saga is Linklater's first published novel. It came out in 1929 but describes events of eight or so years earlier. It reflects Linklater's own experience after the war when he went to Aberdeen University (Inverdoon here) to study medicine. Linklater was slightly younger than his alter-ego Peter Flett - he had lied about his age to enlist in 1916 whereas Peter was of full age in 1914 and served for the duration.


This student generation is not like any other. The university acknowledges the common debt to those who served and makes allowances for men like Peter when they fail their examinations. Peter fails three times but seems set to go back for more until the very end of the novel.


Between spells at Inverdoon Peter returns to Orkney where his sister Martin (yes, Martin) runs the farm Peter inherited from their parents. In both Inverdoon and Orkney Peter's main sphere of activity, when not drinking or boxing, is the pursuit of young women. There are three in the novel, nowhere near as many as the hero encounters in Juan in America, Linklater's breakthrough hit.


I'm sure the descriptions of Aberdeen's student quarter are accurate. They are amusing, too, in a studentish way. But it is Orkney, as ever, where Linklater's language takes flight. The various social strands are laid out: spinster Martin, the rambunctious Sabistons of Redland, the tinkers whose travelling seems to have been confined to the islands for several centuries, and those who work for absentee landlords, among them the villainous Isaac Skea.


The simple pleasures of the Annual Fair and an island wedding contrast with the equally ancient traditions of the university. There is no question which Linklater prefers. The climax, set in the neolithic Ring of Brodgar, is exciting and effective. Linklater, who was thirty when the book came out, came into literature with a highly effective bang. Well worth checking out - and don't let the ugly title put you off: it is actually Peter's Orcadian nickname, the dialect term for a herring-gull.